KillaHz

[Thomas Massie @RepThomasMassie]

59 years ago today, Israel attacked the USS Liberty in international waters. 34 crew members were killed and 174 were wounded by the IDF.

Today, I spoke on the House floor to honor the fallen and to recognize the survivors who were present in the gallery.

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

Your brain has a circuit that doesn't know you live in a city. Its only job is to monitor whether birds are still singing. Right now, in this room, it is on.

The circuit predates primates. Mammals have been using ambient soundscape continuity as a predator-detection system for roughly 200 million years. Birds stop singing when something larger moves through their territory. For most of mammalian history, a forest full of song meant no large predator was nearby, and the cessation of sound was the warning. Your nervous system never updated this software.

The Max Planck Institute tested the inverse in 2022 with 295 participants. Six minutes of birdsong dropped anxiety with a medium effect size. Six minutes of traffic noise raised depression with the same. The effect worked on subjects who lived in dense urban environments and had no regular contact with nature. The brain still ran the check.

Birdsong sits in the 1,000 to 8,000 Hz range. Your brainstem reads continuous patterns in that band as a signal that nothing dangerous is currently moving through the environment. EEG data shows birdsong at 45 to 50 decibels boosts alpha wave activity by 14.1% relative to silence. Alpha is the brainwave signature of relaxed alertness. Push the same birdsong above 60 decibels and the response flips. Stress markers rise 29%. The circuit only trusts the signal at the volume of quiet conversation, which is exactly the volume birds sing at from a typical distance.

Three things happen simultaneously when the brain registers ambient safety. The amygdala downregulates. The parasympathetic nervous system takes over from the sympathetic. Heart rate variability rises, cortisol drops. The posterior cingulate cortex, which sits at the center of the rumination circuit, quiets down. King's College London tracked this through a smartphone study with over 1,200 participants and found the mood lift lasted hours after the sound stopped. People diagnosed with depression got the same response as healthy controls.

Most of what gets labeled mental fatigue is hypervigilance running in the background. Birdsong tells the circuit it can stand down, and the brain reallocates the freed compute everywhere else.

A quiet park feels different from a quiet office because the parks have sentinels.

[Brendan Dolan-Gavitt @moyix]

I forgot my passport, but luckily it turns out the TSA will let you through without RealID as long as you pay a fee. Inconvenient, but it makes me feel safer knowing I’m protected against terrorists that don’t have $45

[CCP IS ASSHOE @CCPISASSH0E]

She will single-handedly win this case 💀

[Dustin Burnham @dustinthedad]

My wife calls me, panicked.

The call is from her number, and her voice is unmistakable- that’s my wife.

‘Babe, our son is hurt. He got in a bike wreck. I’m at the emergency room but they won’t take our insurance and I need cash to get him help. Please send me 3000 dollars as soon as you can, he’s really not doing well.’

Me- ‘Wow, that’s scary. Tell me our passphrase and then I’ll send the money.’

Her (it) - ‘What? What passphrase? This is your wife, our son is hurt. Send the money now!!’

Me- ‘I’ll call you back. I don’t believe that this is my wife. If it is, I’m sorry, but we discussed this.’

The number? Spoofed. Easy to do and there’s no way to tell if a phone number is being spoofed aside from hanging up and calling back to confirm.

The voice? AI generated. Easily done. A few seconds of audio is all it takes to create a realistic audio deepfake.

What can you do?

1) Create a family safe word or passphrase. Ours is definitely not ‘Keep Going’ although we considered it. Discuss the passphrase far away from phones or any recording device. This is as analog as possible. Don’t forget that the trigger for the passphrase is just as important as the phrase itself. So instead of asking ‘what’s the safe word?’ have a separate triggering question. For example, you could say ‘I’m eating banana cream pie’ and this would trigger your spouse to respond ‘purple velvet pillows’ if that’s the safe word.

Make it fun, silly, and easy to remember. And DON’T WRITE IT DOWN.

2) Cognitive security is an essential skill in 2026. Assume every image and video you see online is fake until proven otherwise. Expect scams and spammers, and be pleasantly surprised when it’s not.

3) Figure out a backup communication option with people who you absolutely need to be able to reach. Don’t just rely on a phone number for communication. Have redundant, ideally encrypted methods of communication with family.

What did I miss? I think (hope) Nikita is wrong on the timeframe- agentic bots like Claude bot are impressive but not quite ready to flood the phone lines in just 90 days. But I think it’s going to be a huge problem by the end of the year. I already get dozens of increasingly realistic spam calls and texts daily- it’s only going to get more annoying. Have a plan to keep your family and your finances safe!

[Thomas Massie @RepThomasMassie]

Psst, Denmark…

Tell this administration the Epstein files are in Greenland… they’ll lose all interest and will never be able to find it.

[Hussein Aboubakr Mansour @HusseinAboubak]

I don't know why Islamic Republic officials are so afraid. Worst case, they lose power, flee to Western countries, get gigs as professors in elite universities or writers for the BBC, NYT, etc. Head CAIR chapters. Those who cant can open daycares in Minnesota.

[Matthew Prince 🌥 @eastdakota]

Yesterday a quasi-judicial body in Italy fined @Cloudflare $17 million for failing to go along with their scheme to censor the Internet. The scheme, which even the EU has called concerning, required us within a mere 30 minutes of notification to fully censor from the Internet any sites a shadowy cabal of European media elites deemed against their interests. No judicial oversight. No due process. No appeal. No transparency. It required us to not just remove customers, but also censor our 1.1.1.1 DNS resolver meaning it risked blacking out any site on the Internet. And it required us not just to censor the content in Italy but globally. In other words, Italy insists a shadowy, European media cabal should be able to dictate what is and is not allowed online.

That, of course, is DISGUSTING and even before yesterday’s fine we had multiple legal challenges pending against the underlying scheme. We, of course, will now fight the unjust fine. Not just because it’s wrong for us but because it is wrong for democratic values.

In addition, we are considering the following actions: 1) discontinuing the millions of dollars in pro bono cyber security services we are providing the upcoming Milano-Cortina Olympics; 2) discontinuing Cloudflare’s Free cyber security services for any Italy-based users; 3) removing all servers from Italian cities; and 4) terminating all plans to build an Italian Cloudflare office or make any investments in the country.

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. While there are things I would handle differently than the current U.S. administration, I appreciate @JDVance taking a leadership role in recognizing this type of regulation is a fundamental unfair trade issue that also threatens democratic values. And in this case @ElonMusk is right: #FreeSpeech is critical and under attack from an out-of-touch cabal of very disturbed European policy makers.

I will be in DC first thing next week to discuss this with U.S. administration officials and I’ll be meeting with the IOC in Lausanne shortly after to outline the risk to the Olympic Games if @Cloudflare withdraws our cyber security protection.

In the meantime, we remain happy to discuss this with Italian government officials who, so far, have been unwilling to engage beyond issuing fines. We believe Italy, like all countries, has a right to regulate the content on networks inside its borders. But they must do so following the Rule of Law and principles of Due Process. And Italy certainly has no right to regulate what is and is not allowed on the Internet in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, China, Brazil, India or anywhere outside its borders.

THIS IS AN IMPORTANT FIGHT AND WE WILL WIN!!!

[Jum @JesterJum]

If we had just let them eat Tide Pods, none of this dumb stuff would be happening right now.

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Powerful words

[Hans Mahncke @HansMahncke]

Given how quickly these scandals fade from memory, we should make “learing” a permanent addition to the English language.

Learing (verb): To embezzle taxpayer funds under the guise of providing a vital public service, marked by extreme laziness, sloppiness, or total disregard in its execution, even to the point of failing basic details like spelling the service correctly.

[Dudes Posting Their W’s @DudespostingWs]

Men are simple creatures

[RG | Chris 🇺🇸 @Entxurage]

I just witnessed a Veteran that was stressed out over his VA claim process ask a question in @RegimentGG’s discord. In less than three minutes, a REGIMENT volunteer that works at a Veteran Service Organization responded to him and got the Veteran on a voice call to answer his questions and point him in the right direction.

This is the future. REGIMENT is more than video games—we’re transforming Veterans' lives, one day at a time.

[Carol Roth @caroljsroth]

We were once a proper country.

[KillaHz @KillaHzFerda]

@profwoodstock

[AnneClaire Stapleton @AnneClaireNews]

During a Texas House panel I moderated, I asked @MarcusLuttrell what led him to seek ibogaine treatment five years ago. Here his answer:
👉 https://t.co/ypANNqgeRG
#Ibogaine #TexasIbogaineInitiative #HB3717 #SB2308 #Veterans #TraumaHealing #txlege

[KillaHz @KillaHzFerda]

@DocStrangelove2 FNP 45

[Firearms Policy Coalition @gunpolicy]

🐕

[JIX5A @JIX5A]

@BRICSinfo Dearest Keir Starmer, you can put your son’s boots on the ground first