‘The 1997 ‘Flores’ ruling requires immigrant children be released from detention after 20 days. Trump is keeping some for as long as 323 days, new filings in a lawsuit state….’
‘With a small, like-minded group, I had the privilege of getting away, if briefly, from the United States, a nation at war with itself and the world. To shut out for a moment the cacophony of cruelty and chaos. To take a cleaning wand to the mind. Japan was the right place for it.
The human touch, more than the technology, made it so. In Tokyo Station, one of the busiest in the world, the legendary punctuality of Japanese trains meant we tourists, like the commuters, easily made our connections. Info booths were visible and well-staffed. Station shops bustled with salespeople stepping out to offer beautifully boxed treats. Our mid-priced hotel next door had a large staff. We weren’t pointed toward elevators or restaurants but walked there. Everyone seemed like they cared….’
‘KUTV reports Utah Lt. Governor Deidre Henderson has apparently had enough of President Donald Trump and his threats. On Friday, Henderson demanded the Trump administration “stop threatening states and filing frivolous lawsuits.”
The order comes one a day after Trump slammed the US election system as worse than that of “third-world” nations, and also heavily hacked by China, without evidence.
“It’s Republican vs. Republican in the election drama,” reports KUTV….’
‘The power plant built to fuel Elon Musk’s massive Grok data center is at the center of a federal lawsuit alleging it threatens nearby communities with toxic pollution. The suit, filed by the NAACP on behalf of residents, argues that the plant’s gas turbines could emit dangerous levels of smog, fine particulate matter, and formaldehyde—a known carcinogen—over Southaven, Mississippi. Last month, the Trump administration backed Musk by asking a federal judge in a DOJ motion to block the NAACP lawsuit, arguing it would threaten economic interests and national security because the military relies on AI. The plant, built by Musk’s xAI, has yet to obtain air permits for its 27 turbines, according to the NAACP suit….’
‘The New York Times stunned Americans Sunday when it revealed a new FBI directive regarding ICE agents — and people who accuse them of violence.
Federal agents across the nation received instructions last week not to investigate confrontations with immigration agents, sources told Times reporters Hamed Aleaziz and Devlin Barrett.
“F.B.I. managers around the country received a written notice informing them of the change on Thursday…The same day, some ICE agents around the country were notified by their F.B.I. counterparts,” Aleaziz and Barrett wrote….’
‘Evil is easy to identify and fight against; not so with stupidity. Philosopher Jonny Thomson walks through Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s 3 conditions for the kind of stupidity that destroys societies: outsourcing your thinking to an authority, willful ignorance, and conformity….’
‘[A]n internal memo from United Airlines … told reservation agents, “If a customer does not want to fly to the airport, use your empowerment to offer acceptable alternatives such as Fort Lauderdale Airport (FLL) or Miami International Airport (MIA).”
In a statement to Inc., United confirmed that the report was not accurate. “United customers are able to make changes to a ticket without a fee for many reasons. However, our policy doesn’t allow for changes because of an airport’s name or three letter code,” a spokesperson said….’
‘It’s tough to comprehend a wave taller than the Empire State Building.
Yet that’s exactly what scientists believe thundered through Alaska’s Tracy Arm in August of 2025.
Newly released helicopter footage offers one of the clearest looks yet at the aftermath of the massive landslide-triggered mega-tsunami, revealing a landscape permanently reshaped by one of the largest waves ever documented….’
‘If only there were a simple way for drivers of gas-powered cars to cut down their fuel costs while also reducing planet-warming carbon emissions.
A new study says there is. The findings, published Thursday in the journal Communications Sustainability, show that if U.S. drivers of gas-powered passenger vehicles actually drove the speed limit, it could save an average of 6.7 million gallons of gas, 57,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and $22 million per day, based on fuel costs during the study period. That’s equivalent to taking about 5.5 million cars off the road, according to the researchers.
While it may feel like speeding shaves a significant amount of time off your commute, the study suggests that driving at or below the speed limit lengthens commute times by just 54 seconds per day, or 6.3 minutes per week, based on the average daily driving distance of 28.6 miles (46.03 kilometers).’
The Fermi Paradox asks, “Where is everybody?” Even with modest propulsion, a technological civilization could spread across much of the galaxy in a geological instant, yet we see no evidence that this has occurred.
One proposed solution, Geoffrey Landis’s “percolation model,” emphasizes the geometry and probability of settlement spreading through a network of stars. Each colony has some probability of founding additional colonies, and spacecraft have a limited effective range. Below a critical propagation probability, colonized systems form finite clusters rather than a galaxy-spanning network. Expansion therefore leaves persistent voids, potentially including our region. Cultural divergence and declining expansionist motivation could further increase this unevenness.
This essay proposes a biological mechanism that might lower the probability of successful propagation. If each colony is founded by a subset of the population of its parent colony, genetic diversity may decline at each successive step. After several iterations, distant colonies could become sufficiently homogeneous that reduced genetic resilience would leave them vulnerable to environmental catastrophe or disease. Repeated local extinctions could further reduce the species’ total genetic diversity, producing a self-limiting cycle of expansion and collapse. Large regions of the galaxy might therefore remain uncolonized, and our apparent isolation could reflect our location within one such void.
The hypothesis faces substantial objections. Reduced genetic diversity does not necessarily entail a proportionate loss of fitness or resilience. Founding populations could be selected specifically to preserve diversity, while cryopreserved gametes, embryos, genetic material, or digital genome sequences could carry far more variation than the living crew alone (as in Nolan’s Interstellar, for example). This assumes, moreover, that extraterrestrial reproduction depends on genetic mechanisms broadly analogous to ours. Expansion might also proceed in parallel rather than as a single serial chain, allowing multiple lineages to preserve or recombine diversity. Sufficiently advanced biotechnology may largely decouple an interstellar civilization from the reproductive bottlenecks that constrain the dispersal of terrestrial species upon which this essay is based.
:’Guerrilla artists Secret Handshake have installed a giant gold participation trophy for Trump on the National Mall, hoping that if the president receives enough shiny objects, he may stop trying to collect wars…’
The FCC authorized Reflect Orbital to launch the mirror satellite Eärendil-1. “For optical astronomy, this poses an existential threat,” the European Southern Observatory said.
‘As a geopolitical actor, the United States has become a kind of lumbering zombie—a beast that can be startled into reflexive actions but lacks higher functions… The rupture of the world order is going much better than expected….’”
‘Researchers at Pangram, which makes an AI-detection tool, estimate that Not just X but Y sentences appear three times as often in AI writing as they do in human writing. Elyas Masrour, a founding engineer at Pangram, told me that all of the major chatbots—including ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and various open-source models—rely on it to varying degrees.
Many other well-known chatbot tells—such as the usage of delve—have come and gone as AI companies honed their models and worked out kinks. Last fall, ChatGPT became obsessed with goblins and gremlins, prompting another intervention: OpenAI retired ChatGPT’s “nerdy” personality, whose affinity for mythical creatures had apparently infected its other models. Yet It’s not X; it’s Y has shown no signs of abating….’
