Pablo Picasso Self portrait with palette 1906
https://twitter.com/AdamMoczar/status/2092357395536359572?s=20 https://twitter.com/BasilTheGreat/status/2092526537526374759?s=20 https://twitter.com/NaomiSeibt/status/2092292533137101071?s=20
'Europeans now pay 8.6 (!) times more for natural gas than Americans' https://t.co/8l0k7OWh6i
— Willem Middelkoop (@wmiddelkoop) August 26, 2026
President Trump Says He would Sign an Act to BAN Sharia Law in America.
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) August 26, 2026
"I would absolutely prohibit the Sharia law thing and it is happening in this country a little bit and when we see it, we take it out and you have to take it out."
Sharia law is not compatible with… pic.twitter.com/VG4b7TEyc8
“The story of Iranian success and American failure fit expectations many already held. Contradictory evidence produced cognitive dissonance.”
• Hormuz And The Law Of Diminishing Returns: When Leverage Burns (ET)
For months, the assumption that the Strait of Hormuz was Tehran’s ultimate card dominated commentary on the war.Read more …
As a narrow waterway through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil and a substantial share of liquefied natural gas had historically passed, it appeared to be a chokepoint Iran could close or severely disrupt at will. It did not need to destroy every tanker. Hitting a small percentage with drones, cruise missiles, speedboats, or mines would spike insurance rates, deter crews and companies, and effectively shut the strait without continuous physical control.This idea was not new for 2026. It had long been a feature of the Iranian strategic posture, treated as both a military instrument and a political myth-proof that even under pressure Tehran retained a decisive lever over the global energy system. Parts of the Western media and independent analysts amplified the same narrative.Relying on incomplete open-source shipping data, especially once vessels began sailing dark, many concluded that the United States had been caught unprepared and lacked a realistic path to reopen the waterway. Hormuz, they argued, was effectively closed or closable at Iran’s discretion. That framing was powerful, but also incomplete.
How the Threat Has Been Eroded
The assumption that Iran’s detection and targeting system could not be dismantled without dramatic escalation proved wrong. Under the U.S. Central Command, also known as CENTCOM, and with significant involvement from the Fifth Fleet and Air Force components, the United States ran a sustained effort to degrade the sensors Iran needed to find and hit ships. Iran relied on mobile truck-mounted radars, drones, cruise missiles, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) speedboats, and naval mines. Inside the narrow strait, ships move in relatively predictable lanes. Iran combined active radars with passive electro-optical and infrared cameras on elevated terrain and islands such as Qeshm, Larak, and Abu Musa.Mobile radars would radiate briefly to locate shipping, then shut down and move before anti-radiation missiles could arrive. Once a ship’s approximate position was known, strike systems could be sent to search. The vulnerability was that every radar emission could be detected. American aircraft responded systematically with anti-radiation missiles while visual and intelligence efforts located the passive sensors. This was the core of what some involved called “draining the swamp.” Iran had redundancy, but the number of sensors was finite. Hundreds of precision strikes gradually reduced Iran’s ability to see traffic in the strait. As the detection layer thinned, the effectiveness of the strike systems declined with it.
Parallel efforts neutralized mines with unmanned vessels and declared the southern lane near Oman largely clear. Convoys moved under escort, often at night with the automated information system (AIS) off. Arleigh Burke-class destroyers with Aegis radars and standard missile (SM)-family interceptors formed the backbone; drones and Apache helicopters armed with laser-guided rockets provided additional cover. American ships also engaged IRGC speedboats that closed on the convoys.
On the commercial side, the United States addressed insurance barriers. In early March, President Donald Trump directed the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) to provide political risk insurance and guarantees for maritime trade. The DFC, working with the Treasury and CENTCOM, established a revolving reinsurance facility of roughly $20 billion-later expanded with private partners including Chubb-focused on hull, machinery, and cargo cover. Early uptake was limited. As Iranian success rates fell, more vessels joined.
Results have been significant. CENTCOM has reported assisting well over a thousand commercial vessels and moving hundreds of millions of barrels since the spring. Independent trackers often showed lower numbers because much of the traffic sailed dark. Pre-war throughput was 20 million to 21 million barrels per day. Flows through Hormuz remain below that, but combined with the Abu Dhabi-Fujairah pipeline and Saudi Arabia’s pipeline to Yanbu in the Red Sea, volumes recovered enough to keep oil prices in the $85 to $95 range-elevated, but far from the predicted catastrophe.
Not Seeing the True Picture
Public data lagged for both technical and psychological reasons. Ships that went dark during transit normally turned their AIS trackers back on afterward, so theoretically they could have been tracked and counted, yet matching was imperfect amid overlapping night movements, incomplete satellite reception, intermittent signals, and ship-to-ship transfers. Commercial trackers attempt corrections using imagery and other data, but confidence thresholds still produce undercounts relative to what escorting forces could see.There was also a narrative reason. The story of Iranian success and American failure fit expectations many already held. Contradictory evidence produced cognitive dissonance. The common response was to protect the original frame-by applying greater skepticism to inconvenient details and treating quieter progress as temporary. In a contested information environment, narratives that confirm prior expectations often outlast those that require revision.
