Up From Facebook

“Ever the hype man, Musk suggested thinking of SpaceX’s satellites as robots, given that “they’re autonomous and don’t need servicing.” In the not-so-distant future, Musk mused, robots will be used to scale manufacturing on the moon. From there, moon-based robots will enable SpaceX to build a mass accelerator with solar production. Even Musk admitted it all sounded “totally nuts” but claimed that it could lead the company to scale to 1,000x the economy of Earth. From there, factories will be built, and robots “will be helpful with that,” Musk added. “It sounds super sci-fi right now, but it’s going to happen,” he said.” Don’t bogart that joint, Elon https://fortune.com/2026/08/04/elon-musk-spacex-earnings-trillion-revenue-target-capex-stock-reaction/

It seems extremely unlikely that the Trump administration will be chastened by its failure in Iran. Shamelessness has been central to Trump’s business and political success, and his reaction to setbacks is to deny objective facts and construct fantasies of achievement. The rigors of war do not seem to have persuaded him of the need for a more coherent process of policy formulation and assessment; he continues to blurt out his every whim, and a cabinet of sycophants and amplifiers is unlikely to impose discipline on an undisciplined principal. Nor can the two parts of the government that have apparently provided solid strategic judgments—the CIA and the military—salvage the process. They are advisory bodies, not policy actors, and Trump repudiates or ignores their counsel whenever it conflicts with his claims or preferences.   ~Kori Schake

When I was very young, I consumed lots of carrots. It turned my skin orange, according to my mom. “ People are touting "carrot maxxing" on social media as a natural shortcut to golden skin. "Week 6 of drinking my self-tanner," one woman  said on TikTok , downing a glass of carrot juice. “A different woman who went viral for her carrot maxxing results frequently posts  slideshows  of her before-and-after skin. In the before photos, she is very pale. After months of carrot maxxing, her face has a noticeable orange-y.   “While eating a large amount of carrots can indeed shift a patient's skin tone, it's not the same as an actual tan, doctors told  MedPage Today .”   Let’s be clear. This is not the same as Trump’s spray-painted complexion.  “Raman Madan, MD, chief of dermatology at Northwell Health's Glen Cove Hospital in New York, said that for most people it takes eating two to four large carrots or about 16 ounces of carrot juice daily for a week or mor...

Before the US/Israeli war on Iran, there was zero evidence that Iran had a nuclear weapons program. The claim that they were weeks away from a bomb were based on fabrications and projection. Was Iran enriching uranium? Yes. But the claim that it was for a weapon was a counterfactual. Remember those non-existent Iraqi WMDs? “Over his decades as Iran’s religious and government leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had consistently rejected nuclear weapons.   “Khamenei ruled that these ridiculously violent explosives, with their promise of indiscriminate killing and environmental poisoning, were simply incompatible with Islam.   “A devout Muslim might well see it that way.   “Mohammed’s “rules of war”  cited  in the [sayings of the first Caliph] include:   “Do not kill any child, woman, aged or sick person Do not destroy the villages and towns Do not spoil the cultivated fields and gardens Do not uproot, burn or cut down fruitful trees Do not destroy an inhabited...

It’s not just that people don’t want data centers in their backyards or regions. We basically know why they don’t want them. They’ll bogart all the electricity and water. Drive up rates. Wreck the environment. There’s another dimension of it though. The throughline of this age is that you’ve got these big tech platforms that can do anything they want. It is a society-driving spectacle that is there in plain sight and yet still under-appreciated. AI itself captures all of this. We’re told by its makers that it will take away everyone’s jobs, require unimaginable new supplies of energy, has a non-trivial shot at leading to the extinction of the human race … and this is the argument of its supporters! The point is that there is this very small group of men running a handful of mega tech platforms and they’re making the decisions and it basically doesn’t matter what we think. Not just you and me individually but us collectively. It’s their world. We’re just living in it. ~Josh Marshall

I’ve long felt that the Soviet Union was good for America. Sputnik provoked innovation in American schools. Shaming by the USSR on the world stage helped accelerate civil rights in the US. Fear of the USSR enforced a sort of patriotic unity of purpose in our politics. Yes, it had unhealthy effects like the Vietnam war and the support of Central and South American dictatorships, but the perceived threat and rivalry seemed to place limits on what was acceptable in domestic politics. I’m reading Thomas Madden’s “The Fall of Republics.” My interest in history has always been moored in the conviction that it can help me better understand the world I live in and where it may be headed. Today, I came across this passage: “It is an irony that the affluence and power that so enriched the Roman people also doomed their republic. Unlike previous mixed governments, the Roman Republic was never conquered by enemies. It succumbed instead to the spoils of its success, the blessings and curses of peac...