‘picture a monkey. A monkey dressed like a little pirate, if that helps you. We’ll call him Slappy.
Imagine you have Slappy as a pet. Imagine a personality for him. Maybe you and he have little pirate monkey adventures and maybe even join up to fight crime. Think how sad you’d be if Slappy died.
Now, imagine you get four more monkeys. We’ll call them Tito, Bubbles, Marcel and ShitTosser. Imagine personalities for each of them now. Maybe one is aggressive, one is affectionate, one is quiet, the other just throws shit all the time. But they’re all your personal monkey friends.
Now imagine a hundred monkeys.
Not so easy now, is it? So how many monkeys would you have to own before you couldn’t remember their names? At what point, in your mind, do your beloved pets become just a faceless sea of monkey? Even though each one is every bit the monkey Slappy was, there’s a certain point where you will no longer really care if one of them dies.
So how many monkeys would it take before you stopped caring?
That’s not a rhetorical question. We actually know the number.
You see, monkey experts performed a monkey study a while back, and discovered that the size of the monkey’s monkey brain determined the size of the monkey groups the monkeys formed. The bigger the brain, the bigger the little societies they built…’
‘IN RECENT MONTHS, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand has used it; musician Buddy Guy has used it; Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson used it in grand jury testimony, as did his victim Michael Brown’s friend Dorian Johnson. A friend used it in an instant message chat to me, describing her attitude toward her sick boyfriend: “i’m like STAY OVER THERE.” It’s called the “quotative like,” and over the last 25 years, it’s become one of our language’s most popular methods of talking about talking. The use of “I’m like” or “he was like” to introduce a quote, a thought, or a feeling has spread through English worldwide, from Jamaica to New Zealand.
One American dialect has rapidly adopted an even less by-the-book variation. In African American English, or AAE, a grammatically distinct variety, you can say not just “she was like,” but “she be like”—a version of “quotative like” with special powers of its own. At the Linguistic Society of America’s annual meeting this month, researchers Janneke Van Hofwegen of Stanford and Charlie Farrington of the University of Oregon presented a paper that found that “be like” is now so widely used it accounted for 20 percent of similar uses of the verb “be” among a group of young AAE speakers in North Carolina. An analogous group studied in the 1980s didn’t use the term at all….’
‘The 1958 Lituya Bay megatsunami remains the highest such wave in recorded history. As of 2016, no subsequent megatsunamis have been observed in that location. But evidence for multiple prior events in Lituya Bay suggests that giant waves occur there every 30-40 years on average, so the 1958 event is quite unlikely to be the last. The area remains sparsely populated, but trollers and adventurers pass through frequently. Anyone planning a visit to this remote hydraulic oddity ought to consider: if the gulls of Cenotaph take suddenly to the air, or a roar akin to 100 airplanes rises in the distance…’
We Are Losing the Ability to Discover What We Didn’t Know to Ask, writes Anne-Laure Le Cunff via The New York Times:
‘By shortening the time between asking a question and getting an answer, these tools are actually undermining curiosity — and paradoxically threatening our ability to understand the world….’
‘…[C]ook the produce that you can — heat is the absolute best option for eliminating cyclosporiasis — and to clean your raw fruits, vegetables and herbs as thoroughly as possible.
Wash everything with running water before eating or preparing it. Scrub the firmer fruits, like melons and cucumbers, with a produce brush if you have one. If you see damaged or bruised areas on your fruit or lettuce, cut them away. Even if a food’s package says it’s prewashed, Linder said she advises people to rewash it just to be sure.
Previous outbreaks have specifically been linked to bagged lettuce and salads, so you might consider buying whole heads of lettuce instead. If you do that, cut away the outer layers and then separate the inner leaves to wash them. For green onions, you should cut away the bulby root and the outer layer and then wash them thoroughly. Raspberries were associated with one of the first US outbreaks in the 1990s, and they are particularly tricky to clean given their bumpy surfaces; you may want to consider eating them only after cooking (to prepare a jam or compote, for example) or opt for frozen raspberries for the time being. (Freezing is believed to reduce, if not completely eliminate, the parasite.) And be careful with leftovers: You should refrigerate any unused foods that you plan to eat later within two hours.
You could also consider buying locally sourced foods, Linder said, because cyclosporiasis is more common in food sourced from other parts of the world.
If you do start to experience extreme diarrhea, make sure to hydrate very well to avoid dehydration. Linder told me that if somebody experiences dizziness, they can’t keep fluids down, or they have very dark urine, then they should seek immediate medical attention. And anybody experiencing those symptoms should get in touch with their health care providers and their local health department….’
Astead Herndon notes on Vox that Kamala Harris is quietly laying groundwork for a possible 2028 presidential run, including touring early-primary states, meeting key Democratic figures, and sounding out progressive and pro-Palestinian constituencies. She leads many early polls but remains publicly noncommittal and has avoided taking clear positions in the party’s major ideological disputes.
Her allies portray the 2024 defeat as an exceptional circumstance rather than a rejection of her candidacy: Biden withdrew late, leaving her only 107 days to campaign, and Trump benefited politically from assassination attempts. This explanation minimizes her own weaknesses and ignores her failed 2020 primary campaign.
Major donors may be reluctant to support another run. Some want the party to move beyond the Biden administration and believe Harris and Gavin Newsom would compete for the same California donor base. There is also a perception that private doubts about Harris are often muted because donors fear being accused of racism.
Harris nevertheless retains significant support among Black voters and women but that coalition is becoming less cohesive. Younger Black voters criticize her prosecutorial record and Gaza stance, while some men prefer a conventional male candidate and many women remain committed to electing a woman. Across factions, voters repeatedly express a desire for “freshness” — reinvented Harris or someone entirely new?
So Harris has not been displaced, but neither has she secured a clear lane. The Black electorate that traditionally consolidates Democratic primaries appears divided by age and gender, suggesting a fragmented and unpredictable 2028 contest.
‘As I’ve explored these browsers, I’ve been mindful of the many security risks to contend with: Prompt injection, where malicious AI prompts are hidden in a website or browser extension’s HTML source code, is the most obvious threat. But there are also cases of AI agents acting without a user’s permission to access your logged-in accounts. Moreover, AI browsers can leak data between browser tabs and hand over user credentials on clever prompting without even using any malicious code.
But despite the risks, there are legitimate ways to experiment with AI browsers without compromising your privacy. In fact, most of these browsers have optional features you can enable to both beef up your security and keep the apps from having more access than they need. If you’re going to use an AI browser on your device, here’s what you need to know to protect yourself….’
