News bits: A military pulse check; Deadly fake history influences the USSC; Underwater computer farm

Military.com writes:

An annual Pentagon report on extremism within the ranks reveals that 78 service members were suspected of advocating for the overthrow of the U.S. government and another 44 were suspected of engaging or supporting terrorism.

The report released Thursday by the Defense Department inspector general revealed that in fiscal 2023 there were 183 allegations of extremism across all the branches of military, broken down not only into efforts to overthrow the government and terrorism but also advocating for widespread discrimination or violence to achieve political goals.

The statistics indicate the military continues to grapple with extremism following its public denunciations and a stand-down across the services ordered by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in 2021. Furthermore, the numbers do not make it clear whether the military's approach is working. In 2021, the year the data was first released to Congress, there were 270 allegations of extremist activities. In 2022, that figure dropped to 146 before rebounding over the past year.

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Politico writes about the lies the morally bankrupt authoritarian radical right is employing at the USSC to give it cover for its radical authoritarian decisions:

‘Plain historical falsehoods’: How amicus briefs 

bolstered Supreme Court conservatives

A POLITICO review indicates most conservative briefs in high-profile cases have links to a small cadre of activists aligned with Leonard Leo

Princeton Professor Robert P. George, a leader of the conservative legal movement and confidant of the judicial activist and Donald Trump ally Leonard Leo, made the case for overturning Roe v. Wade in an amicus brief a year before the Supreme Court issued its watershed ruling.

Roe, George claimed, had been decided based on “plain historical falsehoods.” For instance, for centuries dating to English common law, he asserted, abortion has been considered a crime or “a kind of inchoate felony for felony-murder purposes.”

In his majority opinion, Justice Samuel Alito used the same quote from Henry de Bracton, the medieval English jurist, that George cited in his amicus brief to help demonstrate that “English cases dating all the way back to the 13th century corroborate the treatises’ statements that abortion was a crime.”

George, however, is not a historian. Major organizations representing historians strongly disagree with him.

That this questionable assertion is now enshrined in the court’s ruling is “a flawed and troubling precedent,” the Organization of American Historians, which represents 6,000 history scholars and experts, and the American Historical Association, the largest membership association of professional historians in the world, said in a statement. It is also a prime example of how a tight circle of conservative legal activists have built a highly effective thought chamber around the court’s conservative flank over the past decade.

A POLITICO review of tax filings, financial statements and other public documents found that Leo and his network of nonprofit groups are either directly or indirectly connected to a majority of amicus briefs filed on behalf of conservative parties in seven of the highest-profile rulings the court has issued over the past two years.

The picture that emerges is of an exceedingly small universe of mostly Christian conservative activists developing and disseminating theories to change the nation’s legal and cultural landscape. .... Adam Kennedy, Leo’s spokesperson, said Leo has “no comment at this time.”

“There’s no real vetting process for who can file these amicus briefs,” said Allison Orr Larsen, a constitutional law expert at William and Mary Law School, and the justices often “accept these historical narratives at face value.” While it’s impossible to gauge the precise impact, “what I can prove is they’re being used by the court,” she says.  

Since Leo’s handpicked justices solidified the court’s conservative supermajority in 2020, they are agreeing to hear cases advanced by his allies and ruling in favor of many of his Christian conservative priorities.  

While POLITICO’s analysis relies heavily on annual forms filed to the IRS, its approximations may underrepresent Leo’s influence over opinions presented to the court. That’s because the IRS does not require nonprofit groups to list members of advisory boards, and groups filing as churches don’t have to disclose their leadership. Leo’s organizations also route tens of millions of dollars through anonymous donor-advised funds like DonorsTrust, making it unclear where it is going.

So there we have it. The six authoritarian, Christian Republican radicals don't bother to vet the information they are fed in amicus briefs. And now, the authoritarian radical right has sunk to the level of lying about history to get court decisions that they and their God or corporate sponsors want. This is beyond an outrageous insult. It is an evil, direct attack on American democracy, civil liberties and the secular rule of law.

