We respond…
Well, this is good news!
Yup — his corrupt $1.8 billion slush fund plan… is toast.
Here’s a bit of the brief but correct order:
…ORDERED that defendants be and are ENJOINED from taking any further action pursuant to the creation or operation of the Anti-Weaponization Fund, which includes the transferring of money to the Fund; the consideration of any claims submitted to the Fund; and the disbursing of any funds from the Fund….
Onward. As expected — now you know.
नमस्ते
In sum, if one builds solid paddocks, and operates from an “it is just another tool” in the system architecture point-of-view… I think it can be helpful.
But one must likely invest billions, first (as Merck has) — to build both the plumbing, and the guard-rails — to prevent it from “wilding / slopping / hallucinating” in any final product or document. And human beings — with deep experience and critical eyes — must closely review all its output. That’s a given.
Specifically, note that Merck is seeing it as being most-effective, in writing FDA compliant marketing materials, with a 99% accuracy experience. [It seems far less useful, in discovering and designing actual chemical entities — i.e., drugs.] Why? Because that process relies on… the creativity of a very very experienced mind, or set of minds — after exploring and abandoning perhaps thousands of blind alleys.
We shall see. In any event, here is the slightly-breathless piece, in a tech mag booster report:
…Merck’s plumbing-first strategy comes from lessons learned during the early days of cloud in the 2010s “when nobody knew what the heck was going on,” Finnerty said.
Getting the cloud right meant building from the ground up; at Merck, that infrastructure now supports 2,500 AWS accounts, numerous Microsoft Azure subscriptions, and new Google Cloud Platform (GCP) integrations.
“AI is gonna be the same exact thing,” Finnerty said. “We’re going to have thousands and thousands of agents.” The questions then pile up: How do you register them? How do you secure them? How do you ensure they’re connected to the right tools, and have access to the right data and the right context?
Context delivery is also critical; Merck works with three hyperscalers and has forty-seven edge locations and hundreds of databases. “Many, many petabytes” of structured and unstructured data are stored in Oracle databases, SQL databases, Excel spreadsheets, phone transcripts, and other repositories, Finnerty said….
His team is building scaffolding to deliver meaningful context in various situations, he explained. Data must be organized and ingested into various platforms, because “there’s no one solution to solve every single problem.” Sometimes it’s Databricks, other times it’s Amazon Redshift, “plus four other things….”
It is cool that both Amazon and Oracle win shout-outs, in the VentureBeat piece. Heh. Onward, smiling — just the same.
नमस्ते
Not at all surprising — the local courts in Kenya have heard a motion, and ordered a TRO — against Tangerine 2.0 using the nation to act as a sick-paddock, for US people in Africa.
Ebola is not a case of the flu. Not even remotely. Here’s the latest:
…A Kenyan court has suspended a plan to establish an Ebola quarantine facility for United States nationals exposed to the virus following a backlash from health workers and rights activists.
High Court Judge Patricia Nyaundi on Friday ordered a halt to the agreement on the facility, pending a ruling in a legal challenge brought by activists. The case should be heard next week….
As countries seek to avert the spread internationally, the US struck a deal to isolate and monitor potentially exposed citizens in Kenya rather than transport them directly home for treatment.
The Katiba Institute, a Kenyan rights group, said in a petition challenging the planned facility, which was due to start operating on Friday, that it was being established in secrecy and unilaterally and that it “raises grave constitutional concerns”….
Onward — smiling in the sunshine — on, to baby ice-capades, this weekend, on Sunday afternoon!
नमस्ते
Do go read it all — but the Trumpian/Todd Blanche lying we saw in Nashville, before USDC Judge Waverly Crenshaw (resulting in a dismissal of the purported “indictment”) was also underway, with thundering hooves, in Maryland, before the able USDC Jugde Xinis.
She will soon put an end to Blanche’s odious charade — but do consider these particularly egregious bits:
…The official whose conduct the court found initiated that “taint” was Todd Blanche — then Deputy Attorney General, now Acting Attorney General, and a named defendant here.
Blanche declared that the Government began investigating Abrego Garcia only after “a judge in Maryland ‘questioned’” the decision to remove him to El Salvador. Id. at *5. As the Tennessee court found, and the Government has failed to rebut, those statements “directly establish that the motivations for Abrego’s criminal charges stem from his exercise of his constitutional and statutory rights.” Id. The court concluded: “Blanche’s words directly confirm that the Executive Branch reopened the criminal investigation because the Judicial Branch required the Executive Branch to facilitate Abrego’s return from El Salvador….”
