Open Thread time
I’m of the opinion that we should always have an Open Thread in the list of 10 Recent Posts….
"This is the Voice of Moderation. I wouldn't go so far as to say we've actually SEIZED the radio station . . . "
Musk and others plan to put AI data centers in space.
Thus demonstrating their ignorance of thermodynamics. An AI data center (any data center actually) generates a lot of heat. On the ground, you either conduct that heat to air or water and then move the hot air or hot water out and pump in cold. You’ve essentially got the whole planet’s atmosphere and oceans as a heat sink.
In space, the only way to get rid of waste heat is radiation. Which just isn’t as efficient. To the point that it simply isn’t feasible.
They may figure that their potential investors are utterly ignorant as well. But as an investment, snake oil is probably a better option.
Concerning Musk, I tend to think that he would like to have the conflict continue between the Ukraine and Russia, because it allows him to play kingmaker. If one or the other side won, he might have to modify his behavior.
And then Starlink renamed itself Skynet.
I found John Varley’s malevolent AI in Press Enter much scarier. Software reaching into your house via 1980s level networking to kill you…
Friday is David Attenborough’s 100th birthday.
When the Natural Environment Research Council rejected the results of the poll to name their new Antarctic research vessel Boaty McBoatface, the public were nonetheless happy to hear that one of the new RRS Sir David Attenborough‘s remotely controlled submersibles would be called that instead.
He is an amazing man, who has revolutionised the way millions of people around the globe see the natural world. Although a very senior BBC TV executive in the 60s and 70s, (among other highs, he commissioned an extraordinarily varied series of ground-breaking series e.g. Civilisation, The Ascent of Man, Monty Python’s Flying Circus) he gleefully escaped the boring prospect of being appointed Director General of the BBC in 1972, resigned and instead went on to make and present various programs while writing the scripts for his historic series Life on Earth, a joint production between the Beeb and Turner Broadcasting (RIP Ted Turner) which moved into production in 1976. And, as they say, the rest is history.
I cannot think of another person who is so admired and who inspires so much affection in the UK (and probably worldwide as well). It is such a relief to see his name trending in the last few days, and not have to feel an icy hand gripping the heart until one checks the news….
Grok has good words.
“David Attenborough has an exceptionally positive global reputation as one of the most trusted, beloved, and influential broadcasters and naturalists of all time. He is widely viewed as an authoritative yet approachable voice on the natural world, conservation, and (in later decades) environmental crises. In the UK, he is frequently described as a “national treasure,” though he reportedly dislikes the label.”
David Attenborough’s Reputation
Has anyone else seen anything about this?
https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-05-07/hondurasgate-the-alleged-us-and-israeli-interference-plot-to-destabilize-mexico-and-other-progressive-governments.html
Thus far, El Pais is the only source reporting on it that I recognize.
hsh, hadn’t seen that. Also, I’ve been meaning to come back to you on your question about post-Brexit immigration. But the truth is, what’s happening pretty much all round politically is so depressing, and (not unrelated) at this very moment we are looking at the probability that Nigel Farage’s Reform will be making big (huge) gains in today’s local elections, so frankly I can’t think about any of this stuff at the moment. I’d rather soothe myself by watching gorillas groom and cuddle David Attenborough, or watching the camera zoom back from David Attenborough talking about meerkat habits, to show a meerkat sitting on his head. So I think it’s time to go to bed and read the latest Murderbot.
Amusement of the day: US Central Commend calling Iranian strikes against US naval ships in the Strait of Hormuz “unprovoked.” Words fail me.
Amusement of the day: US Central Commend calling Iranian strikes against US naval ships in the Strait of Hormuz “unprovoked.” Words fail me.
I’m wondering if the first real panic to occur will be the Arab Gulf states. In the last couple weeks, the UAE has left OPEC and called a $3B loan they had made to Pakistan. There’s the on-again off-again maybe on-again KSA and Kuwait ban on the US using those countries’ bases and airspace to implement the escort service through the Strait. There are hints that something odd is going on in Bahrain. Vice-President Vance is in Qatar today meeting with government officials.
Meanwhile, Reform have so far gained almost 900 seats in local councils, and Labour (and the Tories) have lost around 500 each (I’m too disheartened to catch up with their exact figures). The Greens have done quite well, but given that their leader Zack Polanski is currently dealing with accusations that he has been fiddling his council tax by misreporting where he lives, and has been proven to have lied about e.g. having been a representative of the Red Cross, things don’t look too great for them either. It’s true that the latest accusations about Zack Polanski surfaced very near the end of the campaign, as did the news that Farage had accepted an undeclared “gift” of £5 million from a Filipino-resident crypto billionaire just before deciding to stand for parliament, so just maybe those stories didn’t have time to cut through. Although this election was just for local councils, I still think it is a very ominous sign of where we are going and what the British public is prepared to overlook. All in all, things are looking almost as appalling in the UK as they are in the US….
