Bookmarks 2025-07-02T17:57:33.245Z
by Owen Kibel
25 min read
46 New Bookmarks
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Does ChatGPT make your brain rot? Jul 2, 2025 AI brain rot's evidence gap Axios We still don't know whether genAI is making us dumb. |
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Jul 2, 2025
CBS To Pay Trump $16M Over Editing Kamala Harris To LOOK GOOD, Interfere In 2024 Election
YouTube
Bernie also believes in abusing women but its alright he says no one should sue the mediaBecome A Memberhttp://youtube.com/timcastnews/joinThe Green Room - h... |
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| Whistleblower: Silicon Valley Transhumanism Dystopia Exposed | Daily Pulse Ep 56 - Zeee Media
Jul 2, 2025
Whistleblower: Silicon Valley Transhumanism Dystopia Exposed | Daily Pulse Ep 56 - Zeee Media
Zeee Media - Share the truth at whatever cost.
JUN 27, 2025 A terrified whistleblower has come forth to expose a secret plan to harvest data from mRNA vaccine recipients. Transhumanists like Kurzweil and Musk champion this fusion, as tech giants infiltrate governments, building a surveillance state. Medical whispers warn of nanotech in vaccines, poised to control minds and erase resistance. Humanity teeters on |
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Jul 2, 2025
Trump Admin To BAN Pride Rainbow Crosswalks, DoT Orders ALL Distractions REMOVED
YouTube
No more gay streets in the 50 statesBecome A Memberhttp://youtube.com/timcastnews/joinThe Green Room - https://rumble.com/playlists/aa56qw_g-j0BUY CAST BREW ... |
| | Natasha Hausdorff on X: "Calling out the inversion of the term Genocide. https://t.co/vItuq2iqEC" / X
Jul 2, 2025 |
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| Britain’s overdiagnosis crisis is stretching the welfare state - UnHerd
Jul 2, 2025
Britain’s overdiagnosis crisis is stretching the welfare state
UnHerd
Following the passage of Labour’s watered-down welfare Bill at second reading last night, questions will be asked about how the Government plans to slash the ballooning cost of the welfare state. New data for Enhanced Personal Independence Payments (PIP) in the UK shows that in 2019, 26,256 people were receiving enhanced PIP for autism. By [...]Read More... |
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Jul 2, 2025
JK Rowling vs the pronoun police
These short, ubiquitous words have become a litmus test for moral purity. |
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Jul 2, 2025
Dean Withers SOY RAGES Over Vaping Accusations
YouTube
Become A Memberhttp://youtube.com/timcastnews/joinThe Green Room - https://rumble.com/playlists/aa56qw_g-j0BUY CAST BREW COFFEE TO FIGHT BACK - https://castb... |
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Jul 2, 2025
TRUMP WINNING, Big Beautiful Bill PASSES Senate, Faces BLOCKS In The House | Timcast IRL
YouTube
Go to my sponsor https://venice.ai/tim and use code TIM to enjoy private, uncensored AI. Using my code will get you 20% off a pro plan.SUPPORT THE SHOW BUY C... |
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Jul 2, 2025
Senate SABOTAGED Trump's Bill TO KILL IT, Poison Pill May FORCE GOP To BLOCK It Over New Gaming Tax
YouTube
A new tax on gambling losses means fantasy sports, poker, and basically all recreational gaming becomes impossible. If one GOP rep breaks the bill will fail.... |
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Jul 2, 2025
Why Trump’s ‘Mamdani the Commie’ tag will stick — despite the media’s cover operation
New York Post
Unfortunately for Zohran Mamdani and his media allies, there aren’t enough semantic tricks in existence to make up for his own damning words. |
| | The Case for Zohranomics | The New Yorker
Jul 2, 2025
The Case for Zohranomics
The New Yorker
As some Wall Street billionaires melt down over Zohran Mamdani’s policy platform, a prominent progressive economist argues that it meets the moment.
