Open thread 5/23/2025
I don’t usually care much for covers of Leonard Cohen songs – I much prefer his own renditions. But this is excellent:
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
I don’t usually care much for covers of Leonard Cohen songs – I much prefer his own renditions. But this is excellent:
Google’s Veo 3 and Flow are going to have a big impact on video production. I predict advertising will be the first industry impacted in a major way, but animators and independent film makers should also be early adopters.
I’m not sure how the existing, media production unions hold together with this change. How does one shout “scab” on a virtual picket line?
Excerpt of this at hotair today:
https://amgreatness.com/2025/05/16/trump-and-the-welcome-demise-of-the-neocon-catholic-pontificate/
Interesting nuance.
Apparently the pope, if these choices are indicative of such, is taking the catholic church in a more traditional direction. He appointed a man the
Conservative faithful of that city admire. His family is from vietnam and that is salient because they fled the communist regime by fishing boat. A fishing boat is one of the images of his crest. Multiple references there. His family were legitimate refugees.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/05/pope_leo_xiv_picks_his_first_bishops_and_for_san_diego_he_picked_a_winner.html
Your IQ goes down one point every time you utter the term ‘neocon’.
Yes neocon doesnt really fit corporatist mercantilist in some ways
Now there is a certain syncretiam between say the federalist and heritage foundation that leans to statism even though the evil project 2025 is not it (sarc) there are certain institutional precepts that seem set in stone immune from review
Why is it only thomas and alito like the other blues brother scalia have a clue
Hudson Inst., “Trump and the Gulf” (54 mins): https://www.youtube.com/live/ZDvxrZTthhA
https://open.substack.com/pub/newsfromuncibal/p/the-tyranny-of-solidarity?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=2czur
Yes its a nice cover
Yes neocon doesnt really fit corporatist mercantilist in some ways
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It’s just a cuss word used by people who could not find their balls with both hands. Catholics were not notably prominent figures in any of the three Republican administrations in office from 1981 to 2009. Robert George, whom he mentions by name, is an academician employed by Princeton who is steeped in natural law thinking. His interventions in topical questions concern social policy; he does not say much on other subjects. Richard John Neuhaus was a disaffected leftist who actually was a member of the Committee for the Free World. Fr. Neuhaus has been dead for 16 years. Anyone familiar with his writings from the period running from 1982 to 2009 knows that neither foreign relations nor immigration were topics on which he spilled much ink in that era. Michael Novak might be another example of a Catholic who associated with the Kristol and Podhoretz families. He died eight years ago; in his last years, he was not an antagonist of Trump. (Neither was Norman Podhoretz, while we’re at it). There’s Deal Hudson, but he hasn’t said much in public fora in the last 20 years. Austin Ruse is laser focused on shizzy things done by intergovernmental agencies. (Neither Hudson nor Ruse had any peculiar association with the letterhead organizations in question). It’s all a crude fantasy of his.
To quote Joe Scarborough from March 2024–
“And F you if you can’t handle the truth. This version of Biden, intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever. if it weren’t the truth, I wouldn’t say it”
In a brazen effort to gaslight people and to rewrite history, slimy Jake Tapper and Joe Scarborough are trying to convince people that the reason that they defended Biden’s mental acuity, and didn’t report on Biden’s obvious and deepening dementia, was because the Biden Administration “pulled the wool over their eyes,” convincing them that Biden’s dementia–which would have been glaringly obvious to the average observer after talking to or observing Biden operate for a few minutes–was nonexistent.*
You just can’t despise these Biden apologists and gas lighters enough.
They have no shame.
* See https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/05/jake-tapper-implies-he-joe-scarborough-were-targeted/
MAHA kicks off:
“RFK Jr. Drops Bombshell ‘MAHA’ Report Outlining ‘Existential Public Health Crisis’ And What To Do About It”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/food/maha-report-corporate-capture-and-revolving-door
…Though I have a feeling that because of the administration’s no doubt racist crusade against junk food and sugary drinks that Pritzker and Nadler (and all those other humungous rascals) are going to try to impeach RFK and DJT ASAP…
K.D. Lang’s cover of Hallelujah is hands down the best ever. Only Bob Dylan has a voice even worse than Leonard Cohen.
Jeff Buckley’s cover of Hallelujah is about as good as it gets.