“..Fyodorov stated in particular, “it seems that we are gradually, slowly, losing [in the conflict].”
• Ukraine Is Definitely Losing In Conflict — Kremlin (TASS)
Dmitry Peskov The dynamics at the frontline clearly show that Ukraine is losing the conflict, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday. “The fact that Ukraine is losing the conflict is unequivocal and the dynamics in all frontline areas clearly demonstrate this,” Peskov said at a press briefing. His statement comes after Ukrainian ex-Defense Minister Mikhail Fyodorov’s interview with Reuters on Tuesday. Fyodorov stated in particular, “it seems that we are gradually, slowly, losing [in the conflict].”.Read more …
“.. it is the same cycle of promise and despair, promise and failure that, again, has done nothing but cost the lives of both Russian and Ukrainian men and increasingly women,”
• Talk of Ukrainian Victory Like ‘Groundhog Day’ – ex-US Official (RT)
Steve Gill
Repeated claims that Ukraine is about to turn the tide against Russia and achieve a military victory are like being trapped in a time loop, a former White House official has told RT. The latest wave of media reports predicting a breakthrough in Kiev’s military campaign came on the heels of an escalation in Ukrainian long-range drone strikes on Russian oil refineries, retail warehouses, and cargo ships. Ukrainian officials claimed the attacks would pressure Moscow into accepting Kiev’s terms for a peace settlement.Read more …
Russia instead intensified its own strikes, virtually paralyzing crucial Ukrainian trade through Black Sea ports and inflicting other damage. On Sunday, President Vladimir Putin said Kiev was the one that “opened Pandora’s box.” “I feel like the old American movie ‘Groundhog Day’,” conservative media host Steve Gill, who served in the office of the US Trade Representative under Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton, told RT.“How many times do we have to hear, ‘oh, it’s the spring offensive, the fall offensive, the summer offensive, the winter offensive that is going to win things for Ukraine? And it is the same cycle of promise and despair, promise and failure that, again, has done nothing but cost the lives of both Russian and Ukrainian men and increasingly women,” he added. Gill also suggested that Ukrainians who want to end the hostilities are in no position to do so because the country does not determine its own foreign policy.
“The ones who are making the decisions in Western Europe – and some in the United States, some who have the ear of President [Donald] Trump – are feeding misinformation and disinformation both through media and through the policymakers that is continuing the violence, continuing the death, and continuing this folly of Ukraine thinking that they’re somehow winning on the battlefield when nothing could be further from the truth,” he explained.
“Obstacles to Brussels’ plan – including Belgium’s fierce opposition – remain the same ..”
• EU Buries Plan To Steal Russian Assets For Ukraine – EurActiv (RT)
The EU is highly reluctant to revive plans to steal more than $200 billion in frozen Russian sovereign reserves and hand them over to cash-strapped Ukraine, EurActiv reported on Tuesday, citing sources.Read more …
On Monday, European leaders flocked to Kiev in a show of solidarity for Ukraine, which marked its 35th Independence Day, but the talks quickly turned to the country’s numerous issues, including a substantial budgetary deficit. Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky told European officials that his government still faces a €23.5 billion ($27.4 billion) shortfall on top of EU funding already promised and urged Brussels to accelerate the next instalment of its €90 billion support loan.According to EurActiv, while the EU’s attention once again pivoted to the idea of confiscating around €210 billion of Russian funds immobilized in EU institutions, mostly in the Belgian-based Euroclear, “there is little sign the issue is about to return to the table in Brussels.” “The obstacles and the reservations by a number of member states haven’t changed,” a senior EU official told the outlet.
Last year, EU officials proposed a scheme to leverage the frozen Russian assets as collateral to issue a loan to Kiev, which it would repay only after receiving reparations from Moscow. Separately, the EU had already agreed to redirect net windfall profits generated by the immobilized assets to Ukraine.Russia has condemned the asset freeze as “theft,” ruled out paying any reparations to Ukraine, and has warned the EU of harsh retaliation if it confiscates the funds one way or another.
However, the scheme – which was championed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen – met fierce opposition from a number of EU members, most notably Belgium. Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever argued that the plan would leave it uniquely exposed to legal and financial pushback from Russia. “
Taking [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s money and leaving the risks with [Belgium]. That’s not going to happen,” he said last year. Euroclear also vehemently opposed the seizure plot, at one point warning that it could sue the EU if the bloc tries to confiscate the assets. Several other EU leaders also raised concerns that confiscating Russian assets would erode international law and tarnish the bloc’s reputation and standing among investors.
Kiev has descended into complete repression at home and “outright terror” against Russian civilians, the UN envoy has said ..
• Ukraine a Western-Backed ‘Zelensky Concentration Camp’ – Moscow (RT)
Ukraine has been transformed into a “Zelensky concentration camp” with Western assistance, Russia’s envoy to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, has said, accusing Kiev of suppressing dissent at home and increasingly resorting to attacks on civilians in Russia.Read more …
Nebenzia made the remarks at a UN Security Council meeting on Monday marking the 35th anniversary of Ukraine’s declaration of independence. The session was requested by the council’s five European members – Denmark, France, Greece, Latvia, and the UK – which reiterated their full support for Kiev. The Russian diplomat questioned whether Ukraine has anything to celebrate, arguing that successive governments have run the country “into the ground” and that Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky accelerated the process.“With the most active involvement of the countries of the collective West, which claim to be ‘civilized’ and ‘democratic,’ Ukraine has morphed into a ‘Zelensky concentration camp,’ where any dissent or opposition is completely prohibited and those who find the courage to voice an alternative point of view are thrown behind bars without trial or due process, or physically eliminated,” he said.
