Living on Turtle Time

On a warm afternoon, I broke up and turned over the soil in one of our garden boxes, then saturated it with water from the garden hose and smoothed the surface over until it was flat again.

Next, using a chopstick, I’ll create 1/4” furrows in the moist soil, into which I’ll set some cucumber seeds.

Yes, I’m resuming my Quixotic quest to grow crops that elude the garden thief that stole our tomato plants. That mystery remains unsolved.

But assuming that it is a small mammal, I’ll cover my new plants with protective wire cloches and hope for the best.

This will require patience.

***

Something else that requires patience is the California Governor’s race, which is much like watching a competition between turtles. It took days for the Democrat Beceera to pull ahead of the Republican Hilton, but he has finally done so and will apparently slowly pull further out there in the lead from here on out.

But they stop a lot.

Meanwhile, the third turtle in the race, Steyer, is ever so gradually sneaking up behind Hilton, but he’s never going to catch him.

Only two turtles can advance to the fall election, so that ballot will feature a rerun (or should we say a rewalk?) between Beceera and Hilton. Counting the ballots will go slowly, like on turtle time.

Because they stop a lot.

HEADLINES:

• More Republicans are breaking with Trump. Is it conscience or politics? (Guardian)

• The Congresswoman Who Got Trump’s Name Off the Kennedy Center (Atlantic)

• Pentagon Sees Growing Espionage Threat From Israel (NYT)

• Graham Platner’s troubles grow in Maine, and Democrats are increasingly nervous (The Hill)

• Graham Platner: The Personal is Not Political (Journal of the Plague Years)

• At least 12 shot near Ohio festival, gunmen still at large (NBC)

• Tehran targets Gulf neighbors after US attack on Iranian military sites (CNN)

• Trump undercuts Netanyahu at a critical moment (Reuters)

• Tehran says US ‘lacks will’ for stability after latest clash (Al Jazeera)

• U.S. mortgage rates are staying high – and the Federal Reserve can do little about it (PBS)

• Pope Leo, After Taking on Trump and A.I., Prepares for New Duels in Spain (NYT)

• Ebola outbreak in Central Africa could reach 20,000 cases without strong public health measures (AP)

• Voters in this city handed the tech industry its worst defeat yet in data center backlash (WP)

• AI is going to drink even more water (Reuters)

• Americans hate rising prices. AI is making it worse. (WP)

• Revenge of the AI bubble (Axios)

• 4 surprising ways AI is making your life more expensive (WP)

• Mom Disappointed Kids Not Coming Home For National Donut Day (Onion)

Trump's Anti-Immigrant Plan Exposed

(California Governor Update: Becerra is in front with 26.78%, followed by Hilton with 26.35% and Steyer with 21.35% of the votes counted. According to the AP, only 68% of the total votes have been counted.)

Among its many bad moves, perhaps the most shameful is the Trump administration’s treatment of immigrants.

Now, thanks to a former Social Security Administration executive, Jeremiah Schofield, we know that DOGE officials had planned to classify 2.7 million living people as dead, which was intended to intimidate immigrants into leaving.

The plan included some U.S. citizens and permanent residents.

Schofield revealed the plan in a 49-page whistleblower disclosure to Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.). It offers the most detailed account yet of how officials from Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service sought to use Social Security data in service of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

According to the Washington Post, “Schofield’s whistleblower complaint describes a tumultuous period inside Social Security, as career officials questioned the legality of such efforts and watched DOGE officials gain access to some of the government’s most sensitive databases. In one meeting, Schofield said, a DOGE official working with the Department of Homeland Security described the goal of declaring 2.7 million living people dead: making immigrants so miserable that they self-deported or went to Social Security offices for help, where they could be arrested.”

Social Security carried out a smaller version of the plan last year, marking 6,100 immigrants as dead.

