Greg Linden

2/ Iran is presumably attempting to exploit regional concerns that renewed fighting and US-Iran tensions could embroil regional countries in the future and is aiming to portray the United States as the source of the problem.

Social media videos believed to be produced with artificial intelligence and linked to Russia are misusing real people’s names and photographs to spread disinformation about two Democratic Senate candidates in the final stretch of midterm voting. (@aliswenson.bsky.social) apnews.com/article/midt...

As I said in a reply: I'm afraid that I no longer have the energy to put on my "International Relations Professor" hat and work through what's wrong with the various justifications offered by TrumpCronies. They just want to help Putin and enrich themselves. Everything else is bullshit.

As I wrote on 3/10/25: "We’re not getting great-power competition. Trump... wants to form a kleptocrat elite-pact with Putin. The two... will help themselves stay in power while they, and supportive oligarchs, maximize the... rents they extract and the foreign bribes... they receive."

It was nice when former or wannabe authoritarians fleeing justice went to Russia instead of Florida. That felt better, as an American. At least Assad still picked Moscow.

Federal funding for science ensures that scientific agendas respond to the wants and needs of scientists and the public. We do not want to live in a society where the scientific agenda is set by a handful of billionaires.

Trump/Musk/MAGA don't realise that their ability to influence world events by holding other countries hostage through tech shutdowns is rapidly diminishing. This was always a one-off strategy. Once you actually use it then all the calculations change.

European officials have stepped up talks on reducing reliance on US defense suppliers after a dispute over Ukraine’s Starlink restrictions, according to people familiar with the matter.

This guy is now head of Policy Planning at the State Department. After being responsible for the deaths of millions, he has failed up for sure.

this remains, to me, the single most baffling thing that happens regularly I know it’s a power thing, but how the fuck are SO MANY dudes apparently sending unsolicited dick pictures 24/7 what is wrong with men

In my base model, 2027 revenue is $108.6B, but that's still producing only a 5.1% operating margin. Their upcoming contracted compute is really expensive! Anything but a bull case for them makes their IPO (and even their Series H) way overvalued.

I agree with that. I don't question Anthropic's viability, I question the market vibe that it will have explosive profit growth. For the next 5 years they're more like an oil company than a software startup: a lot of cash and likely revenue, but a ton of $$$ committed to building/running wells.

2/ Also of note: over history, elite tax evasion is a good measure of a failing state. At times of dynastic change in traditional China, for example, when provincial elites managed to escape central gov't tax collection, that was both a symptom and a cause of diminishing state capacity. /fin

Capital gains should be taxed when the assets are monetize, whether that's via sale or via loan

FWIW, Anthropic admits its current margins may not be representative. There's a bit of lucky timing here: big revenue growth while on the tail end of cheap compute contracted more than a year ago. Their future compute is... not so cheap. (1st pic their S-1, second are my graphics based on S-1.)

NEW: We asked readers if they've been drowning in political texts, calls, mailers and TV ads, and to share pics of what they're getting. Hooo boy, did we get responses! Some fumed its been "harassment." Some won't donate to Dem campaigns ever again. www.huffpost.com/entry/voters...

One cool thing about being a regular Dem donor is how the party tries to demoralize me before every election. I am again drowning in spam texts clearly aimed at ripping off the elderly. Several Senate candidates have worked hard, overcoming my many "stop" replies and blocks, to make me hate them.

The powerful executives who cozied up to Trump didn't oops accidentally forget about pendulum swings. They either: 1) Like the fascism 2) Calculated it was here to stay, so going along was savvy 3) Saw no real downside, no consequences when the pendulum swung Crucial to show them 3 was a mistake

I know there's a lot going on but I feel it should probably be more of an above-the-fold story that members of Congress released a thoroughly documented report directly accusing the president of the United States of being a serial rapist.

I get they're inextricably intertwined but I kind of feel like leaning so much into how he was the longtime best buddy of the world's most notorious sex criminal has given it something of the feel of a political gotcha rather than the important part, which is that the president raped people.

In his acceptance speech, Lula says he will work to regulate digital platforms in Brazil. “Digital crimes must be dealt with like real-life crimes.” This comes after Meta directly interfered with the Brazilian elections, favouring Flávio Bolsonaro.

I somehow missed this at the time. jesus fucking CHRIST man www.nytimes.com/2026/04/29/w...

“ The Houthis have recently homed in on a particular set of revelations to try to undermine Saudi Arabia’s leaders — namely that associates of the Saudi royal court sent tapestries that had draped the holiest site in Islam to Mr. Epstein’s private island.” www.nytimes.com/2026/10/23/w...

Pretty grim footnote to West's career that he ended up serving the richest man in the world's successful attempt to restore white nationalism to the US government.

NEW: The group behind Cornel West's 2024 ballot push was wholly funded through Elon Musk's dark money network, according to Sludge's review of tax documents. readsludge.com/2026/10/26/m...

My second essay on how under Trump we’ve already gotten used to a level of fascism, authoritarianism, and corruption that would be unthinkable to us just years ago. Today: The corruption of the Justice Dept and *EIGHT* scandals on par with Watergate: www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/trump-s-ty...

A masterful and nauseating summary of where we are.

New from me: The US has faced a higher cost than any other country from the global Hormuz oil shock, with the crisis adding $160 billion to its fuel bill — or $471 per person on average — despite being the world’s largest oil producer.

And here is an interactive map. You can look in your state/see where these sources of air toxics are located. Do you live near one? See link here for online version of the map with data built in re name/etc for each pollution source given Trump waiver: www.nytimes.com/2026/10/24/c...

I'm wildly biased on this front, but I continue to believe the last decade of self-driving technology remains one of the best ways to understand how "AI" will and will not have a lasting impact

NEW: "Donald Trump was an active participant in Jeffrey Epstein’s sexual abuse of young women during the mid-to-late 1990s," per new House Judiciary Dem report. Report has new allegation that Trump raped a 24-year-old and then promised the victim a visa & NYU admission, demanding she stay quiet.

The case opens the door for other federal employees to sue to get their jobs back. This is not an ideal process since it is costly for all concerned to go to court. That is why we used to have a credible and bipartisan appeals process. But the Supreme Court has allowed Trump to gut it.

Roughly 1/4 of its workforce. $MSFT

Repeat after me: Russia has no legitimate security concerns; only its neighbours do. Russia has been the only one invading others.

In the last few weeks i've been bombarded with emails from people who have minor tech support problems. ChatGPT is telling them to email me, writing their emails, and compiling "evidence packets" after convincing them they have stumbled on a major story: www.404media.co/chatgpt-keep...

60,000 workers. god damn www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

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A huge number of powerful people last year saw Trump take office and apparently did not stop to think that he might prove unpopular and lose power and that their genuflection, however helpful in the short run, would come back to haunt them

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That this is in THE WASHINGTON POST is almost too much irony to bear.

Overall, the risks seem enormous. If you invest your money, you're buying a piece of a company with no shareholder control and massive legal liabilities and regulatory risk at a price that starts with an assumption of x100 growth while somehow maintaining high margins that survive all competition.

if only there had been a way to predict this might happen based on nearly every midterm election cycle in modern american political history