After the Court unsealed these papers and the Government’s assertions became public, Costa Rica confirmed its continued, unwavering, and unconditional commitment to accepting Abrego Garcia. ECF No. 110 at 14; ECF No. 108 at 1. That was the third foreign state to undermine the Government’s representations to this Court. ECF No. 110 at 14. At a November 20 hearing, the Government produced the declarant who had signed the submission claiming Costa Rica would not accept Abrego Garcia. He testified that he had no knowledge of Costa Rica’s position and could not explain the contents of his own declaration — ignorance the Court described as “planned and purposeful.” Id. at 13–14 (quoting ECF No. 107 at 26:8–27:12).
Ultimately, the Court concluded that the Government had “affirmatively misled” the Court about Costa Rica’s willingness to accept Abrego Garcia….
Ahem. It seems this is all just “the worst of the worst“… doing their collective… worst. But soon, Abrego will be a free man (and paid box-car damages), either here in the States, or in Costa Rica — for this shocking misuse of governmental powers. Onward.
नमस्ते
The US has already built, long vetted and fully-staffed, various highly specialized treatment facilities — for just these sorts of outbreaks. We used them in the 2012-14 outbreak, for physicians and nurses who fell ill, while working for Doctors Without Borders in DRC, Uganda and Liberia.
But we all remember, from Trump 1.0, this guy is well-known as a largely-irrational germ-a-phobe. So he is “constructing” a holding pen, essentially, in Kenya. [We also know, however, after 13 outbreaks, globally — that the Ebola virus is very likely transmitted only by close contact with blood or bodily fluids, from an acutely suffering (or already dead) viral host.] Certainly, American diplomats and doctors deserve better — from the government, they serve — than this:
…The American Foreign Service Association on Wednesday urged the State Department to authorize the departure of U.S. diplomats and family members from Congo, Uganda and South Sudan because of Ebola concerns.
The union in a statement cited reports about the Kenya facility, calling it a “stark departure from how every previous administration has handled Ebola exposure.”
“Foreign Service employees are there because the U.S. government sent them. They are entitled to the same standard of care that has always applied, including the right to come home,” the union said….
Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Center for National and Global Health Law and a professor of global health law at Georgetown University, said it’s “unprecedented” to quarantine Americans overseas without bringing them home.
“I think it’s potentially a life sentence for Americans,” Gostin said.
He noted that during the 2014 Ebola outbreak, two nurses at a Texas hospital who became infected while treating a patient were transferred to other specialized facilities, including the National Institutes of Health….
Onward, resolutely just the same.
नमस्ते
Do recall that a carefully reviewed study we mentioned about ten days ago points to the inference that something like 32 of each 33 cases in the US remain “hidden” — that is, undiagnosed as the sufferer does not seek treatment. And each of those may well infect… others.
In any event, here is the latest — from the Wisconsin public health authorities:
…The Wisconsin Department of Health Services (DHS) confirmed five mpox cases in the state this year, with a cluster identified in southeastern Wisconsin and cases in northern Wisconsin.
Although mpox has been circulating at low levels since 2022, DHS says current surveillance data show an uptick of infections nationwide in recent weeks. As of May 3, 535 cases have been confirmed across the United States….
Now you know. We’re headed to the Math Academy, and then park-play — with the grand-nieces tonight… may grill some lemon infused brats, for them as well (their favorite!)… then we’ll walk to get some Cold-Stone ice cream blends, after all that, at around sunset… smile. Almost-end of school year fun.
नमस्ते
This is hilarious.
It seems that most of the prediction narratives — for this coming week’s end (on Friday morning US time) were all too optimistic — relative to a quadruple witching hour that will befall Bitcoin derivatives in about 28 hours.
…[A] $2,000 plunge below… $75,000 remains a real risk [Ed. Note: now a realized FACT] heading into the May 29 settlement….
Tim Sun, senior researcher at HashKey Group, told CoinDesk “The bigger problem, is macro: investors are de-risking as long-term yields rise, oil and inflation risks remain in focus, and there is currently no compelling reason for new capital to enter the market….
Disclosure: I hold long dated out of the money puts on stocks that trade in tandem with Bitcoin, so I enjoy the down-bubbles in BTC. G’night, all of good will… smile.
नमस्ते
It may take a few months, but this is highly likely to result in a dismissal. [My prior backgrounder here.]
