Grotesque, greedy, gullible, graceless, gaslighting, gormless, god-forsaken grifter - Trump thread #147

[Spandauer]

Desperately seeking that Peace Prize.
May have to settle for the Hero of the Russian Federation award. Bigly sad.

Previous thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5372669-still-dancing-the-tariff-tango-vlad-and-bibi-still-playing-him-like-a-fiddle-and-epsteins-list-must-be-written-in-invisible-ink-trump-thread-146

You can get "AI" to "believe" in all sorts of bollocks if you can be arsed. It's so preloaded to show how "clever" it is that it's embarrassingly easy to goad it into doing whatever you like.

On a serious note (sales droids can clock off here) it does speak to some deeper truth of what "intelligence" is (we don't know, by the way). However it does seem to involve 2 sets of models running in parallel - but asynchronously - where each one catches the other out. Whereas the monomind version that ChatGPT is being asked to emulate has no such dialogue.

I am mildly amused that thus far, religion hasn't stormed in and declared intelligence as only something God can bestow and therefore something a machine cannot possess. I guess they're still feeding the poor and fighting injustice and inequality.

Protestors should start quoting the
Pledge of Allegiance
at the ICE / National Guard / FBI goons
repeat the oath they took back at them as they break it

<reaches for popcorn>

Please may I watch? My degree was only literature, and I love to see an expert at work.

I wonder what Grok would say about this ?

Do all Americans know the Pledge (I think I saw it being said at the start of the school day?) Otherwise these agents may not know what they are hearing.

Regardless of the answer, knowing is not understanding.

Ditto thanks, one of the few things to make sense today.

The RC church has taken a fairly nuanced position (unlike the other AI - I did have to double check)
New Vatican document examines potential and risks of AI - Catholic Bishops' Conference share.google/uSNqvs5rwugKCnqzH

Tay-Tay and Travis' engagement announcement has managed to knock Trump's cabinet meeting off Fox News.
No doubt he will be congratulating them when he's got a moment.

Now I want to read Antiqua et Nova. It sounds like a realistic assessment of the potential for AI to bring both benefits and harm.

As a sci-fi fan, my head is full of the possible aftermath of an AI controlled war.😱

I see they called in Liberace to redecorate the Cabinet Room 🤮

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/ckgd3dm41ppt?post=asset%3A49a813bd-c5a7-4198-9b15-20cbd61230d6#post

How easy is it gong to be for a subsequent President with better taste (that is, any taste at all) to reverse this intensely vulgar vandalism? Dig up the concrete and replace the grass and flowers? Remove the glue holding the Do-It-All gilded crip-crap to the walls and floors, and repaint them?

Heather Honey, a high-profile denier of Trump’s loss in the 2020 election, has been appointed to a senior position in the Department of Homeland Security in which she’ll help oversee election security.
https://www.propublica.org/article/heather-honey-dhs-election-security

😬Did she get extra points for her stripper name?

Probably not as funny as it should be when you think it has a ring of the future.

Heather Honey sounds like she should have a comma as a middle name...

China showing they aren't scared ...

https://www.theregister.com/2025/08/26/trump_china_rare_earths/

Because China is really not scared, as a totalitarian state can absorb a lot of pain if necessary.

Hmmm, what will happen to tariffs & Greenland & whatever next from Trump, in the ten years it takes the US to become self sufficient? 🤔And would self sufficiency also cover the rare earths needed to support a stable solar power grid in the future?

Or would a 3-term(😱) Trump's rejection of renewables leave the US behind in the space solar race, which in turn could mean comparably higher prices for US goods manufactured with fossil energy.

https://www.technologynetworks.com/applied-sciences/news/space-based-solar-may-replace-80-of-wind-and-solar-power-403785

While not quite as fantastical as the Owl & the Pussycat comparison, I believe that it's feasible to examine Trump's Presidencies in terms of the Butterfly Effect on the world.

I will pay good money to see Trump's domestic and foreign policies fed into a bank of super computers set up to predict global outcomes.

Greenland not happy.

(From the guardian)
Denmark summons US charge d'affaires over alleged attempts to interfere with Greenland's status
We are getting big news just in from Denmark, which has summoned the US charge d’affaires in the country over alleged attempts to interfere with the status of Greenland, a long-term point of interest for the new US administration of Donald Trump.
In a comment to public broadcaster DR, foreign minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said that “any attempt to interfere in the Kingdom’s internal affairs will obviously be unacceptable.”
The move comes after DR reported that Danish intelligence services have uncovered a network of “at least three” people working on “influence operations” in Greenland to drive a wedge between Denmark and the territory, in a bid to pave the way for it to get closer to the United States.
The broadcaster said it knew the names of the three American men involved in the operations, but chose not to publish them to protect sources. It said they were previously known to be close to Trump, but it was not immediately clear if they worked on the White House’s order or on their own.
It alleged that one of the men visited Greenland to attend meetings and compile a list of potential allies and opponents of Donald Trump’s plans to take over the territory.
He also allegedly urged Greenlanders to “point out cases that could be used to put Denmark in a bad light in American media,” DR said.
The two other men were allegedly involved in building networks of contactswith politicians, business figures and community leaders to pursue Trump’s plans.
The meeting with the US charge d’affaires is expected later today, Rasmussen said.

Yes, I saw that.

"This hostile attitude towards Denmark from the Trump administration is shocking," he told the BBC. "As a pro-American country we're asking why are you doing this."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0j9l08902eo

There are a lot of unknowns with that scheme. It's never been done at scale quite aside from the fact you'd need a lot of buffer space around the collection point on earth, we have fuck all idea what shooting microwaves through the atmosphere permanently might do. Bad luck for anything organic that finds itself straying into the beam.

@SerendipityJane I'll settle for still being around twenty years from now, with my mind intact, to read an objective and in-depth analysis of it.

Further to my earlier post about US warships in the Caribbean Sea, locals are divided over the Trinidad and Tobago gov't's open and unilateral support for Trump. Some see it as abandoning CARICOM for a T&T first approach. There's even a MAGA style red hat merch saying just that!.

With China financing many loans and projects in the Caribbean and South America, this geographical area is yet another arena ripe for PR/proxy warfare with the US.

https://eu.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/politics/2025/08/26/democrat-catelin-drey-wins-iowa-senate-special-election-defeats-republican-christopher-prosch/85819325007/

Trump has assumed full federal control of Washington DC's Union Station and has taken it over from Amtrak.

How legitimate is it for the central government to seize control of a state's infrastructure? Or is DC not a state so he can get away with it?