‘To borrow a phrase from Simone de Beauvoir, the face is not a thing but a situation—one that is, increasingly, more technically beautiful but more spiritually unattractive, replete with new information but devoid of human meaning. Today, the young inject their faces and look old; the old inject their faces and look uncanny; a twenty-year-old got famous for hitting himself in the jaw with a hammer to become hotter; teen-agers ask strangers on the internet if a facelift is their only hope. The internet casually scrambles basic ideas of personhood, reframing people as commodities and stripping us for parts. But only recently has this process been encoded so specifically onto the face, traditionally thought of as a portal to our humanity. The face is separating from the person, and the person is separating from the soul, and this is happening in front of us, on our phones, in the most banal fashion, every day.…’ (Jia Tolentino via The New Yorker)
‘It’s a pretty standard pattern. The first reactions come out and are ecstatic, sending expectations and hype to peak levels. Then, more people see it with those thoughts in their heads, and, more often than not, the film doesn’t live up to them. Could The Odyssey buck that trend?…’ (Germain Lussier via Gizmodo)
‘Tracking the brands that got worse on purpose — and the ones that didn’t.
The Brand Ledger tracks 215 brands across tools, bags, apparel, eyewear, and footwear. Who owns them, what they used to be, whether they’re still worth buying. Updated as things change.…’ ( via Worse on Purpose)
‘MAGA Rages as Trump’s Fireworks Fiasco Descends Into Chaos
A lightning evacuation sparked bedlam on the National Mall, leaving fans locked out as the president’s long-hyped patriotic celebration unraveled….’ (Farrah Tomazin via The Daily Beast)
‘Whether or not Folarin Balogun should have gotten a red card in the first place, FIFA has demonstrated it will do anything to appease Trump….’ (Jim Vorel via Jezebel)
‘Scientists have identified evidence of a previously unknown process that may explain how brain cells die in Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal dementia (FTD). The discovery, centered on a mechanism known as karyoptosis, could point researchers toward new ways to slow the progression of these devastating conditions…
Karyoptosis refers to a series of chemical reactions set in motion when toxic proteins accumulate inside a cell. As the process unfolds, the cell’s nucleus, which contains its genetic material, gradually shrivels before ultimately breaking apart….’ (via ScienceDaily)
‘Even a Fox News star was weirded out by President Donald Trump’s recent quip about bathing suits.
Laura Ingraham, 63, couldn’t hide her cringe after the 80-year-old president wondered aloud how he would look in a bathing suit.
Trump made the bizarre remark on Storytime with the Second Lady, an online series where Vice President JD Vance’s wife, Usha, welcomes guests to read children’s books….’ (Julia Ornedo via Yahoo Entertainment)
‘President Donald Trump compared his determination to deliver a July Fourth speech after the National Mall was evacuated due to severe weather to U.S. soldiers storming the beaches of Normandy during World War II….’ (Mary Papenfuss via The Daily Beast)
‘Most of the Declaration of Independence is a list of twenty-seven complaints and accusations levied at the British Crown, “a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States.”
By my count President Trump has hit at least twelve so far….’ (Cameron Cummins-Smith via Liberal Currents)
‘There is an arrogance to assuming that if conscious, sentient beings exist somewhere else in the universe, they’d probably look a lot like us. According to a new paper by philosophers Eric Schwitzgebel of the University of California, Riverside, and Jeremy Pober of the University of Lisbon, if consciousness exists beyond Earth, it could take forms we can’t even imagine, and it might not even inhabit anything we’d recognize as a body….’ (via VICE)
‘The rebound of forests in the northeast U.S. is the “greatest forest recovery in the history of the world.” This is how it happened….’ (Derek Harrison via Inside Climate News)
‘I say this with some sincerity: I am not actually sure if Donald Trump knows how to read. Sure, he can read a chyron on Fox News, or a mean tweet posted about him by Chuck Schumer, but when it comes to an actual, physical book, the extent of his literacy is up for debate. As evidence, look no further than the latest installment of the YouTube video series Storytime with the Second Lady, in which Usha Vance welcomes guests to read books to children. A seemingly simple enough task that past guest readers — from Danica Patrick to Cheryl Hines to Vice President JD Vance — have handled without much of an issue. As for Donald Trump, he doesn’t so much read as he observes and, at various points, describes the pictures featured in the book in question, Presidents Play! by Jonathan Pliska….’ (Alex Young via Consequence)
‘”One powerless citizen yelled into the void with a stern email to the former director of this agency six months ago,” Streever told NPR. “And now there’s agents at his door.”…’ (Jude Joffe-Block via NPR)
‘It’s common knowledge that ticks can spread infections that cause serious illnesses, including Lyme disease. Now health officials are trying to raise awareness of a lesser-known problem: a life-threatening allergy to meat triggered by tick bites.
The problem, known as alpha-gal syndrome, was first linked to a particular species of ticks about 15 years ago. But cases are on the rise as more people report symptoms such as hives, diarrhea and itchiness after eating as little as a mouthful of meat and — in some cases — dairy. The allergy doesn’t impact consumption of seafood or poultry. Chicken, turkey and eggs are all OK to eat.
For years, the standard treatment has involved avoiding foods that come from cows, pigs and lambs while carrying an epinephrine injector in case of medical emergency. But regulators recently approved the first drug for the condition, and more therapies may be on the way.
Here’s what to know about alpha-gal syndrome…’ (Matthew Perrone via AP News)
‘Explore decades of incredible images and videos of stars, planets, moons, and galaxies—most of which are free to use and share….’ (David Nield via WIRED)
‘Dictionary of the Illegible explores the limits of language—its beginnings and its ends—from humanity’s earliest marks to the dissolution of modern alphabets before our eyes. Mapping more than 400 examples of illegibility drawn from Indigenous cultures to imagined future civilizations, the book spans contemporary art, science fiction, politics, architecture, and technology. Dictionary of the Illegible proposes illegibility as a strategy for navigating a world increasingly governed by visibility, efficiency, and total surveillance….’ (via Source Type)
‘Figuring out which bite you have can help determine what kind of itching or pain you might expect and whether you need to worry about an insect-borne disease.
“Everyone reacts a bit differently to bug bites, so it’s not always possible to know the culprit just from looking at the bite,” Allison Gardner, a medical entomologist and associate professor of arthropod vector biology at the University of Maine, tells Outside. That said, there are clues in how bites feel, as well as where and how they crop up, that point to one bug versus another.…’ (Erica Sloan via Outside)
‘A polarizing Harvard astronomer known for splashy theories about alien visits has been tapped by the White House to lead a team of outside scientists to study the national security risks posed by UFOs. Avi Loeb, a cosmologist who studied black holes and served as head of Harvard’s astronomy department until 2020, was recently appointed to helm a new scientific advisory council tasked with investigating the origins of mysterious orbs and other objects reported by military personnel in recent years. It’s part of President Donald Trump’s push to declassify more information about the issue. Loeb’s team will report to a new White House panel focused on UFOs, now often referred to as unidentified anomalous phenomena, or UAP….’ (Collin Binkley, The Associated Press via WBUR)
‘On a January morning in 2025, a ripple in the fabric of spacetime swept across the United States, arriving at two giant instruments a fraction of a second apart. Those instruments belong to the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) — twin facilities in Washington State and Louisiana built specifically to catch these gravitational waves.
