Kevin Knodell

Roger has your excuse ready if you are so inclined

Lots of people are calling out the fact that X is filled with fake MAGA influencers from far away countries, but I wanted to point out that this, not "ideological censorship," is why companies have trust & safety teams that work on stopping inauthentic behavior.

We live in fascinating times

LOL at Cuomintang holy crap.

Donald Trump Is the First AI Slop President How do AI videos end up on Donald Trump’s social media accounts? WIRED investigates.

Scoop: In digging into the AI slopification of the White House, I’ve learned that the president of the United States is capable, from time to time, of posting generative AI videos on his own, per a senior WH official.

More in this week’s Inner Loop @wired.com: www.wired.com/story/donald...

Mar Awa III, in red cassock, smiles as he gives the jersey to Leo, who looks as though he's been given a bomb to hold

Mar Awa III, patriarch of the Assyrian Church of the East, also born in Chicago, gave Pope Leo a Cubs jersey.

@hirono.senate.gov said "Trump is absolutely required to get approval from Congress before recklessly authorizing military strikes in Venezuela, or other Latin American countries, which could drag our nation into another overseas conflict and put American lives at risk.”

@tokuda.house.gov told me “I think it’s extremely intentional by this president to be ramming this through, these actions, amidst a govt shutdown ... you have him threatening potential land strikes, killing citizens from allied countries”

Tokuda, Hirono warn Trump risking war in South America | Honolulu Star-Advertiser As President Donald Trump ramps up his lethal campaign against alleged drug traffickers in Latin America, Hawaii lawmakers say he risks dragging the U.S. into a new war and alienating allies as the Pe...

@tokuda.house.gov & @hirono.senate.gov say Trump is risking war in Latin America w/ escalating strikes on alleged traffickers and threats of land strikes as a carrier group sails to the Caribbean www.staradvertiser.com/2025/10/26/h...

I suspect the next few weeks of living in a Dorothea Lange photo are going to shatter a lot of Americans' preconceptions about who's using SNAP and WIC.

Trump’s drug war using the military has come to the Pacific | Honolulu Star-Advertiser The Trump administration’s controversial and deadly campaign targeting alleged drug traffickers at sea has now expanded from the Caribbean into the Pacific Ocean.

Rep. Ed Case told me “this simply enables the PRC to call us hypocrites and undermines the reliance we place on international law and the partnerships we need to counter the PRC’s aggressive activities, especially in the Philippines, Taiwan and other countries in the Western Pacific.”

As @rjamesyork.bsky.social put it to me, when it comes to advancing the Admin's policy objectives & competing w/ China “it now looks like their means of addressing conditions in Latin America and getting them to go along with U.S. objectives, it’s all stick — we don’t really see carrot.

Here Rear Adm. Ernesto Segovia Forero, commander of Caribbean Naval Forces Colombia, observes RIMPAC 2024 in Hawaii from the bridge of the USS Carl Vinson.

But Colombia now accuses the U.S. of killing its citizens in its waters. Regional leaders have lots of questions about where this going.

China has poured resources into ports and infrastructure in South and Central America. But it has also sent fishing fleets that have ravaged ecosystems coastal communities depend on. Several Latin American countries have sought to bolster cooperation with the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard as a result.

In August soldiers from the 25th Infantry Division’s jungle warfare school went to Panama to train Panamanian troops and U.S. Marines. The competition between the U.S. and China is global, and Latin countries, especially on the Pacific Coast, have lots of Indo-Pacific interests of their own.

Even before the current buildup, both top military commanders and enlisted troops in Hawaii, normally focused on the Western Pacific and Pacific Islands, had been making the rounds in South America. Among them Adm. Stephen Koehler from the Pacific Fleet, who visited Chile and Peru.

Trump’s drug war using the military has come to the Pacific | Honolulu Star-Advertiser The Trump administration’s controversial and deadly campaign targeting alleged drug traffickers at sea has now expanded from the Caribbean into the Pacific Ocean.

The lethal strike in the Eastern Pacific widens the Trump Admin's war on alleged drug traffickers. The military buildup in Latin America had already begun pulling in some U.S Navy assets from the Pacific

Now, some question the wider implications in the region
www.staradvertiser.com/2025/10/23/h...

