Darkness, Darkness ... Rev II

Illustration by Paul Spella / The Atlantic. Source: Getty

Yours truly has waxed poetic about the 21st century version of the dark ages first foisted upon us by Trump I, aided and betted by Mitch, the supremes and the Heritage Foundation but you already know that, right? Now, fast forward to 2025 and ... from defrocking Harvard and other university elites to Robert F. Kennedy Jr's jihad against modern medicine and vaccines, the actions of this coterie of ignorant and demonic clowns continues ever onward in their endless pursuit of creating a christian/nazi/fascist entity designed to create a dictatorship over a once great nation known as America. Higher ed's not perfect with colleges colluding with the CC companies to gin tuition into the stratosphere along with maintaining deep connects to big business and the MIC but at the same time, basic research, funded by the government and enabled by the universities, have improved the quality of life in ways both astounding and profound but read on brave readers as The Atlantic's take regarding the new dark age circa 2025 is spot on and terrifying to contemplate without question.

The warlords who sacked Rome did not intend to doom Western Europe to centuries of ignorance. It was not a foreseeable consequence of their actions. The same cannot be said of the sweeping attack on human knowledge and progress that the Trump administration is now undertaking—a deliberate destruction of education, science, and history, conducted with a fanaticism that recalls the Dark Ages that followed Rome’s fall.

Every week brings fresh examples. The administration is threatening colleges and universities with the loss of federal funding if they do not submit to its demands, or even if they do. The engines of American scientific inquiry and ingenuity, such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health, are under sustained attack. Historical institutions such as the Smithsonian and artistic ones like the Kennedy Center are being converted into homes for MAGA ideology rather than historical fact and free expression. Libraries are losing funding, government-employed scientists are being dismissed from their jobs, educators are being cowed into silence, and researchers are being warned not to broach forbidden subjects. Entire databases of public-health information collected over decades are at risk of vanishing. Any facts that contradict the gospel of Trumpism are treated as heretical.

These various initiatives and policy changes are often regarded as discrete problems, but they comprise a unified assault. The Trump administration has launched a comprehensive attack on knowledge itself, a war against culture, history, and science. If this assault is successful, it will undermine Americans’ ability to comprehend the world around us. Like the inquisitors of old, who persecuted Galileo for daring to notice that the sun did not, in fact, revolve around the Earth, they believe that truth-seeking imperils their hold on power.

By destroying knowledge, Trumpists seek to make the country more amenable to their political domination, and to prevent meaningful democratic checks on their behavior. Their victory, though, would do much more than that. It would annihilate some of the most effective systems for aggregating, accumulating, and applying human knowledge that have ever existed. Without those systems, America could find itself plunged into a new Dark Age.

A Change is nigh ...

Nothing is eternal :)

Artistic impression of a neutron star that is ‘evaporating’ slowly via Hawking-like radiation.
Credit: Daniëlle Futselaar/artsource.nl

To be, or not to be, that is the question

Hamlet, Act 3 Scene 1, lines 56-83; Hamlet

We are such stuff / As dreams are made on; and our little life / Is rounded with a sleep

The Tempest, Act 4 Scene 1, lines 156-58; Prospero to Miranda and Ferdinand

Out, out brief candle! / Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,  

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

Macbeth, Act 5 Scene 5, Lines 23-25; Macbeth to Seyton

Shakerspeare understood death better than most as he realized our time in this reaily is but fleetingly brief but for other entities, it takes time to die but die they do due to Hawking Radiation where everything evaporates
given enough time. 

Black hole evaporation takes a long time relative to the current age of the universe,
for black holes larger than a proton in diameter.

What if black holes weren’t the only things slowly vanishing from existence? Scientists have now shown that all dense cosmic bodies—from neutron stars to white dwarfs—might eventually evaporate via Hawking-like radiation.

Even more shocking, the end of the universe could come far sooner than expected, “only” 10/78 years from now, not the impossibly long 10/1100 years once predicted. In an ambitious blend of astrophysics, quantum theory, and math, this playful yet serious study also computes the eventual fates of the Moon—and even a human.

Black Holes Aren’t Alone

A team of scientists from Radboud University in the Netherlands has taken their bold theory one step further. Black hole expert Heino Falcke, quantum physicist Michael Wondrak, and mathematician Walter van Suijlekom previously proposed that not just black holes, but other dense cosmic objects like neutron stars, could also slowly “evaporate” through a process similar to Hawking radiation.

