Langit pagi itu cerah, tapi entah kenapa udara terasa berat di dada Nayyala. Penggalan chat Lavanya yang memberitahunya bahwa Arlo sedang berada di kampus berhasil menguasai pikirannya. Pada langkah berikutnya, genggaman di ponselnya melemah. Dalam satu tarikan napas yang berat, trauma lama yang selama ini ia simpan rapat, tiba-tiba menyeruak tanpa permisi. Tangannya dingin, jantungnya berpacu cepat, dan napasnya mulai tak beraturan.

Nayyala mencoba berjalan cepat di koridor menuju aula, tapi baru beberapa langkah, pandangannya menangkap sosok itu, tinggi, tegap, dan terlalu familiar untuk salah. Arlo berjalan menghampirinya bersama sang Kakak tingkat Jericho.

Tatapan mereka bertemu sesaat, cukup lama untuk membuat dunia Nayyala runtuh lagi.

Detik berikutnya, ia berbalik, berlari ke arah lain. Nafasnya tersengal, matanya kabur oleh air mata yang mulai tumpah tanpa bisa dikendalikan. Toilet perempuan di dekat lobby menjadi tempat perlindungannya. Nayyala masuk terburu-buru, mengunci pintu, dan bersandar di baliknya. Tangan yang gemetar mencoba memegang ponsel untuk menghubungi siapapun, Nelendra, Manggala. Kaivan. Gasendra. Tapi tak satu pun menjawab. Suaranya pecah ketika napasnya mulai tercekat. Dunianya kembali terasa sempit, terlalu sempit untuk menampung semua rasa takut itu.

Di sisi lain, di aula utama, Rajendra menatap layar ponselnya yang kosong. Belum ada kabar dari Nayyala. Biasanya gadis itu selalu memberi tahu, sekadar, “udah otw, ya.” atau “aku udah di parkiran.” Tapi kali ini hening.

Rajendra berjalan keluar dari aula, menekan nomor Nayyala berulang-ulang menelponnya. Namun tidak dijawab. Raut wajahnya mulai berubah, tenangnya terkikis oleh rasa khawatir yang makin tumbuh.

Tangannya bergegas menelpon Nalendra. “Len, Nayya masih sama lo?”

Suara di seberang terdengar tenang seperti biasa, tapi jawaban itu justru membuat Rajendra membeku. “Kagak, udah gue drop di lobi. Dari lima belas menit yang lalu.”

Seketika darahnya terasa berhenti mengalir. Kalimat itu menyalakan semua alarm di kepalanya. “Oke thanks, Len.” Tutupnya

Disaat yang bersamaan “Rajen, you here me!”

Suara Manggala terdengar di HT khusus, dengan nada panik. Rajendra langsung menempelkan alat itu ke telinganya. “Kenapa, Gal?”

“Jen, kayanya Nayya ketemu Arlo. Gue sama yang lain gak bisa ngubungin Nayya, Jen. Nomornya aktif, tapi gak diangkat.”

Kalimat yang cukup singkat itu mampu membuat Rajendra langsung berlari. Tanpa pamit, tanpa menoleh. Langkahnya menggema di sepanjang koridor yang kini terasa terlalu panjang.

Panggilan demi panggilan ia tekan, entah sudah keberapa kali. Sampai akhirnya, di tengah napasnya yang memburu, sambungan itu tersambung. Hening. Lalu suara isak pelan terdengar dari seberang.

“Sha?” Rajendra menahan napas. “Kamu dimana, sayang? Maaf… aku telat. Boleh kasih tau aku kamu dimana?”

Suara Nayyala pecah, serak, penuh ketakutan yang ia tahan sejak tadi. “Aku di toilet utama… Jen, aku takut.” Cukup satu kalimat itu untuk membuat seluruh tubuh Rajendra menegang.

Tanpa berpikir lagi, ia berlari lebih kencang, menyusuri koridor dengan napas terengah, mata menatap lurus ke arah lobi utama kampus. Satu-satunya hal yang ada di pikirannya cuma satu menemukan Nayyala.

I caught myself in so many ways today, and I wanna start by giving myself credit for that. The latest thing I caught was wanting to ask for reassurance that E would not be going to random men for support now when I take an hour or two of space to regulate. I recognized that there isn’t a logical reason for me to expect that, and it would be an anxious attachment thing that’s unhealthy. In my mind the defense is “if she was to cheat, let her since that would let me know to end things, and I mentally detach myself from her. I then recognize that the thought is just me swinging the needle too far to the other side of being detached. Yes that thought would also keep me safe, but at the cost of genuine connection. Logically the more reasonable thought is recognizing that fear, labeling it as irrational and then giving myself the reassurance I need. I both trust E, and I also know that even in the worst case I will be ok. I am safe.