Also meanwhile, The Virginia Supreme Court has struck down and nullified the redistricting vote on technical grounds (proper procedures not fully followed, the voters got their say to early) after a lower court had already stopped the new maps going into effect with the argument that the campaign was ‘deceptive’ (they were explicitly NOT referring to the tsunami of fake news, deceptive mailers, and public lies by GOPsters from in and out of state but to the Virginia state government).
There is not enough time to redo it, so the old maps will have to do.
Unless of course the GOP gets the idea that they can get SCOTUS to declare the current maps too n-word friendly and the abominable six will oblige rapidly via shadow docket). If the Virginia government tries to go the same way, we can expect that parcel of rogues in robes to slow-walk it, naturally.
How did the separatist parties do in Scotland and Wales?
The count is done in Wales, Plaid Cymru won the most seats (43), but 6 short of a majority, Reform won 34, and Labour 9. Labour had been in power there since 1922, according to Wikipedia the longest winning streak in the world for a political party in a democracy. The various commentators (and voters) seemed to indicate that a good proportion of the electorate voted Plaid tactically to keep Reform from power. In Scotland, the SNP won the most seats, but not enough for a majority (they would need 65). Labour (17) are slightly ahead of Reform (15), and there are still 7 seats to declare. The English numbers are much worse than when I posted before, with 7 still to declare. If you look at this link, make sure to click on “How this election works” for each of the three nations, they’re all different.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/c1428pev1n0t#election-england
Labour had been in power there since 1922…
I don’t understand: the Welsh Assembly has existed only since 1999, and in its current form – the Senedd (Welsh for “Synod”, pronounced “Seneth”) only since 2020.
The success of Reform in the this week’s elections is disappointing in the light of Trump’s unpopularity in Europe, but a natural continuation of the realignment on the right which was in progress at the last General Election here, then favouring Labour with many more MPs than its share of the vote would usually get.
Pro Bono: yup, loose talk costs lives alright. I should have just quoted from Wikipedia:
Welsh Labour and its forebears have won a plurality of the Welsh vote at every United Kingdom general election from 1922, every National Assembly (now Senedd) election from 1999 to 2026, and all elections to the European Parliament in the period 1979–2004 and in 2014.[8] Welsh Labour holds 27 of the 32 Welsh seats in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, 9 of the 96 seats in the Welsh Senedd, and 576 of the 1,264 councillors in principal local authorities including overall control of 10 of the 22 principal local authorities.
From 1922 to 2026, it had the longest winning streak of any political party in the world and had been described as “by some distance the democratic world’s most successful election-winning machine”.[9] Its winning-streak ended in 2026 when it was reduced to just 9 seats in the Senedd, with the progressive, pro-independence Plaid Cymru winning instead.
And, as far as the success of Reform being “a natural continuation of the realignment on the right which was in progress at the last General Election“, this is very true. But nonetheless deeply depressing particularly, as you say, because of Trump’s ballooning European unpopularity since then (not least in the Greenland matter). I suppose in light of that, and growing Brexit regret, I (disregarding the polls) had hoped it wouldn’t be as bad as this. For so many people to have voted Reform makes me despair at what kind of country we are becoming. And as for these being (in England) merely local council elections, these people must have disregarded everything known about the few Reform councils already in place. Cue even more despair.
I’m probably overthinking this. But I could see handing other parties serious defeats, even if it requires voting for Reform, in order to turf out the old guard in those parties.
“I’m probably overthinking this. But I could see handing other parties serious defeats, even if it requires voting for Reform, in order to turf out the old guard in those parties.”
I’m sure that Hartmut could add more details, but this sounds very much like the prewar German Socialists/Communists attitude towards Hitler: “Nach Hitler, uns”.
Didn’t work out to well for them.
I’m not praising it. I’m just speculating on the cause.
Didn’t work out to well for them.
[sarcasm]Worked quite well for half a century in half (OK, about a third) the country. The transition by a wee world war may have been a bit more costly than expected but a few sacrifices are fully justified by the end.[/sarcasm]
As for the US: The Right never forgave FDR for preventing Murica joining the fashionable fascist club. Now as a renaissance looms they see their second chance. Their own 1923 Munich may have failed on Jan the 6th but a failed dress rehearsal is a traditional good omen for the premiere and they hope to get their glorious 1933 less than a decade later (with SCOTUS pre-approving Nuremberg-1935-light for the coming elections).
Now that there’s a UK elections thread, I want to use this one to talk about SCOTUS.
The far-right six have abandoned all pretence of intellectual respectability. The Callais decision ignores the originalist doctrine they previously relied on when in suited them, and they’ve rushed it into effect despite the Purcell principle they formerly used to maintain Republican gerrymanders. It’s plain that the guiding theory of the six is that the interests of the Republican Party (now usually, but not always, Trump’s interests) are the only thing that matters.
