Friday, April 25, 2025
And The Universities
Many of them were unenrolling students as soon as they they were made aware..
The Trump administration has restored the student visa registrations of thousands of foreign students studying in the United States who had minor — and often dismissed — legal infractions.
The Justice Department announced the wholesale reversal in federal court Friday after weeks of intense scrutiny by courts and dozens of restraining orders issued by judges who deemed the mass termination of students from a federal database — used by universities and the federal government to track foreign students in the U.S. — as flagrantly illegal.
Management
Somewhat tangential the specifics of our friend Mr. Hegseth, but I do think a tremendous problem with the structure of society is that many people thrust into management roles aren't just unqualified but are actually extremely unsuited for those positions.
ABC News has confirmed that in at least two separate meetings Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth accused top-ranking military officers of leaking to the media and threatened to polygraph them.
According to one person familiar with the exchanges, Hegseth was upset by media reports that he had planned a briefing for Elon Musk on China.
In a meeting with Adm. Christopher Grady, who was serving as then-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Hegseth yelled “I’ll hook you up to a [expletive] polygraph!”
Even if you're facing insubordination and rebellion, is this a smart way of dealing with it?
Clean On OPSEC
Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, had an unsecured internet connection set up in his Pentagon office so that he could bypass government security protocols and use the Signal messaging app on a personal computer, two people familiar with the line told the Associated Press.
Interventions
Most notable was discussion of the current testing levels. Musk, asked about challenges, said that they are now at a level where interventions are rare enough that it’s hard to find new problems. It was stated that “we can go many days without getting a single intervention, so you can’t easily know if you are improving.”"Our cars are so good they don't have anything else to learn, and this is a problem."
While a precise number was not given, twice Musk suggested it was around 10,000 miles, the distance a typical car drives in a year. He worries that as they get to 20,000 and 30,000 it will take a long time with their Austin test fleet to get new issues to learn from.
If this were close to being true, in a way that normal people would understand it, then they would have achieved their goals.
Are You Ready To Beg Yet, Mr. Trump
(Bloomberg) -- Tariffs are starting to hit American meat exports, with China making its biggest cancellation of pork orders since 2020, according to Thursday data from the US Department of Agriculture.
The cancellation of 12,000 metric tons of US pork was the most since the Covid-19 pandemic roiled global supply chains. For the week, overall US pork export sales fell to the lowest level since October.
Thursday, April 24, 2025
Go, King
Not enough people enjoy pissing off the Harry Potter lady.
Pedro Pascal has strongly criticised JK Rowling following her public celebration of a UK Supreme Court decision that trans women are not legally women.
The Last of Us actor left a pointed comment on Instagram under a post by activist Tariq Ra’ouf, who had urged a boycott of all future Harry Potter projects in response to Rowling’s stance.
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In his video, Tariq called Rowling’s actions “awful and disgusting” and said: “It has become our mission as the general public to make sure that every single thing that's Harry Potter related fails...because that awful disgusting s**t, that has consequences.”
Pascal not only liked the post but added his own take in the comments: “Awful disgusting S**T is exactly right. Heinous LOSER behavior.”
Pascal's sister is trans.
Seems Bad
The United States faces millions of measles cases over the next 25 years if vaccination rates for the disease drop 10 percent, according to new research published Thursday.
No change in the current vaccination rate would result in hundreds of thousands of measles cases over the same period, according to a mathematical model produced by a team of Stanford University researchers.
Time Is A Flat Circle
I know nothing, but I'd guess he has max 3 weeks to go begging to Xi before it's too late to stop serious disruptions.
And he will have to beg.
Senior administration officials are scrambling to stem economic damage from China’s restrictions on rare-earth exports, as President Donald Trump’s trade war risks cutting key industries and defense contractors off from supplies of metals crucial to production, according to three people familiar with internal deliberations.
Friedman's Revenge
I struggle these days whenever someone asks me for my political affiliation. But if you really force me, I’d describe myself as a “Waymo Democrat.” Waymos are the self-driving electric taxis started by Google. My party’s bumper sticker would read, “A chicken in every pot and a Waymo in every city.” And our TV ads would say: “Trump is for he/him — his grievances, his revenge, his corruption — and for bringing old stuff back ‘again,’ like coal and gasoline cars. Waymo Democrats are for ‘We the People’ and reinventing American industry anew.”Yes, Elon, get out those car tools and finish that product you've been promising for a decade that you are totally going to deliver one of these days. What? You want to inspect my wallet first? Sure go right ahead.
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And, finally, we’d say to Elon Musk: “Stop wasting your talents and hurting America with your DOGE craziness and finally get the Tesla robotaxi that you have been promising for a decade out on the road. The greatest gift you could give America today is to junk your stupid chain saw, replace it with car tools and create a nationwide competition with Waymo for robotaxis.”
One funny thing about the robotaxi dream is that everyone imagines they will somehow make taxi rides free or cheap. My brothers in poverty, how much do you think taxi and uber drivers earn? Just how much less per mile do you imagine your fare is going to be when you are in this much more expensive vehicle? Why exactly do taxi companies want to take responsibility for capital costs they had managed to offload onto their drivers?
I've never been in a Waymo, but people I generally trust say they basically work, though it isn't clear just how many people are inside the mechanical Turk.
Depraved Institution
When a bomb threat coincided with a pro-Palestine student protest at Barnard College last month, the New York City Police Department arrested nine demonstrators. By the next day, local and national media had picked up the story. Some outlets suggested that the protesters were responsible for the threat. “Several Barnard College protesters in custody after bomb threat made during sit-in,” read one headline.
That headline, as well as statements from Barnard College and the NYPD, overlooked a key fact: The Palestine solidarity protesters were actually the targets of the bomb threat.
Xi Begged Me, With Tears In His Eyes
Trump is going to give Hawaii to China soon.
Hilarious:Beijing on US-China tariff talks: 'All fake news'
A Chinese official on Thursday said that claims that Washington and Beijing are in active talks about tariffs were "all fake news."
Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Guo Jiakun said that the two sides have not consulted or negotiated on tariffs at all, but signaled that Beijing would be open to talks on an equal and reciprocal footing.
Beijing has called on the US to “completely cancel all unilateral tariff measures” if it wants trade talks, in some of China’s strongest comments yet on the impasse between the world’s two economic superpowers.
Beijing on Thursday also said there were “currently no economic and trade negotiations between China and the United States”, despite recent signs of softening on dispute from Washington. US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent has said in recent days that the trade war is “not sustainable” and “there would have to be a de-escalation by both sides”.
“The unilateral tariff measures were initiated by the US,” said He Yadong, a Chinese commerce ministry spokesperson. “If the US truly wants to solve the problem, it should . . . completely cancel all unilateral tariff measures against China and find a way to resolve differences through equal dialogue.”