HEADLINES:

• DOGE officials planned to mark 2.7 million living people as dead, according to a whistleblower. (WP)

• US Senate passes $70bn ICE funding bill: What comes next? (Al Jazeera)

• DOJ could still pay Jan. 6 rioters even without ‘anti-weaponization’ fund (NBC)

• Graham Platner Faces Accusations Of ‘Toxic’ Relationships And Disturbing Behavior—Days After Sexting Scandal (Forbes)

• Democrats are increasingly frustrated with Graham Platner in Maine Senate race (WP)

• Judge Says Trump Officials Must Restart Asylum and Immigration Processing (NYT)

• Trump’s Name Is Disappearing From More Than Just the Kennedy Center (Atlantic)

• Trump’s Iran war messaging is not winning over Americans – or their representatives (Guardian)

• Why can’t California count? (Silver Bulletin)

• What to know about the deal between Israel and Lebanon extending their shaky ceasefire (AP)

• The US economy added 172,000 jobs last month, extending the labor market rebound (CNN)

• America’s Farms Depend More Than Ever on a Troubled Visa Program (NYT)

• AI Agents Now Generate More Web Traffic Than Humans (CNET)

• Anthropic says the world should have option to ‘pause’ on AI (Guardian)

• Can These Ads Make You Love A.I.? (NYT)

• Zeus Lands Cameo Role As Trojan Soldier In ‘The Odyssey’ (Onion)

Nobody Knows

(They're still counting ballots in California.) 

The older I get, the whole puzzle of life on earth seems like it should be simple. We need to find the right balance that allows us all to exist together. That’s about it, but whether we will ever be able to do that is another question.

There’s a synchronicity to your life and my life and all of our lives — what each of us does affects everyone else. Everybody wants and needs the same basic things.

My Canadian-born grandmother was in a nursing home in her 90s when we went to visit one winter’s day to take her out on a day trip. We went to a nearby hilly area where we parked and watched people with sleds go up and down a gentle incline.

There was fresh snow and my tiny grandmother sat in the front seat watching for a while before pronouncing, “‘Round and ‘round everyone goes, and where they stop nobody knows.”

That was it, just a childhood rhyme. She had nothing else to say.

My grandmother stopped more than half a century now and the world has changed in dramatic ways, yet her truth remains. Everyone is still riding the merry-go-round and where they stop nobody knows.

HEADLINES:

• Trump pans ‘bad Republicans’ who voted to end the Iran war (Politico)

• Iran war powers rebuke shows how Trump is increasingly boxed in (CNN)

• Iran war live: Israel continues deadly attacks after new Lebanon ceasefire (Al Jazeera)

• The Iran Problem Trump Can’t Defer (Atlantic)

• California Had the Most Expensive Governor’s Race in U.S. History. It’s Still Not Over. (NYT)

• Three studies used by RFK Jr and allies to justify controversial vaccine policy changes facing new scrutiny (Guardian)

• Ex-Trump advisor John Bolton agrees to plead guilty to retaining classified information (MS NOW) 

• GOP immigration bill runs into turbulence amid backlash to Trump’s $1.8 billion ‘anti-weaponization’ fund (CNN)

• Supreme Court sides with FCC in clash with wireless carriers over fines (CNBC)

• Trump strips job protections from 8,000 senior federal workers (WP)

• The American Military’s Coming Marathon (Foreign Affairs)

• Pride Groups Plan for a Future Without Some of Their Biggest Corporate Sponsors (WSJ)

• Putin faces rival visions of war and peace at Russia's 'Davos'. (Reuters)

• America’s secretary of war pulls his punches on China (Economist)

• ‘You can’t handle the truth!’ Microsoft staff push back on survey results. (BI)

• Donkeys help improve patient wellbeing at psychiatric hospital (AP)

• A handful of American households pay for AI. Is the future free — or a subscription? (NPR)

• Inside the Trump-backed push to bring AI doctors into American medicine (WP)

• Energy, water use and pollution of AI and data centers rival most countries (AP)

• FCC To Investigate TV Shows Where The Mom Has Job (Onion)

Waiting for...(Hope)

In “Waiting for Godot,” Samuel Beckett described two tramps, Vladimir and Estragon, who wait endlessly by a tree for a mysterious figure named Godot. But he never arrives.

Well out here in California, we might all feel a bit like those guys as we wait for the ballots to be counted from our latest primary election.

