How will the decision be made as to re-starting full-scale war with Iran? Grok has a clue…

Irony aside, it’s a good deal for all concerned. US business gets a plausible boost, and the Saudi government gets assistance in progress towards a nuclear bone saw.

As part of the celebration, twenty prisoners were tortured at a “Black Site” in Poland.

May I say, as the child of immigrants, that both sides ignore the extremely checkered history of this nation’s attitude towards such people. As in most social attitudes in this still-young nation, views about immigrants have swerved widely down the decades. Some examples: we welcomed Chinese immigrants—”coolies”, we called them—to help finish building the transcontinental railroad. Then California passed a little law called the Chinese Exclusion Act. Irish citizens flocked here after the historic famine, to be met for decades with “No Irish need apply” signs in Boston. The federal government knew, during the late 1930s, of the danger posed by Hitler to the Jewish populations of Europe. Yet boatloads of potential refugees from such terror were turned away from our shores, sending them to their deaths.

And in no way is the U.S. unique in this matter. Western Europe has been facing unprecedented migration from impoverished African countries, and that has accelerated the rise of anti-immigrant movements from Hungary to the U.K. And just this week came news of big anti-immigration demonstrations in South Africa.

Of course, this nation also abounds in chest-thumping language about “we built this country”, ignoring—and now erasing—the fact that much of this country, including a certain white residence, was built by slaves.

It is not, as certain high-ranking pols suggest, degrading or slandering this country to acknowledge these faults. Civilized grownups recognize their mistakes, and do their best to rectify them. Adult-sized children, not so much.

Fast-forward a few years. We’re now aware of at least two examples of fathers gone way wrong. The great musician Brian Wilson had a father, Murray, who regularly physically attacked the young Brian for not singing up to Murray’s standard. In one now notorious incident, Murray hit Brian so hard on one side of his head that the son lost hearing in that ear. Murray managed the Beach Boys, and the last contract he negotiated for the band with Capitol records included an album by…Murray Wilson. “The Many Moods of Murray Wilson”. I have an unopened copy. The many moods, presumably, included “Sing better!” and “What the hell’s wrong with you?”

The great musician Michael Jackson had a father, Joe, who assembled the family singing group with an iron hand, particularly when it came to the lead singer. Per Wikipedia, “Joseph admitted to whipping his children with switches and belts as punishment”. On the day after Michael’s passing, Joe was being interviewed on live television. The reporter used her best “I’m so sorry” voice to ask, “How are you feeling today, Joe?” His answer: “Pretty good, we got a new record deal.”

In more recent years, other such stories have emerged. See, e.g.: Fred Trump, father of some guy in the White House, and Errol Musk, described by biographer Isaacson as a “terrible father” to young Elon.

And all the while, I’m going through life with a wonderful mother, and thinking, “What’s so wrong about lacking a father?” Social pressure on bad fathers to stay in the family seems much less likely to produce healthy youngsters than, say, education to be…good fathers.

If you doubt me, just imagine Donald if he had had a decent dad.

A Labour MP has taken legal action against Elon Musk’s xAI company after saying its Grok tool helped a user produce fake sexualised pictures of her, part of a wave of such images that flooded the social media platform https://www.theguardian.com/technology/twitter earlier this year.

Jess Asato, the MP for Lowestoft, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0ke3pjkxvpo in January that seeing herself portrayed by the AI tool as wearing a bikini without her consent was “violating”.

In a claim submitted to the high court in London, Asato said xAI – now a subsidiary of SpaceX, which also owns X – breached laws connected to data protection and the misuse of private information by letting users of the site prompt Grok to create such images

But, to be fair, Grok also does this: