A computer simulation of the collision of two black holes released after the event was detected for the first time by Ligo in 2016. Photograph: LIGO Laboratory/Reuters

Dear Commons Community,

Scientists have detected ripples in space-time from the violent collision of two massive black holes that spiraled into one another far beyond the distant edge of the Milky Way. As reported by The Guardian.

The black holes, each more than 100 times the mass of the sun, began circling each other long ago and finally slammed together to form an even more massive black hole about 10bn light years from Earth.

The event is the most massive black hole merger ever recorded by gravitational wave detectors and has forced physicists to rethink their models of how the enormous objects form. The signal was recorded when it hit detectors on Earth sensitive enough to detect shudders in space-time thousands of times smaller than the width of a proton.

“These are the most violent events we can observe in the universe, but when the signals reach Earth, they are the weakest phenomena we can measure,” said Prof Mark Hannam, the head of the Gravity Exploration Institute at Cardiff University. “By the time these ripples wash up on Earth they are tiny.”

Evidence for the black hole collision arrived just before 2pm UK time on 23 November 2023 when two US-based detectors in Washington and Louisiana, operated by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (Ligo), twitched at the same time.

The sudden spasm in space-time caused the detectors to stretch and squeeze for one tenth of a second, a fleeting moment that captured the so-called ringdown phase as the merged black holes formed a new one that “rang” before settling down.

Analysis of the signal revealed that the colliding black holes were 103 and 137 times the mass of the sun and spinning about 400,000 times faster than Earth, close to the theoretical limit for the objects.

“These are the highest masses of black holes we’ve confidently measured with gravitational waves,” said Hannam, a member of the Ligo scientific collaboration. “And they’re strange, because they are slap bang in the range of masses where, because of all kinds of weird things that happen, we don’t expect black holes to form.”

Most black holes form when massive stars run out of nuclear fuel and collapse at the end of their life cycle. The incredibly dense objects warp space-time so much that they create an event horizon, a boundary within which even light cannot escape.

Physicists at Ligo suspect the black holes that merged were themselves products of earlier mergers. That would explain how they came to be so massive and why they were spinning so fast, as merging black holes tend to impart spin on the object they create. “We’ve seen hints of this before, but this is the most extreme example where that’s probably what’s happening,” Hannam said.

Scientists have detected about 300 black hole mergers from the gravitational waves they generate. Until now, the most massive merger known produced a black hole about 140 times the mass of the sun. The latest merger produced a black hole up to 265 times more massive than the sun. Details were presented last Monday at the GR-Amaldi meeting in Glasgow.

Before the first gravitational wave detectors were built in the 1990s, scientists could observe the universe only through electromagnetic radiation such as visible light, infrared and radio waves. Gravitational wave observatories provide a new view of the cosmos, allowing researchers to see events that were otherwise hidden from them.

“Usually what happens in science is, when you look at the universe in a different way, you discover things you didn’t expect and your whole picture is transformed,” said Hannam. “The detectors we have planned for the next 10 to 15 years will be able to see all the black hole mergers in the universe, and maybe some surprises we didn’t expect.”

There are big happenings and there are big happenings.  

Tony

Credit…Evan Vucci/Associated Press

Dear Commons Community,

Maureen Dowd had a column yesterday entitled, “MAGA’s New Target: Trump” in which she comments on  the dissatisfaction of Trump’s MAGA supporters with the way he has handled the Jeffrey Epstein files. She states:

“Trump’s supporters thought he would shed light on shady elites protecting their own money and power. Now MAGA is reckoning with the fact that Trump is the shady elite, shielding information about Jeffrey Epstein.

“So the guy who spent his lifetime saying the deep state hides things from you and represses you is now saying ‘We’ve got nothing to hide, trust me,’” said the Trump biographer Tim O’Brien. “And the people who follow him don’t. They think he’s just as bad as the people he criticized before he became president.”

She is so right!

Below is her entire column.