Nebenzia described the persecution of the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the glorification of Nazi collaborators, and the suppression of shared history and the Russian language – including a ban on a popular Russian cartoon – as a “vivid illustration of the sheer wretchedness of Kiev’s rulers.”Amid a growing crackdown on dissent and a deteriorating battlefield situation, Kiev has now slipped into “outright terror against Russia’s civilian population,” Nebenzia said.
“Terror has become the last resort for Kiev in its attempt to reverse the situation that is not currently in its favor,” he added. “At the same time, Zelensky continues to beg his Western patrons for new shipments of weapons and ammunition, which are then used to hit Russian cities, residential areas, and civilian infrastructure.”The envoy said at least 475 Russian civilians were killed or injured in Ukrainian attacks from August 10 to 16 alone, with 69 fatalities, including children. He highlighted a strike on Nizhnekamsk that killed 13 people and wounded 78, as well as attacks in Novorossiysk, Rostov Region, and a number of towns in Donbass, which Kiev claims as its territory.
“It appears that Ukraine’s Western patrons, not to mention Zelensky himself, still harbor the dangerous illusion that further escalation, strikes deep inside our territory and terror against civilians will somehow force us to accept an ultimatum that is being pushed under the guise of peace.” Nebenzia said Russia retains the battlefield initiative and rejected calls for a temporary ceasefire that would give Kiev time to regroup and its Western sponsors time to rearm it. He warned that there would be no meaningful diplomatic process as long as Russia is confronted with ultimatums and threats while the reality on the ground is ignored.
The nazis have total control now, including financially. they won’t give that up voluntarily.
• Zelensky Continues To Oppose Wartime Democracy (Weeks)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is facing mounting pressure to hold elections. The Ukrainian leader was elected to a five-year term in 2019, which expired in May 2024. Last week, Ukraine’s former defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov publicly called for elections, breaking what has been characterized as a “wartime taboo” within the nation’s elite. He continued to demand elections over the weekend and also directly accused the Defense Ministry of corruption.Read more …
Fedorov is not the first high-profile Ukrainian figure to call for elections. Back in 2024, Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko denounced Zelensky and called him an “autocrat” for refusing to hold elections. But Fedorov is the first figure to have served within the upper echelons of the national government to publicly endorse the restoration of democracy. On Sunday, Zelensky released comments slamming Fedorov’s recommendation as a threat to Ukrainian national security. “I believe that if we want to destroy the country, then during such a war we can move in the selection of elections,” Zelensky said.While Zelensky has portrayed wartime elections as an existential threat to all of Ukraine, he also said he would be open to elections if the nation’s allies secured “specific conditions” that would allow all military personnel and displaced civilians, millions of people, to participate. This pledge undid the myth that Ukraine is forbidden to hold wartime elections by its own constitution under material law. It is also such an unlikely scenario; Zelensky appears open to democracy while safely shielded from it. If elections were held, he would lose.
The challenge from Fedorov is significant because the 35-year-old was the youngest minister of defense in Ukraine’s history, and his firing last month triggered protests throughout the country. Despite having no military experience, the former tech entrepreneur was viewed as revolutionizing Ukraine’s drone warfare. He only served for a few months before a rift with Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine’s armed forces at the time, prompted Zelensky to fire him.
After protests broke out following Fedorov’s sacking, Zelensky tried to placate the people by firing Syrskyi as well. This has not turned down the temperature, as protestors want Fedorov reinstated. The anger is understandable. Zelensky and his administration are keeping the nation at war, and there is no end in sight. The war has been the justification for martial law, and the martial law has been the justification for the temporary, indefinite suspension of democracy.
“.. the direction points to intelligence sharing or notification.”
• CIA Director John Ratcliffe Visited Moscow (CTH)
CIA Director John Ratcliffe made an unexpected visit to Moscow, Russia, today. According to flight data and new media reporting Director Ratcliffe flew into Latvia and from Latvia into Russia on a C-17 military transport plane.Read more …
VIA CBS – CIA Director John Ratcliffe is in Moscow, Russia, for meetings, sources familiar with the situation told CBS News on Tuesday. News of his trip comes after a U.S. Air Force Boeing C-17A Globemaster III transport plane was spotted at a Moscow airport, along with a U.S. diplomatic motorcade. Neither the U.S. nor Russian governments has commented on the identity of the U.S. official in Russia or the purpose of the visit. The CIA did not immediately comment. It appears to be Ratcliffe’s first known trip to Russia as CIA director, though he has maintained contact with Russian intelligence counterparts. (more)VIA AXIOS – CIA director John Ratcliffe is visiting Moscow on Tuesday for talks with Russian officials, two U.S. officials said. Why it matters: This is Ratcliffe’s first trip to Moscow since he took office and the highest-level visit by a Trump administration official to Russia since January. Ahead of Ratcliffe’s trip, the U.S. told Ukraine that a senior delegation was traveling to Moscow and asked it to suspend strikes until it leaves, according to a source with knowledge of the matter. (link) We shall not speculate too much on the purpose and intent of the visit; however, overall, the direction points to intelligence sharing or notification.