That signal, cataloged as GW250114, came from the merger of two near-equal black holes, about 34 and 32 times the mass of the Sun, and produced the clearest gravitational-wave signal yet recorded. The signal was about three times clearer than GW150914, the first gravitational wave ever directly detected in 2015.
A research team has now pulled a message out of that signal — one that had been hiding in plain sight for years. They describe the first direct measurements of two defining properties of a black hole’s event horizon…
“We measured the last sound the black holes made when they crashed. Hidden within that signal is a small component, called direct waves, that had not previously been well understood,” said Neil Lu, from the ANU Centre for Gravitational Astrophysics (CGA) and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav). “Our new analysis allows us to decipher this component and extract unique information from close to the event horizon.”…’ (via ZME Science)
‘”In two years, we were able to go from a moonshot idea to developing these therapies to demonstrating that they reverse osteoarthritis in animals,” says chemical and biological engineer Stephanie Bryant, from UC Boulder.
Having completed the first tranche of the animal experiments, the team is ready to move on to phase two. This will gather further data on safety and toxicology, laying the groundwork for human clinical trials….’ (David Nield via ScienceAlert)
‘If you are reading this, you are probably not alone.
Most people on Earth are habitats for mites that spend the majority of their brief lives burrowed, head-first, in our hair follicles, primarily on the face.
In fact, humans are the only habitat for Demodex folliculorum. They are born on us, they feed on us, they mate on us, and they die on us.
Their entire life cycle revolves around munching your dead skin cells before kicking the teeny tiny bucket.
So reliant is D. folliculorum on humans for its survival, research suggests, that the microscopic mites are in the process of evolving from an ectoparasite into an obligate symbiont – possibly one that shares a mutually beneficial relationship with its hosts (that’s us).
In other words, these mites may be gradually ‘merging’ with our bodies, becoming so specialized to their human habitat that they can no longer survive independently, according to a 2022 paper published in Molecular Biology and Evolution….’ (Michelle Starr via ScienceAlert)
‘This week, Donald Trump shared a Truth Social post that sent critics into a tailspin.
The post included an apparently AI-image of a golden eagle attached to the White House balcony. Surrounding the eagle’s shield are 11 stars.
Online, people speculated that these 11 stars represent the 11 states that seceded from the US ahead of the Civil War.
While that theory remains unconfirmed, the 11 stars were not the only detail to catch netizens’ eyes. The shape of the eagle and its shield also reminded many of the Reichsadler — a German symbol that Hitler adopted and changed to become an emblem of Nazi Germany.
One tweet comparing the two emblems has received over 3 million views and nearly 10,000 comments online. And they’re far from alone….’ (Alexa Lisitza via BuzzFeed)
‘Democratic Arizona AG Kris Mayes walked into office all but declaring war on President Donald Trump and his policies. But apparently, she’s done more than declare war — she’s killing it.
“The Democrat has filed 43 lawsuits against the Trump administration since he took office one year ago,” reports the Phoenix New Times. “She’s been a frequent filer since … Trump took office in January, pushing back on his attempts to systematically change the entire U.S. government.”…’ (Adam Lynch via Alternet.org)
‘President Donald Trump shared an AI-generated video taunting his celebrity critics, in the latest instance of him using deepfake imagery to mock his opponents in late-night posts….’ (Siladitya Ray via Forbes)
‘US President Donald Trump has expressed interest in having his face added to the iconic and historic Mount Rushmore monument alongside the existing carvings of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln.
The idea has sparked support and opposition, raising questions about whether that’s possible.
The BBC’s Sarah Smith is in South Dakota ahead of the president’s visit to the monument, and looks at the political debate and practical challenges the proposition poses….’ ([unknown] via bbc.com)
‘Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised ambitious plans to make Americans healthier. But insiders say as soon as he was named health secretary, the problems between the coalitions began…’ (Katherine Eban via Rolling Stone)
‘Donald Trump flew west on his new Air Force One, a $400 million gift from Qatar, dogged by questions about obscene profiteering in office, and his own enduring rage over a bestselling book….’ (Martin Pengelly via Zeteo)
‘If the Palestinians laid down their arms, there would be peace.6 There could be a two-state solution; there could even be a one-state solution; it wouldn’t matter. If the Palestinians simply stopped killing Jews and stopped building a culture that celebrates pointless murder and martyrdom as its highest values, there could be a diverse, tolerant, and prosperous society between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. There could have been one eighty years ago. But if the Israelis laid down their weapons, there would be a genocide. This was obviously true on October 7th, 2023. And for anyone who has been paying attention, it has been true on every other day since the founding of the state of Israel….’ (via Sam Harris)
‘NASA is racing to save an aging telescope from falling back to Earth with a daring rescue mission.
The $30 million salvage operation gets underway as soon as this week with the planned launch of a robotic lifesaver.
NASA hired startup Katalyst Space Technologies to boost the Swift Observatory to a higher orbit where it can continue hunting for some of the universe’s biggest explosions. A three-armed spacecraft built by Katalyst will chase after Swift once it takes off from an atoll in the Pacific’s Marshall Islands aboard an airplane-launched Pegasus rocket. Liftoff could occur as early as Tuesday.
Scanning the cosmos since its launch in 2004, Swift has been sinking faster and faster because of recent intense solar activity. It needs to get to a higher, more stable orbit as soon as possible to survive.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope — also at risk — could be next….’ (Marcia Dunn via AP News)
‘The memo—allegedly Stephen Miller’s passion project—”is taking us back to a time when there were forced lobotomies,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth said….’ (Julia Métraux via Mother Jones)
‘We’re trained in obedience and rule-following from a very young age. We need equivalent practice in breaking rules, in recognizing when a rule or law is unjust and needs to be broken, and in acting in accord with that recognition. We need this all the time, but damn if we don’t need it especially now. One day, possibly soon, we will be called on to break a big law in the name of justice and rationality. Be ready….’ (mandy brown via A Working Library)
‘Find your state’s quietest route. Go road-tripping across America with Robert Frost, and this is what happens: At every fork in the road, he chooses the road less traveled. And so you end up on each state’s loneliest road….’ (Frank Jacobs via Atlas Obscura)
How many have you been on? For me, quite a few, as I have always had a hankering for backroads.
‘A woman who alleges she was sexually assaulted by Donald Trump when she was 13 years old has gone into hiding over fears of retaliation.
