IT WASN’T AN ACCIDENT: Neuroticism, Narcissism, and Nihilism Strangled Natalism. “Birth rates keep falling in almost every country. Fertility rates have remained below replacement rate for a generation in most of the developed world. Yet a birth gap has emerged. People who start families are having children at rates consistent with history. The overall decline is driven by the growing share of those who have none. We must do everything we can to counter the demoralization. The dating, labor, and housing markets critical to family formation are are broken.”

None of this is an accident.

HE’S LOSING IN 2028 TO THE WOMAN WHOSE CAMPAIGN FLOUNDERED BEFORE IOWA IN 2020:

Actually, Harris didn’t even make it all the way to Jan 1, 2020, much less Iowa.

ROBERT SPENCER: Islamic Scholar Says Grooming Gangs ‘Have Nothing to Do With Islam.’ (Except They Do.) “Hey, this is a relief: the Muslim grooming gangs that raped and assaulted over 250,000 British girls actually have nothing to do with Islam. So all you ‘Islamophobes’ need to sit down and shut up, because at last we have an Islamic voice speaking out loud and clear against these gangs, and not just any Muslim voice, either, but a leading Islamic scholar. There are still a few problems with this rosy scenario, but don’t worry: we’re really on our way now to our glorious multicultural future.”

CAN CONFIRM:

DISPATCHES FROM THE RELIGION OF PEACE:

ROGER KIMBALL: The Madness of the Anti-AI Crowd.

What is novel in many of our current perturbations is the behind-the-scenes interventions of more or less malevolent, and in many cases malevolent foreign, actors. The extraordinary popular delusions and madness of the COVID crowds is a case in point. Four or five years on, we have largely forgotten the mask-wearing, social-distancing, economy-blighting harridans of both sexes who acted as the enforcers of the COVID hysteria that China bequeathed us. It will soon be the same as the windmill-championing net-zero lunatics who have worked assiduously to dismantle Western prosperity. Are you surprised that China, Russia, and the Arab states eagerly abet the Greta Thunbergs of the world?

The latest delusional entertainment is the “AI-is-the-Antichrist” brigade. Two things happened last week to make this new panic snap into focus. First, frenetic socialist loudmouth Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Greg Casar, chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (yes, really), want to impose a moratorium on what they call “artificial superintelligence.” And what if the AI companies of the world ignore them and persist? Sanders and Casar want the state to come down on them with draconian force. “Entities,” they write, “shall be subject to the corporate death penalty, and persons shall be subject to not more than 20 years in prison, which is similar to existing penalties related to unlawfully developing nuclear weapons.”

What’s that chuckling you hear backstage to the left? Why, that would be the tittering of Chairman Xi and his posse of Chinese AI developers. Bernie Sanders is doubtless one of their favorite American politicians.

If he wasn’t already, he certainly is now.

A COMPLETE GUIDE TO ANARCHO-TYRANNY IN ONE TWEET:

OLD AND BUSTED: ChatGPT.

The New Hotness? Chat Pinot Gris:

In contrast:

YOU LAUGH, BUT WE’LL SOON HEAR HOW HURRICANES ARE VITAL TO THE ECOLOGY OF THE MIDWEST AND SOUTHWEST:

Without even an admission that just a few months ago there were dire predictions of more hurricanes due to “climate change.”

BRYAN CAPLAN: Neurotic Politics. “Quick version: When neurotics turn to politics, they find an infinite series of reasons to feel bad, which helps them stay one step ahead of the realization that their fundamental problem is inside their own heads and can be fixed by no one but themselves.”

ACTUALLY, AS PAUL STARES WROTE YEARS AGO, THE UNITED STATES HAD FUNCTIONAL ANTISATELLITE WEAPONS AND SATELLITE INTERCEPTORS BASED ON THE AGENA CHASSIS BACK IN THE SIXTIES:

But the technology has advanced rather a lot since then.

OPEN THREAD: Monday, Monday.

