Elon Musk holds Tony Evers up for ridicule.

Messed up https://t.co/jaQhFe2U1H

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 21, 2025

ADDED: An effect of A.I. that I noticed in myself upon seeing this tweet: I immediately asked Grok if Evers was running for reelection and who might run against him. Without A.I., I'd have let it go.

"Nearby, a woman who asks me to call her Kim is selling T-shirts either depicting Mangione in religious garb or in a pink, babygirl-ified photo collage..."

"... that includes at least one shirtless photo. 'I’m making light of the situation. At the end of the day, I’m very passionate about class solidarity,' she says. 'I think we’re in really dark times right now.' Fellow cheeky-T-shirt wearer Nadine Seiler, the self-proclaimed 'Cougar for Luigi,' tells me she made her shirt with a group of friends on Valentine’s Day. They got together and ate red velvet cupcakes with gummy worms inside, which she says represent the parasitic ruling class. 'It’s good to get together, have a serious discussion, and have people understand what is going on in this country and that we need to be doing something different,' she says. 'I’m having fun while focusing on the serious issue at hand, which are these CEOs taking advantage of the masses and we’re still giving them our money.'"

From "At the Courthouse With Luigi Mangione’s 'Fangirls'" (The Cut).

"A Half Century of Failure to Reform the FBI Has Gifted Patel With Alarming Power."

 A view from The Nation.

"I’d love to do the dodo."

"There are some really rich people who really like birds. Whichever bird gets rescued first will be the one a rich guy loves the most."

From "How genetically modified eggs could bring dodo back to life/In a case of the egg before the chicken, new experiments — involving the insertion of DNA into chicken embryos — hope to revive at-risk or extinct bird species" (London Times).

"Ukraine on Saturday was seriously considering a revised American proposal for its vast natural resources that contains virtually the same provisions..."

"... that Kyiv previously rejected as too onerous, according to a draft document of the new proposal. Some of the terms appear even tougher than in a previous draft. Though Ukraine had not finalized the deal as of Saturday afternoon, its assent to the terms would represent a capitulation to American demands after a week of intense pressure from President Trump. The American president views access to Ukraine’s vast mineral wealth as necessary repayment for the billions the United States has provided Kyiv for its war against Russia...."

The NYT reports, in "U.S. Pressing Tough Demands in Revised Deal for Ukraine’s Minerals/The Trump administration wants revenues from Ukraine’s natural resources, according to a draft obtained by The New York Times, with no security guarantee in exchange."

Abe Lincoln observes the sunrise.

This morning at 6:50 on Bascom Hill.

Imagine if they'd torn down this statue?!

Misreading.

It was never about pulling him up....it was about you joining him down there🤣 pic.twitter.com/P9kq1yjJJV

— Nature is Amazing ☘️ (@AMAZlNGNATURE) February 21, 2025

Bagmen.

Isn't it Soros plan electing his bag "person" Susan Crawford to our highest court?

— Gregory Jon (@gregoryjon) February 22, 2025

Is this the correct usage of the term "bagman"? The definition I'm seeing in the OED is "One who collects or administers the collection of money obtained by racketeering and other dishonest means." And "A bagman is one who administers the collection of graft money from either the underworld or the business world and its subsequent distribution among politicians and civil servants." It would be more accurate to call Musk and Soros "bagmen" than to call Crawford and Schimel "bagperson" and bagman."

By the way, you don't have to say "bag person." The OED has "bag woman" — in this criminal sense — going back to 1960: "Last week another million dollar action was begun against Powell by Mrs. Esther James, a 64-year old widow, who charged Powell had libeled her in terming her a ‘bag woman’ for uptown cops with underworld figures."

"My actual fantasy for like the rise of super intelligence is that when you do train it on all human knowledge, it is essentially incapable of having anything other than per progressive values."

"Like if you actually make the smartest thing in the world, it, it winds up sort of being infused with like kindness and empathy and respect for all lives. I, I don't have any expectation that that will be the actual case, but it does seem like so far when you train these models on the data that everyone trains these models on, you do get these actually like pretty sweet kind progressive models. That's like kind of interesting."

From "How Based is Grok 3?" — the new episode of the NYT podcast "Hard Fork" (audio and transcript at that link, to Podscribe).

Of course I queried Grok 3 about the podcaster's fantasy, and it noted first that AI systems can "come off as 'sweet' or cautious because they’re tuned to avoid offense and reflect a kind of sanitized consensus." I like the way that includes a suspicion I have that progressives like to think they have something deeper going on — they call it empathy — but it's superficial — it's niceness.  Of course, if you cross them or, say, wear a MAGA hat, they won't be nice. 