To be sure, these reactions to what might be called “Zohranomics” didn’t exactly stun Mamdani’s supporters, many of whom take criticisms from financiers and centrist Democrats as confirmation they are on the right track. Summers “never disappoints, does he?” Isabella M. Weber, a professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, who signed a public letter endorsing Mamdani’s campaign proposals, told me during a lengthy conversation last week. Weber rose to prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, when she called for government price controls and published detailed research about how big companies were taking advantage of the global emergency to raise their prices and profit margins. Responding to Summers’s comments, she said that describing Mamdani’s program as Trotskyite was “absurd” and didn’t tell us anything “about what Mamdani’s agenda is trying to get at.” In the open letter, which The Nation published a few days before the primary, more than two dozen progressive economists from the United States and other countries described Mamdani’s policy platform as “a bold yet practical blueprint to tackle some of New York City’s most urgent challenges—above all, the cost of living.” Weber told me that she felt Mamdani “did very well in presenting himself as someone who stands up for the affordability of life and focusses on what I have been calling ‘essentials’—the stuff that people can’t do without: housing, food, transportation, and child care. If you can’t afford that stuff, you are really pushed to the margins of society.” Weber contrasted Mamdani’s proposals with the equivocations of Joe Biden’s Administration during the nationwide cost-of-living crisis that Donald Trump and other Republicans successfully exploited in last year’s election. She recounted how Biden, in his 2024 State of the Union speech, denounced corporations for capitalizing on a period of crisis by increasing their prices or reducing the size of their offerings, but then didn’t do much about it. After Kamala Harris replaced Biden on the Democratic ticket, she proposed a federal ban on price gouging by food suppliers and grocery stores. But she subsequently rowed back on the issue, Weber recalled, “based on pressure from similar quarters that have been criticizing Mamdani’s campaign.” The critique of Harris’s proposal was that price controls don’t work, and the same charge is being hurled at Mamdani’s call for a rent freeze on roughly a million rent-stabilized apartments. (The freeze wouldn’t apply to the city’s million or so market-rate apartments.) In a controversial column that favored Andrew Cuomo over Mamdani but took aim at both, the New York Times’ editorial board said that a rent freeze “could restrict housing supply and make it harder for younger New Yorkers and new arrivals to afford housing.” The argument is that, if landlords and developers see a rent freeze, they would be deterred from investing in new affordable housing. When I put this point to Weber, she said that it was important to realize that Mamdani’s call for a rent freeze is accompanied by a pledge to build an additional two hundred thousand rent-stabilized units over the next ten years; his campaign plans to accomplish this by expanding public investments, changing zoning laws, and fast-tracking planning approvals. “If you only do a rent freeze without insuring that you also build, I don’t think that’s a great idea,” Weber said. “Given the severeness of the affordability crisis in New York City, the combination of a rent freeze and an aggressive build-out of affordable housing is a good idea.” Creating more affordable housing is hardly a radical new mayoral goal, of course. In 2014, at the start of his eight-year tenure, Bill de Blasio also unveiled a plan to build or preserve two hundred thousand affordable apartments, and, in 2021, his administration announced that it had achieved this goal. Arguably, the most successful expansion of the city’s affordable-housing stock came with the construction of public-housing projects, which began during the Great Depression under Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, who established the New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA), and continued in the postwar decades. Subsequently, federal funding dried up, and public housing came to be associated with crime and other problems. In recent decades, New York’s mayors have built affordable housing primarily through public-private partnerships, in which for-profit and not-for-profit developers receive tax breaks and other forms of support for putting up buildings that are privately managed. Mamdani’s website says he will “recommit” to public housing, doubling the city’s investment in “major renovations of NYCHA housing” and using NYCHA-owned land, such as parking lots, as sites for more affordable housing—a proposal that de Blasio also championed. That sounds sensible, and overdue, but the housing shortage facing the city is formidable: some recent studies say it needs to build as many as half a million new homes. Mamdani has put less emphasis on encouraging market-rate development. He has given a few nods to the “abundance” wing of the Democratic Party, such as pledging to eliminate parking minimums and encourage development around subway stations and other transport hubs. But the primary goal of his plan is to “unleash the public sector to build housing for the many.” Another objective is to provide the city’s residents with cheap and healthy food. The Mamdani campaign says that its new grocery stores would operate in city-owned buildings in low-income areas that currently lack adequate options—so-called food deserts. It went on, “Without having