Wow - once again, Tyrant #Trump embarrasses himself with his bigotry. An unintelligent, unstable, unserious, science-denying, elderly man who is a convicted fraudster and sexual offender and instigated an insurrection is saying dyslexia should disqualify someone from the presidency? Yikes.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/17/us/trump-newsom-dyslexic-president-learning-disabilities.html?unlocked_article_code=1.UFA.oSYy.fCnEtV0e1cbY&smid=url-share

The war with Iran has just begun, and has already cost over $12 billion. The columnist makes some great points about priorities. For example, "add an extra $9.6bn to existing funding to provide housing to every household staying in a homeless shelter throughout the US."
But Republicans would rather spend that money on pointless wars.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/mar/17/trump-iran-war-cost-americans-11-billion

#BookReview for "Einstein's Monsters: The Life and Times of Black Holes" by Chris Impey
Interesting astrophysics book. The author makes an attempt to make the material accessible with simple metaphors... but still, some parts are dense and would likely require multiple slow readings. This may be one better suited for text instead of audio. It could better explain some of the "simpler" concepts (for example, what exactly is a neutron star?). Still, it is fascinating to learn about concepts such as the upcoming collision between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies, or the likely effects of a black hole on a human body.

#BookReview for "Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI" by Karen Hao
Recommended
18hrs, but interesting. Opinionated against AI and Sam Altman. Discusses the negative effects on low-paid workers in the global south to train AI and environmental effects, including the proliferation of data centers across the world and how that isn't always a good thing. Covers the history of AI companies and how they've tended to discard ethics along the way. Useful to get perspective on where we are today.

So tyrant #Trump starts a war with #Iran with no plan, no clear reasoning, no selling it to the American people, no building an international coalition, no thought about likely consequences. Then he gets pissed when the nations he's ridiculed don't want to enter the war and put themselves at risk to bail him out of the problem he's created.
Funny how he's criticized NATO, threatened to ruin it, has threatened to not come to their aid if Russia attacked them, has threatened to invade Greenland... yet expects them to come running at his beck and call to do something they had never agreed to.

Trump is an absolute buffoon and he's actively embarrassing the United States on the global stage.

https://www.npr.org/2026/03/16/nx-s1-5749109/trump-threatens-nato-strait-hormuz-iran-war

#BookReview for "The Origins of You: How Breaking Family Patterns Can Liberate the Way We Live and Love" by Vienna Pharaon
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Useful to get people to think about how family dynamics could have left "wounds" on themselves and others that affect them decades later.
However, it leaves out all other possible issues - genetic factors, neurochemical imbalances and so on.
Although the author makes an attempt to provide a few exercises, this is not a tool for recovery. It's a tool for awareness, helping people to understand how they and their loved ones may be affected and to nudge them to work with a therapist.

#ICE is better funded than most militaries, but keeps people in such inhumane conditions that they're setting records for people dying in custody. This is utterly appalling.
https://www.npr.org/2026/03/10/g-s1-111238/immigration-detention-deaths-custody

Shout out to small businesses that adopt cats. Happy #caturday !

"He [a military commander] said that 'President Trump has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.'""
Horrifying that religious extremism would be affecting the most powerful military in the world.
https://www.newsweek.com/us-commander-said-trump-anointed-by-jesus-to-attack-iran-report-11615046

So we're running out our weapons stockpiles in Iran that we need for Ukraine and to keep China and North Korea at bay... and now we're taking sanctions off Russia to compensate for war with Iran - a war that killed over 100 little girls in a mistaken bombing
Trump: soft on Putin, harsh on Iranian elementary schoolchildren.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/12/us/politics/trump-russia-oil-sanctions.html?unlocked_article_code=1.S1A.LUm7.WTWps1JKT88p

#BookReview for "The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power" by Deirdre Mask
⭐⭐⭐
I enjoyed it more than I expected, BUT I'm concerned about factual inaccuracies.
A book about street addresses sounds intensely boring, but a book about how people are impacted by where they live and how where they live is identified? Not so much.
The book meanders through many topics. Some have a looser connection to the core concept than others, but there is at least a loose unifying theme. The author uses an appropriate amount of personally relevant anecdotes. There are a lot of interesting historical stories, some of which were new to me.
After I read, I did some quick checks on factual claims. I was disappointed that the other exaggerated or misstated some claims, apparently to support her own opinions and theories, instead of objectively stating facts. It doesn't really seem like the Japanese language was the reason addresses are based on blocks instead of streets, or that kings imposed surnames on a surname-free population, among other issues. Come on. A nonfiction author's job is to do the research and fact-checking to present the best facts available in an entertaining way - I'm always deeply disappointed when nonfiction authors shirk that duty and issue half-truths.