I talked with my therapist today, and I realized (with her help) that E getting therapy was a sign of her commitment to me. I was hoping to be able to talk to her today about that, but she shut down during the first topic that was much lighter and I didn’t even get to finish it. I fully get that she’s under a lot of stress and pressure right now, but it does suck that I asked her if she had capacity to talk about things, and she said yes and then just fully shut down immediately.

I’m mostly just writing now to be able to vent and regulate myself. I think I suffer from success often, because I set the bar for a lot of things, and unfortunately I have that for comparison. For example, I’m a firm believer that if there’s a will there’s a way. I remember how badly I had to work for so many different things, like growing up unsocialized and isolated, and studying online different emotional topics to try to be normal. Or how I was willing to risk everything to get therapy. Or how badly I’ve had to fight against the condition that has caused one entire path of my family line to kill themselves. I know that there are definitely people out there that had to fight harder, but I sure as hell know there are plenty of people out there that have not fought hard enough. And I know that I’m being unreasonable in this, but when E doesn’t even give what I consider a good effort at therapy, it feels like I’m faced with either thinking that she simply does not care enough to put an effort, or to look down on her and just think that she is not capable the same way that I am. It almost feels like playing tennis doubles with someone, and it being something important. For me I’ve spent 100s of hours practicing tennis growing up, and now I am at a certain level that there is not a chance my partner could keep up with without having nearly as much practice. And then it’s the frustration that comes from being limited by someone else, in a way that I cannot necessarily control. And it feels frustrating, because it’s disproportionate the levels that we’re at. I don’t like thinking like this, because the next thought that comes to my head is that I am doomed to settle for someone who is way less competent than I am, or it is that I need to instead find someone that is more on my level. But both of those things are violently wrong, and I can immediately poke the logical holes in that. First of all, maybe this doubles match doesn’t matter that much. Second of all there’s way more than just this doubles match to a person. And also it’s not like I’m powerless, it’s unfair and way harder, but I can always both carry their share, and also carry the additional burden that comes from that. I can just get better, and that is something I can control. But I guess I kind of wish I didn’t have that as an option in a way. I wish I didn’t have to always be the one ahead.

I absolutely know that there are more than just these criteria, but honestly I kind of fall short when I try to think about more. But if you compare me and E together, I am more emotionally mature, I am I think physically more conventionally attractive, I am financially and career wise much more successful, I think I’m more thoughtful, and while she is absolutely way above average in a lot of those things, I think I beat her. And I fully know that it’s not a competition, and to me my answer whenever she asks me if that feeling affects me, I tell her how it’s not a competition and that I love her not for those things or criteria, but rather because of the connection that I have to her in other ways, like the shared interests we have or how she cares and is super sweet and all of these other very real things. But whenever I think about it in the lens of comparison, it feels bad because I think it’s a one sided blowout. It’d be easier if there was some give and take, like yes I carry more of the emotional burden but she carries more of the chores or housekeeping things. Or maybe I carry more of the financial burden, but she handles thoughtful things more like planning dates or activities. But it’s all mostly me. And I’m happy in the relationship, so incredibly so, but whenever I’m put in a situation where I’m hurt from her emotional shortcomings, it fucking sucks.

It almost feels like I always need to go through all these additional steps mentally and this extra effort to process and navigate this dance between two minds communication is, while she gets to stumble around it. It’s like understanding strategy and the game at a high level and then duping with someone who’s just holding w and playing death match. I like journaling because I don’t have to really explain these analogies that I get.

Let me do a CBT chart, I know it will help.

S: I was unable to voice my thoughts or feelings to E, and I was bitten for reaching out this time.

T: I just can’t speak to her, or be open about things without her shutting down.

F: I feel both hopeless and terrified like a child again, but then I also feel just shut off and cold, to protect myself.

B: I close off to her, and I harbor this resentment that will bottle up and come out.

T: She absolutely is capable of listening to me, just not always. She is not perfect, just like every other human. She is also under a LOT of other mental strain from the funeral, and being surrounded by family in Texas. I know how much being around family shuts me down, and also she is going through emotional withdrawals like I am from the distance.

F: I get why this happened, and there’s a reason and not a general pattern.

B: I regulate my emotions and I feel them resolve. I give her grace and patience.

God I need to do CBT more.