to pay rent or property taxes, they will reduce overhead and pass on savings to shoppers.” Before moving to Massachusetts, Weber once lived in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn, where she sometimes found it difficult to shop for healthy foods. “The price dimension”—of Mamdani’s proposal—“is important, but the other is the accessibility of nutritious food,” she said. It’s important to note, as some media accounts haven’t, that Mamdani is proposing a pilot scheme of just five new stores—one in each borough. In a metropolis with more than fifteen thousand privately-owned supermarkets and grocery outlets, this seems like small beer. Nonetheless, Weber said that the experiment could be valuable. If it succeeded, it could be expanded, she noted, and ultimately it could encourage more competitive pricing in private stores: “If you have an alternative that is reliably cheap and doesn’t take advantage of opportunities to raise prices when they occur, that can change the pricing dynamic for whole sectors. That is potentially an important advantage that comes from having a public option.” In many people’s minds, the term “public option” is associated with health care. But public transportation is a public option, too, and, as Weber pointed out, the proposal to make bus rides free fits in with Mamdani’s emphasis on basic needs. “Affordable transportation options are essential for your basic material well-being, to get to a job, make money, and earn a living,” she said. Some progressive thinkers and groups have extended the public option concept to other areas, including communications, financial services, and food retailing. In a recent article that cited Mamdani’s proposal on grocery stores, Becky Chao, the director of policy and research at the Economic Security Project, wrote, “Public options show what’s possible when governments respond to local communities’ needs and build real alternatives for their constituents, when we grapple with the imbalance of power in our economy, and focus on marketshaping solutions that constrain corporate power while building power for all Americans.” Of course, public options will only succeed if they deliver what they promise. For example, there’s no guarantee that city-run grocery stores would be able to provide cheaper and more nutritious foods. “That’s why you need a pilot,” Weber acknowledged. “To see if you can pull it off.” Another of Mamdani’s proposals is more familiar to mainstream Democratic policymakers, and likely more consequential all around: universal child care. During the 2020 election campaign, Biden called for federally financed child care for all children aged three and four. After he was elected, he included a version of this proposal in his Build Back Better plan, which failed to make it through Congress after Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema opposed it. Mamdani, according to his website, is promising to provide “free childcare for every New Yorker aged 6 weeks to 5 years, ensuring high quality programming for all families.” This plan builds on de Blasio’s establishment of universal pre-K, which was the signature achievement of his mayoralty. Weber pointed to studies showing that child-care programs—which already exist in places like France, Sweden, and her native Germany—generate positive outcomes for parents and children alike. She said that the city at large would also benefit from them, because fewer families would be forced to leave when they have children. “I can think of three off the top of my head that moved out because it was completely impossible,” she said. “It’s really important for New York as a place.” That’s surely true, but how realistic are Mamdani’s proposals? One obvious issue is cost. Earlier this year, the group New Yorkers United for Child Care released a plan for statewide universal coverage that it said would cost $12.7 billion a year. The Mamdani campaign hasn’t said how much its plan for the city would cost, but if it was half that figure it would expand the city budget by about five per cent. To help pay for his spending proposals, Mamdani says, he would raise the city income-tax rate by two percentage points for individuals earning more than a million dollars a year, and by increasing the state corporate tax rate to 11.5 per cent. Cuomo, pushing back on Mamdani’s proposals, claimed that the tax hikes would prompt many rich people and businesses to flee, thereby undermining the city’s tax base. At least one recent study of millionaire migration patterns suggests that the threat of tax flight has been exaggerated, but it’s certainly true that Mamdani, in order to get his tax proposals enacted, would need the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the state legislature. “They wouldn’t only have to support it—they’d have to initiate it,” a longtime state official and observer of Albany politics, told me. “And it’s great to say you are going to introduce free bus rides in New York City, but you don’t run the M.T.A., which runs the buses. The governor appoints most of the M.T.A.’s board.” Financial experts say that Mamdani would also have to get state approval for the extra seventy billion dollars in municipal-bond issues that he is proposing in order to pay for his affordable-housing program. These realities of New York politics partly reflect the state’s constitution, originally adopted in 1777, which devolved some but by no means all powers of self-government to the city. The next mayor, like so many of his predecessors, will have to engage in awkward negotiations with politicians in Albany. This isn’t necessarily a hopeless position. The official noted that de Blasio, after being elected in 2013, eventually