Tuesday, August 05, 2025

Smithsonian removes Trump from impeachment exhibit in American history museum

Egyptian proverb : They asked the Pharaoh “what made you a tyrant?”. He said, "no one stopped me”


The Rule of Law Is Dead in the US

The Nation – Elie Mystal: “The rule of law presupposes that there are rules that provide a consistent, repeatable, and knowable set of outcomes


Battle stations: The former PM, ministers, and military brass cashing in on Australia’s defence spending bonanza

With billions of dollars in AUKUS spending looming, the rush to join defence industry contractors and advisory firms has never been greater.


Peter Kyle receives £66,000 donation from tech firm, then hands them £5m government contractThe Canary 


Bessent Admits Trump Tax Scam Offers ‘Backdoor for Privatizing Social Security’ Common Dreams


If AI can analyze information, crunch data and deliver a slick PowerPoint deck within seconds, how does the biggest name in consulting stay relevant?


The Trump administration has just sent $10m worth of birth control to be burned – rather than donate it as aid The Independent


Tech giant Palantir helps the US government monitor its citizens. Its CEO wants Silicon Valley to find its moral compass The Conversation


Billionaire Peter Thiel backing first privately developed US uranium enrichment facility in Paducah WKMS 


Smithsonian removes Trump from impeachment exhibit in American history museum

The Smithsonian said it restored the display to an earlier version, which notes that “only three presidents have seriously faced removal.”

UK wealth managers have reported a surge in enquiries from affluent customers after weeks of uncertainty over a potential wealth tax


Victims of fraud and financial abuse caught in ATO's pursuit of $56b in tax debt


British 999 call handler's voice cloned by Russian network using AI

The BBC's Olga Robinson has tracked down and spoken to an emergency medical adviser from Preston in England, who was shocked to learn his voice had been faked in a video campaign spreading fear ahead of Poland's presidential election earlier this year.


My delivery was just five minutes away when Australia Post did something inexplicable - and I know I'm not alone








Senators consider their position on consulting contracts committee


Calls grow for a permanent Senate committee to monitor government use of consultants, with Coalition, Labor and the Greens showing rare signs of alignment.

Senator Deborah O’Neill says she will look closely at the proposal by the Coalition’s Richard Colbeck to boost the accountability of departments when they spend taxpayers’ money on consultants by establishing a permanent committee.

“Having worked with Senator Colbeck on this issue in the last parliament, I understand the intent and design of this legislation and the reasons why he seeks to pursue it,” O’Neill said.

“Throughout work in the Senate, and through the report of my joint committee on corporations and financial services, we have documented repeated examples where consulting firms have failed the public with their nefarious business tactics, questionable operating procedures and ‘land and expand’ profit-before-principles strategies.

“I will be pleased to keep working with Senator Colbeck and my colleagues in the Senate to ensure that these firms and the way they seek to profit from taxpayers’ money continue to receive appropriate levels of scrutiny.”


A spokesperson for O’Neill’s Labor colleague, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher, said the bill tabled by Colbeck over the past week would be subject to the usual consideration. No further comment was provided.

The Greens have voiced their support for Colbeck’s proposal to establish a permanent committee to examine consulting contracts to ensure a constant eye is kept on government spending. Barbara Pocock was a member of the committee that examined the system of procurement alongside Colbeck and O’Neill.


Pocock told The Mandarin she was concerned little progress had been made on the issues identified by the parliamentary committee.


This was the committee that examined issues such as how PwC Australia operated before, during, and after the tax leaks scandal, the various operational and revenue issues for other large accounting and consulting firms, the management of contractors by Finance and similar departments, and the role of professional associations in enforcing ethics among their members.


Pocock said a range of reforms are still needed to the procurement processes, and it may just require a permanent body to place pressure on government departments to make change.

“The government has not adopted many, if any, of the recommendations into the consulting services that wrapped up in the last parliament,” Pocock said. 


“There has not been enough structural reform to prevent these scandals from happening again. It took an inquiry and the resources of the Senate in the context of inquiries to investigate and uncover widespread scandals in the sector.

“If Labor isn’t going to instigate structural legislative reform to regulate and break up the firms to resolve conflicts of interest rife in the sector, or strengthen procurement powers, then we do need a permanent and ongoing committee.”

Monday, August 04, 2025

Tropfest Murdoch family

 Tropfest, once one of Australia's most beloved artistic institutions, is set to be revived by an unlikely alliance involving Racing NSW boss Peter V'Landys and a member of the Murdoch family.