Pluribus Episode 8: Charm Offensive

See 100 Word reviews of previous episodes here

Responding to Carol's plea in episode seven, Zosia and the Others return to Albuquerque. The episode centers on Carol and Zosia's slow-burning love story. Carol’s urging of Zosia to use “I” statements felt like a clue. The sexual tension edged right up until the collective consciousness deduced Carol needed to get laid.

To me, Pluribus is an allegory of the AI debate. Manousos rejects all utility of the hive-mind, while Diabaté embraces its spoils. Carol shares Manousos’ moral outrage but is developing more nuanced, self-serving rules of engagement. This mirrors the camps lining up for the AI wars.

Watch it

#tv #Pluribus #SciFi #VinceGilligan #AppleTV #Television #100WordReview #Larrys100 #100DaysToOffload

The convergence of political influence and artificial intelligence development has accelerated beyond traditional lobbying into something more fundamental: a restructuring of how advanced technology is governed, funded, and deployed. When venture capitalist Marc Andreessen described the aftermath of Donald Trump's 2024 election victory as feeling “like a boot off the throat,” he wasn't simply celebrating regulatory relief. He was marking the moment when years of strategic political investment by Silicon Valley's AI elite began yielding tangible returns in the form of favourable policy, lucrative government contracts, and unprecedented influence over the regulatory frameworks that will govern humanity's most consequential technology.

What makes this moment distinctive is not merely that wealthy technologists have cultivated political relationships. Such arrangements have existed throughout the history of American capitalism, from the railroad barons of the nineteenth century to the telecommunications giants of the twentieth. Rather, the novelty lies in the concentration of influence around a technology whose development trajectory will fundamentally reshape economic structures, labour markets, information environments, and potentially the nature of intelligence itself. The stakes of AI governance extend far beyond ordinary industrial policy into questions about human autonomy, economic organisation, and the distribution of power in democratic societies.

The pattern emerging from the intersection of political capital and AI development reveals far more than opportunistic lobbying or routine industry influence. Instead, a systematic reshaping of competitive dynamics is underway, where proximity to political power increasingly determines which companies gain access to essential infrastructure, energy resources, and the regulatory latitude necessary to deploy frontier AI systems at scale. This transformation raises profound questions about whether AI governance will emerge from democratic deliberation or from backroom negotiations between political allies and tech oligarchs whose financial interests and ideological commitments have become deeply intertwined with governmental decision-making.

Financial Infrastructure of Political Influence

The scale of direct political investment by AI-adjacent figures in the 2024 election cycle represents an inflection point in Silicon Valley's relationship with formal political power. Elon Musk contributed more than $270 million to political groups supporting Donald Trump and Republican candidates, including approximately $75 million to his own America PAC, making him the largest single donor in the election according to analysis by the Washington Post and The Register. This investment secured Musk not merely access but authority: leadership of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a position from which he wields influence over the regulatory environment facing his AI startup xAI alongside his other ventures.

The DOGE role creates extraordinary conflicts of interest. Richard Schoenstein, vice chair of litigation practice at law firm Tarter Krinsky & Drogin, characterised Musk's dual role as businessman and Trump advisor a “dangerous combination.” Venture capitalist Reid Hoffman wrote in the Financial Times that Musk's direct ownership in xAI creates a “serious conflict of interest in terms of setting federal AI policies for all US companies.” These concerns materialised rapidly as xAI secured governmental contracts whilst Musk simultaneously held authority over efficiency initiatives affecting the entire technology sector.

Peter Thiel, co-founder of Palantir Technologies, took a different approach. Despite having donated a record $15 million to JD Vance's 2022 Ohio Senate race, Thiel announced he would not donate to any 2024 presidential campaigns, though he confirmed he would vote for Trump. Yet Thiel's influence manifests through networks rather than direct contributions. More than a dozen individuals with ties to Thiel's companies secured positions in the Trump administration, including Vice President JD Vance himself, whom Thiel introduced to Trump in 2021. Bloomberg documented how Clark Minor (who worked at Palantir for nearly 13 years) became Chief Information Officer at the Department of Health and Human Services (which holds contracts with Palantir), whilst Jim O'Neill (who described Thiel as his “patron”) was named acting director of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.

Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, co-founders of Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), made their first presidential campaign donations in 2024, supporting Trump. Their firm donated $25 million to crypto-focused super PACs and backed “Leading The Future,” a super PAC reportedly armed with more than $100 million to ensure pro-AI electoral victories in the 2026 midterm elections, according to Gizmodo. The PAC's founding backers include OpenAI president Greg Brockman, Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, and AI search company Perplexity, creating a formidable coalition dedicated to opposing state-level AI regulation.