BIG SHORT TRADER MICHAEL BURRY SLAMS OPENAI, ANTHROPIC FOR ‘SELF-SERVING’ CALLS TO SLOW AI:

Famed investor Michael Burry slammed leaders of OpenAI, Anthropic and other tech giants for orchestrating a “self-serving” call to slow the pace of AI development – joining tech bigwigs, President Trump and even the Chinese government in panning so-called AI fear-mongering.

Burry – the short-seller lionized in Hollywood blockbuster “The Big Short” for calling and profiting from the subprime mortgage crisis circa 2008 – wrote on X: “Let’s all take a moment to understand how self-serving it is for OpenAI, Anthropic and other execs of big hyperscalers to talk of slowing things down.”

Burry said AI juggernauts’s calls to hit the brakes were “cover for real uncontrollable slowing growth” as AI labs struggle to maintain the stratospheric growth they experienced earlier in the AI boom. A cooling period would help “as IPOs look to be pushed out,” Burry noted.

He also panned the negative drumbeat coming from AI leaders as regulatory capture – where the leaders in a space use regulations and slowdowns to thwart up and coming competition. He framed the calls for a slowdown as a marketing ploy ahead of massive IPOs for the AI giants.

The above article goes on to quote JD Vance: “I have to say, just personally, I feel a little bit weird about the fact that you have so many frontier AI tech companies kind of coming to the government and begging the government to regulate them. It feels a little bit to me like a bit of a trojan horse.”

DISPATCHES FROM THE MOLOTOV–RIBBENTROP-MAMDANI PACT:

ON THE BEACH: The best, and worst, place to survive an apocalypse revealed.

Ever wonder where to go during a doomsday event? Researchers have you covered.

The best and worst countries in which to survive an apocalypse were listed in a new study — taking into account population, geographical features and the abundance of human necessities.

The most desirable spots to weather the end of the world will be remote, bountiful in food and energy sources and have a competent government that can hold it together when times are tight, according to a study published in the journal Global Challenge.

According to experts, survivalists would also be best to avoid urban areas, which are prone to becoming “death traps” in the event of all-out armageddon.

Taking those factors into account, the study found that Australia — particularly the state of Tasmania — is “likely the most resilient place on Earth.”

That’s due to the country’s remoteness, bountiful amount of energy-producing minerals and high food production, The Times of London reported.

Nevil Schute, call your office:

OLD AND BUSTED: Queers for Palestine.

The New Hotness? Animal Rights Activists Defend Muslim Migrants Killing Animals.

After horrifying images of Muslim migrants who had invaded the Spanish North African territory of Ceuta killing a baby dolphin went viral, animal rights activists rallied to their defense.

“The party rejects the instrumentalization of the suffering of a people or of its animals to foment hatred,” Spain’s Partido Animalista (PACMA) party declared. The party whose former name was the ‘Animalist Party Against the Mistreatment of Animals’, was willing to defend animal abusers as long as it advanced the greater cause of Muslim migrants invading Europe.

But that makes PACMA no different than the feminists and gay rights groups advocating for Muslim invaders to enter Europe. Baby dolphins, once the most ironic image of beleaguered animals on whose behalf environmentalists once rallied in the streets, demanding the dismantling of modern industries, and the end of tuna fishing, are now just another sacrifice.

As the siege of Ceuta continues, more images continue to emerge of the animal cruelty that typifies Islamic culture. Beyond the scenes of Muslim migrants beating a baby dolphin to death with a stick, there are more scenes of animals from house pets to geese to an octopus being killed by laughing Muslim mobs demonstrating their control over the beaches of Spain.

Time to dust off “they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the dogs” memes from 2024:

COCAINE MITCH MORPHED INTO CAPT. PIKE SO SLOWLY, I HARDLY EVEN NOTICED: A frail-looking McConnell returns to the US Senate after three-month absence.

NEW SEASON OF BABYLON BERLIN LOOKS ABSOLUTELY TERRIFYING: