Steve Adkins

Retired Family Physician, Reader, Phylosophaster, Finitist, Centrist, Used Bookseller

[End Wokeness @EndWokeness]

Decay is a choice. DC before vs after:

[The Free Press @TheFP]

“The bad actions of Muslims are the root cause of Islamophobia,” says former jihadist Mubin Shaikh.

[Vaibhav Sisinty @VaibhavSisinty]

Okay this is genuinely insane.

SpaceX just unveiled a satellite whose only job is to run AI. Not internet. Not GPS. Just compute, floating in orbit.

It's called AI1, and the reason behind it breaks your brain.

AI data centers on Earth are hitting a wall, not a chip wall, a physics wall.

They need staggering amounts of power and water just to stay cool, and we're running out of grid and land to build them.

So Musk's answer is: stop building them on Earth.

In orbit, the sun never sets. Free power, 24/7. No water for cooling, you just radiate heat into the vacuum of space. The two things choking AI on the ground barely exist up there.

And here's the wild part: Musk says it's easier to build than a Starlink satellite. Strip out the complex antennas and it's "a lot of solar cells, a radiator, and some laser links."

One AI1 carries the compute of an Nvidia GB300 rack, the same hardware data centers fight over down here.

AI1 is just the first one. The plan is a constellation of up to a million of them.

And the timing isn't an accident, SpaceX goes public this week at a ~$1.75 trillion target. This isn't a rocket company anymore. It's positioning itself as the power grid for AI, in space.

The race for AI compute just left the planet. Literally.

@SpaceX

[Steve Adkins @jazzdoc62]

@restorativeprax @roddreher Garbage. Why does it take longer in CA than any other state of comparable size? You have swallowed the lie.

[Eric Daugherty @EricLDaugh]

🚨 JUST IN: VP JD Vance CALLS OUT California's rampant fraud and cheating after Spencer Pratt gets thrust behind Nithya Raman due to "late mail-in ballots"

"You would expect these mail-in ballots to kind of meet that same basic pattern where, number one would get the most votes, number two would get the second most votes and so on."

"But somehow we find ourselves in a situation where number one, they're still receiving ballots, not just counting ballots, they're still receiving ballots!"

"And number two, the way that they're coming in just so happens to work out such that the Republican is getting kicked out of the final two so it's a Democrat versus Democrat runoff!"

"That seems pretty shady to me, especially when you add on top of the fact that in California you are prohibited from asking for somebody's identification before they vote!"

[Steve Adkins @jazzdoc62]

@annhafter @roddreher Open your eyes. Every state in the union makes it easy for people to vote. The CA system is way out of balance. Not only not requiring ID but prohibiting request for ID serves no purpose other that to enable fraud. It is foolish to argue otherwise.

[Steve Adkins @jazzdoc62]

The evidence is in the law. Unfortunately with California election law, no ID, legal ballot harvesting, no real final date of vote counting, etc etc, the system can be entirely corrupt and dishonest without obviously breaking the law. The graphs show a statistically impossibly, a batch of votes going to a single candidate only. The hold the ballots, see what the in-person count is, then harvest and dump the votes they need to ensure the desired outcome. No other explanation is remotely plausible.

[Walter Kirn @walterkirn]

You know how laugh tracks are used to make lame jokes seem like they brought down the house? And how they make laugh tracks sound realistic by turning them down then up a bit then way WAY up?

That's what these simulated elections are like.

They're laugh-track elections.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

🤔

[Steve Adkins @jazzdoc62]

@PikettyWIL What utter and absolute garbage. Those who are most certain of their conclusions and lack any sign of intellectual humility, are invariably wrong.

[David Sacks @DavidSacks]

While I’m no fan of socialism or arbitrary confiscations of wealth, I can see why Bernie Sanders’ proposal (for the government to take a 50% stake in AI companies) resonates, including with many on the right.

The CEOs of the leading AI labs have told us repeatedly that they will cause massive job loss. This is not a story that I believe, nor does the data bear it out, but this is what they have told us. Similarly, they have hyped the risks of AI without putting an equal or greater emphasis on the benefits or readily available mitigations.

Conservatives have another fear. The employees of the leading labs claim to be philanthropic, but what we’ve seen is massive enrichment of NGOs advancing an agenda at odds with traditional values, fueling a revolution against our cities and communities. Soros-maxxing is not charity in our book.

Anthropic and OpenAI have established themselves as Public Benefit Corporations. What could be more in the public benefit than using half the wealth generated by these companies (which trained for free on the collective knowledge of humanity) to pay down the national debt? There is no ideological bias in that philanthropy.

Dario and Sam have begun to walk back their claims of massive job loss, but the damage to public trust is done, and now the chickens are coming home to roost. I could almost support the Sanders proposal as a stupidity tax.

There’s just one problem. Nationalization of AI will accelerate the corporate-government fusion we’re already sliding toward. Conservatives rightly fear a Central Bank Digital Currency. They ought to be even more concerned about Central Government AI — a system with even more totalistic power over information, decision-making, and human behavior.

