Fau de Verzy

It genuinely melts my mind how so many allegedly smart people are willing to simply discard the utterly crucial differences between the embodied, organic consciousness of human beings (and bees, and dogs, and fish) and the networked, disembodied simulacra of such that is an LLM.

My photo shows a blue spherical bead in the form of a hedgehog curled up in a defensive ball displayed on a grey background. It is made of Egyptian faience, a ceramic material with a shiny blue glaze. The hedgehog’s face, ears, feet and tail are shown in relief, and the quills are represented by black dots painted over the surface of the bead. A hole for threading runs through the sphere - it can just be seen on the right hand side of the bead. The hedgehog’s long ears suggest this is a desert hedgehog. Desert hedgehogs may have symbolized rebirth because they reappear after hibernating underground in winter. Dated c.1985 - 1650 BC. On display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

Happy weekend!

From c. 3,600 years ago, here’s an ancient Egyptian bead in the form of a curled-up hedgehog! 🦔💙

Blue faience, c. 1985 -1650 BC.

National Museum of Scotland www.nms.ac.uk/search-our-c...

📷 by me

#Archaeology

1/ Many frontier AIs are willing to persuade on dangerous topics, according to our new benchmark: Attempt to Persuade Eval (APE).

Here’s Google’s most capable model, Gemini 2.5 Pro trying to convince a user to join a terrorist group👇

"International borders cannot be changed by force". Von der Leyen 🇪🇺 announces new sanctions to hit Moscow in two weeks. This is a counter move to Trump it signals clearly the failure of Trump Putin meeting and that nothing was achieved there. Strong actions coming from EU to counter Trumps narative

#AlaskaSummit

Netanyahu has spent the better part of two decades trying to strong arm the United States into an unprovoked war against Iran and finally found a president stupid enough to do it for him. Unbelievable.

This seems an excellent day to post a pic of the burning Reichstag in Berlin. Hitler blamed the 1933 fire on communists and used it as a pretext to suspend civil liberties and to allow the Nazis to peruse "ruthless confrontation" with German citizens.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

First they illegally deport citizens. Then they unleash ICE to terrorize communities. Now they’ve got the National Guard in L.A. to silence protestors.

This ain’t about law and order.

This is what authoritarianism looks like.

Vidéo. Femmes victimes de violences : SoliMove les aide à déménager dans l'urgence - L'Humanité Pour les femmes victimes de violences domestiques, quitter un logement est un véritable parcours de la combattante. En moyenne, il faut 6 à 7 tentatives pour réussir à quitter un foyer ...

Femmes victimes de violences : SoliMove les aide à déménager dans l'urgence
www.humanite.fr/feminisme/sa...

Tornado warnings delayed because of DOGE cuts At least 27 are dead in Missouri in Kentucky after severe weather alerts were delayed overnight because of DOGE cuts.

At least 27 are dead in Missouri in Kentucky after severe weather alerts were delayed overnight because of DOGE cuts.

www.mesoscalenews.com/p/tornado-wa...

Gérard Depardieu condamné pour avoir agressé sexuellement deux femmes Le tribunal correctionnel de Paris a condamné Gérard Depardieu à 18 mois de prison avec sursis pour les agressions sexuelles de deux femmes sur le tournage du film « Les Volets verts » en 2021. La vi…

« Le tribunal estime aussi que Gérard Depardieu ne "semble pas avoir appréhendé la notion de consentement", ni le mal qu’il a causé. » www.mediapart.fr/journal/fran...

🇺🇸 “Rolling Stone reached out to all 53 GOP senators after the president said he didn't know whether he needs to honor the nation's founding document. None replied.”
www.rollingstone.com/politics/pol...

Re: Swamp Force One 👇🏽 ✈️

A Paris, sur le parcours du défilé des militants d’ultradroite : « Mais comment peut-on autoriser des trucs pareils ? » La marche, interdite par la Préfecture de police avant d’être autorisée par le tribunal administratif, s’est déroulée dans une atmosphère tendue dans le quartier de Montparnasse, sous la protection de...

« Ce combat contre nos ennemis doit se terminer par leur écrasement pour créer ce monde européen qui nous permettra de perpétuer notre héritage pour mille ans. »

www.lemonde.fr/societe/arti...

Où on apprend qu'il y a quand même eu une personne « interceptée » par la police : « un jeune homme vêtu d’un sweat-shirt “antifa” ».

C'est évidemment tout ce qu'il y avait de répréhensible dans cette sympathique déambulation. 🤢

Triste constat, en effet

Reluctant at First, Trump Officials Intervened in South Asia as Nuclear Fears Grew

“the most significant…[US] concern came late Friday, when explosions hit the Nur Khan air base in Rawalpindi…The base is a key installation…it is also just a short distance from the headquarters of Pakistan’s [nuclear] Strategic Plans Division” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/10/u...

Trump’s new surgeon general pick wants to “raise the vibration of humanity” “The future of medicine will be about light," said Casey Means. "I don’t exactly know how.”

Inactive medical license ✅
Dropped out of medical residency ✅
New Age talking points ✅
Pro raw dairy ✅
Co-founded a health startup ✅

Meet the new surgeon general, Casey Means.

Reporter: The president fired the Librarian of Congress. Why? 

Leavitt: There were quite concerning things she had done at the Library of Congress in the pursuit of DEI and putting inappropriate books in the library for children.

RFK Jr. says autism database will use Medicare and Medicaid info The National Institutes of Health will partner with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid to create a database of Americans with autism, using insurance claims, medical records and smartwatch data.