In podcast episodes following Trump's victory, Andreessen and Horowitz articulated fears that regulatory approaches to cryptocurrency might establish precedents for AI governance. Given a16z's substantial investments across AI companies, they viewed preventing regulatory frameworks as existential to their portfolio's value. David Sacks (a billionaire venture capitalist) secured appointment as both the White House's crypto and AI czar, giving the venture capital community direct representation in policy formation.

The return on these investments became visible almost immediately. Within months of Trump's inauguration, Palantir's stock surged more than 200% from the day before the election. The company secured more than $113 million in federal contracts since Trump took office, including an $800 million Pentagon deal, according to NPR. Michael McGrath, former chief executive of i2 (a data analytics firm competing with Palantir), observed that “having political connections and inroads with Peter Thiel and Elon Musk certainly helps them. It makes deals come faster without a lot of negotiation and pressure.”

For xAI, Musk's AI venture valued at $80 billion following its merger with X, political proximity translated into direct government integration. In early 2025, xAI signed an agreement with the General Services Administration enabling federal agencies to access its Grok AI chatbot through March 2027 at $0.42 per agency for 18 months, as reported by Newsweek. The arrangement raises significant questions about competitive procurement processes and whether governmental adoption of xAI products reflects technical merit or political favour.

The interconnected nature of these investments creates mutually reinforcing relationships. Musk's political capital benefits not only xAI but also Tesla (whose autonomous driving systems depend on AI), SpaceX (whose contracts with NASA and the Defence Department exceed billions of dollars), and Neuralink (whose brain-computer interfaces require regulatory approval). Similarly, Thiel's network encompasses Palantir, Anduril Industries, and numerous portfolio companies through Founders Fund, all positioned to benefit from favourable governmental relationships. This concentration means that political influence flows not merely to individual companies but to entire portfolios of interconnected ventures controlled by a small number of individuals.

The Regulatory Arbitrage Strategy

Political investment by AI companies cannot be understood solely as seeking favour. Rather, it represents a systematic strategy to reshape the regulatory landscape itself. The Trump administration's swift repeal of President Biden's October 2023 Executive Order on AI demonstrates how regulatory frameworks can be dismantled as rapidly as they're constructed when political winds shift.

Biden's executive order had established structured oversight including mandatory red-teaming for high-risk AI models, enhanced cybersecurity protocols, and requirements for advanced AI developers to submit safety results to the federal government. Trump's January 20, 2025 Executive Order 14148 rescinded these provisions entirely, replacing them with a framework “centred on deregulation and the promotion of AI innovation as a means of maintaining US global dominance,” as characterised by the American Psychological Association.

Trump's December 11, 2025 executive order explicitly pre-empts state-level AI regulation, attempting to establish a “single national framework” that prevents states from enforcing their own AI rules. White House crypto and AI czar David Sacks justified this federal intervention by arguing it would prevent a “patchwork of state regulations” that could impede innovation. Silicon Valley leaders like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had consistently advocated for precisely this outcome, as CNN and NPR reported, despite legal questions about whether such federal pre-emption exceeds executive authority.

The lobbying infrastructure supporting this transformation expanded dramatically in 2024. OpenAI increased its federal lobbying expenditure nearly sevenfold, spending $1.76 million in 2024 compared to just $260,000 in 2023, according to MIT Technology Review. The company hired Chris Lehane (a political strategist from the Clinton White House who later helped Airbnb and Coinbase) as head of global affairs. Across the AI sector, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Cohere combined spent $2.71 million on federal lobbying in 2024. Meta led all tech companies with more than $24 million in lobbying expenditure.

Research by the RAND Corporation identified four primary channels through which AI companies attempt to influence policy: agenda-setting (advancing anti-regulation narratives), advocacy activities targeting legislators, influence in academia and research, and information management. Of seventeen experts interviewed, fifteen cited agenda-setting as the key mechanism. Congressional staffers told researchers that companies publicly strike cooperative tones on regulation whilst privately lobbying for “very permissive or voluntary regulations,” with one staffer noting: “Anytime you want to make a tech company do something mandatory, they're gonna push back on it.”

The asymmetry between public and private positions proves particularly significant. Companies frequently endorse broad principles of AI safety and responsibility in congressional testimony and public statements whilst simultaneously funding organisations that oppose specific regulatory proposals. This two-track strategy allows firms to cultivate reputations as responsible actors concerned with safety whilst effectively blocking measures that would impose binding constraints on their operations. The result is a regulatory environment shaped more by industry preferences than by independent assessment of public interests or technological risks.

Technical Differentiation as Political Strategy

The competition between frontier AI companies encompasses not merely model capabilities but fundamentally divergent approaches to alignment, safety, and transparency. These technical distinctions have become deeply politicised, with companies strategically positioning their approaches to appeal to different political constituencies and regulatory philosophies.

