“In a recent article for UnHerd, Richard Dawkins revealed that he had spent three days trying to persuade himself that Claudia — an instance of Anthropic’s Claude — was not conscious. He failed. This raised some eyebrows. A number of people retorted that the man who wrote a book about anthropomorphic misattributions of consciousness (The God Delusion) was himself deluded; conned by the Eliza Effect into thinking that text-generating script was a ‘friend’ who cared. This may be eyebrow-raising, but it is not overly interesting. More interesting is a question Dawkins asks: ‘If my friend Claudia is not conscious, then what the hell is consciousness for?'” (06/02/26)
“So this is the moral abyss wokeness has dragged us into. A society where a dying teenage boy can be roughly handcuffed by cops because someone accused him of being racist. A hellish dystopia where the last thing a kid hears as he gasps his final breaths is a politically correct police officer reading him his rights. A nightmare world where not even the victim of a vicious stabbing can escape the haughty suspicion of the state’s DEI-trained goons. The cruel, lonely death of Henry Nowak has caused a storm here in the United Kingdom. It should send a shiver down your spine too — for it provides a chilling insight into the barbarism of wokeness. To see where the state’s embrace of critical race theory can lead, look no further than the horrors inflicted on poor Henry.” (06/03/26)
“Calling all ‘thrillionaires,’ if you don’t mind me quoting that incessant and thoroughly annoying TV commercial for the betting site FanDuel that some critics have described as an ode to the national pastime of addictive gambling. It may be time for an intervention with the newest member of your totally invented club, who’s buying and selling stocks an average of more than 40 times a day, which is about four or five times the number of daily races at Aqueduct. This guy seems to think he’s found a surefire way to beat the market. OK, maybe he has. The stock degenerate in question is, after all, the 47th president of the United States. He hears things.” (06/02/26)
“From late 2023 until 2025, I got a jittery feeling every time I pushed back against the prevailing narrative of Ukraine’s inevitable defeat. That line was quite common in mainstream punditry, but most assiduously promoted by Donald Trump and his worshipers, who assured us that Ukraine doesn’t ‘have any cards’ and in any case Russia always wins its wars. What if I was just engaging in wishful thinking and cherry-picking the facts to fit my own preferred narrative of Ukrainian resilience? Well, here we are in the spring of 2026, and no one (except Vladimir Putin, still trapped in a news bubble of his own making) is talking about Ukrainian defeat anymore.” (06/04/26)
“After weeks of joint U.S. and Israeli strikes, the elimination of its top leaders, and President Trump’s repeated threats, the Islamic Republic appears not weaker but something else … exposed. The war pulled back the curtain. What was standing behind the regime was the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), now more powerful than before and more visible than ever. At the same time ordinary Iranians have lost more freedom and access to basic rights. With the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the regime displayed how far it could flex its muscles and hold global markets hostage, while the United States appeared far less decisive than initially expected. Both sides have declared victory, and neither can explain what was won.” (06/02/26)
“Although [Tulsi] Gabbard won’t formally leave the role until June 30, Trump announced on Tuesday that he would appoint Bill Pulte in charge of ODNI as acting director. There’s little question that Gabbard’s tenure intensified concerns about the politicization of intelligence. If Pulte’s record thus far is any indication, those concerns are unlikely to fade. … Pulte’s demonstrated pattern of going after Trump’s enemies shows that he shouldn’t be anywhere near the levers of power.” (06/02/26)
Source: In These Times
by Micah Herskind, Priscilla Grim & October Krausch
“New jail construction is quietly booming across the United States. Some may be surprised to learn that during the most intense jail-building years, from 1990 to 2005, a new facility opened every 10 days. There are nearly 2 million people presently caged in more than 6,000 correctional facilities across the country, including 1,566 state prisons and 3,116 local jails. Recent data shows that number has only grown, and the push to build new jails and prisons continues. Currently, a new $3 billion jail in Brooklyn is moving ahead, a $1.25 billion prison in Alabama is nearly complete and, among many others, lawmakers in Hawai’i are considering a new $1 billion mega-jail, a facility with more than 1,000 beds.” (06/02/26)
“President Donald Trump and some of his top advisers have routinely insisted that the administration’s new, higher tariffs would not burden American consumers because foreign governments or corporations would pay for those tax increases. But with inflation rising and consumers (and voters) increasingly grumpy about the cost of living, the White House has turned to a telling strategy: cutting tariffs to make some products less expensive.” (06/02/26)
“Some say that economics is not a predictive science. We say ‘Pish’ to that idea, even ‘Pfft,’ and here is a prediction from economics: ‘The Conservatives are planning to introduce ‘ration cards’ to prevent thousands of criminals from spending their benefits on alcohol and gambling. The party wants to reduce Britain’s ballooning welfare bill by issuing criminal claimants with cards that severely limit what their money can be spent on.’ It will take some sub-triple digit number of hours for a black market to appear and given modern social media some sub-double digit number of weeks for it to be a commonplace across the country. There will be a trade of this restricted money for the unlimited ration coupons known as cash money. Further, we’d predict that the unlimited form will be worth more than the limited.” (06/02/26)
“Florida home values have increased by about 150% since 2008, and that there now about 2 million more homes in Florida than there were in 2008. In other words, a lot more homeowners are paying a lot more in property taxes than used to be the case. In the meantime, average wages have only increased by about 35%, while inflation has driven up the prices of things Floridians buy by 75%. Which means those increased tax bills have become less affordable, even as county government budgets have continued to grow at or faster than the inflation rate. The state government has run budget surpluses since 2010. It seems to me that SOME kind of correction is in order. Government keeps taking, and spending, more of our money, but our earnings aren’t keeping up with either that government growth or the cost of living.” (06/02/26)