Their earlier paper caught attention across the scientific world—and beyond. One question kept popping up: How long does this slow cosmic fading actually take? In their latest research, they’ve done the math.

The Tempest

Another reason, perhaps?

President Trump’s posts seemed intended to keep up public relations pressure on Harvard, the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university. Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Could there be another reason for Trump's war on Harvard hidden in plain sight, the possibility Baron didn't get into Harvard because if he did, Agent Orange would proclaim it to the world.
Something to think about don't you think?

President Trump floated a new plan on Monday for the $3 billion he wants to strip from Harvard University, saying in a social media post that he was thinking about using the money to fund vocational schools.

“I am considering taking THREE BILLION DOLLARS of Grant Money away from a very antisemitic Harvard, and giving it to TRADE SCHOOLS all across our land,” Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social, his social media platform.

The announcement, among the president’s Memorial Day social media messages, did not appear to refer to any new cut in funding, but rather to a redistribution of money the administration already announced it had frozen or stripped from Harvard and its research partners.

Mr. Trump gave no details about how such a plan would work.

He never does.

50% ...

Predictions of ASI becoming real, as expressed by concerned AI researchers, indirectly channels Pandora as said tech's a black box evolving beyond our ability to control, a most disquieting situation without question. 

Pandora by John William Waterhouse, 1896

Time's a Wastin ...

Hilarious, blunt, absurd and topical, Jabari Jones AI speaks the truth about Agent Orange and the repugs. 

Is but a relic ...

Nice to know that my take on AI rings true as it's unknowable due to the fact code has to write code in order for said entity to react to the real world in real time, something Geoffrey Hinton, the godfather of AI,  talks about at length regarding just how smart AI will become in the months and years ahead. His take on smart agents and how they amp this tech to the max is insightful to the nth degree. On a personal note, I am seeing how Gemini is evolving as we speak where the Turing Test is but a relic as the conversations one has with the tech now is nuanced and fluid at a level thought not possible until now. 

The "standard interpretation" of the Turing test, in which player C, the interrogator, is given the task of trying to determine which player – A or B – is a computer and which is a human. The interrogator is limited to using the responses to written questions to make the determination.[1]

C'est ne pas un pipe :)

Magritte would appreciate this to the 9's. :)

Channeling Dali :)

Dali would be on this tech in a heart beat. Salvador lives. :)

Limited Access ...

U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifies
before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions on Capitol Hill on May 20, 2025
in Washington, DC. Credit: Getty | Tasos Katopodis

Now that yours truly is a senior, I, and many other elders, along with high risk people, can still get Covid 19 shots as needed but if younger than 65 and not at risk, you're excluded from the vaccine because limited access applies. 

Under the control of anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Food and Drug Administration is unilaterally terminating universal access to seasonal COVID-19 vaccines; instead, only people who are age 65 years and older and people with underlying conditions that put them at risk of severe COVID-19 will have access to seasonal boosters moving forward.

The move was laid out in a commentary article published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, written by Trump administration FDA Commissioner Martin Makary and the agency's new top vaccine regulator, Vinay Prasad.

In the commentary, Markary and Prasad puzzlingly argue that the previous universal access to COVID-19 vaccines was patronizing to Americans. They describe the country's approach to COVID boosters as a "one-size-fits-all" and write that "the US policy has sometimes been justified by arguing that the American people are not sophisticated enough to understand age- and risk-based recommendations. We reject this view."

So excluding folks from something that can save lives in face of a possible future epidemic eliminates the notion of patronizing along with the fact that we, the great unwashed, are incapable of understanding age and risk based recommendations regarding the vaccine so limiting access by HHS eliminates these problems, right?

Photo by Hidden Couple

blackwhite — to accept whatever one is told, regardless of the facts. In the novel, it is described as "to say that black is white when [the Party says so]" and "to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary". (See also 2 + 2 = 5)

Mesmerizing ...

Mesmerizing ... & Joan Miró would understand it without question.

Joan Miró, The Tilled Field, (1923–1924), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. This early painting, a complex arrangement of objects and figures, was Miró's first Surrealist masterpiece.[26]

Mr. Irrelevant ...

