Michael McColl (Mike

Co-founder, Ethicaltraveler.org. Founder, Greenhotels.org. PR & marketing consultant for travel companies. Strong interest in ecotourism & adventure travel.

[Michael McColl (Mike @michaelmccoll]

Mike's Take: We are entering a new Age of Chaos. Climate change, plus more war, more conflict between democracy and authoritarianism. All of which will lead to refugee flows in the 100s of millions globally. Nativism will rise. Are we ready?

Conflict is the new normal.

[Fareed Zakaria @FareedZakaria]

Conflict is the new normal. The West needs to realize that.

My take:

[ثيو @egybest_1]

مايك تايسون، في عز مستواه، كان يسوي إلى ٥٠٠ تكرار من هذي الحركة، المعروفة باسم "تمارين تايسون".

هي من أقوى تمارين وزن الجسم، لأنها تشغل الجسم كامل.

وتقدر تمرّن الرجلين والجزء العلوي من الجسم في نفس التمرين.

وإليك روتينه في التمرين ..

[Cyrus Janssen @thecyrusjanssen]

An Iranian man left this comment on my YouTube channel. This is without a doubt the single best explanation of the reality facing Iranian people today👇

"As an Iranian, I can tell you the situation is no longer just political—it's existential. We are trapped between two collapsing structures: one internal, one external. On one hand, we face a deeply dysfunctional government, led by the Supreme Leader and the Islamic Republic’s unelected institutions.

Decades of economic mismanagement, suppression of dissent, and brutal ideological control have alienated multiple generations. No one believes in reform anymore—because every attempt has either been co-opted or crushed. But here's the paradox: We are also terrified of regime collapse—because we've watched the aftermath of Western intervention in countries like Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Afghanistan. Each was promised freedom; each descended into chaos, civil war, or foreign occupation.

So no, we don't trust the U.S. or Israel. Not because we support our regime—but because we know how imperial powers treat ‘liberated’ nations in the Middle East.

Freedom, in their language, often means vacuum, fire, and permanent instability. Right now, many Iranians live with three truths at once: The Islamic Republic is morally and politically bankrupt. The alternatives offered by foreign actors are not liberation—they’re collapse.

A bad government is survivable. No government is not. We are not silent because we agree. We are cautious because we’ve learned—too well—what happens when superpowers decide to "help." In a sentence: Iran is a nation held hostage by its own regime, but haunted by the fate of its neighbors. We are stuck in a house we hate, surrounded by fires we fear more."

[Ed Newton-Rex @ednewtonrex]

When Anthropic stopped training on books that were literally pirated, they managed to hit on the one way of buying books that means no money goes to authors: buying used books.

They spent tens of millions of dollars buying used books from wholesalers, in batches of tens of thousands at a time. These were shipped to Illinois, scanned, and pulped.

They called this Project Panama, using a codename because they didn’t want people to know they were doing it. (It ultimately came out through court documents.)

Before alighting on this plan, they were discussing licensing from book publishers, which would have meant money going to authors. But then they came up with the used books plan, and stopped all licensing discussions. Anthropic uses their huge war chest to get all the books in the world (that’s their aim) - authors get nothing.

IMO there are serious questions over whether this should be legal. Yes, they are buying the books. But you can’t just do anything you like with a book once you’ve bought it. You can’t scan it and sell it as an ebook, for instance. There are limits on what you can do with books you’ve bought, where what you would be doing would compete with the book’s rights holders.

As Judge Chhabria said in Meta v Kadrey, LLMs will likely compete with the books they are trained on by flooding the market. And as Dario Amodei himself said in 2021, big AI companies centralizing profits by training on books without the authors getting paid is a real concern.

Whatever your view of its legality, it’s pretty clear that it sucks for authors, letting Anthropic make money at their expense. Authors should get paid when their books are used to train AI, and should have the chance to say no to that training. Anthropic’s used books strategy gives them neither.

[Robert Graham @robertgraham]

Your regular reminder: don't use your index finger to unlock your laptop with Touch ID. The government cannot compel you to disclose your password, but they can compel you to touch the Touch ID sensor.

They can't compel you to tell them the correct finger. And after too many guesses with the wrong finger, your laptop locks and requires a password.

[Kyle Griffin @kylegriffin1]

Jack Smith, p. 27: "There is no historical analog for what President Trump did in this case. As we said in the indictment, he was free to say that he thought he won the election. He was even free to say falsely that he won the election. But what he was not free to do was violate Federal law and use knowing-- knowingly false statements about election fraud to target a lawful government function. That he was not allowed to do. And that differentiates this case from any past history."

[Melanie D'Arrigo @DarrigoMelanie]

I feel like this photo of masked, armed men pepper spraying a pastor protecting his community is going to be a defining picture of this moment in America for a long, long time.

[Bill Kristol @BillKristol]

Judge Immergut quotes James Madison from the Records of the Federal Convention of 1787: “A standing
military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty. The
means of defence [against] foreign danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at
home.”

[Robert Reich @RBReich]

The richest man on earth owns X.

The second richest man on earth is about to be a major owner of TikTok.

The third richest man owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.

The fourth richest man owns The Washington Post.

See the problem here?

[Spencer Hakimian @SpencerHakimian]

This really has to be the dumbest recession in American history.