The entire process was fundamentally flawed — infected with impermissible political biases (masquerading as supposed misdemeanor violations of law, at best), and makes entirely false claims about the organization’s workings — and whether the same is… lawful (as will be established in discovery, should we get that far). Here’s the well-reasoned motion to dismiss — and a bit of it:
…President Trump [made false and defamatory statements about the SPLC].. on April 24, 2026, three days after an indictment was unsealed against the Southern Poverty Law Center (“the SPLC”), [in] the latest manifestation of a top-down, retributive campaign in which he directed his Justice Department to go after those individuals and groups he deemed his political enemies, including the SPLC.
To carry out the President’s directive, others in the Administration targeted the SPLC, which now faces criminal charges for exercising its First Amendment right to identify, report on, and criticize extremist hate groups. The Administration has falsely accused the SPLC of being “anti-Christian,” of aiding the Biden Administration’s “weaponization” of the Department of Justice, of participating in political violence, and, most recently, of helping to “rig” the 2020 election against President Donald Trump… These examples of this Administration’s animus over the past year culminated in the criminal charges against the SPLC — an indictment premised on conclusory accusations but devoid of provable facts or a proper statement of the law. . . .
[Trump] publicly proclaimed the improper political motive behind the case, branding the SPLC a “Democrat Hoax, along with Act Blue and many others” and claimed that when the allegations are proven “the 2020 Presidential Election should be permanently wiped from the books and be of no further force or effect!” President Trump doubled down on these farcical claims on a nationally televised 60 Minutes interview a few days later. He falsely proclaimed that the 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia “was all funded by the Southern [Poverty] Law [Center].” President Trump asserted that the SPLC had funded this “total fake” event “to make me look bad….”
But he said — of the very same “Unite the Right” rally, in real time — that there “were very fine people on all sides.”
That scarcely sounds like he ever thought it was a false-flag operation. What a lying putz. This indictment will end just as the ones against Jim Comey have — and Mr. Abrego Garcia, as well: dumped out of court, for lies — by the US DoJ.
नमस्ते
We now have seen news that the team has recovered the payloads, from late last year — on the ice shelf at the bottom of the world.
Here’s that, from NASA and NSF:
…The first of NASA’s Astrophysics Pioneers missions to launch, PUEO took off Dec. 20, 2025, from NASA’s Long Duration Balloon Facility near McMurdo Station, Antarctica, and flew for 23 days before landing approximately 120 miles (200 km) from the South Pole. The full payload has been recovered, including the data drives. The PUEO team is currently analyzing the data collected—an undertaking that may take up to a year due to the complex nature of the task….
To improve sensitivity to extensive air showers produced by cosmic rays and potentially neutrinos, PUEO incorporated a new low-frequency instrument that deployed once the payload reached float altitude (it would have been much too large to fit in the allowable launch volume in its flight configuration). This new low-frequency instrument incorporated antennas that are sensitive down to 50 MHz, and extended PUEOs sensitivity to air showers….
Now you know. All as the Russians are spacewalking on NASA+, live at the ISS this late morning. Onward, grinning.
नमस्ते
Overnight, the Ugandan government has closed its borders to DRC travelers. The nation has cut off overland crossings, and will not accept air-travel from DRC. This, as well over 1,000 are now ill in this the thirteenth Ebola outbreak in Africa — and well over 252 are considered fatalities from it.
Yes, this is what Elon’s — and Donald’s — handiwork looks like, as it comes to ripened fruition — about a year later. Here is the latest, from Vox (news summary and analysis):
…Shortly after brandishing his infamous chainsaw on a conservative conference stage last February, Elon Musk attended a Cabinet meeting where, giggling slyly, he admitted to having “accidentally canceled” Ebola prevention in his haste to obliterate the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
“We restored the Ebola prevention immediately,” he added coolly at the time, “and there was no interruption.” That claim has since proven to be disastrously, profoundly untrue.
On May 17, the World Health Organization declared a rapidly spreading Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda a “public health emergency of international concern….”
[For its part, the WHO strongly disfavors closed borders. Here’s that:] “No country should close its borders or place any restrictions on travel and trade. Such measures are usually implemented out of fear and have no basis in science,” the World Health Organization said in its declaration of this outbreak as a public health emergency of international concern, while acknowledging that neighboring countries are at high risk.
The WHO added: “They push the movement of people and goods to informal border crossings that are not monitored, thus increasing the chances of the spread of disease.”
It said infected people or those who have been in contact with them should not undertake international travel unless it’s a medical evacuation….
What a supremely unscientific — and evil — cabal these folks represent. Damn. Time for a sunny warm ride by the glassy lake, I guess… smile.
नमस्ते
Powerline Lies... 