Tony

————————————————————————–

MAGA’s New Target: Trump

July 19, 2025

By Maureen Dowd

Opinion Columnist, reporting from Washington

People often become what they scorn. Donald Trump has become the deep state.

He is the keeper of the secrets. He is the one stealing away people’s liberties. He is the one weaponizing government and protecting the ruling class.

With ICE and DOGE, Trump deputized wolf packs to root around in Americans’ personal information. He got Republicans to give Stephen Miller his own army. Trump manipulates government to hurt his perceived enemies. He obscures rather than reveals, pushing aside reporters who ask penetrating questions in favor of Pravda-like partisans who take his side.

Trump’s supporters thought he would shed light on shady elites protecting their own money and power. Now MAGA is reckoning with the fact that Trump is the shady elite, shielding information about Jeffrey Epstein.

“So the guy who spent his lifetime saying the deep state hides things from you and represses you is now saying ‘We’ve got nothing to hide, trust me,’” said the Trump biographer Tim O’Brien. “And the people who follow him don’t. They think he’s just as bad as the people he criticized before he became president.”

It’s mythic, being devoured by the forces you unleashed. Trump has trafficked in conspiracy theories since the despicable “birther” one about Barack Obama. Now that whirlpool of dark innuendo has sucked him down. He can no longer control the Epstein conspiracy madness inflamed by his top officials.

Trump always reminded me of Lonesome Rhodes, the charismatic, populist entertainer whose “candid” patter with plain folks garners him enormous power in Elia Kazan’s 1957 movie “A Face in the Crowd.”

At the finale, Andy Griffith’s Rhodes — engorged by flattery and riches — has a narcissistic explosion. Not realizing the woman he betrayed flipped on his microphone, he calls his loyal fans “morons,” “miserable slobs” and “trained seals.”

“I can take chicken fertilizer and sell it to ’em for caviar,” he crows, grinning.

Trump’s Truth Social posts backing up Pam Bondi’s claim that the Epstein files were much ado about nothing showed that same brutal disregard for his devout fans. They had taken him seriously? What fools!

He tried to subdue his MAGAcolytes — his “boys” and “gals” — by ordering them not to “waste Time and Energy on Jeffrey Epstein, somebody that nobody cares about.” He said that those who are focused on the “Jeffrey Epstein hoax” are “selfish people,” “PAST supporters” and “weaklings” who had been “conned by the Lunatic Left.”

If his fans couldn’t focus on how great he was, better than “perhaps any President in our Country’s history,” Trump pouted in a post, “I don’t want their support anymore!”

One “gal,” a Texan named Rosie, said she was brokenhearted. She replied on Truth Social that she has four daughters and “can’t even begin to comprehend the flipped narrative that ‘it was so long ago’ ‘why are we still talking about this’ and ‘nobody should care.’ These victims were some ones daughters, sisters, nieces, granddaughter. Someone’s child. Please reconsider, sir.”

He’s lost some of his base’s trust by refusing to deliver the goods, or to acknowledge that he used people like Kash Patel and Dan Bongino to whip up the frenzy against the pedophile who gave rides to Trump and Bill Clinton on his plane dubbed by some the Lolita Express.

Trump bonded with Epstein years ago, although it’s not clear if Trump knew the extent of Epstein’s predations. He told New York magazine in 2002 that Epstein “likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

This week was the first time Trump had such a dramatic rift with his supporters, who are often compared to a cult.

Trump, who rose to power with the help of Fox News, threatened Emma Tucker, the editor of Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, trying to stop its story about a bawdy letter and drawing he allegedly contributed to a 50th birthday book that Ghislaine Maxwell compiled for Epstein.

“I’m gonna sue The Wall Street Journal just like I sued everyone else,” he said in a call Tuesday with The Journal. (He filed the suit on Friday.) He denied that he ever drew an outline of a naked woman with his name scribbled in a salacious spot, along with writing an insinuating wish to Epstein that “every day be another wonderful secret.” (What had to be kept secret, Donald?)

“I don’t draw pictures,” he wrote on Truth Social, denouncing the “FAKE letter” in the “Fake Story.”

