Monday, July 28, 2025

Trump v Murdoch


"For if the bomb that drops on you Gets your friends and neighbors too, There'll be nobody left behind to grieve."

Tom Lehrer


Tom Lehrer, master satirist of Cold War era, dies at 97 In song, he brilliantly skewered clichΓ©s about romance, patriotism and small-town life


Trump stumbled on Epstein, and Rupert Murdoch has pounced


Trump asks for swift deposition of Murdoch in Epstein defamation case


Repenting catholic? Murdoch v Trump: why the flawed media titan could be the final protector of press freedom


Bonhoeffer’s “theory of stupidity”: We have more to fear from stupid people than evil ones Big Think

20-Million-Year-Old Rhino Fossil Rewrites Evolutionary History SciTech Daily


An electric scooter that accelerates faster than a Tesla Model 3? No thanks! The Verge


For privacy and security, think twice before granting AI access to your personal dataTechCrunch


MasterChefs:








USDA again asks for Kansans’ personal data, as lawsuit seeks privacy protections Kansas Reflector


Elon Musk’s latest blending of business interests puts his Grok AI chatbot in Teslas—and raises questions around data and privacy Fortune


Christina Pagel – “With the help of amazing volunteers, I’ve converted my Trump action tracker spreadsheet into an easy to use website – now up to 740 actions and counting. Today I’m launching TrumpActionTracker.info – a live, searchable list of authoritarian‑style actions from Trump’s second term (over 740 actions so far). Logging actions of the Trump administration across five broad domains of authoritarianism.

 I’ve been doing my best to track actions of the Trump administration that are authoritarian-like since the start of his second term in January 2025. In February 2025, I introduced five broad domains of authoritarianism that covered the recorded actions:

  • Undermining Democratic Institutions & Rule of Law; Dismantling federal government
  • Dismantling Social Protections & Rights; Enrichment & Corruption
  • Suppressing Dissent & Controlling Information
  • Attacking Science, Environment, Health, Arts & Education
  • Aggressive Foreign Policy & Global Destabilization; Nationalism

I then mapped the actions onto a Venn Diagram. Since then, I have continued writing about further actions, and groups of actions since, such as attacks on scienceuniversitiesdemocracy, and suppressing dissent


However, as the number of authoritarian-like actions has continued to grow (now at more than 740), I wanted to create a web resource that lets anyone explore the actions I am logging. With the help of two amazing volunteers Sandy Laping (who helps me find actions to log) and Pete Duncanson (who built the website), this is now live at trumpactiontracker.info