Leo and Gorsuch (top)

Leo and Kavanaugh (bottom)

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China is building a 732,000 sq ft data processing center about 155 ft underwater on the seabed off the coast of Hainan island south of China. The point is to save energy and water to power and cool the data processing. Techradar reports:

'A mini data center village under the sea' — China sinks tens of thousands of powerful servers in seawater as it grapples with demand for more power

The data center, which comprises 100 units spanning 68,000 square meters in size, will be constructed over five years at the bottom of the sea off the coast of Sanya, a coastal city on the island of Hainan in southern China, according to China Central Television (CCTV).

Each data storage weighs 1,300 tons and processes more than four million HD images in 30 seconds, with the performance equivalent to stitching together the processing power of 60,000 of the best conventional desktop PCs together.

The data center will save roughly 122 million kWh of electricity as well as roughly 105,000 tons of freshwater each year. This is because the freezing seawater acts as a natural cooling element, which can reduce the cost of using water as a coolant on a land-based facility.

Once completed, the data center will be between 40 and 60% more energy efficient than land-based data centers, according to general manager of the UDC Hainan pilot development project.

Hm, 100 units at 1,300 tons per unit is 130,000 tons of computer stuff. 

News bits: The AGW propaganda war update; Radical Christianity and oil; Psychological projecting

AGW (anthropogenic global warming) has been a heavily propagandized science topic for decades. The reality of it, and the fact that it is serious, is not in dispute among climate science experts. It remains heavily disputed among enraged government-hating ideologues (most Republicans (~90% ?) and Libertarians (~97% ?), corrupt cynical politicians paid off by pro-pollution business interests and religious ideologies (chemicals, transportation, oil, coal, gas, Christianity, etc.) and various crackpots spouting various mostly idiotic false theories. So far, the deniers have done a damn good job of (1) deceiving, distracting and confusing the public, and (2) blocking or slowing national and international efforts to deal with it. All of this is documented and not seriously disputed by nearly all normal, reality-attached people.

At the COP28 UN climate summit, the main or only international AGW game in existence, meeting in the staunchly pro-pollution, oil-dominated United Arab Republic, the polluter’s propaganda, lies and slanders are on display. Not surprisingly, the dark free speech onslaught is shameless and ruthless. The NYT comments:

As the world’s leaders gather this week at a major summit to discuss ways to address the effects of global warming, one of the greatest obstacles they face is disinformation.

Among the biggest sources of false or misleading information about the world’s weather, according to a report released this week: influential nations, including Russia and China, whose diplomats will be attending. Others include the companies that extract fossil fuels and the online provocateurs who make money by sharing claims that global warming is a hoax.

They spread diverse and frequently debunked falsehoods: Humans are not responsible for climate change; recent wildfires were enabled by arson rather than hotter and drier conditions; the world is cooling; oil and gas giants are leading the charge toward carbon neutrality; and warnings about the environment are an excuse for authoritarian elites to destabilize the developing world and force everyone into lockdown and onto a diet of insects and lab-grown food. (Ahhh! Insect diet! 😮)

Their efforts have already significantly eroded the public pressure and political will needed to prevent a dire future for the planet, experts said.

“What has dramatically shifted is how central to public life mis- and disinformation about climate has become,” said Jennie King, an author of a new report by Climate Action Against Disinformation, an international coalition of more than 50 environmental advocacy groups.  

The campaign against meaningful action to curb emissions is powered by an ecosystem with “weird informal allegiances and overlaps” among countries, corporations and people — all with disparate agendas and motivations but united in their desire to discredit the climate change threat, Ms. King said.

“It’s actually about the normalization of disinformation, rather than just the sheer volume,” said Ms. King, who is running the coalition’s intelligence unit at the summit. “That’s what concerns me the most — how high-traction and how emotionally resonant this kind of content seems to be.”

Notice how the dark free speech campaign against AGW truth is about the same as that routinely used by America’s radical right pro-kleptocratic tyranny political movement against democracy, civil liberties and the rule of law. 