Recently the British announced they would be sharing “storm shadow missile” technology with Ukraine in order for Ukraine to build them for themselves. The Storm Shadow (also known as SCALP-EG in France) is a Franco-British, long-range, air-launched cruise missile used for precision deep-strike attacks against high-value targets. Essentially, the Storm Shadow missile is the U.K version of the Tomahawk cruise missile.
Ukraine would be building those missiles with money provided by the EU from the confiscated Russian sovereign wealth fund. Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin likely doesn’t appreciate that very much. According to Visegrad, “President Putin had a major event scheduled for today, with hundreds of people preparing for it. The event was canceled due to the visit of the CIA director, according to Kremlin pool journalists.” CIA Director John Ratcliffe is now returning home from Moscow.
Trudeau and Carney are girls dressed as guys. Trump has no time for that. If they were just normal people, he’d be very nice to them.
• White House Press Release: “Ending Canada’s Free Ride” (CTH)
Hopefully CTH readers have followed this story close enough to be able to predict where it ends. The White House has released an official and scathing press release outlining the lengthy and long-term issues with Canada and trade disputes.Read more …
WHITE HOUSE – Canada has been ripping off the United States for decades — and President Donald J. Trump is done letting them get away with it. Last week, the U.S. offered Canada the most preferential market access of any country on Earth, with deep cuts on steel, aluminum, autos, lumber, and more. Instead of partnership, Canada chose unreasonable demands, walk-backs, and flat-out rejection.The record of Canadian abuse is clear and deliberate:
• FACT: Canada is joined only by the People’s Republic of China in choosing retaliation over negotiation. Their continued discriminatory treatment of U.S. commerce has burdened American workers, farmers, and businesses.
• FACT: Canada alone imposed discriminatory 25% tariffs and company-specific quotas on U.S. motor vehicles — measures applied to no other country. As a result, U.S. vehicle exports to Canada crashed 22% over the last year.
• FACT: Canada banned American wine, beer, and spirits in nearly every province and territory — while other countries have faced no such restrictions. As a result, U.S. alcohol exports to Canada collapsed 81% in a single year.
• FACT: Canada locks out U.S. dairy with tariff-rate quotas far more restrictive than those given to Europe, plus over-quota tariffs of nearly 300% — rates so extreme they function as a near-total ban and rank among the highest agricultural tariffs in the developed world.
• FACT: Canada has extracted a persistent average annual goods trade deficit of roughly $50 billion from the U.S. over the last decade — while refusing reciprocal access. FACT: Canada targeted American aerospace manufacturer Gulfstream for years. They effectively prohibited the sale of its G500, G600, G700, and G800 models while shielding its own competitor — until President Trump intervened.
• FACT: Canada’s protectionist barriers — discriminatory auto quotas, alcohol bans, and dairy lockouts — have hammered American companies. This has cost U.S. producers billions in lost sales, forced layoffs, and driven market share to foreign competitors who face none of the same restrictions.
• FACT: Without the United States, Canada could not survive. Canada sends roughly three-quarters of all its goods exports to America — and the U.S. market is where Canada gets the overwhelming majority of its money and economic oxygen.
• FACT: Canada’s failed trade policies are driving its own manufacturers south. A recent survey found 42% of Canadian manufacturers have already moved or are planning to move production to the U.S.
• FACT: Canada is doubling down on tariffs targeting American workers. Canada just announced an additional $27.6 billion in tariffs on American businesses — including a 50% tariff on American steel and aluminum, a 25% tariff on American fish, and a 25% tariff on American tools.
• FACT: The U.S. economy is approximately 13 times larger than the Canadian economy and home to over eight times as many people. The United States has the clear leverage. President Trump said it best: “Canada is easily the most difficult and unreasonable. They feel entitled, but they are not a State and will be entitled no longer!” Canadian leadership chose retaliation over partnership — and America is no longer willing to carry them.
D’oh Canada
“..,Outlines the Fracture Points and ..”:
• Canada Trade Minister LeBlanc Makes Mark Carney Look Like an Idiot (CTH)
–There are many people in Canada demanding to see the rough draft proposals of the U.S-Canada trade agreement so they can judge for themselves the issues that Carney claimed were irreconcilable. For those people this interview today by Canadian Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc will only embolden those requests.Read more …Trade Emissary LeBlanc outlined the major fracture points that drove Prime Minister Mark to reject the deal. I’ll put the full interview below which everyone should watch because what LeBlanc outlined is rather funny. Carney was obviously looking for a reason to walk away, because the fracture points were ridiculously small.
Essentially, it boils down to four issues. !1) Removal of tariffs on Canadian assembled Semi-Trucks. (2) U.S. streaming services writing code for “search engines” in the French language. (3) Canada demanding 5% of gross revenues from U.S. tech platforms, and the last one is silly because it already exists: (4) the U.S. having a right to reject a trade deal made by Canada with a non-market economy, ie. CHINA.