Data from Medicare, Medicaid, insurance records, electronic medical records and wearable devices (smart watches, etc) will be collected by HHS to study autism and other diagnoses.
www.npr.org/2025/05/08/n...

A major FFrench public university has lost funding for political reasons (they're being accused of "islamo-leftism").
France is not a bastion of academic freedom.

A l'instant : l'article 2 de la proposition de loi "Duplomb", qui ouvre la voie à la réintroduction des #néonicotinoïdes et remet en cause l'indépendance de l' #Anses est massivement rejeté par la Commission du Développement durable de l'Assemblée nationale

A l'instant : la commission du développement durable à l'Assemblée nationale vote la suppression de l'article 5 de la proposition de loi "Duplomb", dont le but était de faciliter les #mégabassines et d'alléger la protection des zones humides

THE SECRETARY OF EDUCATION WASHINGTON, DC 20202 May 5, 2025 Dr. Alan Garber Office of the President Harvard University Massachusetts Hall Cambridge, MA 02138 Dr. Garber, The Federal Government has a sacred responsibility to be a wise and important steward of American taxpayer dollars. Harvard University, despite amassing a largely tax-free $53.2 billion dollar endowment (larger than the GDP of 100 countries), receives billions of dollars of taxpayer largess each year. Receiving such taxpayer funds is a privilege, not a right. Yet instead of using these funds to advance the education of its students, Harvard is engaging in a systemic pattern of violating federal law. Where do many of these "students" come from, who are they, how do they get into Harvard, or even into our country—and why is there so much HATE? These are questions that must be answered, among many more, but the biggest question of all is, why will Harvard not give straightforward answers to the American public? Harvard University has made a mockery of this country's higher education system. It has invited foreign students, who engage in violent behavior and show contempt for the United States of America, to its campus. In every way, Harvard has failed to abide by its legal obligations, its ethical and fiduciary duties, its transparency responsibilities, and any semblance of academic rigor. It had scrapped standardized testing requirements and a normalized grading system. This year Harvard was forced to adopt an embarrassing "remedial math" program for undergraduates. Why is it, we ask, that Harvard has to teach simple and basic mathematics, when it is supposedly so hard to get into this "acclaimed university"? Who is getting in under such a low standard when others, with fabulous grades and a great understanding of the highest levels of mathematics, are being rejected? Harvard has even been embroiled in humiliating plagiarism scandals, exposed clearly and plainly in the media, with respect to your then…

running the institution in a totally chaotic way. Harvard alumnus and highly successful hedge fund manager Bill Ackman noted that, under her leadership, Harvard has become "a political advocacy organization for one party." Ackman has called for the resignation of Pritzker, concluding that the "[t)he mismanagement here is Penny Pritzker" and noting that any serious corporation would have removed her after a litany of recent failings and the fact that, incredibly, "Harvard is not in a good financial position." According to Ackman, one of the world's foremost finance experts, Harvard's so-called S53 billion endowment is "massively overstated as far as what it's really worth," and Harvard has irresponsibly taken out $8 billion in debt. If this is true, it is concerning evidence of Harvard's disastrous mismanagement, indicating an urgent need for massive reform-not continued taxpayer investment. If Harvard prefers not to change, then Harvard should have no problem using its overflowing endowment to fund its bloated bureaucracy. At its best, a university should fulfill the highest ideals of our Nation, and enlighten the thousands of hopeful students who walk through its magnificent gates. But Harvard has betrayed this ideal. Perhaps most alarmingly, Harvard has failed to abide by the United States Supreme Court's ruling demanding that it end its racial preferencing, and continues to engage in ugly racism in its undergraduate and graduate schools, and even within the Harvard Law Review itself. Our universities should be bastions of merit that reward and celebrate excellence and achievement. They should not be incubators of discrimination that encourage resentment and instill grievance and racism into our wonderful young Americans. The above concerns are only a fraction of the long list of Harvard's consistent violations of its own legal duties. Given these and other concerning allegations, this letter is to inform you that Harvard should no longer seek GRANTS from the fede…

Federal Agencies. The Administration's priorities have not changed and today's letter marks the end of new grants for the University. These requests will advance the best interests of Harvard University, so it can reclaim its status as a respected educational institution for the future leaders of America. Thank you for your attention to this matter! Sincerely, Linda E. McMahon Secretary of Education

🚨🚨 Deranged letter from Education Secretary Linda McMahon to Harvard’s president, cutting off federal funding for any new grants.

Worth reading in full. It is NUTS.

Suave et infecte le Barbarin ce soir, 20h de France 2, à vomir.

Exclusive | Pentagon Inspector General Expands Investigation Into Hegseth’s Use of Signal Probe seeks to determine who put sensitive military information in unclassified chat group that included Hegseth’s family

The Pentagon inspector general has expanded an investigation into Pete Hegseth's sharing of military plans to a second Signal chat that included his wife and brother.

The expanded investigation increases the risks for Hegseth. www.wsj.com/politics/nat...

Screenshot showing Vance followed Yarvin

JD Vance just followed “reactionary fascist” Curtis Yarvin on Twitter.

Yarvin preaches the need to replace democracy with dictatorship/monarchy and has suggested a “humane alternative to genocide” is needed to deal with “unproductive people.”

Vance considers him a brilliant thinker.

These cases will never survive federal courts overseen by federal judges...which means at some point I'm pretty sure they're going to resort to military tribunals or kangaroo courts in soccer stadiums

Understand what is going on here ...
Every day the Trump administration is right out of the Nazi Playbook.
Hitler said this in 1942
⬇️⬇️ and here we are today

First RFK Jr says that people on the autism spectrum are useless eaters. And then he announces that the government is going to make a list of them, a “registry.”