At the current climate meeting in the UAE, a popular crackpot conspiracy on social media claims that governments use AGW as a pretext to steal land from farmers and cause deliberate food shortages. And, there are adult human beings who actually believe that obviously false bullshit. That’s no different from tens of millions of adult Americans believing the glaringly false 2020 stolen election and illegitimate Biden presidency bullshit. There’s no difference. Dark free speech works everywhere, especially if it has been normalized and accepted by a lot of people.

In my opinion, this trait of socially weak public defenses against the dark arts constitutes an existential threat to modern civilization, a huge global human population, democracies everywhere, civil liberties and the rule of law. That’s why Steve Bannon’s battle cry against democracy and truth is flood the zone with shit! (disinformation, lies, slanders, crackpot conspiracies, etc.). Unfortunately, Bannon’s shit-flooding tactic is quite effective. It could get most of us alive today literally killed if it causes civilization collapse, which it just might.

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An interview with Darren Dochuk, author of the 2019 book Anointed with Oil: How Christianity and Crude Made Modern America, was published by TGC (The Gospel Coalition) in 2019 in an article entitled, Anointed with Oil: Evangelicals and the Petroleum Industry. Here are a few bits.

DD: While writing my first book—From Bible Belt to Sunbelt—I kept coming across influential oil executives who supported the religious and political institutions I was examining. Whether it concerned California governor Ronald Reagan’s “Kitchen Cabinet” of advisers, or Christian colleges such as Pepperdine and Biola, oilmen seemed almost omnipresent in the rise of California’s (and the Sunbelt’s) conservative movement. So I thought I might “follow the money” further and see how petroleum powerbrokers shaped the course of American religion and politics.This was part professional and part personal. While writing my first book—From Bible Belt to Sunbelt—I kept coming across influential oil executives who supported the religious and political institutions I was examining. Whether it concerned California governor Ronald Reagan’s “Kitchen Cabinet” of advisers, or Christian colleges such as Pepperdine and Biola, oilmen seemed almost omnipresent in the rise of California’s (and the Sunbelt’s) conservative movement. So I thought I might “follow the money” further and see how petroleum powerbrokers shaped the course of American religion and politics.

TGC: There were sharply divergent religious attitudes in the oil industry, especially the clash between the “civil religion of crude” and “wildcat Christianity.” What divided those camps?

DD: I identify the civil religion of crude with the major (fully integrated, multinational) oil companies of the east—Standard Oil and its offshoots—and with their controlling clan, the Rockefellers. .... The Rockefellers sought to impose order on their chaotic corporate realm (and early oil was chaotic) and to reform society .... a gospel that saw oil money as a means to uplift humanity and essentially baptize people in their liberal, internationalist worldview.

The ethic of wildcat Christianity with the independent oilmen who on account of the Rockefellers’ monopoly in Pennsylvania were forced to relocate west. Enraged by the Rockefellers’ control of their industry and that family’s liberal Protestantism, the wildcatters determined to protect their individual rights to drill exploratory wells (a process called “wildcatting”) and enjoy oil’s profits on their own terms. They shored up their core principles, which were intensely evangelical: They defended the autonomy of believers and the church, as well as orthodox theological convictions espoused in the 1915 publication The Fundamentals (a project independent oilman Lyman Stewart funded to offset Rockefeller-sponsored liberalism). They emphasized the primacy of soul-winning evangelism over social restructuring, in anticipation of Christ’s impending return. .... [pumping oil in California and Texas] these independents—many of whom, like Stewart, were extremely devout—were able to build their own empires, and fight the Rockefellers for control of their industry, and ultimately of the American church.  

Throughout oil’s history there’s been a get-rich-quick tendency, as well as a concern only for short-term economic gain, not long-term human, communal, and environmental consequences. On occasion those tendencies have stemmed from the urgencies of Christian oilmen, churches, and church folk to obtain black gold quickly in order to fund ministries and missionaries, and to spread the gospel.  

I think the oil industry has been particularly receptive to Christians and Christian values. Oil has always been seen as a business in which the combination of entrepreneurialism and certainty of belief can produce quick and spectacular outcomes.

This interview, which is long and has a lot more history in it, discusses the deep entanglement of American evangelical Christianity with brass knuckles oil capitalism. It also points why so many old-time evangelicals, now morphed into radical Christian nationalists (whether they know it or not, or deny it or not), don't seem to be all that concerned about AGW and pollution from burning oil.

In the modern radicalized Republican Party brass knuckles capitalism and Christian nationalism are compatible. One can say it’s a marriage made in Hell at least for democracy, civil liberties and the rule of law. 

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In psychology projecting attributes personal feelings, desires or traits to other people, groups or things.

Projection is a standard dark free speech tactic the authoritarian radical right uses to attack political opposition and hated target groups, e.g., groups like the LQBQT community and racial minorities that God commands be vilified and oppressed. A NYT article reports about a current example:  

Trump’s Defense to Charge That He’s Anti-Democratic? 

Accuse Biden of It

Indicted over a plot to overturn an election and campaigning on promises to shatter democratic norms in a second term, Donald Trump wants voters to see Joe Biden as the bigger threat

While Mr. Trump shattered democratic norms throughout his presidency and has faced voter concerns that he would do so again in a second term, the former president in his speech repeatedly accused Mr. Biden of corrupting politics and waging a repressive “all-out war” on America.

”Joe Biden is not the defender of American democracy,” he said. “Joe Biden is the destroyer of American democracy.”

Mr. Trump has made similar attacks on Mr. Biden a staple of his speeches in Iowa and elsewhere. He frequently accuses the president broadly of corruption and of weaponizing the Justice Department to influence the 2024 election. 

But in his second of two Iowa speeches on Saturday, held at a community college gym in Cedar Rapids, Mr. Trump sharpened that line of attack, suggesting a more concerted effort by his campaign to defend against accusations that Mr. Trump has an anti-democratic bent — by going on offense.

In this case, the actual dictator DJT accuses the mildly pro-democracy Biden of being a dictator in fact. Compared to the liar and traitor DJT, Biden is a freaking patriot and paragon of secular democracy. 

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Some Sunday Fun

 Ok ok, the following might not sound funny but I had a good chuckle.

I can't say where I got the quote from or who posted it, but suffice it to say, it perfectly illustrates what Trumpers think. And it ain't pretty.

It involves a wild rant that was in response to an article:

Trump’s Second-Term Plans: Anti-‘Woke’ University, ‘Freedom Cities’ Trump’s Second-Term Plan

https://www.wsj.com/politics/elections/trumps-second-term-plans-anti-woke-university-freedom-cities-28f8123d?mod=trending_now_news_2

Now the article itself is scary enough, but this is how one Trumper responded to the article:

To those of you who are "woke" this stuff sounds crazy. To those of us who despise woke policies it sounds like common sense to spot the spread of stupidity shoved on our nation by the radical progressives who want, open borders, no penalties for crimes in America, a society of victims, Teach sex ed to k-3, hide a students health care from their parents, anyone can come to America and vote, get medical care or social safety net aid, take a crap on our streets, smoke dope and shoot up on our streets, lie about Trump Russian collusion, spy on Americans, lie to the federal FISA court and not be punished, tell us we don't need fossil fuels and must buy a EV, lock us down for over two years, ruin our kids education, pay people not to work, tell kids if they are troubled or have questions about life it's because they need to change sex even if they don't even know what's involved. Woke is pure BS. Go ahead and support Hamas murder, killing babies whenever you like and tell us we have a problem because we don't like it.

An opinion about AI: Bad recipe or mankind's salvation?

Twilight Zone, 1962

A NYT opinion by Maureen Dowd opines her view of the transformation of AI (artificial intelligence):

Sam Altman, former altruist, current 

brass knuckles capitalist

Sam Altman, Sugarcoating the Apocalypse

My favorite “Twilight Zone” episode is the one where aliens land and, in a sign of their peaceful intentions, give world leaders a book. Government cryptographers work to translate the alien language. They decipher the title — “To Serve Man” — and that’s reassuring, so interplanetary shuttles are set up.

But as the cryptographers proceed, they realize — too late — that it’s a cookbook.