But Trump’s lies — like the one about his uncle at M.I.T. and the Unabomber — are falling apart almost instantaneously. It immediately came out that he was a “high-profile doodler,” as Tyler Pager put it in The Times, and that he donated drawings to charity in the early 2000s.

On Thursday, Trump posted that he had asked Bondi to produce “any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval.” But judges usually keep such testimony secret. It was hilarious to see Trump hiding behind the judiciary he’s tried to sideline.

The president, hoping to redirect the ire of the base back to its favorite chew toy, the mainstream media, posted that The Journal is a “Disgusting and Filthy Rag.”

Natalie Winters, a reporter for Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, told Bannon that the Journal story made her feel “gaslit” by the administration. “I thought the D.O.J. had nothing related to Epstein,” she said. “Well, this story sort of contradicts that. So why don’t we release it? It’s maddening.”

Twisting conspiracy theories into a Gordian knot of hate, Trump is claiming some Epstein files were “made up” by Barack Obama, James Comey, “Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration” and “Crooked Hillary.”

It’s tough to blame the deep state when you are the deep state.

Dear Commons Community,

I have just finished reading Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI by Karen Hao. I found it an interesting and at times a troubling read learning about the personalities of those leading AI development at OpenAI.  Hao paints Altman as a duplicitous character who will say or do anything to make  OpenAI the number one AI company in the world.  She gives numerous examples of his lying to colleagues.  Chapters 4 (Dreams of Modernity), 12 (Plundered Earth), 14 (Deliverance), and 16 (Cloak and Dagger) were particularly illuminating and in the case of the latter three, disturbing.  At 400 plus pages, it is not a short book and can get very technical at times.  I had to keep  my iPhone close to me whenever I was reading it to look up unfamiliar terms.

As a nod to poetic justice, below is a review produced by the AI program Co-Pilot, a derivative of OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Tony

———————————————————-

Empire of AI is a gripping exposé that blends investigative journalism with global storytelling to unpack the rise of OpenAI and the broader implications of artificial intelligence.

📚 Overview

• The book chronicles OpenAI’s transformation from a nonprofit idealist to a corporate powerhouse backed by Microsoft, now valued at over $300 billion2.
• Hao draws on 300 interviews, including 90 with insiders, to reveal the internal culture, ethical tensions, and environmental costs of AI development.
• She opens with the dramatic 2023 boardroom coup that temporarily ousted CEO Sam Altman, using it as a lens to explore power dynamics and governance failures4.

🌍 Key Themes

• Digital Colonialism: Hao likens the AI industry to a modern empire, extracting labor and resources from the Global South while concentrating profits in Silicon Valley3.
• Environmental Toll: Training large models demands massive energy and water, with data centers consuming resources equivalent to small cities5.
• Hidden Labor: Workers in Kenya, Venezuela, and the Philippines perform low-paid, often traumatic tasks like content moderation and data cleaning3.
• Transparency vs. Secrecy: OpenAI’s shift from openness to opacity is a central critique, with Hao arguing that basic facts about AI systems are now obscured5.

🧠 Analytical Depth

• Hao doesn’t just critique OpenAI—she questions the entire AI development culture that prioritizes speed and dominance over ethics and inclusivity6.
• She explores how AI models reflect the biases of their creators and often fail those outside the Silicon Valley bubble.
• The book also touches on the philosophical fervor within OpenAI, where employees oscillate between utopian dreams and existential dread about AGI.

✍️ Writing Style

• Hao’s prose is clear, engaging, and emotionally resonant. She balances technical clarity with human stories, making complex topics accessible without oversimplifying.
• Her tone is critical but grounded, offering a nuanced view of the dilemmas facing AI developers.

🧭 Verdict

Empire of AI is essential reading for anyone interested in the intersection of technology, ethics, and global power. It’s not just a story about OpenAI—it’s a cautionary tale about unchecked ambition, hidden costs, and the urgent need for democratic oversight in AI development.

