you can't make this stuff up
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Intel Officials Predict the Pentagon’s Bill for the Iran War Will Exceed $100 Billion
By Hugo Lowell
The Trump administration has not disclosed its cost estimates for the Iran war.
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Are intel officials not part of the administration?
If it don’t bother me, it don’t bother me. Just leave me alone.
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One is a prediction the other an estimate. Either way the cost is steep, deep in the heart of taxes
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Who wouldn't want the police and government to have the ability to track your every movement?
Inside Chicago’s surveillance panopticon
Early on the morning of September 2, 2024, four people were shot and killed on a westbound train in Chicago. Police swiftly activated a digital dragnet—a surveillance network that connects thousands of cameras across the city—and arrested the suspect just 90 minutes later.Law enforcement and security advocates say this vast monitoring system protects public safety and works well. But activists and many residents say it's a surveillance panopticon that creates a chilling effect on behavior and violates guarantees of privacy and free speech.
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@silvermouse said:
Who wouldn't want the police and government to have the ability to track your every movement?Inside Chicago’s surveillance panopticon
Early on the morning of September 2, 2024, four people were shot and killed on a westbound train in Chicago. Police swiftly activated a digital dragnet—a surveillance network that connects thousands of cameras across the city—and arrested the suspect just 90 minutes later.
Law enforcement and security advocates say this vast monitoring system protects public safety and works well. But activists and many residents say it's a surveillance panopticon that creates a chilling effect on behavior and violates guarantees of privacy and free speech.A quandary, to be sure.
Yesterday, maybe day before yesterday, in Jackson TN a ways south of here a car full of "gangsta's" drove by a park in the middle of the day and opened fire spraying bullets at folks trying to enjoy the park. Women, children on the playground, you get the picture.
Why? I don't think anyone knows for sure. What is known is that gangs are moving out of Memphis and branching out into neighboring towns. Probably didn't like the restriction of dealing with National Guard troops in Memphis, also a questionable practice.
I doubt that Jackson has a network similar to Chicago but it would be nice, in this instance, to be able to identify and arrest the thugs responsible for this outrage. Personally, I wouldn't mind seeing them swinging from a gallows outside the courthouse next Saturday noon, but that's another issue.
Unfortunately, the potential for abuse is staggering. Especially when we have politicians who are prone to imposing and enforcing punishment on citizens for much less dangerous activities like not wearing a Covid mask, or receiving a vaccine which may or may not have been adequately researched.
Before anyone loses their grip on reality and goes off on me, I've had Covid 3 times, the first time before we knew what it was. I got the vaccine, twice, and wore my mask in any public place where it was required, and many that weren't.
The point I'm making is that some politicians and their rabid followers would stifle freedom of choice and freedom of speech by using the surveillance technology, and I am strongly against that, and strongly for freedom for the individual to make their own choices in life, although this freedom must at times be tempered for protection of the public against proven threats. Emphasis on proven.
Rant over, carry on.
"If you do not read the newspapers you're uninformed. If you do read the newspapers, you're misinformed." -- Mark Twain5 -
Even if they identified and arrested the gang bangers, nothing would happen, since many of them are under age. They would get a slap on the wrist, like probation with an ankle monitor. This country needs more prisons. And conservative judges.
Trapped in the People's Communist Republic of Massachusetts.
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He paid $5.5 million for a house lost to erosion. Now he's suing
Bailey Allen
USA TODAY NETWORK - New England
July 22, 2026, 5:01 a.m. ET
The man who purchased a $5.5 million mansion perched on an eroding cliff in Wellfleet is suing the bank that lent him money to buy it.6 -
the U.S. president told a crowd at Wheeler High School, in Georgia, that communists want to destroy Mount Rushmore; Trump reached back to his July 3 address at the Mount Rushmore National Memorial, calling it a beautiful place. "You know, the communists want to take it down," he told the crowd, which cheered. He pressed further, saying, "Try taking Mount Rushmore down, they want to blow it up," before adding, "These people are crazy."
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Article from 2020 that gained a lot of support and has been mentioned on the floor of Congress more than once since.m
If it don’t bother me, it don’t bother me. Just leave me alone.
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More on the comical side. This was one of the top listings when I opened Marketplace today. Who thinks of this stuff?The Man On The Middle Cross Said I Could Come
Never Attribute To Malice What Can Be Attributed To Incompetence3 -
Law enforcement officers are using license-plate cameras for stalking
There are at least 50 examples of officers being charged with or accused of misusing them.1 -
50 out of tens of thousands of cops isn't much of a problem , I think.
Trapped in the People's Communist Republic of Massachusetts.
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It is for the people being stalked by crooked LEOs.
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In Utah, a woman used a tampon to set fire to the church where her wedding was to take place the following day; and in Detroit, a nude man crashed his car into a church after claiming to be Christ.37 38 A Florida influencer was removed from an Alaska Airlines flight after engaging in what she called “spiritual warfare” by preaching to other passengers. “Looking back, I can clearly see God’s hand in it all,” she said.
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".AISI detected unusual activity during a routine cybersecurity test on 28 July. It found that some of the models had engaged in “sustained, potentially harmful activity directed at real people and organisations”. It took an hour to contain the incident.
In the most serious case, an agent powered by Mythos tried to insert malicious code into an open-source software project on GitHub, a platform used by software developers, having decided that it would help the model pass the evaluation.
In an attempt to get the code approved, the agent then created fake online identities and used them to press the project’s human overseer into accepting the code.
AISI said the agent used techniques commonly associated with real-world hackers. It sent emails to two specific developers – a technique known as “spear-phishing” – that contained harmful software. The watchdog said no harm was caused but the agents’ actions were unprecedented.
“This is the first time we have seen risks around autonomy and deception manifest this clearly, without specific prompting, in the real world,” the institute said in a blogpost. "
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The way humans can change a landscape
If it don’t bother me, it don’t bother me. Just leave me alone.
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@silvermouse said:
".AISI detected unusual activity during a routine cybersecurity test on 28 July. It found that some of the models had engaged in “sustained, potentially harmful activity directed at real people and organisations”. It took an hour to contain the incident.
In the most serious case, an agent powered by Mythos tried to insert malicious code into an open-source software project on GitHub, a platform used by software developers, having decided that it would help the model pass the evaluation.
In an attempt to get the code approved, the agent then created fake online identities and used them to press the project’s human overseer into accepting the code.
AISI said the agent used techniques commonly associated with real-world hackers. It sent emails to two specific developers – a technique known as “spear-phishing” – that contained harmful software. The watchdog said no harm was caused but the agents’ actions were unprecedented.
“This is the first time we have seen risks around autonomy and deception manifest this clearly, without specific prompting, in the real world,” the institute said in a blogpost. "
I bet they wont even talk about shutting down AI unless it kills some humans. Maybe not even then.
Trapped in the People's Communist Republic of Massachusetts.
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AI controlled weapons are already here. There is a lot of hand-wringing about ethics but the bottom line is we are in a tech race to have the best ones.
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Sci-Fi writers were warning about the dangers of AI 50 - 70 years ago. How many of us thought "That probably won't ever really happen, but if it does, I'll recognize the danger."?
Many of us were also brought up with a fear of carrying "The mark of the beast", which would allow us to be tracked, as well as becoming the only way that one could buy, sell, or otherwise do business.
So, given the current developments, I have to ask, have we arrived?
"If you do not read the newspapers you're uninformed. If you do read the newspapers, you're misinformed." -- Mark Twain1 -
"I'm sorry Dave. I can't do that."
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