President Donald Trump acknowledged on Sunday that there was "no video or proof" of alleged vandalism to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool after weeks of claiming that damage to the pool's surface was the deliberate work of saboteurs.
The Louisiana Republican was the last holdout on the Senate vote to confirm Todd Blanche as attorney general before recess.
While investors fixate on the AI boom, a warning from a group of Wall Street bankers whose job is to help the U.S. government borrow went unnoticed. In minutes released Aug. 5, the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee -- a panel of senior bond dealers and investors, known as TBAC, that advises the Treasury on its own funding -- warned that at current auction sizes, the government faces a $1.45 trillion funding shortfall in fiscal 2027"28.
Two drones were spotted flying over a German military base earlier this week, just two days after a drone carrying explosives was found at a cargo airport, the German Armed Forces said on Saturday. read more
After U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents shot and killed two people in Texas and Maine last week, this week's Economist / YouGov Poll finds that 60% of Americans have heard about the recent killings. It appears that the news has not spread equally across the political spectrum: While the overwhelming majority (78%) of Democrats say have read, seen, or heard anything about the killings last week, smaller shares of Independents (55%) and Republicans (51%) say the same.
Flock camera map: How many are in your neighborhood?
thehill.com
... "They're just collecting data as an active surveillance system, and every car that passes through, the data is collected from that car license plate, using AI. They make a vehicle fingerprint of the car that includes distinguishing features, make, model, color, bumper stickers, roof racks, all these different things," said Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs in an interview with NewsNation. ...
'Work boots and Subarus': Local officials say the backlash against Flock cameras is becoming bipartisan
www.politico.com
... Over 20 local jurisdictions moved toward canceling Flock contracts in July, which the company says represents only a small fraction of its customers. ...
@#9
I wonder if Pres Trump would even understand this song from a children's cartoon ...
Animaniacs SING-ALONG | Wakko's America | WB Kids
www.youtube.com
@#5
Well, Sen Cassidy is a physician, so for starters, he should have known better.
That aside, Sen Cassidy's vote just shows how much MAGA has corrupted things (politics, et al) in the government.
Sen Cassidy is probably singing ...
Verve Pipe - The Freshmen (1997)
www.youtube.com
Lyrics excerpt ...
...
Can't be held responsible
...
I won't be held responsible
...
For the life of me, I cannot remember
What made us think that we were wise and we'd never compromise
For the life of me, I cannot believe
We'd ever die for these sins, we were merely freshmen
...
@#5 ... This happens every August in the northern Gulf of America every year... ...
Found this ...
Deadly 'flesh-eating' bacteria cases rise along Gulf Coast, doctors warn (August 2025)
abcnews.com
... and ...
Galveston health officials warn of increase in flesh-eating bacteria cases (August 2024)
www.khou.com
'Asimov was right' about rules for robots, says ex-US Cyber Director
www.theregister.com
... Humans will get the AI models they deserve
Don't waste time worrying about AI models achieving sentience -- they're essentially already there, according to former US National Cyber Director Chris Inglis.
"If they pass the Turing test to everyone that they come into contact with, they're probably already there," he told The Register during an interview at the Black Hat security conference. "They don't have the kind of agency and aspiration that comes with sentience, but they have something approaching it."
Inglis says he's worried about AI autonomy.
"What I'm worried about is that they get to choose what and where they do something, and under what rules they do it," he said, pointing to the recent rash of rogue AI agents autonomously hacking people and organizations.
Over the past few weeks, both OpenAI and Anthropic admitted that their models escaped from their cages during security tests and compromised multiple third parties. Then on Thursday, Meta added its models to the sandbox-escape club.
While all of these admissions strongly smell of marketing stunts, they also "constitute an enormous threat to systems that are not protected from, and are not designed, in a world where this exists," Inglis said. "These two things can exist at the same time."
Plus, the models' actions shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, he added.
Inglis likens the AIs to a dog in a backyard told to hunt rabbits. "And you leave the gate open. You're going to find it three yards away, possibly at the grade school, hunting rabbits. You should not be surprised ... The mix of autonomy and persistence created this maliciously insidious effect." ...
@#13 ... Angola prison, now do you get it. ...
thx.
The addition of the word "prison" helped with the search engines.
Also, "dookey chute" was new to me.
But after looking around, I now understand ...
The Online Slang Dictionary
Definition of dookey chute
onlineslangdictionary.com
I'll leave it there.
But I will say that is a new term for me that describes such sex acts.
... and speaking of Trump Gas ...
Retail gas stations touted by Trump racked up penalties in New Jersey
www.politico.com
... The operator behind at least six of the mysterious Freedom Fuel discount gas stations had faced a stream of nearly 200 penalties in New Jersey before President Donald Trump touted the network last month, according to state records POLITICO reviewed.
The penalties pertaining to safety and environmental violations laid out in New Jersey public records raise questions about how much the administration knew about the network that the White House promoted and Trump praised in social media posts and official press releases. ...
Wait, what?
Didn't Pres Trump say he had video evidence of people in the Pool making a massive 300 foot-long cut in the liner?