Pete Hegseth.  Courtesy of Fox News.

Dear Commons Community,

A Republican congressman blasted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s push to resurrect banned Confederate base names via proxy as “stupid as hell” in an interview with USA TODAY.

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Nebraska, joined House Democrats on July 15 to approve a defense bill amendment seeking to block the name changes. The retired Air Force brigadier general described the move as a “rebuke” of Hegseth and Trump’s use of a loophole to restore Confederate names.

While it was unclear if the measure would make it into the final defense bill, Bacon had harsh words for Hegseth’s moves to fiddle with legally mandated efforts to remove the names of Confederate generals from U.S. military bases.

“I think they’re trying to be too cute by Hegseth on this, saying, ‘Well it’s Bragg, but it’s a different Bragg,” Bacon said July 18, referring to the now twice-renamed Army base in North Carolina. “To me, it looks stupid as hell.”

Bacon co-sponsored the original bipartisan push to prohibit U.S. base names honoring Confederate figures, which became law in January 2021.

Although  Trump vetoed the bill, lawmakers overrode him and forced the Pentagon to find new names that didn’t honor Confederates.

In 2022 the Biden-era Defense Department implemented recommendations of a bipartisan Naming Commission, renaming posts to honor figures such as five-star general and former President Dwight Eisenhower.

But Hegseth reversed those changes by again renaming the bases − this time for U.S. servicemembers whose surnames matched those of their earlier Confederate namesakes.

The House Armed Services Committee-approved draft defense policy bill for fiscal 2026 would protect the Naming Commission’s recommendations by barring the Pentagon from using official funds for base name changes.

Bacon, who represents Omaha, and fellow Republican Rep. Derek Schmidt of Kansas joined Democrats in a dramatic late-night vote to approve the amendment, which was authored by Rep. Marilyn Strickland, D-Washington. The Senate Armed Services Committee passed a limited-but-similar measure in its version of the bill to block renaming of bases in Virginia.

Hegseth may be Trump’s chief useful idiot.

Tony

Stephen Colbert (Photo by Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via Getty Images)

Dear Commons Community,

CBS says its decision to end Stephen Colbert’s late-night comedy show is financial, not political. Yet even with the ample skepticism about that explanation, there’s no denying the economics were not working in Colbert’s favor.

The network’s bombshell announcement late Thursday that the “Late Show” will end next May takes away President Donald Trump’s most prominent TV critic and the most popular entertainment program in its genre. The following is an analysis courtesy of The Associated Press.

The television industry’s declining economic health means similar hard calls are already being made with personalities and programming, with others to be faced in the future. For the late-night genre, there are unique factors to consider.

As recently as 2018, broadcast networks took in an estimated $439 million in advertising revenue for its late-night programs, according to the advertising firm Guidelines. Last year, that number dwindled to $220 million.

Once a draw for young men, now they’ve turned away

Late-night TV was a particular draw for young men, considered the hardest-to-get and most valuable demographic for advertisers. Increasingly, these viewers are turning to streaming services, either to watch something else entirely or catch highlights of the late-night shows, which are more difficult for the networks to monetize.

More broadly, the much-predicted takeover of viewers by streaming services is coming to pass. The Nielsen company reported that during the last two months, for the first time ever, more people consumed programming on services like YouTube and Netflix than on ABC, CBS and NBC or any cable network.

Networks and streamers spent roughly $70 billion on entertainment shows and $30 billion for sports rights last year, said Brian Wieser, CEO of Madison & Wall, an advertising consultant and data services firm. Live sports is the most dependable magnet for viewers and costs for its rights are expected to increase 8% a year over the next decade. With television viewership declining in general, it’s clear where savings will have to come from.

Wieser said he does not know whether Colbert’s show is profitable or not for CBS and parent company Paramount Global, but he knows the direction in which it is headed. “The economics of television are weak,” he said.

In a statement announcing the cancellation, George Cheeks, Paramount Global’s president and chief executive officer, said that “This is purely a financial decision against a challenging backdrop in late night. It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”

Cheeks’ problem is that not everyone believes him.

Colbert is a relentless critic of Trump, and earlier this week pointedly criticized Paramount’s decision to settle Trump’s lawsuit against CBS over a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris. He called Paramount’s $16 million payment to Trump a “big fat bribe,” since the company is seeking the administration’s approval of its merger with Skydance Media.

On Friday, the Writers Guild of America called for an investigation by New York’s attorney general into whether Colbert’s cancellation is itself a bribe, “sacrificing free speech to curry favor with the Trump administration as the company looks for merger approval.”

CBS’ decision made this a pivotal week for the future of television and radio programming. Congress stripped federal funding for PBS and NPR, threatening the future of shows on those outlets.

Journey Gunderson, executive director of the National Comedy Center, called the decision to end Colbert’s show the end of an era.

“Late-night television has historically been one of comedy’s most audience-accessible platforms — a place where commentary meets community, night after night,” Gunderson said. “This isn’t just the end of a show. It’s the quiet removal of one of the few remaining platforms for daily comedic commentary.

Trump celebrates Colbert’s demise

Trump, who has called in the past for CBS to terminate Colbert’s contract, celebrated the show’s upcoming demise. “I absolutely love that Colbert got fired,” the president wrote on Truth Social. “His talent was even less than his ratings.”

Some experts questioned whether CBS could have explored other ways to save money on Colbert. NBC, for example, has cut costs by eliminating the band on Seth Meyers’ late-night show and curtailing Jimmy Fallon’s “Tonight” show to four nights a week.

Could CBS have saved more money by cutting off the show immediately, instead of letting it run until next May, which sets up an awkward “lame duck” period? Then again, Colbert will keep working until his contract runs out; CBS would have had to keep paying him anyway.

CBS recently cancelled the “After Midnight” show that ran after Colbert. But the network had signaled earlier this year that it was prepared to continue that show until host Taylor Tomlinson decided that she wanted to leave, noted Bill Carter, author of “The Late Shift.”

“It is a very sad day for CBS that they are getting out of the late-night race,” Andy Cohen, host of Bravo’s “Watch What Happens Live,” told The Associated Press. “I mean, they are turning off the lights after the news.”

Colbert, if he wanted to continue past next May, would likely be able to find a streaming service willing to pay him, Wieser said. But the future of late-night comedy on the entertainment networks is genuinely at risk. Trump, in fact, may outlast his fiercest comic critics. Jon Stewart, once a weeknight fixture, works one night a week at “The Daily Show” for Paramount’s Comedy Central, a network that seldom produces much original programming any more.

ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel, who was chided on social media by Trump on Friday — “I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next” — has a contract that also runs out next year. Kimmel, 57, openly wondered in a Variety interview before signing his latest three-year contract extension how long he wanted to do it. He’s hosted his show since 2003.

“I have moments where I go, I cannot do this anymore,” Kimmel told Variety in 2022. “And I have moments where I go, what am I gonna do with my life if I’m not doing this anymore?’ It’s a very complicated thing … I’m not going to do this forever.”

Colbert will be missed!

Tony

Credit: The Nightly

Dear Commons Community,

A collection of letters gifted to Jeffrey Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003 included a note bearing Donald Trump’s name and an outline of a naked woman, according to a Wall Street Journal report published yesterday.

The drawing, depicting a woman’s breasts and a “Donald” signature in the place of pubic hair, surrounded several lines of typewritten text, according to the newspaper, which reviewed the letter. It concluded with the line: “Happy Birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.”

Trump in an interview with the Journal on Tuesday denied that he wrote the letter or drew the picture and threatened to sue the newspaper if it published the story.

“I never wrote a picture in my life. I don’t draw pictures of women,” he said, according to the Journal. “It’s not my language. It’s not my words.”

In response to the story, Trump posted on Truth Social last night that he’d ordered Attorney General Pam Bondi “to produce any and all pertinent Grand Jury testimony, subject to Court approval.” She quickly responded on X that she was ready to do so on Friday, though the process of getting judges to sign off on such a move would likely take considerably longer.