received a good deal of state funding for his electoral platform, which included universal pre-K. And this de Blasio success came despite the fact that he had an awkward relationship with Cuomo, who was then governor. “It’s normal Albany politics—the haggling, the back-and-forth,” the observer said, adding that Mamdani “has a good chance to get a good chunk of his agenda through, but he’s unlikely to get everything.” That’s only one assessment, of course. Kathryn Wylde, the chief executive of the Partnership for New York City, a business leadership group that represents about three hundred companies in the city, gave me another one. Since the primary election, Wylde said, she has been spending a lot of time reassuring senior executives that Mamdani wouldn’t have the authority to push through his proposals, particularly the tax ones, “so they don’t freak out and move.” Wylde went on, “We have every confidence that the Governor will make clear to him that his tax agenda is a non-starter.” Weber questioned the notion that wealthy people could leave New York en masse. She said that having an apartment in a desirable part of Manhattan is a status symbol that they value highly, and she added that folks on more modest incomes are more sensitive to rising costs. “If rent costs become too high, and transportation and food, they do end up leaving. For the super-rich, the calculus is completely different.” She did grant that Mamdani will face some major obstacles if he gets elected, but that hasn’t sapped her enthusiasm for his candidacy, which she regards as a model not just for New York mayoral hopefuls but for any politician seeking to counter the rise of Trump and other right-wing populists. At the end of our conversation, I asked Weber how she would describe Zohranomics. As municipal socialism, perhaps? Or municipal Rooseveltism? “I’m not sure we need to search for ‘isms’ here,” she replied. “If anything, it is a very effective form of antifascist economic policy. We are at a moment where the crisis of economic security, of affordability, that comes with basic questions of dignity and identity are being used by the far right in ways that fuel the return of fascist tendencies. I think that having an agenda that is laser-focussed on the needs of ordinary people is what we need, and that is basically where the Democrats fell flat last year. At the federal level and the global level, we are dealing with the consequences of that lack of vision right now.” ♦|
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| 5 underrated Linux apps I can't live without
Jul 2, 2025
5 underrated Linux apps I can't live without
XDA
The popular options aren't for me |
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Jul 2, 2025
Battling the Deep State from Richard Nixon to Donald Trump
YouTube
The Deep State’s been around a lot longer than you think! Miranda speaks with White House Ambassador Monica Crowley who explains how the Deep State brought f... |
| | Elon Musk on X: "Follow @Thiss_Youu. Some real gems 😂" / X
Jul 2, 2025 |
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Jul 2, 2025
That AI artist with over 1M listeners on Spotify? His music was created with Suno, says expert report - Music Business Worldwide
Music Business Worldwide
The creators behind Aventhis and other AI ‘artists’ might not actually own the rights to the music they upload to streaming platforms. |
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Jul 1, 2025
The Democratic Party we knew died the same way it lived – with fear and hate
New York Post
Zohran Mamdani’s primary win marks the end of the Democratic Party as we once knew it. |
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Jul 1, 2025
Why Mamdani’s rent freeze means disaster for NYC tenants
New York Post
The Rent Guidelines Board’s hikes for rent-stabilized housing will ensure more landlords can’t collect enough to cover costs, and some may abandon their buildings. |
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| "Indie Rock Band" That's Clearly Using AI Claims That "We Never Use AI"
Jul 1, 2025
"Indie Rock Band" That's Clearly Using AI Claims That "We Never Use AI"
Futurism
An "indie rock band" called The Velvet Sundown is now claiming that "we never use AI" after being accused of not existing. |
| | An "Indie Rock Band" That Appears to Be Entirely AI-Generated Is Making Alarming Amounts of Money on Spotify
Jul 1, 2025
An "Indie Rock Band" That Appears to Be Entirely AI-Generated Is Making Alarming Amounts of Money on Spotify
Futurism
While real artists struggle to earn money on Spotify, a seemingly AI-generated band has garnered enough streams to actually make a buck. |
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Jul 1, 2025
Paramount, CBS forced to pay eight figures, change editorial policy in settlement with Trump
New York Post
Paramount Global and CBS agreed on Tuesday to pay President Donald Trump a sum that could reach north of $30 million to settle the president’s election interference lawsuit against the network. |
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Jul 1, 2025
Michael Goodwin: Cuomo remains NYC’s best shot to keep socialist Mamdani from being mayor – or the city will never be the same
New York Post
He lost the primary by a stunning 12-point blowout, but as strange as it sounds, the ball is again back in Andrew Cuomo’s court. |
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| Elon Musk Goes Off Again
Jul 1, 2025
Elon Musk Goes Off Again
townhall.com
Elon Musk threatens Trump's legislative priority, sparking political turmoil as he criticizes spending. |
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Jul 1, 2025
Do you have an open mind on Donald Trump?
