I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one another.
On Christmas Day, another parliament member of the United Kingdom was targeted in a Twitter crypto scam. Education Secretary Gillian Keegan found her Twitter pic changed to Elon Musk’s current profile picture.
As the cyber attack took place at 7:30 PM on Christmas Day, the first thing the hacker did was reply to the real Elon Musk’s tweet: “Thank you for another great year! This feels a lot like Christmas.”
Elon Musk Imposter Hacks UK Cabinet Minister’s Account, Promotes Crypto Scam
Nicolai J. Foss and Peter G. Klein, Why Managers Matter: The Perils of the Bossless Company, is an interesting defense of corporate hierarchy, based on economic reasoning and also a dash of Hayek.
On the Cover of New York Magazine: Donald Trump’s Sad, Lonely Run for Reelection
New York Department of Financial Services (DFS) Superintendent Adrienne A. Harris released Guidance to banking organizations that wish to engage in virtual currency-related activities
The Final Campaign Inside Donald Trump’s sad, lonely, thirsty, broken, basically pretend run for reelection. (Which isn’t to say he can’t win.)
AI can now create images out of thin air. See how it works Washington Post: “A strange and powerful collaborator is waiting for you. Offer it just a few words, and it will create an original scene, based on your description.
This is artificial-intelligence-generated imagery, a rapidly emerging technology now in the hands of anyone with a smart phone. The results can be astonishing: crisp, beautiful, fantastical and sometimes eerily realistic. But they can also be muddy and grotesque: warped faces, gobbledygook street signs and distorted architecture. How does it work? Keep scrolling to learn step by step how the process unfolds.”
Putin, Isolated and Distrustful, Leans on Handful of Hard-Line Advisers Wall Street Journal. Neocons gotta neocon.
Sixty years on from the Cuban missile crisis, the US has learned its lessons – but Putin has notGuardian
Document: Report on Trump’s Tax Returns
- Ways and Means Committee report on Trump Taxes
- Joint Committee on Taxation summary of Trump’s returns.
- WSJ$ – Donald and Melania Trump Reported Negative Income In Four Years From 2015 Through 2020. “The Trumps paid some form of taxes every year, but paid $750 or less in income taxes in three of the six years.”
- Quartz – The IRS is accused of doing a half-baked job of auditing Trump’s controversial tax returns. The House Committee on Ways and Means painted a damning picture of the IRS’s oversight.
- See also ProPublica: The IRS Hasn’t Released Nearly Half a Million Nonprofit Tax Records. “According to a ProPublica review of public IRS data, which powers our Nonprofit Explorer database, the agency is behind on releasing nearly half a million tax records, known as Form 990s, for tax-exempt organizations. The delays, which began two years ago, are stymying access to key financial information that governments, the public and grantmakers use to evaluate the nation’s tax-exempt companies.”
- See also LawFare – House Democrats’ Report on Trump Taxes Highlights IRS’s Failures—and Their Own
- See also Washington Post – The House Ways and Means Committee will wait until after Christmas to gift the public Donald Trump’s tax returns