Sports boss Peter V'landys leverages powerful connections to resurrect Tropfest


She wrote the book on Caitlin Clark: Christine Brennan on the WNBA’s missed opportunity



Trump Says Epstein ‘Stole’ Young Women Working at Mar-a-Lago Spa Time 

 Trump seems to have lost sight of the rule, “When you are explaining, you are losing.”



In the Russian Penal Colony, They Called Him ‘Dr. Evil’

Deep in the Russian heartland, hundreds of kilometers from home, Ukrainian prisoners of war were tormented by a sadistic...


The State of American Democracy in 2028

Mind-War – “As my readers know, I have been doing a lot of testing and reporting on AI—what’s it’s useful for, and what it’s not, along with some remarkable analyses of Stephen Miller and Donald Trump. I also recognize the downsides.


A Startup is Selling Data Hacked from Peoples’ Computers to Debt Collectors

404 Media – no paywall: “When your laptop is infected with infostealing malware, it’s not just hackers that might get your passwords, billing and email addresses, and a list of sites or services you’ve created accounts on, potentially including some embarrassing ones. 

A private intelligence company run by a young founder is now taking that hacked data from what it says are more than 50 million computers, and reselling it for profit to a wide range of different industries, including debt collectors; couples in divorce proceedings; and even companies looking to poach their rivals’ customers. 

Essentially, the company is presenting itself as a legitimate, legal business, but is selling the same sort of data that was previously typically sold by anonymous criminals on shady forums or underground channels. Multiple experts 404 Media spoke to called the practice deeply unethical, and in some cases the use of that data probably illegal. The company is also selling access to a subset of the data to anyone for as little as $50, and 404 Media used it to uncover unsuspecting victims’ addresses. 

The activities of the company, called Farnsworth Intelligence, show a dramatic shift in the bevvy of companies that collect and sell access to so-called open source intelligence, or OSINT. Historically, OSINT has included things like public social media profiles or flight data. Now, companies increasingly see data extracted from peoples’ personal or corporate machines and then posted online as fair game not just to use in their own investigations, but to repackage and sell too. 

“To put it plainly this company is profiting off of selling stolen data, re-victimizing people who have already had their personal devices compromised and their data stolen,” Cooper Quintin, senior public interest technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), told 404 Media. “This data will likely be used to further harm people by police using it for surveillance without a warrant, stalkers using it to gather information on their targets, high level scams, and other damaging motives.”

Snapshot Report: IRS Workforce Reductions as of May 2025

 “The greatest enemy of authority, therefore, is contempt, and the surest way to undermine it is laughter.”

-Hannah Arendt

Why young Aussies are walking out of high-paying jobs and taking a salary cut despite cost-of-living crisis

Alleged Russian Tax Fraud Mastermind Funneled Millions Into Luxury Dubai Properties

A company owned by the alleged mastermind behind a massive tax fraud in Russia poured millions into two luxury hotel resorts...




Antipodean ADAM and Eve: Australia's 'tough conversations' about diversity are yet to happen

PwC’s back in the tent. No accountability, no justice, no worries, as Canberra’s culture of impunity rolls on.

GAO has published the titles of new restricted reports

“The following products have been determined to contain either classified information or controlled unclassified information by the Executive Branch audited agencies and therefore cannot be publicly released. As such, they have not been posted to GAO’s website and have product numbers that end in C (classified) or SU (controlled unclassified information). 

Many also have an unclassified, publicly releasable version, which can be found in the “Reports and Testimonies” section of GAO’s main website. This list is intended to keep Congress, federal agencies, and the public informed of the existence of these products. The list consists of all such classified or controlled products issued since September 30, 2014 and will be updated each time a new report is issued. 

Members of Congress or congressional staff who wish to obtain one or more of these products should contact the Congressional Relations Office at (202) 512-4400 or congrel@gao.gov. All others who wish to obtain one or more of these products should follow the instructions found on Requesting Restricted Products.”


Can Poetry De-escalate Polarization?

Poetry has always been political. The writer and civil-rights activist Audre Lorde argued it produces “a revelatory distillation of experience”. In other words, by distilling aspects of an experience, poetry can reveal powerful truths about reality. - The Conversation

Snapshot Report: IRS Workforce Reductions as of May 2025

TREASURY INSPECTOR GENERAL for Tax Administration – Snapshot Report: IRS Workforce Reductions as of May 2025, July 18, 2025. Report Number: 2025-IE-R027. Snapshot Report: IRS Workforce Reductions as of May 2025 – 

“According to the IRS, 25,386 employees have separated or taken a DRP incentive, while 294 employees have been sent termination notices due to RIF actions. There are also 31 employees (22 Information Technology employees and 9 probationary employees) who remain on administrative leave. However, as of May 2025, none of the employees who received a RIF notice have been terminated. 