We saw how social media was weaponized to censor conservatives (including President Trump) in the last Democrat administration. The definition of “trust & safety” expanded to mean protecting the public from supposed psychological harms, micro-aggressions, and disinformation (you know, like hearing conservative ideas or true facts about Covid).

That “safety” agenda as applied to AI will be vastly more powerful and Orwellian. AI won’t just moderate posts; it will curate reality — with the ability to rewrite history, enforce ideological conformity, influence policy at scale, mass surveil Americans, and condition the benefits of the many systems it controls on approved behavior.

America won’t win the AI race if we beat China but end up with a CCP-style social credit system in the U.S. — and that is the danger as the government becomes more deeply involved in AI development and assumes direct ownership and control.

Conservatives are right to fear where this is all headed but ought to think more carefully about how regulations they are flirting with now (that are widely celebrated among those with a long history of lust for Big Government) will be used against them the next time a Democrat administration is in power.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

The reason ID is banned in California (and New York) elections is to enable large-scale fraud.

When you combine no ID and mail-in voting, fraud is de facto legalized.

[The Free Press @TheFP]

Sixty years after John Steinbeck’s death, the novelist’s broken, striving, stubborn country looks a lot like ours, writes Major Garrett. https://t.co/KCzGVj078o

[Steve Adkins @jazzdoc62]

https://t.co/z3z13783x0

[Kemi Badenoch @KemiBadenoch]

Today I have met Lucy, Mark and Katie, Henry Nowak’s mother, father and stepmother. Their courage is extraordinary.

They have endured the most appalling loss, it is a life sentence for them.

They have also faced the agonising decision to release the harrowing body-worn camera footage, knowing how painful it would be and how strongly people would react. They did so because they want truth, accountability and change.

They have asked that we work across political parties and religions to rebuild trust in the police. That trust has been broken because of what happened, and I agree with them on that.

We must also be prepared to examine, carefully and seriously, religious practices or exemptions that permit the carrying of dangerous weapons in public, and other activities that are not conducive to the public good. We also need to examine where the law needs to change.

Henry’s family do not want anger to tear communities apart. They are a family who have friends across faith and race, and so did Henry. His family want his memory to help bring our society together.

Everyone knows I have strong views about how we should deal with equality under the law. What the family agreed with me on is that we need to bring common sense back, and that is what we should all be fighting for.

I promised the family that we will work to ensure there is a positive legacy for Henry out of this tragedy.

That is my focus now.

[Mr PitBull Stories @MrPitbull07]

In 1965, a 17-year-old girl in Sicily was kidnapped, assaulted, and held captive for over a week.

Then her attacker offered her a deal:

Marry him, and everything would be “forgiven.”

At the time, Italian law allowed rapists to avoid punishment if they married their victims.

It was called “reparatory marriage.”

The logic was horrifying:

A woman’s “honor” mattered more than her consent.

If she married the man who violated her, her reputation could supposedly be restored — and the rapist could walk free.

Most women had no real choice.

Families pressured them.
Communities expected obedience.
The law itself encouraged silence.

But Franca Viola said no.

At 17 years old, traumatized and publicly shamed, she refused to marry the man who assaulted her.

That single word changed Italy forever.

Her decision sparked outrage in her town.

Neighbors turned against her family.
Their vineyards and olive groves were burned in retaliation.

But Franca’s father stood beside her and supported her decision to press charges.

In 1966, Franca testified publicly against her attacker in court.

At a time when most victims were expected to stay silent forever, she spoke openly in front of the entire country.

Italy watched in shock.

Her attacker, Filippo Melodia, was convicted and sentenced to prison.

For the first time in Italian history, a woman had publicly rejected “reparatory marriage” and won.

The case became international news.

But the law itself still remained.

For another 15 years, rapists in Italy could technically still escape punishment by marrying their victims.

Then finally, in 1981, Italy abolished the law completely.

And many activists pointed to Franca Viola as the moment the country first began confronting the cruelty of that system.

Years later, Franca married a childhood friend who had stood beside her through everything.

Not because she needed her “honor restored.”

But because she deserved love, dignity, and a life defined by her own choices.

That’s why her story still matters.

Franca Viola wasn’t just resisting one man.

She was resisting an entire culture that treated women’s suffering as something to hide rather than something to fight.

At 17 years old, she stood against her attacker, her community, and even the law itself.

And eventually, the law changed.

Sometimes history moves because powerful people decide to act.

And sometimes history moves because one terrified teenager quietly refuses to surrender.

[Steve Adkins @jazzdoc62]

https://t.co/dzEaWvWAdC

[Jason Miyares @JasonMiyaresVA]

Reminder: Spanberger’s FIRST official act as Governor was “Executive Order1” which banned state police from cooperating with federal immigration authorities even if the illegal immigrants are convicted rapists or murderers……