Earlier in the evening, Trump vowed to sue The Wall Street Journal and Rupert Murdoch, saying that he and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had warned them about publishing the story and that the letter was “fake.”

“President Trump will be suing The Wall Street Journal, NewsCorp, and Mr. Murdoch, shortly,” the Truth Social post reads.

The Wall Street Journal declined to comment when reached by CNN.

Vice President JD Vance also weighed in on social media, calling the story “complete and utter bullshit” in an X post.

The Wall Street Journal report is likely to further fuel scrutiny of Trump’s handling of a Justice Department review of the Epstein case that has roiled his MAGA base and consumed the White House for several days.

On Thursday evening, however, some of the most vocal voices on the right who’d been pushing for more transparency from the administration came to Trump’s defense and cast doubt on the Journal story.

Far-right activist Laura Loomer, who’s called for the administration to appoint a special counsel to look into the handling of the Epstein files, called the letter “totally fake.” She wrote on X: “Everyone who actually KNOWS President Trump knows he doesn’t type letters. He writes notes in big black Sharpie.”

Another influential MAGA voice, Charlie Kirk, posted on X, “This is not how Trump talks at all. I don’t believe it.” His post referred to the type-written note in the letter that envisions a conversation between Trump and Epstein about there being “more to life than having everything.”

Epstein, a financier who socialized with a range of politicians and other powerful figures, was charged in 2019 with sex trafficking minors in Florida and New York. He was later found dead in his jail cell while awaiting trial. Medical examiners ruled the death a suicide, but the circumstances have since spawned an array of conspiracy theories.

In a memo last week, the Justice Department said Epstein did indeed die by suicide and that there was no Epstein “client list” and announced it wouldn’t release any more documents related to the case, infuriating an influential contingent of Trump supporters who believed the administration would make all of the Epstein files public.

Trump has since angrily dismissed the backlash, accusing his supporters of falling for a “hoax” by fixating on the case. He urged Republicans to drop the issue altogether.

“Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this ‘bullshit,’ hook, line, and sinker,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Wednesday.

Facing growing calls from his supporters and members of Congress, Trump later said Bondi could release any additional “credible” files on the case, even as he lamented the “stupid and foolish Republicans” continuing to push the matter.

Leavitt said yesterday that Trump “would not recommend” that a special prosecutor investigate the Epstein case, despite calls from some of the president’s closest allies to do so.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the letter bearing Trump’s name was included in a birthday album assembled by Ghislaine Maxwell, a close Epstein associate who was convicted of child sex trafficking in connection with Epstein. She collected the letters from Trump and dozens of others for Epstein’s 50th birthday, the Journal reported.

The album was later part of the documents examined by Justice Department officials who investigated Epstein several years ago, according to the newspaper.

Trump was photographed with Epstein — a financier who socialized with a range of politicians and other powerful figures — on multiple occasions throughout the 1990s and early 2000s and was among those who appeared in flight logs for Epstein’s private jet.

But the president has said that their friendship ended before Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 for procuring a minor for prostitution. He later said they hadn’t talked in roughly 15 years when Epstein was arrested again in 2019.

Hmmm!

Tony

A mural by Judith de Leeuw shows the Statue of Liberty covering her eyes.  (AP Photo/Sylvain Plazy)

Dear Commons Community,

As statements go, it’s a big one.

A towering mural in France of the Statue of Liberty covering her eyes is racking up millions of views online with its swipe at  Trump ‘s immigration and deportation policies.  As reported by the Associated Press.

Amsterdam-based street artist Judith de Leeuw described her giant work in the northern French town of Roubaix, which has a large immigrant community, as “a quiet reminder of what freedom should be.”

She said “freedom feels out of reach” for migrants and “those pushed to the margins, silenced, or unseen.”

“I painted her covering her eyes because the weight of the world has become too heavy to witness. What was once a shining symbol of liberty now carries the sorrow of lost meaning,” de Leeuw wrote in a July 4 post on Facebook, when Americans were celebrating Independence Day.