Taking the issues one by one we start with
• U.S. tariffs on Canadian Semi Trucks. Canada wanted tariffs on Big Rigs removed. The U.S. said no. The reason is simple. Big Rigs assembled/built in Canada are falling apart in the USA. Why? Because they are full of cheap Chinese component goods and parts that wear out quickly. The U.S. wants two things on this issue. Either: (1) Make them in the USA, or (2) stop using cheap Chinese component parts. The parts that Canada are using are not even available in the USA because we tariff and reject them, so why should we accept them when Canada installs them? Either quit using Chinese parts (hence, the trade alignment against Chinese imports), or accept a tariff equal to the rate we would apply if the product was coming directly from China.
• U.S. tariffs on Canadian Semi Trucks. Canada wanted tariffs on Big Rigs removed. The U.S. said no. The reason is simple. Big Rigs assembled/built in Canada are falling apart in the USA. Why? Because they are full of cheap Chinese component goods and parts that wear out quickly. The U.S. wants two things on this issue. Either: (1) Make them in the USA, or (2) stop using cheap Chinese component parts. The parts that Canada are using are not even available in the USA because we tariff and reject them, so why should we accept them when Canada installs them? Either quit using Chinese parts (hence, the trade alignment against Chinese imports), or accept a tariff equal to the rate we would apply if the product was coming directly from China.
• Intellectual Property. Canada was demanding 5% of U.S. tech platform gross revenue (not profit, gross), they call it a tax. Canada then uses the “tax revenue” to subsidize Canadian media and information platforms that promote the approved government message. In essence, Canada demands that information providers pay them 5% of their revenue so that Canada can subsidize information providers they approve of. This is what the Canadian government calls “cultural protection.” In reality it is state-run media using a financial system that would make Vladimir Putin blush.
• U.S. Right to Limit Canadian Trade Deals. This point is exponentially ridiculous for Canada to be upset about because the current USMCA/CUSMA already has that clause. The U.S (or Mexico) can exit the USMCA if Canada enters into a trade agreement with a “non-market” economy, ie China. [USMCA Sec 32:10]
Canada was already in violation of the USMCA/CUSMA when they entered into a trade agreement with China and agreed to import Chinese EVs. This action triggered the U.S. to become more focused on the stuff Canada was going to import; hence, the renewed emphasis on the clause.
That’s it. Prime Minister Mark Carney blew up the trade discussion based on his demand that: Canada should be allowed to make any deal they want with China; that Chinese component parts be allowed in Canadian assembled Semi Trucks; that streaming services install a French language search engine; and that tech platforms pay him to censor information and subsidize official narratives.
In other words, Mark Carney was looking for an excuse/justification not to make a trade deal, and make a political statement that would appeal to the uber leftist French Québécois and his partners in Beijing.
Clear enough?
Here’s Dominic LeBlanc:
“.. a teensy little 100,000% rounding error, about how much water data centers require ”
• China’s Data Center Psyop and the 100,000% Rounding Error (Stephen Green)
When I take a particularly cute photo of my 14-week-old puppy, I click the little heart button right there in my camera app. Without me doing anything else, the next time a screensaver comes up — on my laptop, my desktop, or even on the massive living room TV — the new pic joins the older photos scrolling by. Thank you, data centers.Read more …
Earlier this year, my wife was delayed by weather bringing our sons home from the airport after their first No Parents! trip together, so she hit the Share ETA button on the CarPlay screen in her Jeep. Virtually instantaneously, I got an alert on my phone letting me know they’d be late and not to worry. Thank you very much for that one, data centers. Sure, the internet is a “series of tubes,” as everyone must be aware by now, but the data doesn’t flow through them on its own.Yes, AI requires bigger and more energy-hungry data centers — and we can’t seem to get enough AI. AI is either going to evolve itself into Skynet to kill us all, or deliver enough productivity growth to eliminate the deficit and make our accumulated debt look puny. I’m somewhere in the middle. I fully expect someday that my domestic help robot will somehow manage to kneecap me, but will then prove invaluable in nursing me back to health while still keeping the house tidy.
But none of it — not our messaging apps, not our GPS apps, not the website you’re reading right now — none of it works without data centers. To a surprising degree, data centers are the internet. And this country’s embrace of the internet is perhaps the most important among several reasons we left Europe in the economic dust. I’d also add that the reputable messaging apps are generally encrypted end-to-end, so for the first time in history, the general public’s default way of talking to one another, sharing photos, locations, and the like, is secure from prying eyes.
So why all the data center hate? While nearly all of it is ginned up, in my opinion, much of it rests on a “mistake,” a teensy little 100,000% rounding error, about how much water data centers require in Karen Hao’s purportedly nonfiction book, Empire of AI. Here you go:
Author @_KarenHao really messed up the discourse by publishing misinformation that over-reported data center water by 100,000% in her book, blaming the government (she misread the file), and then doing a book tour and selling the book anyways. https://t.co/zBF1OzsUYk pic.twitter.com/23D85kcKKC
— Kane 謝凱堯 (@kane) August 26, 2026As it turns out, data centers — all data centers; not just the ones dedicated to AI — use less water than golf courses do. In fact, they use a fraction of 1% so small compared to golf courses that it actually could be a rounding error. And yet I can’t log into X without seeing everyone from Bernie Sanders (CPUSA-Vt. Oblast) to low-follower randos calling for a moratorium on data center construction. Remember when 5G radio waves were going to melt our brains and sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids? This is that, but even more important to combat.