Big news today on nuclear power. The president signed a series of executive orders directing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to speed up the approval of nuclear power plants.
See this discussion by Robert Bryce
https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/nuclearenergywinning
The NRC has been staffed with anti-nuclear advocates by past Democrat presidents. One of the executive orders has this observation..
“Between 1954 and 1978, the United States licensed 135 civilian nuclear reactors at 81 power plants. Since 1978, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has authorized only five new reactors, and of these, only two have been built. It charges applicants by the hour to process license applications, with prolonged timelines that maximize fees, throttling American nuclear power development. The NRC has refused to license new reactors even as significant technological advances promise to make nuclear power safer, cheaper, more adaptable, and more abundant than ever.”
Btw what happened around 1978? The three mile island incident in 1979. Even though no one working at the plant was injured and any additional dose from the small amounts of gases released was substantially less than natural background radiation, anti-nukes at the NRC used it to essentially shut down new plants.
See this assessment from the department of energy
https://www.energy.gov/ne/articles/5-facts-know-about-three-mile-island
Another thing that happened in the 70’s (1977) is that Jimmy Carter signed his infamous executive order stopping the reprocessing of nuclear fuel in the United States. Nuclear fuel is re-processed safely around the world in countries like France, Russia, and China. Even Republican presidents since Carter have not reversed this order. Let’s hope President Trump does.
The anti nuclear power left will I’m sure use their usual lawfare.
@Bob Wilson: The anti nuclear power left will I’m sure use their usual lawfare.
And they will lose. All the tech oligarchs know AI requires we double, triple our power grid.
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Artificial intelligence (AI) will require truly unprecedented amounts of energy to continue growing and maturing. Research published on Thursday says that current AI energy usage stands at 20% of global data-center power demand and will rise to 50% by year’s end.
https://pjmedia.com/rick-moran/2025/05/23/the-energy-demand-of-ai-is-about-to-become-a-huge-problem-n4940102
It was a very big PR event, a lot of his slavish citizens were there, frantically waving flags, and even crying (demonstrating their fanatical loyalty to Kim and to his regime) at the mere sight of the Great Leader, Kim Jong Un, who was in the reviewing stand, as the North Korean navy tried to launch it’s newest Destroyer, which started to roll down the ways, then, promptly rolled over, and sank.*
I wonder how many people will end up being executed, or sent to a concentration camp, to atone for this massive blow to Kim and to North Korea’s prestige?
* See https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/05/kim-jong-un-humiliated-as-new-north-korea/
@huxley, AI plus perhaps the power outage in Spain and Portugal caused a reversal in the attitudes towards nuclear power. The article by Bryce mentions the U-turns on nuclear power in the last few weeks by left leaning governments in Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Massachusetts and Colorado.
Bob WIlson: AI plus perhaps the power outage in Spain and Portugal caused a reversal in the attitudes towards nuclear power.
Quite so.
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Hungry for Energy, Amazon, Google and Microsoft Turn to Nuclear Power
Large technology companies are investing billions of dollars in nuclear energy as an emissions-free source of electricity for artificial intelligence and other businesses.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/16/business/energy-environment/amazon-google-microsoft-nuclear-energy.html
Bob Wilson,
Thanks for sharing that. Truly great news!
The Vince Show – Another World Leader Schooled In The Oval Office | Episode 49 – 05/22/25
https://commoncts.blogspot.com/2025/05/the-vince-show-another-world-leader.html
Bob Wilson on May 23, 2025 at 6:28 pm:
“Big news today on nuclear power. … See this discussion by Robert Bryce
https://robertbryce.substack.com/p/nuclearenergywinning ”
In addition to the fine work being done by Robert Bryce, Jack Devanney, of The Gordian Knot Group (GKG), [ https://gordianknotbook.com ] has just released his new book [$26] on pursuing nuclear power as the net cheapest energy alternative even to natural gas, which remains suitable for selected situations.
https://www.amazon.com/How-Make-Nuclear-Cheap-Again/dp/B0F32KLXRJ/ref=sr_1_1
How We Can Make Nuclear Cheap Again Paperback – March 30, 2025; by Jack Devanney.
