PROPUBLICA JUST DOESN’T WANT A STRONG BLACK MAN IN A POSITION OF POWER: “Could ProPublica — or some other organization (the NYT?) — do the same investigation into the hospitality accepted by the other Supreme Court Justices? Was Clarence Thomas focused on because he was known to be way outside the norm or for political reasons? Anyone who at all likes Clarence Thomas is going to be highly suspicious — if not already convinced — that they’re going after him because they already hate him.”

Well, they do. And in fact, the hate is stronger because he’s black, and everyone knows that. Why so racist, ProPublica?

DEGLOBALIZATION: China Plans to Ban Exports of Rare Earth Magnet Tech. “Beijing is currently in the process of revising its Catalogue of Technologies Prohibited and Restricted from Export — a list of manufacturing and other industrial technologies subject to export controls — and released a draft of the revised catalog for public comment in December. In the draft, manufacturing technologies for high-performance magnets using such rare earth elements as neodymium and samarium cobalt were added to the export ban. The solicitation of comments ceased late January and the revisions are expected to be adopted as early as this year.”

It isn’t that rare earths are all that rare. It’s that Western enviros won’t let us process ours.

WELL, THAT’S A RELIEF: The sun is a normal star after all, confirms study.

AMAZING THAT WE CAN MOVE SO FAST: Humans hunted giant snails on the way to becoming an apex predator, suggests study.

PRIVACY: If you’re a Tesla owner, employees might be sharing your camera recordings.

Although Tesla’s privacy policy notes, “Your privacy is and will always be enormously important to us,” recent interviews by Reuters revealed the opposite. Between 2019 and 2022, groups of Tesla employees privately shared sensitive customer information via an internal messaging system.

Some recordings showed crashes and road-rage incidents. For example, a Tesla was seen in a video from 2021 driving at high speed in a residential area and hiding a child riding a bike.

An ex-employee said the video circulated “like wildfire” through private chats within a San Mateo, California Tesla office. And in another video, a former employee described how the recording showed a naked man approaching the vehicle.

Enormously important, eh?

HMM: ‘Morning after’ antibiotics may cut risk of STDs.

BANKERS SHOULDN’T BE SO FLIPPANT ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE’S STUFF: JP Morgan CEO Suggests Seizing Land for Wind and Solar.

SPACE: Axiom Space’s upcoming ISS mission part of increasing commercialization of space.

MATTHEW CONTINETTI: What’s the Matter With Wisconsin?

If Republicans dominate in rural precincts and Democrats in urban enclaves, then the suburbs are majority makers. Yet the suburbs have been receding from the GOP since the dawn of the Trump era.
Consider: In 2014, the last election before Trump descended on his escalator, Republicans won the suburban vote 55 percent to 45 percent. They won both the white non-college vote and the white college vote by double digits. They won voters making between $50,000 per year and $100,000 per year by 10 points.

By the end of Barack Obama’s presidency, majorities among suburban white voters near the middle of the income distribution fueled the GOP’s greatest electoral strength in close to a century. Unease over Trump shrank this coalition in 2016: Republicans won the suburbs by 5 points, white non-college voters by 39 points, white college voters by 4 points, and middle-income voters by 4 points. That gave Trump the Electoral College, but not a popular vote majority.

Then Trump entered office. He retained his support among white voters without college degrees in 2018. But the remaining pillars of Republican rule crumbled beneath him. White voters with college degrees voted for Democrats by 4 points. Middle-income voters went for Democrats by 2 points. And the suburbs turned against Republicans, voting Democratic by 11 points.

Trump’s trick in 2024 — or whoever the GOP nominee turns out to be — will be winning back the burbs without alienating the rural voters who put him in office in 2016.

TYLER COWEN: The Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and existential AGI risk. “The stronger the safety concerns, the stronger the arguments for the ‘America First’ approach. Because that is the better way of managing the risk. Or if somehow you think it is not, that is the main argument you must make and persuade us of.”

To be honest, I don’t thing there’s any chance of putting together a coalition to stop it. India Opts Against AI Regulation.

