More from the OpEd...

... It was the best of trends, it was the worst of trends. It was the epoch of artificial intelligence, it was the epoch of artificial inflation.

I'm truly excited to be alive at a time when AI, formerly the stuff of science fiction, is now an everyday reality and promising so many benefits to humankind.

AI is accelerating drug discovery, slashing the cost of protein folding research, diagnosing cancers earlier than human radiologists can, automating the drudgery out of nearly every white-collar job, translating speech across hundreds of languages in real time, and giving the blind a way to see the world through a camera.

AI is giving us all this and so much more. But no amount of techno-optimism can hide the fact that AI is making just about everything more expensive.

While the AI trend is making a tiny number of rich people even richer, the public at large is paying the price through rapidly rising prices; it represents a transfer of wealth from the have-nots to the haves.

AI is a machine that eats resources. It eats chips. It eats electricity. It eats water, land, labor, and building materials. AI's gluttony creates scarcity, and scarcity creates inflation.

Here are all the ways AI is driving up costs for you and me. ...

Related ...

More from the cited article ...

... In September of last year, President Trump issued an executive order targeting so-called "Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence."

But the order appears to lump in widely shared beliefs, including opposition to capitalism, among others. ...

@#14

I did when your current trolling alias posted the same thing on a different thread.

@#1,2

Picking apart the wording of the two comments, Iran said it did not take part in the talks on Sunday, but said nothing about the remainder of the week.

Meanwhile, the US seemed to ignore Sunday's snub, and said that the talks later in the week would proceed as scheduled.

Diplomatic-speak is a wonderful thing ...

Another view...

More from the article ...

... "For example one of the reasons is checking if we have access to the unfrozen funds, if there is no access then this condition has not been fulfilled," Mehdi Fazaeili said. ...

@#4 ... Move the real facilities underground and have human shields on top. ...

Did Pres Trump ever mention he bombed the school because he thought there might be something underground there? Was the missile used in the strike capable of destroying something underground?

Why destroy the school above ground and leave the other imagined facility below ground intact?

@#15

... a two year 34 Million dollar reconstruction ...
... DC'S NO SO REFLECTING POOL IS FULL OF ALGAE AFTER 34 MILLION DOLLAR RENOVATION ...

A reconstruction (was the aim to reduce algae, r fix structural problems?) that took two years will be more expensive than doing a quick, erroneous, paint job. And then driving a heavy motorcade over the fresh paint.

Congress should vote to take the aid from Israel and give it to Ukraine.

@#33

The Pogues and Joe Strummer are individually great to listen to. Together they put on an excellent performance.

One from The Pogues ...

More from the article ...

... Years before the US attacked Iran at the end of February, an intelligence analyst examining information about potential future strike targets in Iran noticed changes at a site the US had previously characterized as a naval facility belonging to the elite wing of the Iranian military in Minab city in the southeast of the country. It was, in fact, now an elementary school.

The analyst remarked on changes at the site in a digital intelligence tool, but that tool wasn't linked up to the official intelligence database that the US uses to develop strike targets and the information was never conveyed to military commanders, according to people familiar with the matter who declined to be named discussing sensitive matters.

On Feb. 28 when President Donald Trump announced the start of major combat operations against Iran, a missile struck the school. The attack killed an estimated 120 children, and nearly 200 people in all, representing the worst incident of civilian harm resulting from US operations in decades.

The analyst's remarks, which one of the people familiar with the matter said were submitted in 2019, were never heeded, and the same building was reviewed multiple more times over the following years without anyone updating the targeting database. ...

... City plans to triple system of underground pipes that distribute chilled river water, reducing need for individual cooling units ...

Similar to Mew York City's utility distributing steam to buildings for heating during the winter

@#2

Yeah, air-conditioning (called air-con, as opposed to a/c, there) is relatively rare in France, a lot of Europe for that matter.

On one business visit to Rotterdam, Netherlands, the four-star hotel I was staying in did not have air-conditioning. That week the temps hit the mid-90's.

More from the article ...

... As heatwaves intensify across Europe, most cities are reaching for a familiar fix of more air conditioning. But in 1990s Paris, planning began for a different kind of solution: one of the world's largest district cooling networks.

The system has 120kms (75-miles) of underground pipes distributing chilled water to museums, offices, hospitals, schools and other public buildings including the Louvre, the Grand Palais, and some luxury hotels and office districts. Instead of thousands of individual air-conditioning units, cooling is produced centrally and shared across the city like a utility.

The system circulates cold water through a network of pipes: cold river water from the Seine is pumped through one pipe, which runs right next to a secondary pipe carrying warm water from the city's buildings. A thin metal wall separates them and a heat exchanger allows the heat from the warm city water to enter the cold Seine water without the fluids ever touching. It is similar to holding a cup of hot tea in a bowl of cold water " the liquids don't touch, but the tea cools down. ...

More from the cited article ...

... In the episode, footage was spliced together of a speech given by Trump from January 6, 2021, which gave the impression he had urged supporters to march with him and "fight like hell" before they attacked the U.S. Capitol.

When contacted for comment, the BBC directed Newsweek to a statement issued in March, which read: "We have said throughout we will robustly defend the case against us.

Put simply -- the documentary was never aired in Florida -- or the US.

It wasn't available to watch in the US on iPlayer, online or any other streaming platforms including BritBox and BBC Select.

We have therefore challenged jurisdiction of the Florida court and filed a motion to dismiss the President's claim." ...

More from the article ...

... The images illustrate how the Republican president has dominated daily life since returning to power and, to some, evoke more the style of a monarch than the leader of the world's oldest democracy. But it's also how he has wielded that power that has led to comparisons of an imperial reign.

Since returning to office in January 2025, Trump has nominated one of his personal lawyers to serve as attorney general, ordered the Department of Justice to pursue his political enemies, deployed the U.S. Marines to the nation's second largest city and leveraged the presidency to enrich himself and his family.

He has demanded that comedians who mock him be fired, has slapped his name on the Kennedy Center, has pushed to seize control of elections, has filed lawsuits against news organizations whose coverage he disliked and has sued his own government seeking $10 billion in taxpayer money.

With the 250th anniversary of the nation's founding fast approaching, Trump's own celebrations have overshadowed the bipartisan, congressionally authorized commission that was supposed to coordinate events commemorating the moment. He plans to return to the National Mall on July Fourth for what he calls a "Trump rally."

The president's actions have led to comparisons with King George III, the British monarch whose rule inspired the American Revolution. It is a parallel Trump himself rejects. ...

Perhaps the "unfeasible" aspects were the constraints Pres Trump insisted upon.

From the cited article...

... Specifically, it balked at two requirements -- the Trump administration wanted it done by July 4, and the pool bottom had to be blue, according to two employees with the New Jersey-based Sika Corporation, which provided the concrete construction and sealing products for a 2010 renovation project to the Reflecting Pool.

According to the two employees, who spoke to CNN on the condition they not be identified, both demands made the job "unfeasible." ...

Non-paywall version of the cited article ...

Tune linked in the title comment ...

oops, looks like more than four this evening for me ...

Oh well ... :(

Tune linked in the title comment ...

Is Pres Putin losing Crimea?