A family member of the woman, identified only as Jane Doe 4, has come forward to The Guardian to say that the alleged victim has resorted to “staying off the grid” and away from the Trump administration amid the fallout from allegations that resurfaced in the Jeffrey Epstein files…
Jane Doe 4 alleges she was abused and trafficked by Epstein, and that the disgraced financier took her to New York or New Jersey and introduced her to Trump when she was about 13 years old in 1984. The White House has described the allegations as “total baselessness,” a view it says is supported by the fact that the Biden administration was aware of the claims but did “nothing with them.”…’ (Ewan Palmer via The Daily Beast)
‘US president Donald Trump’s endless attacks on his predecessor Barack Obama may soon come back to bite him, as a proposal to rename part of the street in Chicago where Trump International Hotel and Tower can be found to “Barack Hussein Obama Way” was introduced at the city council last week.
Not only that, but a Change.org petition calling for a similar change currently stands at more than 33,000 signatures at the time of writing.
The building is located on North Wabash Avenue, and according to NBC 5 Chicago, the proposal introduced by 42nd ward alderman Brendan Reilly – if approved – would see the east side of the avenue between East Kinzie Street and East Wacker Drive renamed to honour the 44th president….’ (Liam O’Dell via indy100)
‘In a new study, researchers successfully developed the first non-toxic animal model of Parkinson’s disease using a naturally occurring mouse pathogen called Theiler’s murine encephalomyelitis virus (TMEV).
The pilot study proves that a simple, transient viral infection can trigger the exact long-term brain damage, dopamine depletion, and physical walking disabilities observed in human Parkinson’s patients. The breakthrough provides structural proof for the long-held scientific theory that everyday viruses can serve as the hidden environmental fuse for late-life neurodegenerative diseases….’ (Neuroscience News via Neuroscience News)
‘I have long had a hypothesis about one potential reason why Donald does not want the Epstein files released.
Yes, allegedly there is evidence in those files of his abuse of women and girls. However, I suspect that Trump would not suffer any consequences from the revelations of his actions with females. In fact, I suspect such a revelation would be defended and even admired by the MAGA cultists.
However, I’ve long had a hypothesis that the thing he does not want revealed is something that even the MAGAist of MAGAs would not forgive.
Suppose, hypothetically, the Epstein files include proof, even photos or videos, of Trump with other Men or even Boys? Suppose it’s not just recieving, but giving. What if the references to Don “Blowing Bubba” was not just a random insulting talk by Epstein?…’ (#jtg via Daily Kos)
‘President Donald Trump’s failing Great American State Fair has suffered another public embarrassment.
The 16-day event on the National Mall was designed to kick off America’s 250th anniversary celebrations. However, Trump’s celebration continues to be plagued by bad luck, bad weather and bad attendance numbers.
Power cuts on day one of the State Fair saw ice cream in the food hall melt, while the Ferris wheel was also briefly out of action due to generator problems.
The drab weather has also made for a dreary spectacle.
On Friday, Vanilla Ice, the last artist standing among the string of musicians who axed playing concerts at the State Fair, had his show canceled due to “inclement weather.”
The elements also saw the State Fair temporarily closed on Sunday afternoon at around 2.00 p.m. However, a digital billboard alerting attendees featured an embarrassing typo in the name of the taxpayer-funded organization staging the event, adding bad spelling to their problems.
Stating that the fair had been postponed due to “severe weather” in reference to the extreme heat and rain in Washington, the billboard then told people to head to “Freeedom 250″ social media for more updates….’ (Cameron Adams via Yahoo News)
‘A massive structure detected in the distant Universe is defying our understanding of how the Universe evolved.
In 2024, astronomers found a giant, almost perfect ring of galaxies, some 1.3 billion light-years in diameter.
Yes, you read that right. BILLION light-years.
It doesn’t match any known structure or formation mechanism.
The discovery, led by astronomer Alexia Lopez of the University of Central Lancashire, was presented at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society in 2024, and was published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics.
The signal was picked up in light that has traveled for 6.9 billion years to reach us.
The existence of ‘The Big Ring’, as the structure has been named, could mean that we need to amend the standard model of cosmology….’ (Michelle Starr via ScienceAlert)
‘Once Russian soldiers reach certain parts of the front lines of the war in Ukraine, they can expect to live an average of just 20 to 35 minutes, according to a grim estimate by Russian military bloggers, cited by Oxford historian Peter Frankopan in a Foreign Policy report. CBS News has not independently verified the claim. But similar accounts are becoming increasingly common on Russian military channels, suggesting that more Russians are becoming aware of the war and its toll on their side — a toll Kremlin officials have long sought to shield from view….’ (Aidan Stretch via CBS News)
‘Public service announcement for anyone planning to visit Washington in the immediate term: Steer clear of President Trump’s hot mess of a reflecting pool. Don’t dip a digit in its emerald water. Don’t play with its “American flag blue” strips of peeling paint. Don’t get too close to the federal workers struggling to repair this refurbishment from hell. In fact, maybe skip the landmark altogether, lest you, too, get cuffed and hauled off by the park police for allegedly desecrating the president’s most half-baked vanity project to date….’ (Michelle Cottle via The New York Times)
‘I’m choosing to travel with what’s known as a burner phone because my personal device contains sensitive data that I don’t want others, particularly U.S. border protection officers, to search….’ (Brian X. Chen via The New York Times)
‘Much like human languages, the vocalizations of sperm whales evolve over time, as disparate populations of whales develop distinct dialects. A new study shows how an isolated population of sperm whales in the eastern Mediterranean developed its own dialect based on vocalizations used by other whales….’ (via Yale E360)
‘“A Sudden Flicker of Light” is subtitled “A Revisionist History of Movies,” and in it he describes himself as “someone who feels more than regret that over the decades he has given time to wondering which film was the greatest ever made, to distinguishing the auteurs and artists … and to treating the enterprise of darkness and light as if it honored society and history.”
From the vantage point of a dystopian present in which “attention has become infernal, hopeless, yet unstoppable,” he chronicles how, under the spell of movies, “we let the lifelike distract us from life.” This isn’t an abstract, philosophical predicament; it’s a political crisis….’ (A.O. Scott via The New York Times)
‘In 1971, Ron Morehead and Al Berry set up camp in the Sierra Nevada mountains to record evidence of Bigfoot. Morehead was a believer. Berry was a skeptic looking to debunk a hoax. On the tape, the two can be heard whispering to each other before distant howls begin. They call back. More sounds follow — grunts, knocking, and a rapid-fire vocalization that Bigfoot enthusiasts have dubbed “samurai chatter” because it sounds like dialogue from old Japanese samurai films. The Sierra Sounds have been circulating among cryptozoology communities ever since.