But here’s where it really gets weird. I follow this stuff professionally, yet even I had to have a colleague share a link on X — no mainstream media source, naturally — to learn about Hao and her little tiny error. Even though she “discovered” her mistake in November of 2025, the whole data center controversy didn’t gain steam until the summer of 2026. Something stinks — and here is Blume Industries to explain: “Just gonna remind you the journo who produced the bogus water data for data centers now lives in Hong Kong. I’m sure you’re smart enough to figure it out from there.”
So yeah, I’m completely comfortable calling the sprang-up-outta-nowhere data center “debate” a Communist Chinese psyop to kneecap our high-tech edge over the People’s Republic.
“That’s part of the God-given talent you’re born with. It’s not something you can teach.”
• Remembering Dolly Through the Song I Loved First (Chris Queen)
I’ve written extensively here and on my Substack about the musical influences on my life. My mom and aunts were the primary agents of my musical exposure. My mom was a massive fan of The Carpenters and early Beatles, and she had the radio on all the time in the car. My aunts opened my ears to what we now call “classic rock.”Read more …
My dad was a different story. His musical tastes were much narrower in the ‘70s. I remember that he had a sticker advertising WPLO, a country station, on his Jeep, but I remember him listening to WBIE (I can still hear the jingle: “WBIE! Georgia’s! Country! Giant!”). He also had two 8-tracks: One was a greatest-hits compilation from Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton, and the other was what was then Dolly’s current album, Here You Come Again.The title track connected my parents’ distinct musical worlds. Since it was Dolly’s first hit to crossover to the pop music marketplace, I heard it on the radio in our apartment or in the car with my mom, and I also heard it on the 8-track when I was riding with my dad. I might be wrong, but I think “Here You Come Again” was the first radio song that I learned all the lyrics to. My mom also had the sheet music, and I remember her playing it as I sang along. It was one of my favorite songs on the radio at the time, and it remains my favorite Dolly track.
The album was part of a calculated move on the part of Dolly and her management team to expand her horizons beyond country radio. Her previous album, 1977’s self-produced New Harvest … First Gathering, deliberately incorporated pop and R&B elements but made no splash outside the country marketplace.
For Here You Come Again, Parton turned to Los Angeles-based producer Gary Klein, who enlisted top-notch studio musicians, including keyboardist (and later ultra-pop producer) David Foster and drummer Jim Keltner, to play on the album. The title track, which was also to serve as the first single, wasn’t one of Dolly’s compositions. Instead, “Here You Come Again” came from the pens of Brill Building stalwarts Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil.
Side note: I was precocious enough at age five to be able to read the lyrics and credits on the sheet music. I saw those names, and I couldn’t believe that people would sing songs that other people wrote unless they were in a movie! Even though the album — and especially its title cut — was part of a specific strategy to launch Dolly to pop stardom, Dolly wasn’t about to leave country behind. She talked Klein into adding subtle steel guitar to “Here You Come Again,” and that small detail helped ground the song in both stylistic camps.
Listeners could tell that this song was something different from the intro. Mix Online explains: The rhythm section on the track included Dean Parks (guitar), David Foster (keyboards), David Hungate (bass) and Jim Keltner (drums). The track opens with Foster’s Fender Rhodes. He recalls the session as fairly groundbreaking:
“I played the Fender Rhodes on the basic track,” Foster says. “Then I came up with the idea of duplicating exactly the same part on the acoustic piano, something I—or to my knowledge, no one—had ever done before. It became an interesting sound that years later became a stock ‘push of a button’ sound on many synthesizers, which some even called ‘Fosterized.’ “Also, I remember that while waiting to overdub the acoustic piano, no music was playing in my headphones and the tape op [second engineer] suddenly realized that he still had every track In Record and he ended up erasing about the first 20 seconds of the master,” Foster continues. “They had to go to an earlier take, splice them together and then I did my overdub acoustic piano part.”
Keltner and engineer Armin Steiner said that Dolly’s scratch vocals, which she recorded live with the band, were so good that some of them made the finished record. The arrangement proved that even though “Here You Come Again” was tailor-made for both country and pop radio, it wasn’t a simple track. The song crosses five keys throughout its journey, which made the song even more effective. If you’re not musically inclined, you may think I’m geeking out a bit; if so, skip a paragraph or two. ChatGPT helped me chart out those key changes.
“Here You Come Again” key changes
The key changes get Mann and Weil’s point across: Whenever Dolly (as the protagonist) thinks she’s gotten it all together, here comes that old flame back into her life to knock her off her equilibrium. Each time she thinks she has regained her footing, the song returns in a new key, familiar but no longer quite where she left it. Even before I was better versed in music, I knew that there was something about the sound of the song that was interesting and different.The crossover gamble paid off. “Here You Come Again” hit number three on the Billboard Hot 100 and number two on the easy listening charts, but it also spent five weeks atop the country charts and won her a Grammy for Best Country Vocal Performance, Female — her first. Better still, it launched her career into the stratosphere. The band and crew recognized something special in Dolly. Her talent and personality dovetailed to make her more than just an ordinary entertainer.