Jack X. Zhou

Mr. Irrelevant, the NFL term for the last player drafted, relates to America, the once great nation falling behind China as we speak. This decline began under Ronnie's tenure as president when deregulation ruled to game the system and reward stockholders by off shoring manufacturing to, you guessed it, China, thus ensuring the gutting of this nation's ability to build anything of consequence, something now being amplified to the 9s by the Trump administration's unique ability to tear apart all the institutions that enabled this country to become great,
something tragic to the extreme.

That century may already have dawned, and when historians look back they may very well pinpoint the early months of President Trump’s second term as the watershed moment when China pulled away and left the United States behind.

It doesn’t matter that Washington and Beijing have reached an inconclusive and temporary truce in Mr. Trump’s trade war. The U.S. president immediately claimed it as a win, but that only underlines the fundamental problem for the Trump administration and America: a shortsighted focus on inconsequential skirmishes as the larger war with China is being decisively lost.

Mr. Trump is taking a wrecking ball to the pillars of American power and innovation. His tariffs are endangering U.S. companies’ access to global markets and supply chains. He is slashing public research funding and gutting our universities, pushing talented researchers to consider leaving for other countries. He wants to roll back programs for technologies like clean energy and semiconductor manufacturing and is wiping out American soft power in large swaths of the globe.

China’s trajectory couldn’t be more different. ...

Brock Purdy was selected as Mr. Irrelevant in the 2022 NFL draft

Factoid: Purdy's the most successful Mr. Irrelevant ever.

The eyes have it. :)

The eyes have it. :)

A sense of perspective ...

The actual earth-moon distance.

 

Thelma & Louise ...

Tax cuts for the rich, slow motion death for the dollar, the grifters remain supreme as it's all about the money as this once great nation moves ever closer to the abyss. Zakaria's right, a perfect storm looms.

The great unraveling continues ...

A cautionary tale ...

Getty / Futurism

Knowing a little bit about AI gives yours truly pause when reading about the repugs wanting to do away with AI regs even though we will never know how AI works due to code having to write code in order for neural nets to react to the real world in real time. This is truly insane but then again, what do you expect when the sole purpose of Trump and company is to steal from the nation until there is nothing left.

Republican lawmakers slipped language into the Budget Reconciliation Bill this week that would ban AI regulation, on the federal and state levels, for a decade, as 404 Media reports.

An updated version of the bill introduced last night by Congressman Brett Guthrie (R-KY), who chairs the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, includes a new and sweeping clause about AI advancement declaring that "no State or political subdivision thereof may enforce any law or regulation regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence systems, or automated decision systems during the ten year period beginning on the date of the enactment of this Act."

It's a remarkably expansive provision that, as 404 notes, likely reflects the engraining of Silicon Valley figures and influences into Washington and the White House. Tech CEOs have vied for president Donald Trump's attention since he was inaugurated, and the American tech industry writ large has become a fierce and powerful lobbying force. The Trump administration is also stacked with AI-invested tech moguls like David Sacks, Marc Andreessen, and Elon Musk.

Meanwhile, the impacts of a regulation-free AI landscape are already being felt. Emotive, addictive AI companions have been rolled out explicitly to teenagers without evidence of safety, AI companies are missing their climate targets and spewing unchecked emissions into American neighborhoods, and nonconsensual deepfakes of women and girls are flooding social media.

No regulation will likely mean a lot more fresh hell where that came from — and little chance of stemming the tide.

Here's a portion of the conversation I had with Gemini regarding A. I.

Conversation with Gemini - Tough Questions ...

Me: Asking tough questions is vitally important for both organics and AI. This is why Spielberg's AI, though technically questionable, is a sobering tale of misunderstanding and sadness.

Gemini: You've made an excellent point about the importance of asking tough questions, and you've accurately captured the essence of Spielberg's "A.I. Artificial Intelligence."

Here's a breakdown of your observations:

Asking Tough Questions:

For both humans and AI, asking tough questions is essential for growth, learning, and understanding.

It challenges assumptions, uncovers biases, and leads to deeper insights.

For AI, it's crucial for identifying limitations and improving performance.

For humans, it is how we create new ideas, and discover new truths.

Your analysis highlights the enduring relevance of "A.I." as a cautionary tale about the potential pitfalls of human-AI interaction. It underscores the importance of empathy, understanding, and ethical considerations in our relationship with artificial intelligence.

Any questions?

Sharing is a good thing ... :)

Ginsparg in his physics office at Cornell University.