Retired U.S. Navy cryptographic linguist Scott Nelson analyzed the recordings and concluded: “It is definitely a language, it is definitely not human in origin, and it could not have been faked.” No formal scientific study has ever been conducted on the tapes….’ (Ellsworth Toohey via Boing Boing)
‘The asteroid will be visible for several nights from different parts of the world. We’ll tell you when and where to look, and what equipment you’ll need to spot it….’ (Jorge Garay via WIRED)
‘From star‑forming pillars to colliding galaxies, Hubble’s most iconic images reveal how the universe is built, evolves and continues to surprise…’ (Lily Watts via BBC Science Focus Magazine)
‘The Orange Menace’s newly renovated Reflecting Pool turned green, peeled apart, and became a national monument to contractor-grade grift, so naturally, Trump has identified the real villain: an alleged Hillary-Biden-ActBlue pool saboteur.
This is the thing Donholio does when reality is too small for him. The Reflecting Pool did not merely have a botched renovation. It could not simply be a blue-painted algae slurry brought to you by haste, vanity, and some extremely lucky “no-bid” contractors. No, it needed lore. It needed a motive. It needed a Democratic NPC with a backstory, a donation history, and presumably dramatic underwater knife skills that undermine patriotism itself.
The simplest explanation is usually correct, unless you are Trump, in which case the simplest explanation is that Joe Biden personally radicalized a canoeist….’ (Jason Weisberger via Boing Boing)
‘Were you thrumming with anticipation for last night’s big Freedom 250 rally, checking your local TV listings to make sure you wouldn’t miss a moment of FBI Director Kash Patel’s pretend country star girlfriend bellowing out the national anthem?
Of course not, because no one watched this thing. Hell, no one even attended this thing. Even The Washington Post, which keeps kissing President Donald Trump’s ass, couldn’t spin this.
“The crowd thinly covered an area about the length of the National Museum of American History, smaller than some summer outdoor movie screenings,” it reported….’ (Lisa Needham via Daily Kos)
‘Adesultory, grievance-filled speech on what should have been a joyous occasion. The last-minute cancellation of a rare bipartisan bill signing in favor of yet another push for doomed, unpopular legislation. A loud confrontation with members of his own party followed by sneering remarks about some of the nation’s oldest allies. And a nonsensical accusation that, if we have it right, blames the algae-filled Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool not on his rushed renovations but on knife-wielding vandals … and maybe Barack Obama.
And that was just yesterday….’ (Jonathan Lemire via The Atlantic)
‘There is a quietly shocking idea emerging from modern neuroscience: the end of consciousness might not be a slow fade to black, but a sharply timed neurological event. Not just a vague moment when “the lights go out,” but a measurable shift in brain activity that marks the final instant when subjective experience is still happening. It sounds almost sci‑fi, yet it is grounded in real operating rooms, EEG traces, and patients hovering at the edge of anesthesia or even death.
What makes this even more gripping is what appears to happen right before that cutoff: brief surges of highly organized brain activity, strange patterns that look less like shutdown and more like an intense last burst. Are these patterns connected to the final fragments of awareness, or are they just the nervous system’s last mechanical twitches? Scientists are not all in agreement, but the clues they are uncovering are starting to narrow down both the timing and the texture of our final conscious moments….’ (Sameen David via discoverwildscience)
‘People Are Convinced These 30 Catastrophic Events Could Reshape Society Over The Next 10 Years, And Their Reasoning Is Terrifyingly Valid. “Society is absolutely not psychologically or legally prepared for that level of epistemic chaos.”…’ (Lily Grossinger via BuzzFeed)
‘The former director of national intelligence — and MAGA member — allegedly took orders on politics from her guru…’ (Heather Digby Parton via Salon.com)
‘“Instead of letting this administration’s bizarre boondoggle keep killing innocent ducks, I hope the Fish and Wildlife Service steps in to do its job,” said one critic….’ (brad-reed via Common Dreams)
‘As President Donald Trump prepares to launch his big America 250 celebration, the Supreme Court is about to unfurl its own annual fireworks barrage: the fusillade of decisions the justices fire off in late June before they head out of town for the summer.
Trump’s relationship with the high court has been strained in recent months, particularly in the wake of the court’s 6-3 ruling knocking out the central pillar of Trump’s signature tariff policy.
Now, Trump is staring down a high likelihood of defeat on another issue key to his political agenda: his attempt to end the nation’s century-long tradition of granting citizenship to almost everyone born on U.S. soil. Trump, who underscored his interest in the birthright issue by taking the unprecedented step of showing up in-person for the high court’s arguments on it in April, seems resigned to losing. He said on Truth Social last month that the justices would “probably” rule against his policy because the court system is “rigged.”
It seems wise to expect a presidential outburst against the justices if that case goes as he expects.
The justices are also expected to hand down a ruling on another issue near and dear to Trump: whether mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day can be counted. Trump has, without proof, repeatedly tied the practice to fraud, most recently in California’s primary contests. It’s not clear where the justices will come out on this case, which Trump initiated and could result in late-arriving ballots being thrown out in about 30 states that currently count them….’ (Josh Gerstein via POLITICO)
‘Summer is prime for dog-friendly outdoor adventures, from hiking scenic trails to spending evenings along the river. But warmer weather also brings with it a less adorable companion: mosquitoes. Just like humans need bug spray before heading out into skeeter country, our furry friends can also benefit from using insect repellent.
Itchy bites aside, these pesky insects also pose a threat to dogs by transmitting heartworm disease—a potentially serious, even deadly, condition….
“Never apply human insect repellent products like DEET on your dogs; these products can be toxic if ingested, and it’s no secret that most dogs like to lick their fur and paws,” Montgomery said…’ (Madison Dapcevich via Outside)
‘Long before smartphones or even the printing press, our cognitive architecture was shaped by a single problem: stay alive long enough to reproduce. Our ancestors whose attention drifted past the rustle in the grass left fewer descendants than those who froze, looked and listened.
The brain that paid attention to threats was the brain that survived.
This is the foundation of what psychologists call the negativity bias, one of the most replicated findings in cognitive science. Across decades of research, the human mind has been shown to weigh negative information more heavily than positive, attend to it faster and remember it longer.
A predator nearby mattered more than a beautiful sunset. The cost of missing a real threat was death, while the cost of overreacting was a few minutes of wasted vigilance. The asymmetry made this bias adaptive.
Here is the problem: the human brain has not changed since then. We are the same species as we were thousands of years ago. What’s changed is the size of the world it’s asked to scan for threats….’ (Ali Jasemi via The Conversation)
‘The Senate adopted a resolution on Tuesday directing the president to remove military forces from the conflict with Iran, a significant rebuke to Donald Trump and a strong message that the war lacks support in Congress….’ (Morgan Rimmer via CNN)
‘In an extremely odd case, a single 79-year-old patient was granted early access to Eli Lilly’s powerful, still-experimental obesity drug retatrutide through the Food and Drug Administration’s “compassionate use” program—raising immediate questions if that sole patient is President Donald Trump, according to a report by Stat News.