“As a human being—forget about her great gifts as an entertainer— this is the one of the most delightful people we’ve ever had in the entertainment industry,” Steiner told Mix Online. “As a human being, she’s extraordinary. And she has such a beautiful voice, an incredibly identifiable sound, identifiable diction; she’s a fine writer and a great interpreter of lyrics. You believed what she sang. It’s all part of the talent and part of the human being. That’s part of the God-given talent you’re born with. It’s not something you can teach.”
Nearly half a century later, I can appreciate the craftsmanship that I couldn’t have understood at five: Foster’s layered keyboards, the subtle steel guitar, the improbable sequence of key changes, and Dolly’s effortless vocal holding it all together. But when I hear “Here You Come Again,” I still hear my mom playing it on the piano, the radio in her car, and that 8-track in my dad’s Jeep.Dolly made a record that she intended to cross musical boundaries without leaving its country identity behind, and in our family, it did exactly that. It brought my parents’ different musical worlds together and gave me a song that has followed me for most of my life. Now, whenever those opening notes begin, here she comes again — and for three minutes, I’m five years old all over again.
Too big to fail.
“The worst-case scenario [..] was $1.4tn [..] up to $18bn (over a period of 10 years) is significantly smaller. Meta is not admitting to any wrongdoing…
“Instagram and Facebook’s billions of users provide the company with a goldmine of data, and the data of adults can be used to sell ads.”
• Meta’s $18bn Reckoning For Social Media On Child Safety (BBC)
Meta’s decision to agree to an $18bn (£13.3bn) settlement on Wednesday, to resolve claims that Facebook and Instagram harmed children, came as a surprise. I was expecting weeks of courtroom drama as 29 states – almost two-thirds of North America – took on one US tech giant.Technically, the trial was about children’s online privacy. It was based on a US law called the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which is nearly 30 years old and predates all of today’s biggest social platforms. It centred around Meta’s historic gathering and use of data belonging to children under the age of 13 over a period of several years.Read more …
In reality, it was a co-ordinated attack on the firm’s online safety credentials.Meta, alongside other social media apps, is under fire around the world as 2026 is shaping up to be a year of reckoning for the entire industry – perhaps our days of doomscrolling are numbered. Meta has fought hard, over multiple lawsuits spanning many months and at great expense, to defend its commitment to protecting children on its platforms. More than once, I’ve been invited to detailed presentations at Meta’s London HQ, where senior executives have walked journalists like me through the many safety tools the company has launched over the years designed to give children better protection on its apps.I have also met the parents of young people who have come to harm on those same platforms, and others who admit to being totally overwhelmed by the sheer number of safety tools that require their oversight – at the last count Meta had more than 60 of them, and that was just on Instagram. The trial went on for just five days, and came to an end before CEO Mark Zuckerberg took to the stand. But it was rough for Meta. Whistleblower Arturo Bejar, who once worked at Instagram, claimed that in the past he had told bosses that harmful stuff was happening to children on the platform, and no action was taken.
Another executive said he didn’t remember writing on a slide deck that sometimes Meta chose to pay fines for violating regulations rather than make changes. Internal memos suggested that the firm knew opt-in tools tended to have low adoption rates, and yet it still launched safety features that were not switched on by default. There had been intense speculation that Meta would have faced hundreds of billions of dollars in fines if it had lost. The worst-case scenario, which would have been the maximum penalty imposed for every single child who used one of its platforms for more than half an hour a day during a 12-year window, was $1.4tn (£1tn) – roughly the same as the company’s entire value.
That of course was never going to happen, but a more realistic figure was still in the hundreds of billions. By comparison, up to $18bn (over a period of 10 years) is significantly smaller. Meta is not admitting to any wrongdoing. You could argue that settling protects its core business – social networks are still the way in which it makes most of its money. Instagram and Facebook’s billions of users provide the company with a goldmine of data, and the data of adults can be used to sell ads. Meta may say it is now laser-focused on AI, but it still needs the vast revenue generated by its social apps.
What is Meta changing?
As part of the settlement, the social media giant has agreed to make a number of changes to the way Instagram and Facebook operate for its youngest users. Some experts say it is long overdue. The new safety barriers include a two-hour time limit across both platforms, which will be a default setting for known teen users. But direct messaging on the platforms will not count towards the daily use limit.Notifications will be muted between midnight and 06:00 and on school days between 08:00 and 15:00.Likes on posts and content will also be entirely hidden on the platforms for teens.Most of these new features will be made either default or an option for teens within six months. However, new efforts by Meta to better identify which users on its platforms are children will take up to a year to be rolled out. I would be surprised if these measures remain within the confines of the US for very long, as other countries will almost certainly be keen to adopt them too. Meta also says the new features will only truly help children if all of its rivals adopt them as well. It’s a highly competitive industry, but given the global backlash against social media and its impact on children, perhaps others like TikTok and Snapchat may have to follow suit.