They are still working because of a court injunction. An additional 3,023 probationary employees were also terminated and then reinstated due to the court injunction. Until the court challenges are resolved, these employees will continue to work at the IRS, unless they choose to separate or are terminated for other reasons. 

IRS actions have resulted in an approximate 26 percent reduction of its workforce. The National Taxpayer Advocaterecently reported that, without improved technology in place, the IRS staffing cuts could jeopardize the upcoming filing season. 

The National Taxpayer Advocate also stated, “to deliver a successful filing season, the IRS needs a sufficient number of trained employees to program its processing systems, develop and disseminate timely and clear guidance on tax law changes, answer telephone calls and process correspondence, among other things.”

Sunday, August 03, 2025

When the communist regime in Poland fell, it was a victory for writers

God moves in mysterious ways - Snow falls in Queensland as NSW SES report 100 vehicles stuck in heavily blanketed northern tablelands


The Prolific Writer Phenomenon

Prolific writers are simultaneously envied and dismissed, admired and snarked about. There is the sense that a writer can write too much, that whatever results can’t be very good. 


“Novels are better than television, but the surest way to make money from novels is to write with television in mind”... more »


Why do writers write? For pleasure, meaning, money, fame – and for no reason at all. Lydia Davis explains... more »


When the communist regime in Poland fell, it was a victory for writers and readers and the CIA as much as trade unionists and politicians... more »


It’s tempting to blame social media for our epistemic crisis. The truth is more complicated, and more uncomfortable... more »


The Indian Wedding

Another great piece by Samir Varma on Indian marriages—where deep traditions endure, even as subtle revolutions unfold around the edges.. It starts with this kicker:

When I told my mother I was marrying my girlfriend, an Italian Jew, she called all my friends in the US asking them to break us up.

When that failed, she faxed my future father-in-law threatening to disinherit me and never speak to me again. When that failed, she tried to get my PhD advisor to “tell us to break up.” (Luckily, he was relaxed enough to laugh about it with me, though it was embarrassing and deeply unpleasant.) Then she invited my girlfriend to India to “meet the family,” where my girlfriend paid a significant fraction of her yearly income as a starting engineer to fly over.

The pièce de résistance? My mother threw a party to “introduce her to everyone” — and spent the entire time complaining about her to all the guests. About 100 of those guests came to talk to me afterward, apologizing profusely, saying Indians aren’t like this and I should explain so she doesn’t think all Indians are nuts.

At my wedding, I had exactly zero relatives present. We didn’t speak for three years …

AI Is Coming for the Consultants. Inside McKinsey, ‘This Is Existential.’

 “Frankenstein” and “Paradise Lost” shed light on the narcissism of the powerful, male tech geniuses birthing a world-shattering new species, A.I.



To be a good human is to have a kind of openness to the world, an ability to trust uncertain things beyond your own control, that can lead you to be shattered in very extreme circumstances for which you were not to blame. 
That says something very important about the ethical life: that it is based on a trust in the uncertainty, and on a willingness to be exposed. It's based on being more like a plant than a jewel: something rather fragile, but whose very particular beauty is inseparable from that fragility


 By 

If AI can analyze information, crunch data and deliver a slick PowerPoint deck within seconds, how does the biggest name in consulting stay relevant?
Companies pay dearly for McKinsey’s human expertise, and for nearly a century they have had good reason: The elite firm’s armies of consultants have helped generations of CEOs navigate the thorniest of challenges, synthesizing complex information and mapping out what to do next.

Now McKinsey is trying to steer through its own existential transformation. Artificial intelligence can increasingly do the work done by the firm’s highly paid consultants, often within minutes.
 
That reality is pushing the firm to rewire its business. AI is now a topic of conversation at every meeting of McKinsey’s board, said Bob Sternfels, the firm’s global managing partner. The technology is changing the ways McKinsey works with clients, how it hires and even what projects it takes on.

And McKinsey is rapidly deploying thousands of AI agents. Those bots now assist consultants in building PowerPoint decks, taking notes and summing up interviews and research documents for clients. The most-used bot is one that helps employees write in a classic “McKinsey tone of voice”—language the firm describes as sharp, concise and clear. Another popular agent checks the logic of a consultant’s arguments, verifying the flow of reasoning makes sense.