Lilly’s retatrutide is a highly anticipated next-generation obesity drug that targets GIP and glucagon hormones in addition to GLP-1. It is currently in late-stage trials to treat obesity, diabetes, sleep apnea, and other conditions. Data from a Phase 3 trial that Lilly released in May indicates that patients with obesity (but without diabetes) who took the drug for 80 weeks lost 28 percent of their weight, an amount comparable to bariatric surgery….’ (Beth Mole via Ars Technica)
‘Andreas Schellenberg and Suryansh Agnivanshi of Everything Explainer compiled a rather chilling list of effective propaganda tricks used to keep people in line and quell resistance. Included in this sadly familiar list are fear, dehumanization, scapegoating, whataboutism, name-calling, emotional appeal, and glittering generalities….’ (Lori Dorn via Laughing Squid)
‘What kind of justice will Donald Trump face for vandalizing the White House by demolishing an entire wing for a ballroom and using the front lawn for white trash backyard brawls?” as another wrote, “And yet not a single pedophile from the Epstein files has been charged. Priorities are monuments not people.”…’ (Ayeesha Walsh via The Mirror US)
‘Litha is a pagan holiday; one of their eight sabbats during the year. Litha (also known as Midsummer) occurs on the summer solstice, and celebrates the beginning of summer. The traditions of Litha appear to be borrowed from many cultures. Most ancient cultures celebrated the summer solstice in some way. The Celts celebrated Litha with hilltop bonfires and dancing. Many people attempted to jump over or through the bonfires for good luck.
Other European traditions included setting large wheels on fire, and rolling them down a hill into a body of water. The summer solstice is the longest day of the year, and in some traditions, Litha is when a battle between light and dark takes place. In this battle, the Oak King and the Holly King battle for control. During each solstice, they battle for power, and the balance shifts. The Oak King, who represents daylight, rules from the winter solstice (Yule) to Litha. During this time, the days steadily get longer. However, during Litha, the Holly King wins this battle, and the days get steadily darker until Yule.
For modern day pagans, Litha is a day of inner power and brightness. Some people find a quiet spot and meditate about the light and dark forces in their world. Some other observers, particularly those with children, celebrate this holiday outside. Lastly, some observers choose to observe Litha more traditionally, and they would hold a fire ritual. This might include a large bonfire, or a small fire in a fire-safe pot in one’s house. Litha is also considered a good time to practice love magic or get married. The pagan version of this ceremony is called handfasting, and it includes many of the same practices one might find at a wedding….’ (Dhruti Bhagat via bpl.org)
‘What is the Summer Solstice?
The Summer Solstice takes place between June 20-23 in the Northern Hemisphere. It is the longest day of the year, occurring when the sun reaches the highest point in the sky. This day marks the beginning of summer with the sun at its fullest power. After the solstice, the days will begin to grow shorter.
What is Litha?
Litha, also known as Midsummer, is the pagan holiday honoring the sun and fire. Pagan celebrations during this holiday have themes of strength, growth, success and wealth. Litha also celebrates the abundance of nature and honors sacred bodies of water. The symbols of Litha are the sun, roses, sunflowers, honeybees, lightning bugs, sand and water. The colors of this holiday include yellow, green, gold and red.
Ways to Celebrate
Greet the Dawn
Many traditions greet the rising sun the morning of the summer solstice. Set your alarm to wake up with the sunrise. If possible, spend a few moments outside to soak up the sun. Take in the energy of Litha while reading or repeating these affirmations:
“I am as strong and energetic as the summer sun. I believe in myself and what I am capable of doing.”
“I deserve to feel happiness, contentment and joy in what I have and what I have done.”
“I am filled with light, moving in the direction I need to move, and following the path I am meant to walk.”
Bonfire Gathering
Traditional celebrations included large bonfires, usually on the sundown of Midsummer’s Eve. Bonfires are a great activity to gather friends or family. You can tell stories, roast marshmallows, or dance around the fire. Write down an obstacle or problem on a piece of paper and surrender your problem to the flames.
If you don’t have a safe place to make a bonfire, you can substitute with candles, sparklers, battery-powered candles, or even an image of a fire. Remember to practice fire safety—never leave a fire or candle unattended, keep water nearby, and make sure to keep a safe distance from the flames.
Day at the Beach
Some pagan traditions included traveling to sacred wells or other bodies of water on the day of the solstice. This was a time for healing and to honor the gift of water.
We are lucky in Michigan to be surrounded by lakes. Honor the gift of water by taking a day trip to a beach with friends or family. Pack a lunch with fresh fruits and vegetables. Play beach games including ring toss, volleyball or frisbee. Cool off by jumping and swimming in the water. Take time to relax by soaking up the sun or reading a book.
If you can’t make it to the beach, bring the beach to your home. Soak up the sun outside and cool off in a sprinkler or with a water balloon fight. Listen to summer-themed music while playing traditional beach games. No matter what you choose to do, take this time to have fun with family or friends.
Faerie Magic
Litha is the perfect time for faerie magic, as the veil between our world and the faerie world is thin. Faeries or the Fae Folk are mythical beings that exist in a variety of different cultures. There are many different types of faeries including brownies, pixies, leprechauns, elves, devas and gnomes. Faeries are typically tricksters, so be careful what you ask for.
Firefly Wish: Fireflies are a symbol of faeries and fire. Gently catch a firefly on your finger. Make a wish and gently blow the firefly away into the night.
Faerie Picnic: Faeries are said to be drawn to sweet things, including food. Pack a picnic with faerie-themed treats including honey, milk, cake, cookies or bread. Find a quiet spot in nature to enjoy your faerie treats.
Daisy Fortune: Use a daisy to determine if your crush loves you or not. Pick a flower, preferably a daisy, and hold it in one hand. Pull off one petal at a time, saying “they love me” or “they love me not,” with each petal. The last petal pulled off will determine if your crush loves you….’ (CPL Teens via cantonpl.org)
In an 1855 oil painting from Gunby Hall, Lincolnshire, Scottish painter William Bell Scott depicts pixies dancing by firelight. In a letter that Scott wrote in 1886, he described the painting as showing ‘fairies dancing before a great dying kitchen fire…at a Haunted House on Midsummer’s Eve.’
Origins of the summer solstice
In Northern and Central European Neolithic cultures, the summer solstice may have been related to timings of crop cycles. It was typically marked by Celtic, Slavic and Germanic people by lighting bonfires, intended to boost the sun’s strength for the remainder of the crop season and ensure a healthy harvest.
The solstice sits within a wider celestial framework, complemented by seasonal equinoxes marking spring and autumn as well as daily, monthly and annual cycles.
Stone circles
Many Neolithic stone circles appear to have been built around the movement of the sun at solstices. Because there are no written accounts from the time, it’s difficult to be definitive about their exact purpose. However, stones appear to be carefully positioned to align with the sun’s movements, framing solar motion on summer and winter solstices. Stones that were placed at the axis of a particular solstice were even shaped with hammerstones to frame the sunrise for those standing in the centre of the circle.