That, dear reader, is the story of OpenAI.

It was founded in 2015 as a nonprofit to serve man, to keep an eye on galloping A.I. technology and ensure there were guardrails and kill switches — because when A.I. hits puberty, it will be like aliens landing.

When I interviewed them at their makeshift San Francisco headquarters back in 2016, the OpenAI founders — Sam Altman, Elon Musk, Ilya Sutskever and Greg Brockman — presented themselves as our Praetorian guard against the future threat of runaway, evil A.I., against bad actors and bad bots and all the lords of the cloud who had Mary Shelley dreams of creating a new species, humanity be damned.

“We are explicitly not trying to enrich ourselves,” Sutskever told me.

Brockman was equally high-minded: “It’s not enough just to produce this technology and toss it over the fence and say, ‘OK, our job is done. Just let the world figure it out.’”

But OpenAI is tossing a lot of alarming stuff over the fence. Musk is gone, and Altman is no longer casting himself as humanity’s watchdog. He’s running a for-profit outfit, creating an A.I. cookbook. He’s less interested in peril than investors, less concerned about existential danger than finding A.I.’s capabilities. “When you see something that is technically sweet,” Robert Oppenheimer said, “you go ahead and do it.”

The government has nibbled the edges of regulation, but the quicksilver A.I. has already leaped ahead of the snaillike lawmakers and bureaucrats. Nobody, even in Silicon Valley, has any clue how to control it.

Whatever you want to say about Musk’s recent unraveling — his manic edge, his offensive tweets, his strange, angular cybertruck — he has been passionate in working against rogue A.I. The perhaps quixotic quest of aligning A.I. progress to protect human values has caused Musk many a sleepless night and many a fractured friendship.

He lured Sutskever, a dazzling Russian engineer, from Google to OpenAI. Larry Page, a co-founder of Google and an A.I. accelerationist, was furious at his good friend Musk for poaching Sutskever and broke with him. Page dismissively told Musk he was “a specist” for siding with the human species in the A.I. argument.

Musk also scrapped with Altman. As Walter Isaacson wrote in “Elon Musk,” the mercurial mogul summoned Altman in February, asking him to bring OpenAI’s founding documents. Not too long after, Musk tweeted: “I’m still confused as to how a nonprofit to which I donated $100M somehow became a $30B market cap for-profit. If this is legal, why doesn’t everyone do it?”

Speaking to Kara Swisher, Altman called Musk a “jerk.”

As with Shakespeare, personality clashes are shaping life-or-death decisions in the battle over A.I. One thing that may have touched off the rebellion against Altman was that he diminished Sutskever’s role at the company.

Certainly, the A.I. is getting better at reasoning, making fewer mistakes, hallucinating less — the term for making up stuff — and doing complicated math puzzles.

Musk recently praised Sutskever for having “a good moral compass.” Was the young engineer, who joined the doomers on the board and delivered the bad news to Altman before recanting, influenced by his mentor at Google, Geoffrey Hinton?

Unlike Musk, who can be awkward and go into “demon mode,” according to Isaacson, Altman is smooth in his dealings with investors, techies and lawmakers, comfy in T-shirt and jeans. One top Silicon Valley scientist described the 38-year-old Altman as “weirdly adorable.” Friendly with many reporters, he has assumed the role of the upbeat face of A.I.’s future.

But do we want someone with a sunny disposition about A.I.? No. Not when, as Musk warned last Thursday, “The apocalypse could come along at any moment.”

Oh, great. If Dowd is right, we are at the mercy of squabbling, spoiled brat billionaires, sometimes in demon mode, an inept, clueless, corrupted, bickering federal government and rich brass knuckles capitalists who think Altman is “weirdly adorable” in his comfy tennies and T-shirts. 

If AI is capable of screwing us into catastrophe, the clowns, goons and capitalists running the show are probably not gonna stop it. Heck, some of ’em like Altman don't even want to stop it. There’s just so damn much money to be made and so few politicians to bamboozle and/or corrupt. MAGA?

Mm, something smells delicious

Human vindaloo!