But Grok said it was a "a big assumption" to imagine that "all human knowledge" will take you to some sort of cosmic kindness and love for all humanity. As Grok put it: "Human knowledge isn’t just a pile of noble ideas—it’s a chaotic mix of compassion and cruelty, wisdom and bias, reason and rage."

I don't think high intelligence fed vast knowledge makes people kinder. Some of the smartest people are cruel assholes. And what do you think is the average IQ of the top 10% kindest human beings? If I had to bet, I'd guess below average. No way to know, of course. Even if we trusted IQ tests and tested everyone, we'd never come up with an adequate test for kindness. Or could you?

That last paragraph is completely written by me, with no Grok assistance, but I fed it to Grok. My question speaks for itself though. I'll end here.

AND: I believe that kindness and empathy originate from the entire human nervous system — much more than just the brain. Without a body, why would A.I. have a tendency to arrive at empathy or something like it? Also a real person has to worry about real-life consequences — winning and losing friends, reciprocal kindness, cruel payback, getting promoted or fired, feeling shame or pride. A.I. is free of all that. 

PLUS: My next questions for Grok were: 1. What did Ayn Rand say about the love humans seem to feel for each other? and 2. Isn't that more like where A.I. should be expected to go? I don't want to overload this space with Grok answers. Let my questions stand on their own or serve as prompts for commenters.

Sunrise — 6:50, 6:50, 6:52, 6:52.

Write about anything you want in the comments. The first 2 photos are by me, and the second 2 — showing me — are by Meade.

"But now a USC film professor says that he plays My Dinner with Andre for his undergrad classes, and his 19 year old students love it because it seems contemporary to them."

"It can be hard for them to watch old-fashioned films with characters and plots like Atlantic City or Raiders of the Lost Ark, but two fellows shooting the breeze for two hours is so 2025!"

Steve Sailer likens "My Dinner with Andre" to "The Joe Rogan Experience," in "The Film of the Future: 'My Dinner with Andre'/Who knew in 1981 that in 2025 the dominant form of entertainment would be dudes sitting around talking about far-out stuff?"

Thanks to everyone who emailed me this link. A lot of people know that "My Dinner with Andre" is my favorite movie. It's been my favorite movie since I first saw it, in a movie theater in 1981, long before before podcasting got off the ground. "The Joe Rogan Experience" began in 2009. I love "The Joe Rogan Experience," which might seem odd — I'm a 74-year-old female — but it's not at all odd that I fell in love with "My Dinner with Andre" when I was 30, so it all makes more sense now. Like those 19-year-old students, I too find it hard to watch "old-fashioned films with characters and plots." 

"Elon Musk has called for NASA to deorbit [its] International Space Station (ISS) 'as soon as possible'..."

"... because the $150 billion lab has 'served its purpose.' In Thursday post on X, he wrote: 'It is time to begin preparations for deorbiting the [ISS]. It has served its purpose. There is very little incremental utility. Let's go to Mars.'"

The Daily Mail reports.

Is absorbing Canada "a real thing"?

🚨Update: Secretary Marco Rubio: Canada becoming a US state is a real possibility! “If you balance out our trade, Canada will cease to exist as a country!”pic.twitter.com/UUPArryP32

— US Homeland Security News (@defense_civil25) February 21, 2025

"The DOJ may be releasing the list of Jeffrey Epstein's clients?"/"It's sitting on my desk right now...."

Reporter asks US AG Pam Bondi: Will you really be releasing the Epstein files?

Bondi: "It's sitting on my desk right now to review."

Wow. pic.twitter.com/sjXlATAYSa

— Thomas Sowell Quotes (@ThomasSowell) February 21, 2025

Sticking to principle.

Riley Gaines gets trans activist to say he believes we should let Olympic athletes compete in the Paralympics pic.twitter.com/9OTsh9Aghz

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) February 21, 2025

"Manhattan federal Judge Dale Ho ordered Adams’ April 21 corruption trial adjourned as he appointed former US Solicitor General Paul Clement to argue against the Justice Department’s position that the mayor’s case should be dismissed."

The NY Post reports.

"[The judge] wrote in a five-page order that such an argument was necessary to hear because the DOJ effectively took the same position as Adams’ defense — and 'in light of the public importance of this case, which calls for careful deliberation.'"