Her depiction of the Statue of Liberty, a gift from the French people in the late 1800s, has inspired some sharp criticism.

Rep. Tim Burchett, a Republican lawmaker from Tennessee, wrote in an angry post on X that the work “disgusts me.” He said he had an uncle who fought and died in France, where U.S. forces saw combat in both World War I and World War II.

In an interview with The Associated Press, de Leeuw was unapologetic.

“I’m not offended to be hated by the Trump movement. I am not sorry. This is the right thing to do,” she said.

The town stood by the work, with its deputy mayor in charge of cultural affairs, Frédéric Lefebvre, telling broadcaster France 3 that “it’s a very strong and powerful political message.”

Since returning to the White House amid anti-immigration sentiment, Trump has launched an unprecedented campaign that has pushed the limits of executive power and clashed with federal judges trying to restrain him. People from various countries have been deported to remote and unrelated places like South Sudan and the small African nation of Eswatini.

Polling by Gallup released last week showed an increasing number of Americans who said immigration is a “good thing” and decreasing support for the type of mass deportations Trump has championed since before he was elected.

The mural in Roubaix is part of an urban street culture festival backed by the town. Roubaix is one of the poorest towns in France. It was economically devastated by the collapse since the 1970s of its once-flourishing textile industry that used to attract migrant workers from elsewhere in Europe, north Africa and beyond.

The United States was a shining light to the world.  It took six months for Trump to make it a mockery!

Tony

Dear Colleagues,

In December 2024, I posted that I have a chapter in a book published in Germany entitled, Bildung und Digitaler Kapitalismus. 

The full citaton is:  Picciano, A. (2024). Der bildungsindustrielle Komplex auf dem Weg zur Globalisierung. In V. Dander, N. Grünberger, H. Niesyto, & H. Pohlmann (Hrsg.), Bildung und Digitaler Kapitalismus (S. 77–90). kopaed.  English translation of the chapter:  “The education-industrial complex going global.” English translation of the book:  Education and Digital Capitalism.  

I just received word that the book is now available as an open access e-book.  This was made made possible by the Open Access Monographs Fund of the Darmstadt University and State Library. The PDF can be accessed via the publisher’s website: https://www.kopaed.de/kopaedshop/?pid=1515 or  direct link: https://www.kopaed.de/dateien/Dander%20et%20al_OA_neu.pdf

Tony

Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett and  business partner Charlie Munger. Courtesy of The Associated Press.

Dear Commons Community,

Here is a piece on the reading and learning habits of some of the world’s billionaires courtesy of Blinkist Magazine.

“Two teenage boys found employment at a grocery store in Omaha, Nebraska. The older boy, from a poor family devastated by the Great Depression, bred and sold hamsters for spare change. The younger boy, grandson of the store owner, had been delaying college and working odd jobs, like selling chewing gum and collecting coke bottles door to door.

Back then, each boy made about $2 a day. Just a few decades later, they’d be raking in $20 billion in profit per year with their conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway. Who were these boys? None other than Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett.

Fast track to 2007, the 84 year-old Charlie Munger, revealed to a crowd of aspiring law students the secrets to their success:

“I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than they were when they got up and boy does that help, particularly when you have a long run ahead of you.”

Supposedly, in the early days of Buffett’s investment career, he would read 600-1000 pages in a single day. Nowadays, he still dedicates 80% of his day to reading.

“Read 500 pages…every day. That’s how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will do it.”

His takeaway for everyone: no matter where you are in life, keep on learning and you will succeed.

Buffett and Munger are not the only ones who credit their success to reading.

Bill Gates reads about 50 books a year, but strictly nonfiction ones. Although he gets to visit a lot of places and meet interesting people, he would still rather read books to acquire new knowledge.

Similarly, Mark Zuckerberg once invited the whole world to join him on his quest to read a book every two weeks. 

In sum, read and learn!

Tony