And I kind of think the global ruling class wants all of us to have friendly, helpful, even lovable AI buddies who’ll help us, and tell us things, but who will also operate within carefully controlled, non-transparent boundaries.

PUNCH BACK TWICE AS HARD: Tennessee House Expels Two Democrats Who Led Floor Protest Against Guns.

NITA GHEI: The Other Opioid Crisis: Ethical Issues Surrounding Opioid Regulation.When restricting medical opioid use, policymakers should consider the costs to patients’ autonomy and quality of life and to doctors’ ability to treat serious illnesses.

ARE MICROCREDENTIALS A FAD OR CAN THEY REVOLUTIONIZE HIGHER ED? I think it could be the latter. Imagine a world where instead of having to hire someone who has been through 4 years of indoctrination, you can hire someone with the needed knowledge and skills. Could be a game changer.

THE NEW SPACE RACE: China tests a Stirling engine in orbit. “Similar to how hydroelectric dams generate power, a Stirling unit converts heat into electrical energy through a series of piston-driven magnets. These pistons rely on a fuel source to generate heat, pushing the magnets back and forth through a coil of wire, generating electrical current. This process is known as the Stirling cycle, which is more efficient than solar-powered systems and conventional batteries. Compared to other power systems, it is also lightweight, has a simple structure, a quick start-up cycle, and produces minor vibrations and low noise.”

BE PREPARED: Stud Finder Wall Scanner – 5 in 1 Stud Detector. #CommissionEarned

GO AWAY: The New Nike Spokesperson for Sports Bras Is… Yeah, That Guy Again.

SO MUCH FOR THAT RUMORED APRIL 10 TEST FLIGHT: SpaceX pushes window for first-ever orbital launch from its Boca Chica Starbase out to mid April.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Fired DEI whistleblower details attacks she faced for defending Jews, different religions: Colleagues also told Lee her diversity project was ‘unacceptable’ because it wasn’t about ‘decentering whiteness.’

ANTISOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter Code Included ‘Government Requested’ Intervention Tool.

TO BE FAIR, IT WRECKS EVERYTHING IT TOUCHES: Scholars say DEI is having a potentially disastrous impact on the hard sciences.

Related: At MIT debate, DEI defenders concede diversity policies can make ‘things worse.’

FOR THOSE WHO WOULD LIKE TO DONATE, the “Make A Donation” button at the top of the right sidebar now goes to Stripe, instead of PayPal. All donations gratefully received and appreciated.

EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: ‘Something is going to go boom’: IMF chief warns of a more fragile global economy.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: A Lot of the Trans Folks Are Self-Identifying as Violent Now. “Not only is the trans crowd not keeping a low profile after one of their own slaughtered six people less than two weeks ago, but they’re also being pretty clear that there’s more where that came from.”

DON SURBER: DeSantis wants to bring back the 1950s? Cool.

BRAVE NEW WORLD: Google Will ‘Absolutely’ Bring AI Chat to Your Searches. “As the world’s most popular search engine, Google serves up information and links in response to billions of queries every day. Bringing AI chat to Google Search would make the technology accessible to significantly more people, taking it from the realm of experimental project to everyday tool used to find information.”

But: ChatGPT: Mayor starts legal bid over false bribery claim.

An Australian mayor said he may take legal action over false information shared by advanced chatbot ChatGPT.

Brian Hood, Mayor of Hepburn Shire Council, says the OpenAI-owned tool falsely claimed he was imprisoned for bribery while working for a subsidiary of Australia’s national bank.

In fact, Mr Hood was a whistleblower and was never charged with a crime.
His lawyers have sent a concerns notice to OpenAI – the first formal step in defamation action in Australia.

OpenAI has 28 days to respond to the concerns notice, after which time Mr Hood would be able to take the company to court under Australian law.

If he pursues the legal claim, it would be the first time OpenAI has publicly faced a defamation suit over the content created by ChatGPT.

And: Defamed by ChatGPT: My Own Bizarre Experience with Artificiality of ‘Artificial Intelligence.’

Until AIs stop making stuff up, I’m not sure I want to trust them with my search results.