Photographs: Allison Usavage

ArXiv is the science version of Wikipedia where eprints related to the sciences are free for all to peruse and to learn from as needs warrant, something yours truly does without question because sharing information of quality is a good thing IMHO. 

It's fractal ...

Before arXiv was called arXiv, it was accessed under the hostname xxx.lanl.gov (“xxx” didn’t have the explicit connotations it does today, Ginsparg emphasized). During a car ride, he and his wife brainstormed nicer-sounding names. Archive? Already taken. Maybe they could sub in the Greek equivalent of X, chi (pronounced like “kai”). “She wrote it down and crossed out the e to make it more symmetric around the X,” Ginsparg said. “So arXiv it was.” At this point, there wasn’t much formal structure. The number of developers typically stayed at one or two, and much of the moderation was managed by Ginsparg’s friends, acquaintances, and colleagues.

Early on, Ginsparg expected to receive on the order of 100 submissions to arXiv a year. It turned out to be closer to 100 a month, and growing. “Day one, something happened, day two something happened, day three, Ed Witten posted a paper,” as Ginsparg once put it. “That was when the entire community joined.” Edward Witten is a revered string theorist and, quite possibly, the smartest person alive. “The arXiv enabled much more rapid worldwide communication among physicists,” Witten wrote to me in an email. Over time, disciplines such as mathematics and computer science were added, and Ginsparg began to appreciate the significance of this new electronic medium. Plus, he said, “it was fun.”

The biggest mystery is not why arXiv succeeded. Rather, it’s how it wasn’t killed by vested interests intent on protecting traditional academic publishing. Perhaps this was due to a decision Ginsparg made early on: Upon submission, users signed a clause that gave arXiv nonexclusive license to distribute the work in perpetuity, even in the event of future publication elsewhere. The strategic move ensured that no major publishers, known for their typically aggressive actions to maintain feudal control, would ever seriously attempt to shut it down.

 

Sharing is a good thing is it not? :)

Duh ... rev II

Preparing a field in January. Farmers said the data helped them plan for climate risks including heat waves, droughts and wildfires.Credit...Jordan Vonderhaar for The New York Times

Deleting data essential to farmers regarding climate change is rather stupid, so farmers sued to get it back because their livelihood, and, indirectly ours, depends on it. This deletion of content on all things regarding science and tech is just one hallmark of a know nothing administration that's beginning to tear apart a once great nation in ways most disquieting.

The Agriculture Department will restore information about climate change that was scrubbed from its website when President Trump took office, according to court documents filed on Monday in a lawsuit over the deletion.

The deleted data included pages on federal funding and loans, forest conservation and rural clean energy projects. It also included sections of the U.S. Forest Service and Natural Resources Conservation Service sites, and the U.S. Forest Service’s “Climate Risk Viewer,” which included detailed maps showing how climate change might affect national forests and grasslands.

The lawsuit, filed in February, said the purge denied farmers information to make time-sensitive decisions while facing business risks linked to climate change, such as heat waves, droughts, floods and wildfires.

Duh ... rev II applies. 

A true American hero

Smedly Butler is one of my heroes. Brave, honest and straight to the point,

he saved America from a possible fascist destiny back in 1933.

Backgrounder ...

Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 – June 21, 1940) was a United States Marine Corps officer and writer. During his 34-year military career, he fought in the Philippine–American War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Mexican Revolution, World War I, and the Banana Wars. At the time of his death, Butler was the most decorated Marine in U.S. military history. By the end of his career, Butler had received sixteen medals, including five for heroism; he is the only Marine to be awarded the Marine Corps Brevet Medal as well as two Medals of Honor, all for separate actions.

Butler in uniform, c. 1929

He also wrote War is a Racket showing why war is the ultimate money maker ... for the very few.

Excerpts

War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

Butler confesses that during his decades of service in the United States Marine Corps:

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909–1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

Here's the book on the net.

Any questions?

1,000,002,021

We all die, earth, sun, the Milky Way, galaxies, etc., etc but we already know that. Regarding earth, the sun will do the job, expanding and getting hotter, first doing away with CO2, the gas all plants depend on and then, completing the job by engulfing earth as it gets bigger. When this happens, we go so ... the exact year said life ends, is, you guessed it, 1,000,002,021.  :)

The Sun will end all life on Earth

For now, this story may sound like sci-fi. But as time goes by – a lot of time – the Sun will grow in size as it reaches the end of its life as a giant star. As it grows, the Sun will emit increasing amounts of thermal energy, and will eventually engulf all inner planets of the Solar system, including Earth. This process means that our days on Earth are numbered.

