AMAZING WHAT CAN BE DONE WITH A MAJORITY: Democrats Face Disaster as Another State Joins the Redistricting War.
Archive for 2025
August 31, 2025
THE PILOT FOR THE NEW REBOOT OF FRIENDS LOOKS QUITE PROMISING:
You've seen these paintings a million times.
But never like this.
Using nano-banana, Seedance, and Kling, I brought them into our modern world, creating an unlikely romance in Central Park, New York City.
Enjoy: pic.twitter.com/NLVIa4NELd
— Alex Patrascu (@maxescu) August 29, 2025
“RESISTANCE” AT THE EXPENSE OF STUDENTS. Cal Poly Pomona ‘postpones’ job fair due to inclusion of Customs and Border Protection recruiter.
BACK LATER, OFF TO FILL UP MY SUV AND GO FOR A DRIVE: Supposedly Climate Change Is The Real Reason For #IranProtests.
THE ESTABLISHMENT HAS ITS PRIORITIES, AND YOUR WELL-BEING IS NEVER AT THE TOP OF THE LIST:
The Church of England didn't condemn rape gangs.
It didn't condemn decriminalising abortion.
It didn't condemn assisted dying.
But it happily condemns stemming illegal immigration.
There is little value in a CofE that insults the Word of God & ignores the welfare of England. https://t.co/OTvSRTapb9
— Ike Ijeh (@ikeijeh) August 31, 2025
If it’s on the list at all, which is doubtful.
HE NEEDS TO SERVE AS AN EXAMPLE THAT WILL FRIGHTEN AND HORRIFY FOR A GENERATION:
There's a lot of worry in his voice. And it isn't about democracy. https://t.co/Jfz87XEKlK
— Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) August 31, 2025
WHEN IDENTITY BECOMES IDOLATRY: The lesson at the darkest center of the Minneapolis school shooting.
SO YOU’RE SAYING THINGS ARE GOING WELL? 0% of Democrats Are Satisfied With How Things Are Going in the US.
FOLLOW THE SCIENCE, NOT THE BLOOMBERG-FUNDED PROPAGANDA: RFK Jr Dismisses Gun Control Calls, Will Examine Psych Drugs In Mass Shooting ‘Health Crisis.’
MY LATEST SUBSTACK ESSAY IS ON GETTING OLD: Report From The Other Side.
As always, if you like these essays, please take out a paid subscription. I appreciate it!
#JOURNALISM:
amazing to receive this immediate, public response to press reports online. how much of "news" before the internet was real? to what degree did largely invented stories shape our politics? god, the 20th century was insane. https://t.co/d9u7eZ0hRz
— Mike Solana (@micsolana) August 30, 2025
AT AMAZON, Shop the Labor Day Sale. #CommissionEarned
THIS IS CNN:
In 2019 Erin Burnett wanted to make sure that there was no way for Paul Manafort to escape the seriousness of the mortgage fraud charges.
In 2025 it's mortgage fraud, really?
This is CNN. pic.twitter.com/8be4cNK6IF
— MAZE (@mazemoore) August 30, 2025
IT’S SPREADING:
Aussie flags are showing up everywhere across Australia, from flagpoles to the street- like these examples sent in by followers 🇦🇺💪 Operation Raise The Flag Australia is only just beginning! Get involved today by raising the flag at your home, work and town! pic.twitter.com/QWdEU3SHQ1
— Raise The Flag Australia (@raisetheflagaus) August 30, 2025
Even the Japanese have had enough of them.
Concerned western citizens are on the march.
pic.twitter.com/FSgSLeaz8g— Paz49 (@BritisherPaz49) August 30, 2025
HOW WE GOT THE INTERNET ALL WRONG:
It is now hard to remember the optimism with which many people greeted the arrival of the digital world. But back in the 1990s and early 2000s, the evangelists of the internet confidently predicted that the internet would, as Thomas Friedman wrote in The Lexus and the Olive Tree, published at the cusp of the new millennium, “weave the world together.”
With the benefit of hindsight, it is easy to make fun of such predictions. But the logic for these predictions was seemingly compelling. For all of human history until recently, it had been extremely costly and cumbersome for people in different parts of the world to communicate. As late as 1930, Friedman pointed out, a three-minute phone call between London and New York cost about $300. That made it hard for people to develop a greater understanding of each other, or to recognize that they might share all kinds of interests.