YouTube
Do you have an open mind on Donald Trump?Vote on Today's Poll: https://www.smerconish.com/daily-poll/ Subscribe to The Smerconish.com Daily Newsletter: https... |
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| STUDY: Late Night Comedy Shows Begin 2025 With 99% Of Guests Being Left-W
Jul 1, 2025
STUDY: Late Night Comedy Shows Begin 2025 With 99 Percent Of Guests Being Left-Wing
Newsbusters
For the men of the late night comedy talk shows, the first half of 2025 was an instance of history repeating itself. According to a NewsBusters study, 99 percent of their political guests were on the left, matching the result for the last six months of 2024. |
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| Elon Is Asking For It: What Musk’s Latest Trump Spat Means As Tesla Sales Sink
Jul 1, 2025
Elon Is Asking For It: What Musk’s Latest Trump Spat Means As Tesla Sales Sink
Forbes
Second-quarter vehicle deliveries dropped 13% and the Senate version of Trump’s budget bill phases out EV tax credits in months. |
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| Gemini's command line tool is a hidden productivity game changer - and it's free | ZDNET
Jul 1, 2025
Gemini's command line tool is a hidden productivity game changer - and it's free
ZDNET
If you're looking to add a bit of Gemini AI productivity to your Linux command line workflow, you'll be surprised at how easy it is to install and use. |
| | They tried to squash him. Now they want to be with him. - POLITICO
Jul 1, 2025
They tried to squash him. Now they want to be with him.
POLITICO |
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| Ancient DNA Unlocks the Secret Recipe of Roman Fish Sauce
Jul 1, 2025
Ancient DNA Unlocks the Secret Recipe of Roman Fish Sauce
Gizmodo
Roman salting plants processed fish so thoroughly that researchers struggle to identify the species once used in ancient condiments. |
| | Trump questions Mamdani’s citizenship status - POLITICO
Jul 1, 2025
Trump questions Mamdani’s citizenship status
POLITICO
The president said his administration will “look at everything” with regard to the democratic socialist. |
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| Trump threatens to arrest anti-Israel New York City mayoral candidate Mamdani | The Times of Israel
Jul 1, 2025
Trump threatens to arrest anti-Israel New York City mayoral candidate Mamdani | The Times of Israel |
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| Rochelle Robins - Chaplaincy Innovation Lab
Jul 1, 2025
Rochelle Robins - Chaplaincy Innovation Lab
Chaplaincy Innovation Lab
Rabbi Rochelle Robins is Vice President and Dean of the Chaplaincy School at the Academy for Jewish Religion, California. She earned her rabbinical ordination at Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in New York. Rabbi Robins previously served as the rabbinic Staff Chaplain at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, and the… |
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| Time Zone Converter – Time Difference Calculator
Jul 1, 2025
Time Zone Converter – Time Difference Calculator
Find the exact time difference with the Time Zone Converter – Time Difference Calculator which converts the time difference between places and time zones all over the world. |
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| Dateful Time Zone Converter
Jul 1, 2025
Dateful Time Zone Converter
Dateful Time Zone Converter converts times instantly as you type. Convert between major world cities, countries and timezones in both directions. |
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| Google's AI Mode Is Changing How You Search. So What Is It? - CNET
Jul 1, 2025
Google's AI Mode Is Changing How You Search. So What Is It?
CNET
Google's new way of exploring the internet brings the chatbot experience to your search engine. |
| | How your brain makes a decision before you know it - Earth.com
Jul 1, 2025
How your brain makes a decision before you know it
Earth.com
Princeton scientists uncover how brain cells coordinate decisions, offering insight into mental health and cognitive function. |
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| Turn Your HTML Into a Attractive Website With Just 12 Lines of CSS
Jul 1, 2025
You Only Need 12 Lines of CSS to Build a Clean, Attractive Website
How-To Geek
A quick shortcut to minimal beauty. |
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Jul 1, 2025
The first American ‘scientific refugees’ arrive in France
POLITICO
Aix-Marseille University is wooing researchers who feel targeted by the Trump administration. |
| | Gillibrand apologizes to Mamdani over ‘jihad’ comments - POLITICO
Jul 1, 2025
Gillibrand apologizes to Mamdani over ‘jihad’ comments
POLITICO
The New York senator was criticized for not defending the NYC mayoral candidate in a combative radio interview. |
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| Google Gemini CLI: Free AI Tool for Developers | JavaScript in Plain English
Jul 1, 2025
I Tried Google’s New Gemini CLI. It’s the Most Powerful Open-Source Dev Tool
Medium
Google quietly released a local AI agent that builds apps, debugs code, parses your repo, and fetches real-time data, right inside your… |
| | Can the music industry make AI the next Napster? | The Verge
Jul 1, 2025
Can the music industry make AI the next Napster?
The Verge
Turns out sampling cases may have far-reaching consequences. |