Beckett was concerned with existentialism, the meaninglessness of life, and the futility of hope.

These ideas may be familiar to us, but I, for one, reject the futility of hope.

There are many critics of California’s primary system, which allows the top two vote-getters to move forward to compete in the general election in November.

But at least in theory, this process reduces the stranglehold the two-party system has on our politics and promotes something more akin to a parliamentary process where multiple factions of the parties get to face off and compete for votes.

Of course, in reality obscene amounts of money distort the process, and the role of campaign advertising paid for by special interests can overwhelm voters as they try to make their choices, but I still think it is better than party primaries.

At least this way minority interests get an airing.

That said, the outcome in California will almost certainly be the Democrat Becerra v. the Republican Hilton. And that in all likelihood would have been the result of party primaries as well.

So this essay was supposed to be about hope, but I guess most of us out here are just sitting back and waiting for that particular item to arrive, just like Godot.

HEADLINES:

• House votes to rebuke Trump over war with Iran (NBC)

• Iran war live: No progress on negotiations with the US – Araghchi (Al Jazeera)

• Iranian strikes in Kuwait kill 1, injure 63 as shaky ceasefire with U.S. is further tested (NBC)Yes, Russia Is Losing the War in Ukraine (Bulwark)

• Senate Republicans axe $1bn for Trump’s new White House ballroom (BBC)

• In a series of posts on his Truth Social platform early Thursday, President Donald Trump falsely claimed that prices are falling "across the board." But the biggest thing on his mind appeared to be this week’s primary elections in California. [HuffPost]

• Tense governor’s race in California unsettled as vote-counting continues (Guardian)

• Takeaways from the primary elections in California, Iowa and elsewhere (CNN)

• Yes, Russia Is Losing the War in Ukraine (Bulwark)

• The end of Trump’s ‘weaponisation’ fund is another sign Republicans are fighting back (BBC)

• Trump diverts millions from National Park visitor fees to D.C. fountains and fireworks (WP)

• From festering infections to untreated cancer, ICE detainees across the US describe medical neglect (AP)

• nfighting between the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence has led the CIA to pull back from key intelligence assessments. (Reuters)

• Trump Endorses Right-Wing Presidential Candidate in Colombia (NYT)

• EU plots long game against US digital supremacy (Politico)

• China’s Economy Is Taking Everyone Down (Atlantic)

• New forecasts lay out 2 rocky paths for global economy (Axios)

• Disney Finds Its Spine (Slate)

• Bari Weiss praises — and blames — Scott Pelley in a CBS News meeting after firing him (BI)

• U.S. Support for LGBTQ+ Issues Remains Down From Peak (Gallup)

• China has approved the world’s first invasive brain-computer chip—here’s what’s next (MIT)

• No, AI Is Not Conscious (Atlantic)

• Scientists Find Way to Supercharge Dangerous Computer ‘Worms’ With A.I. (NYT)

• lack Neighborhood Demolished To Make Room For Nothing In Particular (Onion)

 

Counting the Ballots

The Governor of California is more like a head of state. The state’s economy ranks as the fourth-largest in the world, competing with Japan’s. The state is home to everything from Hollywood to Silicon Valley.

Artificial intelligence? Headquartered here.

Shohei Ohtani? Plays here.

So when it comes to counting their votes for Governor, Californians know a lot is at stake.

As I publish this morning, 58 percent of the vote is in. Republican Steve Hilton is in the lead with 27.8 percent, closely followed by Democrat Xavier Becerra at 25.4 percent.

Democrat Tom Steyer is third with 19.6 percent.

The only other candidate in double figures is Republican Chad Bianco with 11.3 percent.

California provides universal mail-in ballots, which are valid if postmarked by Election Day and received by election officials up to seven days later.

Many, many voters take advantage of mail-in ballots. Take me, for example. I’ve lived at my current address for six years but I’ve never been to my polling place. In fact, I don’t even know where it is.

As for which two candidates will ultimately prevail, it appears that will be Hilton and Becerra. But Steyer remains close enough behind the front-runners that no one can call the race yet.