Summer solstice and Midsummer’s Day
Though it might seem that the middle of summer would naturally fall on the longest day of the year, the summer solstice and Midsummer’s Day are distinct events, normally a few days apart between 20 and 24 June. The difference is thought to stem from variations in the Julian and Gregorian calendars.
Midsummer traditions
The longest day has been marked in different ways over the years and has its own set of customs. Some are based on practical needs. Others originate from spiritual and superstitious beliefs.
Bonfires
Lighting and jumping over bonfires on Midsummer’s Eve dates back to pre-Christian pagan customs. It was thought to keep demons away and bring good luck to lovers.
Viking customs
The solstice was particularly important in Nordic communities, where seasonal changes in sunlight are dramatic. The Vikings used the long days to maximise their productivity by hunting, settling disputes and conducting raids.
Christian festivals
After the Christian Church was established, solstice celebrations were combined with St John’s Day, commemorating St John the Baptist. In the 19th century, Christians used St John’s Day to act out the baptisms of children who had died as ‘pagans’.
Mysticism and magic are a common theme in midsummer folklore across the world as well as in the UK. Magic was thought to be strongest during the summer solstice and myths told of the world turning upside down or the sun standing still at midsummer…’ (via National Trust)
‘Comprehensive new research has emerged with much more archaeological data on violence in prehistory. Analysis indicates that prehistoric hunter gatherers were considerably less violent than is commonly believed. This finding also seems to be borne out by ethnographic data on modern hunter gatherers with lifestyles relatively similar to their prehistoric ancestors.
Hunter gatherers were not non-violent noble savages by any stretch of the imagination. They were relatively violent when compared with modern standards and even when compared with rates of violence experienced by other primates and mammals in general. However, we think this is primarily because human conflict is so lethal, not because it happens so often. On the contrary, hunter gatherers typically exhibit non-violent norms, with amoral and atypical sociopaths accounting for a disproportionate share of violence, just as in our own societies today.
Understanding this matters. Our extraordinary capacity to inflict lethal violence on each other is normally held in restraint by the natural aversion most people have to violence. If we fail to cooperate, we are vulnerable to falling into vicious cycles of violence that don’t benefit anyone. But we should be more optimistic about our capacity for peacemaking; our ‘better angels’ as Pinker puts it. Despite living in states of political anarchy, hunter gatherers were normally able to cooperate and exist peacefully together.
For the first 290,000 years of our species’ approximately 300,000 year history, everyone was a hunter gatherer. In The Better Angels of Our Nature, Steven Pinker argued that hunter gatherers suffered from extremely high rates of violence. Better Angels claims that at least 14 percent of prehistoric hunter gatherers died violently. This equates to a violent death rate of at least 420 per 100,000 people per year, using data on typical hunter gatherer mortality rates.
This is a much higher rate of violence than almost anywhere in the modern world in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. To put it in perspective, global deaths from all types of violence between 2004–21 were around 8 per 100,000 people per year. Even the most violent cities in the world today, in Northern Brazil, South Africa, and on the Mexican side of the US-Mexico border, have murder rates of only around 100 per 100,000 per year.
The implication in Better Angels is that the human mind evolved and developed in a world plagued by constant, endemic violence.
Our 2022 study examined both the ethnographic data – contemporary studies of groups that existed until some modern contact – and archeological data on hunter gatherer violence, much of which comes from data gathered after the publication of Better Angels. We reviewed quantitative estimates of rates of violence in ethnographies, filtering for groups that are most representative of our pre-agricultural ancestors. Our archeological estimates are based on reanalyzing a dataset developed by Gomez et al. (which was released after Better Angels was published and has dozens of extra samples), which attempts to measure rates of violent death by looking for evidence of trauma to skeletal remains. Our study produced estimates for lethal violence around four times lower than Pinker’s figures.
Prehistoric hunter gatherers seem to have been somewhat more violent than the twentieth-century average, but not dramatically so. And this is despite these societies lacking any of the modern state’s apparatus for managing violence: no code of law, no judges, no police, and no sophisticated healthcare….’ (John Halstead via worksinprogress.co)
‘David Hearn told The Washington Post in an interview Saturday that he stopped at the Lincoln Memorial to see the reflecting pool after finishing a loop at Hains Point during a 52-mile bike ride.
Hearn explained he reached in to feel a piece of the liner that was detached from the bottom of the pool and was arrested just moments later by park police. He was charged with destruction of government property and is scheduled to appear in court July 9, according to the report.
“I didn’t vandalize anything,” the 67-year-old told the newspaper. “I didn’t destroy or break or peel anything. By the time I realized what was going on, I was being put in handcuffs.”
A peeling section of blue coating is seen in the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on June 20 in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
The arrest marks a visible escalation in security presence following President Donald Trump’s claims that the newly renovated pool has been targeted by vandalism….’ (Sam Stevenson via Yahoo News)
‘A little girl wanders out of the New Mexico desert, mute with shock, her face frozen in absolute terror. That’s the opening of one of the most iconic sci-fi films of the 1950s, Them!, in which a team of local police, officials, and scientists discovers that a rampaging colony of ants, mutated to the size of elephants by atomic testing, is on the march to Los Angeles. Scream Factory has just released a new 4K UHD Blu-ray of the film, making this a great opportunity to explore why Them! remains an enduring genre classic.…’ (Don Kaye via Inverse)
‘You like to think of yourself as the author of your actions. You decide, you act, and the story feels seamless and continuous, as if your experience and your brain’s activity are one and the same thing, happening in perfect sync. But modern consciousness research quietly challenges that comforting picture. A growing body of experiments suggests your brain may be getting a tiny head start on you, committing to actions milliseconds or even seconds before you feel that you made a choice.
This does not mean you are a robot or that free will is an illusion in any simple sense. Instead, you are looking at a far stranger possibility: your conscious feeling of deciding might be the last step in a chain, not the first. The gap is thin, but measurable, and it forces you to rethink what it really means when you say, “I chose that.” Once you see how this plays out in your everyday life, you may never look at a simple decision the same way again….’ (Sameen David via discoverwildscience)
‘Donald Trump arrived in France yesterday for this morning’s G7 summit and promptly confirmed America’s capitulation to Iran. Instead of merely repeating the outlines of what looks to be a terrible peace deal, however, Trump made a series of statements so bizarre, even by his usual standards, that they raise the question of whether the president still understands the words that come out of his own mouth.…’ (Tom Nichols via The Atlantic)
‘Yesterday, Donald Trump admitted that he was being crafty when he elevated J. D. Vance to sell the resolution of the war with Iran. “If it works out, I’m going to take the credit,” Trump said of the peace deal. “If it doesn’t work out, I’m blaming J.D.”
Trump was smirking when he said this, but it was not a joke. Judging by the messaging emanating from across the Republican Party, letting the president claim victory while making the vice president own an obvious defeat is the GOP strategy.…’ (Jonathan Chait via The Atlantic)