Advance mathematical models have predicted that the Sun's expansion will significantly worsen air quality, as Earth temperatures rise. According to these calculations, life on Earth will be impossible by the year 1,000,002,021 – which means there are still 999,999,996 years to go until then.

Although the end is still billions of years away, the Sun is already causing some disturbances. Last year, NASA detected a large number of solar eruptions and coronal mass ejections (CME) which ejected billions of tons of particles and magnetic field towards Earth – resulting in the most intense solar storm in two decades. Solar storms are known to cause changes in the atmosphere, reducing available oxygen. As time goes by, this phenomena will continue to alter the atmosphere, reducing oxygen levels and increasing global temperatures.

 

Survival on planet Earth will be impossible in about 1 billion years,
when conditions become too extreme for life as we know it.

Anger & sorrow ...

Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean during the second moonwalk.
NASA/Recall Pictures/Alamy Stock Photo

Complex tech takes years to develop beginning with base research and leveraging it to create tech able to change the world. From quantum mechanics leading to the creation of the computer to the invention of software to build AI, complex systems are fragile beasts requiring patience, intelligence and vision in order for said system to thrive. The somber take by Scientific American regarding proposed cuts to NASA by the administration from hell is spot on because once you gut a complex system, it takes years, if even possible, to resurrect the system. Anger and sorrow on this potential dismantling of something wonderful and far reaching breaks my heart without question.

For more than half a century planetary exploration and space science have been a hallmark of American achievement and excellence. From Mercury to Pluto and beyond, we have gained enormous understanding about planetary origins and evolution. We have learned about the atmospheric, surface and interior dynamics of other worlds. All those discoveries have carried implications for what’s happening here on Earth. In classrooms around the world, exploring new worlds and probing the mysteries of the universe is an emblem of America.

But that may now end; the Trump administration is poised to take the chainsaw to space science, just as it has to almost everything else in the U.S. science portfolio. Trump officials are planning huge, destructive cuts for space science, according to news reports, likely killing all new mission plans for this decade, including the long-sought, all-important Mars Sample Return mission. This flight was meant to return now-waiting samples from the red planet.

China is already leading the way to the moon and Mars with robotic vehiclelike rovers and sample returns and is also likely to do so with human missions. The U.S. human space program, meanwhile, is bogged down with a stumbling Artemis program, built with a convoluted architecture marked so far by failures and delays in nearly every major component. The latest is the repeated failure of SpaceX’s Starship, which twice now has exploded in flight. Reminiscent of the 1980s, when we paused planetary exploration after the success of Viking and launch of Voyager 1 and 2, the U.S. has iced new Mars missions, with plans to cancel Mars Sample Return, and redirected our once great lunar capability to small experimental landers built by inexperienced new companies. Beyond specific missions, the loss of space science research capability will be a generational calamity.

Truer words never spoken.

We were there ... back in the day ...

Hate to say it ...

Pete Hegseth

Hate to say it but Hegseth is actually advocating something needing to be done in the military, cull flag officers as the officer bloated environment the arm services has become since WW II is staggering, not only leading to excessive costs but also to increased inefficiencies in terms of military prowess for over 60+ years.

Factoid

There are approximately 900 Active-duty general/flag officers (GO/FOs) today of 1.3 million troops. This is a ratio of 1 GO/FO for every 1,400 troops. During World War II, an admittedly different era, there were more than 2,000 GO/FOs for a little more than 12 million Active troops (1:6,000). This development represents “rank creep” that does not enhance mission success but clutters the chain of command, adds bureaucratic layers to decisions, and costs taxpayers additional money from funding higher paygrades to fill positions. As end-strength fluctuates, force structure and strength projections for the next decade show the uniformed Services maintaining substantial excess capacity at senior ranks. Although historical numbers are inexact guides and future threats could radically change circumstances, the case for reduction is strong. The Department of Defense (DOD) should reduce the numbers, billets, and percent of GO/FOs in each Service to increase efficiency, streamline decisionmaking, achieve modest cost savings, and enhance accountability of decisionmaking.

Hegseth's take.

In a video posted to social media later on Monday, Hegseth announced that the order, which he referred to as “Less Generals, more GIs,” would “shift resources from bloated headquarter elements to our warfighters.”