All because 1 geriatric man is stubbornly holding onto universally debunked 1800s economic theories.

[The Night Warrior @WarriorNight007]

@PicturesFoIder If you're ever in a quicksand or mud, here's a tip for you fam

[Johanna Nyman @JohannaNyman5]

This will haunt us for generations.

[Isaiah Martin @isaiahrmartin]

Gavin’s “Election Rigging Response Act” may just be the most beautiful bill name I’ve ever heard

[Marco Foster @MarcoFoster_]

Gavin Newsom: “Wake up America. You will not have a country if he rigs this election. These guys are not screwing around. The most corrupt president in history. He is wrecking this country, wrecking the economy. He is a lawless president. Wake up America.”

[David Pakman @dpakman]

I am against gerrymandering, but I am also against unilateral disarmament. Gavin Newsom’s plan to redistrict in California, to get more seats in 2026, and stop Trump in his tracks, should be replicated by Democratic Governors across the country. We need to actually fight here.

[Alex Raufoglu @ralexdc]

... As Trump is prepping to host Putin on U.S. soil for a “listening exercise” where he will “see what Putin has in mind" here's a gentle reminder 👇

[Nick Wagoner @nwagoner]

Notes and observations from #49ers practice No. 14:

- An 87-minute practice for the Niners on a relatively warm day but with a lot of players still missing. For the second straight day, they skipped one on one drills, so most of the below is observed from team periods.

- Here's the list of 49ers not participating today: DE Nick Bosa (rest day), CB Renardo Green, WR Jauan Jennings, WR Jordan Watkins, CB Upton Stout, CB Tre Brown, S Richie Grant, RB Jordan James, RB Isaac Guerendo, CB Fabian Moreau, DE Robert Beal Jr., DT Kevin Givens, DT Jordan Elliott, DE Sam Okuayinonu, DE Mykel Williams.

- WR Jacob Cowing returned to practice. He did individual drills and a few snaps in the team period. He also was back fielding punts and kicks, offering another option with Junior Bergen.

- LG Ben Bartch departed practice about midway through team period. Unclear what the injury was but he did not return. Rookie Connor Colby stepped in for him the rest of the way.

- Williams, Okuayinonu and Beal were among those working on the side early in practice.

- Brown worked back in with the first team during 11-on-11 with rookie Marquese Sigle in the other spot. Jason Pinnock got a few reps in place of Brown but the lion's share went to Brown.

- The problem for Brown today was that he found himself matched up with TE George Kittle a few times. Kittle got past Brown on deep balls twice for would-be long gains/touchdowns. And the coverage wasn't bad at all, just excellent throws by QB Brock Purdy (especially the second one) and good grabs by Kittle. Kittle and Purdy have been in sync all camp and that continued with the deep ball Tuesday.

- Maybe it goes without saying but we'll say it anyway: Kittle has had a tremendous camp. There are zero signs of a drop off and he looks every bit like the guy who was the best all around TE in football in 2024.

- The play of the day was also one of the strangest plays in this camp: Late in red zone period, Purdy fired a pass to the left for fullback Kyle Juszczyk. It was a bit high and Juszczyk got a hand on it but knocked it back toward Purdy. Right guard Dominick Puni, who was pulling around from the other side, snatched it out of the air and raced roughly 15 yards to the end zone for a touchdown, much to the delight of the offense. Puni was rolling, so much so that it almost looked like it was by design (it was not, of course).

- A good day overall for Purdy, who I had at 14-of-17. He was under pressure a few times but when protection was good he was mostly on point. He hit Kittle on a deep out for another big gain, tossed a short TD to Christian McCaffrey and even ran for a touchdown.

- QB Mac Jones was right there with Purdy, as I had him 9-for-9 on the day. Jones is clearly way more comfortable in the offense than in the spring (as you'd expect) and has been particularly efficient on some of the layered intermediate throws that Kyle Shanahan's offense demands. On one play, he made a sight adjustment at the line of scrimmage, changing the call to a play action pass and then dropping one in to Robbie Chosen over the middle for a big gain.

- An active day for McCaffrey, who seems to be getting loose a bit more as camp goes on. He had one big gain on the left side aided by strong seal off blocks from Trent Williams and Juszczyk.

- Overall, not a great day for the defense, though there were some good moments, including Luke Gifford setting a strong edge on a Patrick Taylor Jr. run that went nowhere.

- K Jake Moody hit on all seven of his field goal tries today in what was probably his best outing of this camp. Hard to get exact distances but the last two were over 50 yards and were good with room to spare. I had the last one at 56 yards. And yes, I know, only the games matter but there were no games on this Tuesday, August 12. So this is what we have.

- The Niners travel to Las Vegas tomorrow for a joint practice with the Raiders on Thursday. Thanks for reading. Enjoy your Tuesday.

[Don Winslow @donwinslow]

It's going to get a lot worse in September, October, November and December. Save this tweet.

[Maryam @hell_line0]

I just heard someone say “maybe you don’t need more time to heal, maybe you need more experiences that show your nervous system a different realty”

And, yeah.

[James Tate @JamesTate121]

I wish more people in this country could realize the truth instead of fighting it.

[Rachel Bitecofer 🗽🦆 @RachelBitecofer]

That money coming in is coming from us, and it means we’re being taxed twice by the federal government.