[I just ordered my copy, and I even remembered to order it via Neo’s Amazon portal! ]
A 42 MB pdf file from 2024 with similar info is also available for download:
https://gordianknotbook.com/download/why-nuclear-power-has-been-a-flop/
It is not clear to me that the GKG efforts had any role in Trump’s decisions to promote nuclear energy today. But they did try to get their message to Sec’y Wright. The video of the oval office EO signings I watched suggested Trump had some decent background information on the issues with the NRC’s limiting nuclear power development/ implementations. But he manages to sound knowledgeable with even just a little briefing on some topics, plus he has his own ideas about many things.
There seems to be an increase in poorly written online articles which leave out important words, causing me to stop reading to try to figure out what the author is trying to say. I blame human writers and editors and their robot assistants.
RE: Our electronic civilization, Solar Storms, Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), Electromagnetic Pulses (EMPs), and the reason the human race needs to spread outward from our very vulnerable planet.
One of the events kicking off the stories of “The End of the World As We Know It” (TEOTWAWKI) science fiction genre is often an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP).
An (EMP)–either generated by a few nuclear weapons detonated high in the atmosphere, or occurring naturally via a massive storm of radiation, a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), from our sun–would destroy all electronics, and plunge our increasingly electronic civilization into chaos, anarchy, violence, and massive deaths, as all communication, electrical power generation and transmission systems are destroyed, all computers, ignition systems and cell phones are fried, the banking system down, “just in time” deliveries of food and medicines stop being delivered, pacemakers are fried, water and sewer systems stop running, the lights go out, the heat stops, the toilets don’t flush, all aircraft fall from the sky, cars don’t start, all modern transportation just becomes unmovable junk, and virtually every other feature of modern civilization stops functioning–as we are immediately thrown back into, say, the pre-electricity horse and buggy technology of the 18th century.
It appears that some small steps have reportedly been taken by some governments to “harden” parts of some systems against this threat, but such very expensive efforts are apparently far from comprehensive.
Destructive solar storms of this magnitude have happened in the past, and hit the Earth, the most recent the “Carrington Event” of September 1859, which impacted the few devices which then relied on electricity–the newly invented telegraphs overheated, shooting out sparks, starting some fires, and their associated wires overheated as well, developing coronas.
Had this happened today, it would have been catastrophic.
Many of these currently unpredictable solar storms have happened in the past, and the linked article details research discovering evidence of such a massive solar storm, a “Miyaki event,” which took place in 12,350 B.C–one of the six such massive solar storms which have been identified, so far, to have taken place since 12,350 B.C.–this one producing solar particles 500 times greater than the previous record, recorded by a satellite in 2005.*
Our vulnerability to these unpredictable solar storms is one of the reasons for calls by people like Elon Musk and the late Stephen Hawking for us to get off this very vulnerable planet, and to establish other population centers elsewhere in our solar system, and beyond.
* See https://wattsupwiththat.com/2025/05/23/ice-age-solar-storm-shock-trees-hold-14k-year-old-secret-that-could-crash-tech-today/
P.S. To understand just one of the aspects of our many vulnerabilities to massive EMPs, look at our dependence on Large Electrical Transformers, which are a major part of our energy grid–
These large transformers–higher capacity LETs costing $7,500,000 can weigh up to 410 tons each, and be 56 feet wide, 40 feet long, and 45 feet high, which causes its own transportation and delivery problems–and current wait time from order to delivery is 3 years.
Currently each LET is custom built, with average factory output of perhaps 50 such LETs per year.
In addition, most LET manufacturers are overseas–leading manufacturers are in Switzerland, Germany, and the U.S. (GE, with only 15% market share) with others in China, India, and Japan. *
Bottlenecks to production include access to rare types of steel.
You can imagine that if a massive EMP fried the LETs in our electrical grid, hell, in everyone’s electric grids, the chance of a timely replacement, or any replacement at all, would be nil.
* See
Department of Energy
https://www.energy.gov › sites › prod › files › Large Power Transformer Study – June 2012_0.pdf
and https://www.tdworld.com/grid-innovations/distribution/news/55246941/doe-releases-report-for-distribution-transformers-in-electrical-power-grid
P.P.S. There is lots of talk, currently, about how the spread of AI will require massive increases in electricity generation.
Now, Dax, some of those article writers are just older bots, some with arthritic fingers, kind of like some of us writing here. 🙂