Sternfels said he sees a day in the not-too-distant future when McKinsey has one AI agent for every human it employs.

“We’re going to continue to hire, but we’re also going to continue to build agents,” he said. 

Already, the shape of the company is shifting. The firm has reduced its head count from about 45,000 people in 2023 to 40,000 through layoffs and attrition, in part to correct for an aggressive pandemic hiring spree. It has since also rolled out roughly 12,000 AI agents.

“Do I think that this is existential for our profession? Yes, I do,” said Kate Smaje, a senior partner Sternfels tapped to lead the firm’s AI efforts earlier this year. But, “I think it’s an existential good for us.”

Consulting is emerging as an early and high-profile test case for how dramatically an industry must shift to stay relevant in the AI era. McKinsey, like its rivals, grew by hiring professionals from top universities, throwing them at projects for clients—then billing companies based, in part, on the scope and duration of the project.

AI not only speeds up projects, but it means many can be done with far fewer people, said Pat Petitti, CEO of Catalant, a freelance marketplace for consultants. Junior employees will likely be affected most immediately, since fewer of them will be needed to do rote tasks on big projects. Yet slimmer staffing is expected to ripple through the entire consulting food chain, he said.

“You have to change the business model,” Petitti said. “You have to make a dramatic change.”

AVOIDING A ‘SUIT WITH POWERPOINT’

One immediate change is that fewer clients want to hire consulting firms for strategy advice alone. Instead, big companies are increasingly looking for a consultant to help them put new systems in place, manage change or learn new skills, industry veterans say. 
“The age of arrogance of the management consultant is over now,” said Nick Studer, CEO of consulting firm Oliver Wyman. 

Companies, Studer added, “don’t want a suit with PowerPoint. They want someone who is willing to get in the trenches and help them align their team and cocreate with their team.”

At McKinsey, Sternfels is trying to cement the notion that the firm is a partner, not adviser, to clients. About a quarter of the company’s work today is in outcomes-based arrangements: McKinsey is paid partly on whether a project achieves certain results. 

Advising on AI and related technology now makes up 40% of the firm’s revenue, one reason Sternfels is pushing McKinsey to evolve alongside its clients. “You don’t want somebody who is helping you to not be experimenting just as fast as you are,” he said. 

The firm’s leaders are adamant that McKinsey isn’t looking to reduce the size of its workforce because of AI. Sternfels said the firm still plans to hire “aggressively” in the coming years.

But the size of teams is changing. Traditionally, a strategy project with a client might require an engagement manager—essentially, a project leader—plus 14 consultants. Today, it might need an engagement manager plus two or three consultants, alongside a few AI agents and access to “deep research” capabilities, Smaje said. Partners with decades of experience might prove more indispensable to projects, in part, because they have seen problems before. 

“You can get to a pretty good, average answer using the technology now. So the kind of basic layer of mediocre expertise goes away,” Smaje said. “But the distinctive expertise becomes even more valuable.”

THE FASTEST LEARNERS 

How McKinsey changes is a topic of much interest inside the firm. In October, roughly 2,500 McKinsey partners will descend on Chicago, where the company was founded in 1926, when a University of Chicago professor named James O. McKinsey began advising businesses.

The meeting will open a year of centenary celebrations inside the firm. In between the dinners, speeches and historical reflections, AI is expected to be a topic coursing through the multiday gathering.

AI-proofing McKinsey means taking on new work, too. The firm is targeting projects once the realm of boutique firms, such as helping companies to identify and groom future executives. McKinsey has long had its own reputation as a “leadership factory,” training CEOs and bosses, and Sternfels said the firm can apply its internal expertise to others.

“That is something I don’t think will be disrupted by AI,” he said.

As McKinsey recruits, it is looking for people who can demonstrate they are fast learners. “Increasingly, you’re going to have to learn over a career at a rate you and I have never seen,” he said. 

It also wants something else: People who can work well with others.

“It may sound pretty obvious, but it’s an increasingly important skill if you want to drive change in an organization,” Sternfels said.

Write to Chip Cutter at chip.cutter@wsj.com

PwC’s back in the tent. No accountability, no justice, no worries, as Canberra’s culture of impunity rolls on.

The rise of AI tools that write about you when you die

Families and funeral directors are using AI obituary generators to more efficiently memorialize the dead. What happens when they get it wrong?

Egyptian proverb : They asked the Pharaoh “what made you a tyrant?”. He said, "no one stopped me".