By the time Friedman was writing, such a phone call was basically free. It was easy to imagine that, in a world of costless communication, most people would choose to connect with people in faraway locations who are very different from them. Society would, the hope went, grow to be far more cosmopolitan: far more interested in the well-being of people unlike ourselves, and far less likely to prioritize those who share our group identities.
The truth, as we now know, turned out to be very different. Given the opportunity to communicate with anybody they wish, most people are spending their time on social media connecting with people they already know, with those who share their identities, or with those who share the exact same political views. The greater ease of communication was supposed to help the human species transcend its traditional boundaries and expand our collective horizons; instead, it has amplified our tribal instincts and turned every aspect of our politics and culture into a fevered battle between the in-group and the out-group. Early evangelists of the internet conjured up a touching vision of universal human connection. Instead, the technology they rhapsodized has turned us into tribalist creatures, giving ever greater importance to our race, our gender, our sexual orientation, and our political convictions.
But don’t worry; things can always get worse: AI is Killing the Internet. Don’t Let It Kill the Classroom Too.
There’s a name for this phenomenon: the Dead Internet Theory, which posits that a significant amount of online content is produced not by humans but by AI. The evidence suggests a hard kernel of truth at the core of this argument. More than 40% of Facebook’s long-form posts and more than half of longer LinkedIn posts are likely generated by AI. Engagement with this content is often powered by automated click farms.
AI isn’t merely churning out fluff. In one striking example, bots fueled a disproportionate share of the online discourse following mass shootings, and AI actively spreads misinformation. Online content is increasingly spun up by algorithms for other algorithms to amplify. This deluge of automated content is drowning humanity on the internet.
Lately, it seems that a similar dynamic is charging into our college classrooms with developers of educational technology at its vanguard. Let’s call it the Dead Education Theory, and it works something like this:
A college professor uses one of many dozens of free commercial AI tools to draft a rubric and an assignment prompt for their class. A student pastes that prompt into another AI app that produces an essay that they submit as their completed assignment. Pressed for time, the professor runs the paper through an AI tool that instantly spits out tidy boilerplate feedback. Off in the background, originality checkers and paraphrasing bots duel in an endless game of evasion and detection. On paper, the learning loop is complete. The essay is written. The grade is given. And the class moves on to its next assignment.
It’s entirely likely that this scenario is playing out thousands of times every day. A 2024 global survey from the Digital Education Council found that 86% of college students use AI in their studies, with more than half (54%) deploying it at least weekly and a quarter using it daily. Faculty are increasingly using AI to create teaching materials, boost student engagement, and generate student feedback, although most report just minimal to moderate AI use.
Exit quote: “Banning AI tools isn’t realistic; the genie has escaped that bottle. But instead of allowing AI to drain higher education of its humanity, we must design a future where AI amplifies authentic human thinking. AI will be in the classroom — there’s no question about that. The urgent question is how to keep humanity there as well.”
ONE OF THE E-ARC READERS DID A REVIEW: Review: No Man’s Land by Sarah A. Hoyt. Available for pre-order on Amazon.
YES:
“Kennedy's reforms aren’t being proposed to disrupt a healthy and effective system that’s served us well; quite the opposite. The context is a sick and broken establishment that demands a fresh approach.”https://t.co/8qKetpDjWK https://t.co/lg8vameexP
— Sharyl Attkisson 🕵️♂️💼🥋 (@SharylAttkisson) August 29, 2025
Related:
100 percent. The Biden admin appears to have been much worse than anyone knew. https://t.co/ka9mjaCNFj
— Lara Logan (@laralogan) August 30, 2025
INTERESTING: A Further Thought on Oaths and Kings.
23,000 OUT OF THE 300,000 ‘MISLAID’. PLEASE WORK FASTER: Homan Reveals How Many of the Unaccompanied Children Lost Under Biden Have Been Located.
AS IF THEY’D EVER RED FLAG A TRANS PERSON: Why the Libs’ Red Flag Law Narrative Doesn’t Work With the Minneapolis Shooter.
REMOVING THE DE MINIMIS LOOPHOLE IS UPSETTING PEOPLE. SEEMS TO ME THAT MEANS IT’S WORKING: Trump Tariffs Cause Chaos on Ebay as Every Hobby Becomes Logistical Minefield.