Exxon killed 1500 in Europe this week, by lying for decades about climate heat caused by burning carbon fuels, by 👉 bribing politicians, by control of the press. By manipulating elections.

1500 died of Exxon Heat.

The UK arrests people for pressuring to end climate collapse. Germany mocks people trying to save their lives with powered cooling. 1500 died of EXXON Heat.

Its not over, its moving east to Germany and Poland.

Build. Build all the solar and wind, RFN.

#climate

what annoys* me (among other things) is

we had functioning** autocorrect running locally on our devices for years, decades

we had voice-to-text (and vice-versa), gesture controls, head and eye tracking, running locally on our machines for decades, going back to the pretty basic-ass mid-machines of the late 90s

this standalone tech (hardware and software) was improving geometrically, the cost to deliver (locally) decreasing at least linearly, since i was a child

and now we have [waves generally around] this shit 💩 actual world-ending energy water and climate crisis accelerating REGRESSION of the human and technological capability, and it costs more. it does less (qualitatively if not quantitatively) and it costs more, it costs possibly “everything”

* annoy is probably a drastic understatement for seething enragement

** okay it was sometimes, frequently hilariously wrong. but it was a solved ducking problem

I've spent 30 years working with some of the largest organizations in the world on their data and content.

Here's a universal truth.

Most data is slop.

Most data is crap.

At least 90% of data in a typical org should be deleted. Data centers were slop-houses long before slop AI.

Data centers are glorified data dumps and senior management has never, ever cared because it's always been "cheaper" to "solve" the data problem by buying more storage.

We are killing the planet for crap data.

The richest man on Earth owns X.

The family of the second-richest man owns Paramount, which owns CBS, and could soon own Warner Bros, which owns CNN.

The third-richest man owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

The fourth-richest man owns the Washington Post and Amazon MGM Studios.

Another billionaire owns Fox News, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, and now the Roku streaming service

Why are the ultra-rich buying up so much of the media?

Vanity may play a part,
but there’s a more pragmatic
– some might say sinister – reason.

If you’re a multibillionaire, you might view democracy as a potential threat to your net worth.
Control over a significant share of the dwindling number of media outlets would enable you to effectively hedge against democracy
by suppressing criticism of you and other plutocrats,
and discouraging any attempt to
– for example – tax away your wealth.

You also have Donald Trump to contend with.
In his second term of office,
Trump has brazenly and illegally used the power of the presidency
to punish his enemies
and reward those who lavish him with praise and profits.

So perhaps it shouldn’t have been surprising that
the editorial board of the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post
defended the razing of the East Wing of the White House to build Trump his giant ballroom
– without disclosing that Jeff Bezos-owned Amazon is a major corporate contributor to the ballroom’s funding.

The Post’s editorial board also applauded Trump’s defense department’s decision
to obtain a new generation of smaller nuclear reactors,
but failed to mention Amazon’s stake in X-energy,
a company that’s developing small nuclear reactors.

And it criticized Washington DC’s refusal to accept self-driving cars
without disclosing that Amazon’s self-driving car company was trying to get into the Washington DC market.

These breaches are inexcusable.
It’s much the same with the family of Larry Ellison,
founder of the software firm Oracle and the second-richest person in the world.
Ellison is a longtime Trump donor
who also, according to court records,
participated in a phone call to discuss how his 2020 election defeat could be contested.

In June 2025, Ellison and Oracle were co-sponsors of Trump’s military parade in Washington.

At the time, Larry and his son David,
founder of Skydance Media,
were waiting for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
to approve their $8 billion merger with Paramount Global, owner of CBSNews.

In the run-up to the sale, some top brass at CBS News and its flagship 60 Minutes resigned,
citing concerns over the network’s ability to maintain its editorial independence,
and revealing pressure by Paramount to tamp down stories critical of Trump.

No matter. Too much money was at stake.

In July, Paramount paid $16 million to settle Trump’s frivolous lawsuit against CBS
and canceled The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,
much to Trump’s delight.
Three weeks after the settlement was announced,
Trump loyalist Brendan Carr, chair of the FCC,
approved the Ellisons’ deal,
making David chief executive of the new media giant Paramount Skydance
and giving him control of CBS News.

In October, David made the anti-“woke” opinion journalist Bari Weiss
the CBS News editor-in-chief,
despite her lack of experience in either broadcasting or news.

Earlier this month, it was revealed that CBS News heavily edited Trump’s latest 60 Minutes interview,
cutting his boast that the network “paid me a lotta money”.

I’m old enough to remember when CBS News would never have surrendered to a demagogic president.
But that was when CBS News
– the home of Edward R Murrow and Walter Cronkite
– was independent of the rest of CBS,
and when the top management of CBS had independent responsibilities to the American public.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/nov/13/trump-media-ultra-rich-democracy?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

RE: https://post.lurk.org/@shibacomputer/116827981116605348

This is the future those who push for age verification want for us.