Coast Guard’s Pacific mission continues to expand | Honolulu Star-Advertiser The ocean can be a lawless place. Far from shore, the vast seas have become plagued with everything from piracy, rampant illegal fishing and environmental crime, drug smuggling, human trafficking, and...

As tensions with China continue to simmer and drug war operations ramp up in the Americas, the Coast Guard’s duties continue to expand — with largely bipartisan support.
www.staradvertiser.com/2025/10/20/h...

Artillery Shell Detonated Over Interstate 5 During Marines’ Celebration, California Officials Say

An artillery shell fired during 250th anniversary celebration of the Marine Corps at Camp Pendleton on Saturday detonated prematurely over Interstate 5, damaging a California Highway Patrol vehicle on JD Vance's security detail www.nytimes.com/2025/10/19/u...

ChatGPT boss predicts when AI could cure cancer

We made ChatGPT pretty restrictive to make sure we were being careful with mental health issues. We realize this made it less useful/enjoyable to many users who had no mental health problems, but given the seriousness of the issue we wanted to get this right. Now that we have been able to mitigate the serious mental health issues and have new tools, we are going to be able to safely relax the restrictions in most cases. In a few weeks, we plan to put out a new version of ChatGPT that allows people to have a personality that behaves more like what people liked about 4o (we hope it will be better!). If you want your ChatGPT to respond in a very human-like way, or use a ton of emoji, or act like a friend, ChatGPT should do it (but only if you want it, not because we are usage-maxxing). In December, as we roll out age-gating more fully and as part of our “treat adult users like adults” principle, we will allow even more, like erotica for verified adults. 12:02 PM · Oct 14, 2025 · 1.2M Views

Sam Altman went from “AI will cure cancer" to "ChatGPT porn" in less than a month

The Military Intelligence Service History Learning Center of the National Japanese American Historical Society and National Park Service. https://maps.app.goo.gl/7yYTxTPLkiBTGLsSA?g_st=ipc

On the positive side of there being no fleet at Fleet Week, I got to learn more about my family’s military service at the Presidio’s new Military Intelligence Service History Learning Center.

Huh: TikTok took down my 8-second video featuring this image of Debbie Brockman — the news producer just detained by Trump’s CBP agents — saying it violates the “joy of TikTok”

what? what are you talking about?

The dude sang songs about running cocaine and shooting multiple people live IN one of the most notorious prisons in the country while hundreds of prisoners hooted and hollered at his audacity.

Dylan could never.

Educate yourself Jon Fasman.

This year has been deeply weird, but nothing has been more baffling than the collection of words below.

Russian Drones Turn the Streets of Kherson Into a Civilian Kill Zone The attacks on Kherson are part of Russia’s growing strategy to terrorize civilians in an effort to sap Ukrainians’ strength to resist in the fourth year of war.

“There will be no more mercy.”

“No one deserves pity. Spare me your whining.”

Those are captions to videos of Russian drone operators attacking civilians in Kherson city and region.

Living in Kherson means risking execution from the sky.

www.wsj.com/world/russia... (read free)

Hegseth’s sprawling hunt for Charlie Kirk critics spans nearly 300 investigations The inquiry, resulting in a smattering of disciplinary action so far, follows an extraordinary directive aimed at silencing criticism of the slain activist and Trump supporter.

ANOTHER WAPO SCOOP:

Hegseth’s sprawling hunt for Charlie Kirk critics spans nearly 300 investigations

www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

The officer so enthusiastically introducing Hegseth in his partially unbuttoned shirt here is Naval Academy superintendent Lt. Gen. Michael Borgschulte, the Marine aviator Hegseth installed after cutting short the term of USNA’s first woman superintendent, Vice Adm. Yvette Davids

Vanessa Guillén and the Importance of Speaking Up Hey there Angry Planet listeners, Matthew here.

@mjgault.bsky.social was interviewing a ABC correspondent about new podcast on the murder of US solder Vanessa Guillén. When brought up Hesgeth's recent speech, ABC PR interrupted, asked not to talk about that. Then asked Matthew to cut that part. Wild, wild stuff
angryplanetpod.com/p/vanessa-gu...