The question then is whether children will still bother with them, once they are deliberately toned down into a much blander offering. And perhaps that would bring the social media era to a natural end, as existing adults gradually aged out of it. Arturo Bejar, the ex-Instagram engineer turned whistleblower, says the proof of the pudding will be in whether the new teen safety features are effective. “At the end of the day, Meta needs to be held accountable for results, not efforts,” he told me.
“Do you really wanna live in a world without Coca-Cola?”
• James Carville Releases His Signature Uncut Product (Turley)
In Breaking Bad, the character Walter White explains to a major drug dealer why cheaper knockoffs of his signature Blue Sky methamphetamine are just not enough: “So… it’s grade-school tee-ball vs. the New York Yankees. Yours is just some tepid… off-brand, generic cola. What I’m making is classic Coke.”Read more …
This week, James Carville released his own uncut, undiluted classic product to a nation of rage addicts. Blue Sky rage. What set off Carville was telling. He and others were outraged that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries met with Trump’s son-in-law and close adviser Jared Kushner to discuss areas of common ground. Such dialogue “with the enemy” is unthinkable in an “age of rage,” particularly for someone like Carville who previously threatened that, once Democrats are back in power, Trump supporters would be treated the same way as Nazi collaborators after World War II.Carville went into his signature berserker trance on his podcast appropriately called the “Politics War Room”: “These people are a pack of felons and traitors, and you do not meet with them! You do not meet with them. There’s only one thing you can do with people that you genuinely believe deep inside of every fabric of your body are a pack of thieves and a pack of traitors.” As usual, Carville delivers the line with the intensity of a man seconds away from a self-induced stroke. The message, however, is clear. Anyone seeking a middle ground or compromise is a traitor and will be dealt with the same way as collaborators once Democrats regain power.
What is really on display is rage politics. When you feed this addiction, you have to keep your product pure to avoid the pain of rage withdrawal. Carville is asking Democrats the same question as Walter White: “Do you really wanna live in a world without Coca-Cola?” Go with the classic. Go with the rage. Over on the social media safe space for liberals, BlueSky, Carville is being heralded as a prophet of furor. It was a perfect combination. BlueSky was created for liberals to remove themselves, particularly from X, because of conservatives returning to social media after years of censorship.
The media billed BlueSky as the future, as many predicted the rapid death of X. It did not exactly work out that way. Many liberal influencers proclaiming their abandonment of X never actually left and many others have returned. BlueSky is now little more than a progressive boutique in comparison to X. It has an estimated 43 million users as opposed to as many as 600 million for X. (Monthly active users drop to around 27 million versus more than 300 million). Yet, the business model of BlueSky is to offer a protected zone for liberals to rave amongst themselves without the distraction of as many opposing views or voices.
It is a social platform that is premised on the same “you do not meet with them” screed of Carville.Recently, Carville has lashed out at the far left of his party, such as Democratic Socialists, over their radical agenda. However, he and other establishment figures are primarily objecting to the fact that these radical policies will not succeed in the election and return them to power.
Carville has no problem trashing the system to secure and maintain power. He previously called for packing the Supreme Court, but notably told Democrats not to actually talk about it: “If the Democrats win the presidency and both houses of Congress, I think on day one, they should expand the Supreme Court to 13. F—k it. Eat our dust. Don’t run on it. Don’t talk about it. Just do it.”
Other Democratic leaders continue to try to co-opt the mob for their own uses. Senate Minority Leader dismissed questions about the DSA platform in eliminating the presidency, the Supreme Court, and the Senate. These are small differences, according to Schumer, compared with the need to win elections: “Not everyone has the same exact view on every single issue.”
One of those small disagreements is the very existence of the institution that Schumer so desperately wants to lead.Carville and Schumer, however, appear to agree on the key element of the political strategy in keeping the rage alive. The greatest threat to that strategy is any dialogue of Democrats with their Republican neighbors. If reason were to break out before the elections, all could be lost.
The effort reflects the fact that the rage in an age of rage eventually burns off. People look into a mirror on both sides and realize that we have become grotesque like Carville by yielding (indeed enjoying) the anger and hate. Once people start to talk again, it is harder to hate so completely and blindly that hate traffickers need.So Blue Sky rage is hitting the streets. The Classic coke of hate to be injected directly into the veins of a nation of rage addicts. After all, as Walter White asked his fellow traffickers, “Do you really wanna live in a world without Coca-Cola?”
https://twitter.com/MAGAVoice/status/2092344675533561922?s=20
SpaceX has announced two mega-projects representing at least $116.8 billion in combined investment, all within less than three weeks:
— DogeDesigner (@cb_doge) August 25, 2026
• Terafab in Texas, the world’s largest chip manufacturing facility.
• Starbase, Louisiana, the world’s largest spaceport.
Together, they are… pic.twitter.com/o64tI8kTo8
https://twitter.com/AmericaPartyX/status/2092345401512718753?s=20Starbase Louisiana will ultimately have over a dozen launch towers, enabling more than 30 Starship flights per day and making it the biggest launch site on Earth!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 25, 2026
SpaceX makes sci-fi real. https://t.co/C7Ht0U12ba
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