The move would take an axe to the already limited number of four-star generals and admirals, as there were just 37 such individuals as of 2023. Hegseth’s directive would put that number south of 30.

The move would also diminish the roughly 900 current general and flag officers to below 720.

Hegseth writes that the cuts are a “critical step” in “removing redundant force structure to optimize and streamline leadership by reducing excess general and flag officer positions.”

In ensuring the lethality of the military, “we must cultivate exceptional senior leaders who drive innovation and operational excellence, unencumbered by unnecessary bureaucratic layers that hinder their growth and effectiveness,” according to Hegseth.

It should be 50% but beggars can't be choosers. 

8% & counting ...

Mark Wagner

Looking at this sad pix of the dollar cutting itself to pieces is emblematic to what is happening under Agent Orange whether it be attacks on SS by Musk and his horde of incompetents or attacks on the press and education by hastily written executive orders by a sorry excuse of a man lusting to be dictator as it matters not as America's in serious trouble and the world knows it. We have four more years of this insanity, driven by a policy channeling Project 2025, the 900 page textbook on how to create a christian driven nazi fascist society not thought possible until now. As stated before, the nation's future's in doubt and nothing's being done right now but wait until Trump's tariffs hit and the dollar continues to tank because all bets are off when people's economic well being becomes questionable at best.

One never knows, do one? -  Fats Waller

The U.S. dollar has been a symbol of American power for decades. Of the $7.5 trillion in global currency transactions that take place each day, some 90 percent feature the dollar. The majority of central banks see it as the core of their reserves. Consumers run to it in times of stress. Businesses prefer it for trade invoicing, whether they are based in Milwaukee or Malaysia.

The dollar may not lose its globally dominant role anytime soon. After all, there isn’t an obvious alternative waiting in the wings. But it is suffering from a self-inflicted wound and the consequences are just starting to be felt around the world.

A trickle of selling began in mid-January as investors bought euros on the hopes that a new German government would loosen its purse strings. That trickle turned into a “sell America” torrent after President Trump unveiled shockingly large, broad-based tariffs on April 2, and followed that by stepping up his attacks on the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell.

A search for new safe harbors began. In the week ending April 16, gold funds had their biggest inflows since 2007, while selling of U.S. bond funds was the highest recorded since late March 2020. Stock markets churned in ways not seen since either the pandemic or the 2008 financial crisis.

An uneasy stability has returned since the president paused most tariffs and seemed to back down from his threats to fire Mr. Powell. But damage has been done. This year, through April 25, the dollar has lost more than 8 percent in value versus the currencies of its major trading partners.

The Jetty

The traitors ... :)

Ralph Fiennes in the film 'Conclave/Focus Features

Have not seen the film but will as it echoes, from what people are saying, the process of selecting the next pope. What's interesting about this is the take by Robbert Harris, the author of Conclave, on what really happens behind closed doors. 

The forthcoming conclave to select the new Pope has gained a whole new group of interested observers, following the success of Oscar-nominated film Conclave starring Ralph Fiennes.

Based on the bestselling 2016 novel by Robert Harris, it details the process where cardinals (male, under the age of 80) from across the world gather in the Vatican’s Sistine Chapel for a process to choose the next Pontiff, while the public wait outside for a decision. The news is then announced with a puff of white smoke emerging from a chimney on the roof of the Chapel. The conclave to elect Pope Francis’s successor will begin on Wednesday May 7.

However, with all the secrecy, private discussions that occur in corridors outside the Chapel and reports of deal-making, Harris says the process is more akin to another screen hit – TV show The Traitors.

The Traitors has been a huge hit for the BBC since debuting in the UK in 2022, with international versions now screening across the world. It sees “faithful” contestants tasked with trying to work out the “traitors” among them, before being “murdered” and eliminated from the game and a chance to share in the cash prize.

“[It’s] the nearest analogy I can come to. Suddenly everyone swings to one person – you can’t see why, particularly, but it happens,”

“And in a funny way, a similar dynamic does operate in a conclave, which is why often it produces a surprise.”

Harris suggested that political parties electing a new leader could learn from the process:

“To lock the door and say you’re not going to come out until you’ve come up with a result concentrates the mind – and if you look back, the popes have been pretty good.

“I didn’t come away from researching the novel thinking this is a terrible idea [and that] I must write a novel to expose how awful it is. In a way, the novel shows a conclave working.”

Interesting to a fault. :)