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AI gumshoe

“ Police arrested a man for a burglary in a city he had never visited after face scanning software deployed across the UK confused him with another person of south Asian heritage. “Alvi Choudhury, 26, a software engineer, was working at the home he shares with his parents in  Southampton  in January when police knocked on his door, handcuffed him and held him in custody for nearly 10 hours before releasing him at 2am. “Thames Valley police had used automated facial recognition software which matched him with footage of a suspect of a £3,000 burglary 100 miles away in  Milton Keynes , according to documents shared with the Guardian by Liberty Investigates. “But the CCTV footage showed a noticeably younger man with different features apart from similar curly hair, said Choudhury, who was left confused about why he had been arrested.” Apparently, they already knew this was the ChatGPT of surveillance. “ But the technology was revealed in December to produce a far higher rate...
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What is college for?

  My parents were both college grads. My dad was an MIT-trained chemical engineer. My mom had a bachelor’s degree in psychology. After she finished college, she got married and became a homemaker, eventually raising five children. Needless to say, during that time she wasn’t earning the average salary of a high school grad—she wasn’t earning anything. What a college grad earns depends as much on them and their motivation as it does on their major. “Indiana legislators hope to build upon Congress' "Do No Harm" earnings test with Senate Bill 199, which seeks to   end college programs   whose graduates don't earn more than those with only a high school diploma. While the bill has support from the state commission, it faces opposition from faculty who argue it threatens academic integrity. Roughly a dozen public institution programs would fail the proposed test, based on recent federal data showing that the average salary for a high school graduate in Indiana is slightly ...
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Unitary executive theory and the Führerprinzip

SCOTUS Chief Justice John Roberts subscribes to the unitary executive theory of American government and Constitutional interpretation.   The unitary executive theory  posits that the President possesses total, unrestrained authority over the entire executive branch, including the power to direct, supervise, and remove all officers within it.  If that sounds familiar, it’s probably because it’s been tried before in history. The Führerprinzip was   the basis of executive authority in the government of Nazi Germany . It centralized total authority in the Führer, replacing legal, institutional, and democratic structures with a hierarchy where directives flowed downward, establishing a personal dictatorship. And before the Nazis,  the Bolsheviks began abandoning the practical application of "all power to the soviets" almost immediately after seizing power, with the shift from democratic worker councils (soviets) to centralized party control solidifying between l...
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Don’t make deals with terrorists

This is why nations shouldn’t pay ransom. “The president reacted to the Supreme Court’s judgment by initially announcing a new universal 10% levy,   using a different legal framework for the latest tariffs , but then increased the global tariff rate to 15% — the legal maximum which can be in place for 150 days before congressional approval is required.     “The new import duties are “effective immediately,” Trump said in   a Truth Social post   on Saturday.     “Officials in Europe and London expressed alarm and consternation at the latest upheaval in global trade relations, saying Trump’s new tariff policy could upend trade deals signed with the U.S. last year.” *snip* “Do new tariffs ... not constitute a breach of the deal? Regardless, no one knows whether the US will adhere to it – or even be able to,” Lange said, adding that “clarity and legal certainty are needed before any further steps are taken.” Trump has a decades-long history of reneging on ...
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Financing retirement in America

Like most boomers, I’m retired. My retirement is funded by (a) a 403b plan, (b) Social Security and (c) personal savings. I waited until age 70 for SS benefits, to max those out. Not everyone is so fortunate. “ How's this for a somber retirement forecast: The typical American worker has less than $1,000 saved for retirement, according to a new   report   from the National Institute on Retirement Security (NIRS).” OK, but that covers all workers, age 21-65. A 21-year-old won't have saved as much as a 65-year-ole.  By the time I finished grad school at age 27, I had more than $1000 saved, between a 403b and personal savings, and that’s in nominal dollars, not inflation-corrected. Of course, I didn’t own a car until I was 26 and didn’t buy my first home until I was 32. But this isn’t about me. “ In Fidelity's 26,000 defined-contribution plans at companies across the country, covering 24.8 million participants, account balances last year clocked in at record highs, with an av...
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TVA clings to coal

I grew up in the land of the TVA in East Tennessee. While the TVA is famous for hydroelectric power, it also built several coal-fired generators and nuclear power plants.     A couple miles from our house was the Bull Run steam plant, a coal-fired plant. Its iconic smokestack was visible for miles. Recently the plant was closed and dismantled as part of TVA’s move away from coal. Some of my Oak Ridge peeps were sorry to see it go. I wasn’t. But that move has stalled. The TVA board voted unanimously to keep two coal plants operating for the foreseeable future, a move applauded by Trump. It’s a lifeline for the dying coal industry in the US, but accelerates the death march to global warming. During the same meeting, the board allowed the company xAI, owned by Elon Musk, to double the amount of power it draws from the grid. Sad. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xk1QPo0am4M
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SCOTUS overturns Trump tariffs

“ The justices, divided 6-3 held that Trump's aggressive approach to tariffs on products entering the United States from across the world was not permitted under a 1977 law called the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).” *snip* “ The decision does not affect all of Trump's tariffs, leaving in place ones he imposed on steel and aluminum using different laws, for example. But it upends his tariffs in two categories. One is country-by-country or “reciprocal” tariffs, which range from 34% for China to a 10% baseline for the rest of the world. The other is a 25% tariff Trump imposed on some goods from Canada, China and Mexico for what the administration said was their failure to curb the flow of fentanyl. “Trump could seek to reimpose the tariffs, using other laws.” https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-strikes-trumps-tariffs-major-blow-president-rcna244827
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