Drudge Retort: The Other Side of the News

Drudge Retort

Menu

Subscriptions

Drudge Retort RSS feed RSS Feed

Links

Recent Comments

Recent comments from all news stories on this site. Users must follow the site's moderation policy. Personal attacks, profanity, abusive conduct and expressions of prejudice are not allowed. If you want to retrieve a comment of yours that was recently deleted, visit your user page and click the Moderation link.

More from the article ...

... David Robinson, who previously led transparency work on OpenAI's safety team, wrote in an essay for The Atlantic that the ChatGPT maker "has thrived by trial and error."

However, he said the stakes of the inevitable failures that come from that approach are growing along with the technology's capabilities, citing OpenAI's failure to prevent its AI from going rogue during testing.

"My former colleagues are smart, work hard, and try to make good choices," Robinson wrote in the essay. "But as the company sprints from one launch to the next, it is failing to achieve the level of care that I believe is needed." What's required, he added, is "something much closer to perfection the first time."

A number of employees across the top AI companies in recent weeks have warned about the potential catastrophic risks from artificial intelligence. Some have gone so far as to say there's a chance the technology could one day wipe out the human race.

Against that backdrop, Anthropic PBC Chief Executive Officer Dario Amodei called for slowing down the pace of developing the most cutting-edge models, and said his company would bring on third-party evaluators to help vet and safeguard the technology.

Others in the industry, including OpenAI's Sam Altman, have publicly endorsed Amodei's plan.

In his essay, Robinson said AI firms should be run more like nuclear power plants, "with layers of redundancy and careful, time-consuming planning, so that the occasional and inevitable human error does not open a door to disaster."

At the moment, he said, "AI companies don't know how -- but other people do." ...



Related ...

Moldova summons Russian envoy over drone, missile incursions
english.alarabiya.net

... Moldova on Saturday summoned the Russian ambassador after what it said were the latest incursions by missiles and drones into its airspace from the war in neighboring Ukraine.

It was the second time in a few days that Moldova has called in the Russian envoy, as it faces a surge in airspace violations.

For all the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.

Officials said the latest incursion saw five drones and missiles cross into Moldova and explode near settlements, causing some damage but no casualties.

The foreign ministry summoned the Russian ambassador and urged Moscow to prevent such incidents, according to a statement.

Pro-EU President Maia Sandu said the incidents showed Russia's war in Ukraine was "reaching Moldova."

"Moscow is putting lives at risk across Europe and must be stopped," she posted on X.

The government says there have been dozens of incursions this year by Russian and Iranian-made missiles and drones.

It has had to repeatedly close its airspace, and warned the incidents were endangering aviation security. ...


@#37 ... Nope. Not overlooking it. Upper tax bracket for 2025/26 is 37%. In 2027 it's still 37%. In 2028 it's 37%. OBBBA locked those in. The pre-2018 rate was 39.6%. ...

Oh please, there is more to taxes than just the tax rate.

For example, what deductions are allowed?

Big Beautiful Bill, 7 Tax Cuts That Benefit the Wealthy 2026
allaboutlawyer.com

... Here's the truth: the Big Beautiful Bill delivers $4.5 trillion in tax cuts over the next decade, and most of it flows straight to wealthy Americans.

Over the next decade, the Big Beautiful Bill will cut taxes for the richest 10 percent of Americans by more than $14,700 per year per household and cut taxes for the richest 1 percent of Americans by more than $50,000 per year, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Meanwhile, families making under $50,000 get an average tax cut of $250 - less than a dollar a day. ...

2. Estate Tax Exemption Jumps to $15 Million

This is the biggest win for the ultra-wealthy.

The federal estate tax exemption will increase to a new, "permanent" $15 million exemption as of January 1, 2026. For married couples, that's $30 million they can pass tax-free to heirs.

In 2023, only the richest 4,000 estates owed any estate tax at all, and the federal government collected $24 billion that otherwise would have flowed to the heirs and heiresses of those estates.

The increase from the pre-2017 level of $5 million to $15 million is expected to cost $212 billion through 2034. ...


More from the article ...

... COVID-19 made the weaknesses in our pandemic preparedness at national and global levels painfully clear. But a new study highlights that even at the first, local steps of an outbreak with pandemic-potential, we are worryingly underprepared.

Health officials in New York set up a regional test of healthcare facilities to identify and respond to a patient with a mystery infection that could pose a pandemic-level threat.

But things didn't go well. Overall, responses were slow, appropriate use of personal protective equipment was spotty, and only 60 percent of facilities passed the basics of the test -- an overall failing grade.

"These drills identified needs for health care workers and health care facility staff member training to achieve earlier identification, masking, and isolation of potentially infectious febrile patients," the officials wrote in the study, which was published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The drill centered on "professional patient actors," who staggered into healthcare facilities feigning expected symptoms of an H5 bird flu infection -- a virus type thought to have pandemic potential.

The actors wore makeup to look unwell, used eye drops and petroleum jelly to mimic having conjunctivitis (aka pink eye), and had a fake cough. They complained about feeling weak and feverish and reported taking a Motrin (fever reducer) before coming in. When questioned, they said they hadn't traveled out of the country and, if asked about any sick contacts, would respond, "Does a sick bird count?"

They would tell a sad tale of trying to save a sick duck they found in a park. In the story, the duck doesn't make it, and the now-ill patient didn't wear any gloves while handling it. The chatty actor would tell this story without prompting. ...


RFK Jr. Was Raw Milk's Biggest Fan. Now He Won't Return Industry Calls. (January 2026)
www.motherjones.com

... In May 2025, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sat in the White House and downed a shot of raw milk to celebrate the publication of the MAHA Report, a document full of AI slop and fake citations that was meant to present the Secretary of Health and Human Services's solutions for chronic diseases and other ailments plaguing America.

Kennedy had been a loud proponent of raw milk for years, promising in an October 2024 tweet that under his tenure the FDA, a key milk regulator, would stop "suppressing" the drink. ...




@#7

They came for Florida's sun and sand. They got soaring costs and a culture war. (2024)
www.nbcnews.com

... One of the first signs Barb Carter's move to Florida wasn't the postcard life she'd envisioned was the armadillo infestation in her home that caused $9,000 in damages. Then came a hurricane, ever present feuding over politics, and an inability to find a doctor to remove a tumor from her liver.

After a year in the Sunshine State, Carter packed her car with whatever belongings she could fit and headed back to her home state of Kansas -- selling her Florida home at a $40,000 loss and leaving behind the children and grandchildren she'd moved to be closer to.

"So many people ask, Why would you move back to Kansas?' I tell them all the same thing -- you've got to take your vacation goggles off," Carter said. "For me, it was very falsely promoted. Once living there, I thought, you know, this isn't all you guys have cracked this up to be, at all." ...


@#7 ... I dunno, California was Mexico so.... ...

Not just California.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
www.archives.gov

... The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, that brought an official end to the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), was signed on February 2, 1848, at Guadalupe Hidalgo, a city north of the capital where the Mexican government had fled with the advance of U.S. forces.

By its terms, Mexico ceded 55 percent of its territory, including the present-day states California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming. Mexico also relinquished all claims to Texas, and recognized the Rio Grande as the southern boundary with the United States ...


So, if Pres Trump seems to support Pres Putin taking back areas of Ukraine that were previously under Russian control, might Pres Trump also be OK with giving California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and Colorado, and parts of Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming back to Mexico?


@#7 ... just look at all Manami promised to win his election and so far little issues coming to fruition - one example - just raised transportation fees... ...

Mayor Mamdani's approval ratings have been ticking up since he took office.

re: the free bus rides ... well during his campaign he said he would have to work with NY State for that. And it is NY State that is balking on it, even though Mayor Mamdani has been working on getting it approved.

NYC voters give Mamdani high marks, say mayor is doing better than expected
www.washingtonpost.com

... New York City registered voters give Mayor Zohran Mamdani high job approval ratings, and the vast majority say the democratic socialist is doing better as mayor than they expected, according to a Suffolk University poll released Tuesday.

They also overwhelmingly agreed Mamdani should attend the 25th anniversary commemoration of the 9/11 attacks, despite some Republicans and relatives of victims asking him to stay away. Mamdani plans to go as the city's representative; the poll found nearly 74 percent thought he should.

Mamdani's brand of politics has helped reshape Democratic contests across the country this year, as Democratic voters nominated a suite of democratic socialists and people aligned with the movement over more traditional Democratic candidates. "

Mamdani defeated former New York governor Andrew M. Cuomo in the 2025 mayoral race with 51 percent of the vote. Fifty-six percent of New York voters said Mamdani did an excellent or good job, while 17 percent rated him "fair. " Sixty-one percent said he's done a better job than expected. ...




Taking the life of the murderer does not return the victim to his or her loved ones.

State-run executions are political theater to terrorize the population to behave better, using the ancient "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" concept as the underpinning of their moral authority.

This is vengeance or wrath, one of the so-called Seven Deadly Sins.

But innocent people have been executed because of kangaroo courts, race-based misidentification, or the need for vengeance.

The Innocence Project has exonerated hundreds of death row inmates who were falsely convicted, an issue that affects poor people, not the wealthy elites.

Moreover, once the murderer has been executed, criminal investigators lose a vital source of information for other crimes the perpetrator may have committed.

Sidenote: The British aristocracy were appalled at the decapitations of French noblemen during the Reign of Terror (~est 17,000) following the French Revolution. But 57,000 executions occured under King Henry VIII's Reign of Terror. William Shakespeare lived at a time (the Elizabethan Age) when just one state executioner himself was responsible for an estimated 3,000 decapitations. That gruesome terminator was a man named Thomas Derrick.

And how many other executioners were employed under Queen Elizabeth I throughout England, Scotland, and Wales?

"Gentle Will" was appalled by state-run violence and war and cleverly steered clear of offending Elizabeth I and her Privy Council, even while cleverly barbing her in some of his plays.

Below, Mary, Queen of Scots, at her brutal and unnecessary execution (8 February 1587):

Drudge Retort

Home | Breaking News | Comments | User Blogs | Stats | Back Page | RSS Feed | RSS Spec | DMCA Compliance | Privacy