There’s nothing left to respect in the way SCOTUS operates. There is no reason I can see not to seek radical reform. It’s not just a matter of rebalancing the composition of the Court: we should recognise that the Court has too much power: the issues of the day should be decided by the legislature not by the bench.
So what, in practice, can and should be done?
So what, in practice, can and should be done?
Sometime in the next 25 years or so, there will be an opportunity for the western states — roughly the area of the Western Interconnect, or the area west of the center line of the Great plains, or the part of the country where the night time lights satellite pictures show that the previous settlement patterns broke down — to go their own way. They (we) should jump at it. And in the meantime, push more and more interstate compacts to implement regional solutions to problems.
Sometime in the next 25 years or so, there will be an opportunity for the western states . . . to go their own way.
I wonder if you could expand on this a little. Maybe even work up a post.
I’d be interested in where the time frame comes from. Also, if you have any thoughts on what our new nation’s government might look. And what intergovernmental relations with the rest of the old country might look like.
Thanks
As per the last time we discussed Michael’s partition, I’m wondering how Western America (sans TX/OK) divides up the political baby between the purple Front Range and NM, the mostly red patch from the Western Slope to the western side of the Cascades/Sierra Nevada. I have a hard time imagining the compromise that would let ID/WY/UT come to terms with the population advantage held by the big CA cities, Portland, and Seatle/Tacoma. Those divides seem like shooting war divides to me.
Some comments on SCOTUS reform.
I’d be interested in where the time frame comes from.
Start with the question, “Under what conditions might a partition be possible?” One of the things that would almost certainly be necessary is that things that only an intact US can provide decline in importance. Eg, the US is no longer the conventional military superpower who can project force anywhere, and everybody knows it. There are a variety of ways that might happen. Carrier strike groups may be too expensive. The weapons systems may become too expensive to actually use. Cheap weapons become smart enough to overwhelm the defenses expensive platforms can carry. The world decides it will no longer risk hosting US forward deployments. Some combination. The US won’t lose that status overnight. But in 25 years? Arguably, some version of all of those things are already happening. (Exercise for the student: can the US dollar lose its reserve currency status, and how long would that take?)
One of the weird things about the past decade is that when you make a list of the conditions that would make a partition feasible, Donald Trump seems to be working to make most of them happen sooner rather than later.
1861 had something to say about states trying to leave the union. and that was decided with foot soldiers.
no state is going to stand a chance against a few B52s.
First: obviously yes. There have been other bases for reserves, including things like gold. The dollar merely happens to have been the basis since WW II — i.e. all of our lifetimes. That has something to do with the United States being the only major industrial nation with industry not ravaged by the war, and something to do with the US having a series of administrations right after the war which saw world trade and a world economy as being in the national interest.
How long would it take to lose it? It could be pretty gradual, with countries here and there shifting to a mix of reserves, and them the dollar drifting from still first among equals to being just another option.
But at the moment, it seems that the major impediment is simply that it takes time and care to diversify out of dollars without crashing the value of the dollars you still hold. A small economy doesn’t have to worry too much about that. But big economies will want to thread the needle between on one hand setting off a dollar crash and on the other hand not moving fast enough, so that when someone else sets off the crash, they’re left holding the bag.
Trump’s Excellent Iranian Adventure has kick the process into high gear, with oil suddenly being traded internationally in yuan as well as in dollars. Compound that with the dollar’s status being based on the “full faith and credit” of the United States combined with Trump’s massive bad faith on anything and everything. I’d say it’s an even money bet at the moment whether that reserve status lasts to 2028.
1861 had something to say about states trying to leave the union. and that was decided with foot soldiers. no state is going to stand a chance against a few B52s.
If 38 states decide that they would be better off in independent groups, or with heavily devolved powers, the B52s don’t matter (absent a military dictatorship, of course*). Unlike a couple of commenters at Lawyers, Guns & Money, I’ve never said that a partition could happen other than by sufficient states agreeing to do it.
* Which is a possibility. Who loses the most if the US were to break up into two, or three, or four groups? DoD and the rest of national security would be high on that list. Not nearly so many expensive orbital toys for the NRO, for example. The vast administrative state and everyone who sucks from that teat (eg, K Street lobbyists). Wall Street.
But at the moment, it seems that the major impediment is simply that it takes time and care to diversify out of dollars without crashing the value of the dollars you still hold.
Is 25 years enough? The pound took 30-50 years, depending on how you want to measure it. One suspects it would be like Hemingway’s bankruptcy: gradually, then suddenly. The hard question is what would replace it. China certainly doesn’t want the renminbi to take on that role because of the down sides. I believe they have occasionally proposed a fiat currency tied to a basket of real currencies for trade purposes, but not as a store of value.
The decline of the Pound was around when the US was still nominally on the gold standard (pre 1972), wasn’t it?
Don’t need to shift around heavy bars of shiny metal any more to exchange currency, just flip some bits and make use of foreign exchange markets.
Any given person/business could move to a different currency in 24 hours or so.