The preponderance of mail-in ballots will be Democratic, which may well carry Becerra to the top of the pack. Hilton’s strong showing probably means he will be the other candidate to move on to the November ballot.

But the math gets really difficult for Steyer. He should get a bump from the mail-ins, just like Beceera, but it is not likely that that will be enough to overtake the top two.

So that is the report at press time. I believe it will Beceera v. Hilton in November.

And that Ohtani may win this year’s National League’s Cy Young Award.

HEADLINES:

• California primary election results: governor’s race too close to call (Guardian)

• Thune on Pulte pick: ‘We don’t need a weaponized’ director of national intelligence (The Hill)

• Alarm in Washington as Trump taps staunch loyalist to serve as intelligence chief (Guardian)

• Why the Worst Get on Top (Atlantic)

• Rebecca Bennett Wins New Jersey House Primary to Take On Thomas Kean Jr. (NYT)

• Supreme Court allows Alabama to use GOP-friendly map for midterms, cutting seat held by Black Democrat (CNN)

• Trump Signs Executive Order Seeking Oversight of A.I. Models (NYT)

• Pentagon hires convicted Jan. 6 rioter for sensitive counterterrorism job (WP)

• Trump vowed to revoke hundreds of citizenships. It’s proving harder to do (NPR)

• $1.8 Billion Fund Is ‘Not Moving Forward,’ Blanche Says (NYT)

• New Jersey sues Delaney Hall operators for access after allegations of inhumane conditions (CNN)

• Russian attack on Ukraine kills at least 16 and traps others in damaged buildings (NPR)

• As Russia fails to achieve war aims in Ukraine, Putin needs a way out (WP)

• Ukraine Turns the Tide (Foreign Affairs)

• Pentagon press office is now a classified area and off-limits to reporters (Politico)

• World’s Most-Used Weedkiller Found To Disrupt Honeybee Brains (ScienceTechDaily)

• New ways to remove CO2 from atmosphere must grow much faster, report says (Guardian)

• UN warns of extreme heat risk from El Nino. (Reuters)

• There Is Already a Word for the Deep Moral Failures of AI (Atlantic)

• AI stumbles on questions of faith (Axios)

• Young and unemployed? Remote work, not AI, may be the problem, study finds (AP)

• Trump Launches $88 Billion Fund For Anyone Who Has Ever Been Rejected By Woman (Onion)

To Be California's Governor

If you believe the polls, Former state Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra has created enough space between himself and the 60 other people vying to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom as California’s Governor that he should qualify as one of the two candidates to survive tonight’s primary election.

The question is who will be the other?

Again, if you believe the polls, it will most likely be another Democrat, billionaire Tom Steyer, or a Republican, conservative commentator Steve Hilton.

Steyer and Hilton appear to be running neck-and-neck at this late stage of the race.

At stake is whether the next five months will feature an internecine battle between the two Democrats or a more traditional contest between the two major parties.

If it’s an inner party showdown, that will pit the moderate Becerra against the progressive Steyer.

When it comes to Hilton, there’s no mystery to where he stands, as he was endorsed by Trump.

Meanwhile, Newsom will step aside courtesy of term limits and he’s widely expected to run for President in 2028.

HEADLINES:

• Trump Said to Be Backing Off Plans for $1.8 Billion Fund After Backlash (NYT)

• Iran suspends peace talks and threatens ‘closure’ of Strait of Hormuz (FT)

• Iran warns Israeli attacks in Lebanon threaten ceasefire with US (BBC)

• U.S. and Iran launch fresh strikes (NBC)

• Trump’s Iran War Success Story Gets Blown to Pieces (TNR)

• How California’s New Congressional Map Is Reshaping Tuesday’s Primaries (NYT)

• The bizarre race to succeed California Gov. Gavin Newsom (WP)

• Trump picks housing Dir. Bill Pulte as acting intelligence chief, replacing Tulsi Gabbard (CNBC)

• One by one, U.S. civil rights agency dismantles tools to fight discrimination (NPR)