So Tyrant #Trump started a war without a plan, making a martyr of an old man who would have died soon anyway, destabilizing the Middle East, sending gas prices scoring and slaughtering civilians, including a large number of little girls.
Those deaths are on him.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/11/us/politics/iran-school-missile-strike.html?unlocked_article_code=1.SVA.fN-c.eEP8PeKZnxro
#Iran

#BookReview "Little Bosses Everywhere: How the Pyramid Scheme Shaped America" by Bridget Read
Recommended
Valuable, in that it will hopefully inoculate people against joining pyramid schemes.
Wish it mentioned more modern MLMs, not just Mary Kay and Amway.
Informative and compelling. This book has moving stories of the ways women have been harmed by MLMs. It gets into their toxic business structures and the way the US has failed to regulate them.
Some reviewers criticize the author for mentioning politics. I'm sorry, but any reporting on unregulated businesses causing harm is going to be critical of conservative politics.

Foster cat Narve relaxing. Happy #caturday !

#BookReview for "Stealing Fire: How Silicon Valley, the Navy SEALs, and Maverick Scientists Are Revolutionizing the Way We Live and Work" by Steven Kotler, Jamie Wheal
Meh
Subtitle severely overstated
Potpourri of anecdotes without a clear through line. Cites disproven or failed examples at times. Amy Cuddy's power posing: failed to replicate. God helmet: failed to replicate, seems based on suggestibility or darkness. Summit eco town: never became reality. Authors also portray Elon Musk as a kind and generous soul, giving away valuable intellectual property. Uh, not quite.
What is this book even about? Is it encouraging people to take psychedelics? If so, it's very light on the details of benefits and how to. It seems to be a meandering tale of all kinds of "altered states," using such a broad definition that includes prayer, well-trained marines running an op, and eating greasy food.
If the authors are attempting to make a case that you can massively enhance your performance by getting into an altered state, and that you can get into an altered state by doing... well, just about anything... I found it utterly unconvincing.
In general, I was pretty unclear on what the authors' message was, and they seemed to rely more on anecdotes and speculation than amassing evidence and building to a solid conclusion.

Tyrant #Trump's economy isn't doing so hot. I find the graph interesting - things go right downhill from 2025 on.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/06/business/economy/what-to-know-about-the-report.html?unlocked_article_code=1.RVA.KxWU.9ZHHeVvwr5yA&smid=url-share

In two Texas countries, Republicans forced voters to use "assigned precincts" instead of being able to vote anywhere in the county as normal, leading to hundreds of infuriated people being inconvenienced or unable to vote.
Voter suppression - look it up. The Republican party has a long history of working hard to keep Americans from voting. They don't care about democracy. They want to win at any cost.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/03/03/politics/dallas-voter-rule-confusion-texas-primary

A journalist easily tricked AI into saying tech journalists are great at competitive hot dog eating.
It's very simple to deliberately feed false information to AI - and that makes it easy to change what people believe is true, and what companies they do business with.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/this-bbc-tech-reporter-hacked-chatgpt-with-a-simple-trick-involving-hot-dogs/

Kash Patel, the completely unqualified director of the FBI, acted like a frat bro in the men's hockey team locker room. He used government aircraft to fly to Italy so he could do it, claiming he had business in Italy - despite all the crises at home.
Tyrant Trump's cabinet is filled with incompetent people abusing their positions - but of course they would, with Trump being their role model.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5759831-patel-trump-locker-room-party/

We need strict gun control and we need it now.
The US has vastly more gun violence than any other developed nation. It's a problem that can be fixed - if we put an end to the "thoughts and prayers" rhetoric and pass laws instead.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/01/us/austin-shooting-bufords-6th-street.html?unlocked_article_code=1.P1A.HHnh.Ni7MJys-R0-G