• Dr. Harry Edwards on NAACP’s Call for Black Athletes to Boycott After SCOTUS Guts Voting Rights (Daily Kos)

• Losing Trust in Justice Dept., Judges Call Out Its Lawyers’ Behavior (NYT)

• The Trump administration is working on a deal to give weapons-grade plutonium to energy companies (CNN)

• Who’s leading the wide-open 2028 Democratic presidential field? (WP)

• Trump is facing a new inflation warning from the bond market, adding to his midterm challenges (AP)

• Ukraine is now Europe’s war. Survival can’t be the only aim (Economist)

• Right-wing candidate pulls ahead in first round of Colombia’s presidential vote (NPR)

• As Ebola spreads, the institute Fauci once led stays on the sidelines without a leader (NBC)

• Congrats, you never have to write another cover letter (BI)

• Is A.I. Replacing Tech Workers or Providing an Excuse for Job Cuts? (NYT)

• Florida AG sues OpenAI, seeks to hold CEO Altman personally liable for alleged harms (CNBC)

• AI fiction is the new fast food (WP)

• This University System Went All In on A.I. Now It’s Tearing Itself Apart. (NYT)

• Tearful Trump Claims He Was Sex-Trafficked By Epstein (Onion)

Talking About Climate

What makes global climate change so difficult is it feels too big and overwhelming for us as individuals to have any impact.

But that isn’t true.

In our daily lives, we can eat a more climate-friendly diet, including seasonal, local foods; install solar panels, recycle, invest in sustainable technologies, conserve resources and limit our consumption of fossil fuels, among other steps.

As citizens we can support leaders who get it and expel those who don’t from office. Organizing efforts by environmental activists have been responsible for much of the progress we’ve made on the issue; so donating to non-profits who are working on the issue is another option.

But perhaps the most important step we can take is changing the way we talk about it -- not as an apocalyptic inevitability but as a mitigable inevitability. Although it is too late to stop climate change, we may be able to limit its catastrophic effects on future generations.

In this context, converting government fleets to electric vehicles, promoting the collection of rainwater by agencies, and reducing public waste all will help. If governments mobilize for collective action, there may be ways to better prepare our populations for what is to come.

Explaining the impending crisis to young children is appropriate as long as it isn’t done in ways that overwhelm them. After all, they will be dealing with this throughout their lives, so getting used to the tradeoffs early on may spur them to help us find solutions.

Most children instinctively want to make things better; they are our greatest natural resource. 

And though the steps I’ve described may seem small in the face of the scope of climate change, they at least represent hope.

Future generations deserve at least *that* much from us...right now.

(This is an update from an essay in 2021. Getting government to take the indicated steps has obviously become much more difficult under Trump.)

HEADLINES:

• U.S. intercepted Iranian missiles targeting American forces in Kuwait, Central Command says (CNBC)

• Israel seizes Crusader-era castle as Netanyahu orders forces deeper into Lebanon (CNN)

• US strike on alleged drug boat kills three in eastern Pacific (Guardian)

• Trump floats MAGA rally instead of concert after musicians drop out of Freedom 250 (NPR)

• I Asked a Mining Billionaire About His Environmental Philanthropy. It Didn’t Go Well. (Mother Jones)

• Race for rare earths sparks concern about environmental damage (FT)

• Asia reckons with China as Trump pulls back (Politico)

• Blue states pitch 100 percent tax on Trump’s ‘anti-weaponization’ payouts (WP)

• Robotaxis Are Spreading Across the U.S.—and So Is the Backlash (WSJ)

• Astronomers finally solve Saturn’s decades-long spin mystery (ScienceDaily)

• Chinese scientists leave posts after whistle-blower raises alarm over their research (SCMP)

• Ukraine turns real-life kills into video game thrills for drone pilots (WP)

• AI Bubble Debate Gets Real as Chip Stocks Rally Turns Historic (Bloomberg)

• AI hit its COVID shutdown moment (BI)

• As the Pentagon pushes for battlefield AI, some military leaders urge caution (AP)

• Pit Bull Makes Throat-Slitting Gesture While Owner Not Looking (Onion)