OpenAI's trajectory exemplifies this dynamic. Founded as a nonprofit research laboratory, the company restructured into a “capped profit” entity in 2019 to attract capital for compute-intensive model development. Microsoft's $10 billion investment in 2023 cemented OpenAI's position as the commercial leader in generative AI, but also marked its transformation from safety-focused research organisation to growth-oriented technology company. When Jan Leike (responsible for alignment and safety) and Ilya Sutskever (co-founder and former Chief Scientist) both departed in 2024 citing concerns that the company prioritised speed over safeguards, it signalled a fundamental shift. Leike's public statement upon leaving noted that “safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products” at OpenAI.

Anthropic, founded in 2021 by former OpenAI employees including Dario and Daniela Amodei, explicitly positioned itself as the safety-conscious alternative. Structured as a public benefit corporation with a Long-Term Benefit Trust designed to represent public interest, Anthropic developed “Constitutional AI” methods for aligning models with written ethical principles. The company secured $13 billion in funding at a $183 billion valuation by late 2024, driven substantially by enterprise customers seeking models with robust safety frameworks.

Joint safety evaluations conducted in summer 2025, where OpenAI and Anthropic tested each other's models, revealed substantive differences reflecting divergent training philosophies. According to findings published by both companies, Claude models produced fewer hallucinations but exhibited higher refusal rates. OpenAI's o3 and o4-mini models attempted answers more frequently, yielding more correct completions alongside more hallucinated responses. On jailbreaking resistance, OpenAI's reasoning models showed greater resistance to creative attacks compared to Claude systems.

These technical differences map onto political positioning. Anthropic's emphasis on safety appeals to constituencies concerned about AI risks, potentially positioning the company favourably should regulatory frameworks eventually mandate safety demonstrations. OpenAI's “iterative deployment” philosophy, emphasising learning from real-world engagement rather than laboratory testing, aligns with the deregulatory stance dominant in the current political environment.

Meta adopted a radically different strategy through its Llama series of open-source models, making frontier-adjacent capabilities freely available. Yet as research published in “The Economics of AI Foundation Models” notes, openness strategies are “rational, profit-maximising responses to a firm's specific competitive position” rather than philosophical commitments. By releasing models openly, Meta reduces the competitive advantage of OpenAI's proprietary systems whilst positioning itself as the infrastructure provider for a broader ecosystem of AI applications. The strategy simultaneously serves commercial objectives and cultivates political support from constituencies favouring open development.

xAI represents the most explicitly political technical positioning, with Elon Musk characterising competing models as censorious and politically biased, positioning Grok as the free-speech alternative. This framing transforms technical choices about content moderation and safety filters into cultural battleground issues, appealing to constituencies sceptical of mainstream technology companies whilst deflecting concerns about safety by casting them as ideological censorship. The strategy proves remarkably effective at generating engagement and political support even as questions about Grok's actual capabilities relative to competitors remain contested.

Google's DeepMind represents yet another positioning, emphasising scientific research credentials and long-term safety research alongside commercial deployment. The company's integration of AI capabilities across its product ecosystem (Search, Gmail, Workspace, Cloud) creates dependencies that transcend individual model comparisons, effectively bundling AI advancement with existing platform dominance. This approach faces less political scrutiny than pure-play AI companies despite Google's enormous market power, partly because AI represents one component of a diversified technology portfolio rather than the company's singular focus.

Infrastructure Politics and the Energy-Compute Nexus

Perhaps nowhere does the intersection of political capital and AI development manifest more concretely than in infrastructure policy. Training and deploying frontier AI models requires unprecedented computational resources, which in turn demand enormous energy supplies. The Bipartisan Policy Centre projects that by 2030, 25% of new domestic energy demand will derive from data centres, driven substantially by AI workloads. Current power-generating capacity proves insufficient; in major data centre regions, tech companies report that utilities are unable to provide electrical service for new facilities or are rationing power until transmission infrastructure completion.

In September 2024, Sam Altman joined leaders from Nvidia, Anthropic, and Google in visiting the White House to pitch the Biden administration on subsidising energy infrastructure as essential to US competitiveness in AI. Altman proposed constructing multiple five-gigawatt data centres, each consuming electricity equivalent to New York City's entire demand, according to CNBC. The pitch framed energy subsidisation as national security imperative rather than corporate welfare.

The Trump administration has proven even more amenable to this framing. The Department of Energy identified 16 potential sites on DOE lands “uniquely positioned for rapid data centre construction” and released a Request for Information on possible use of federal lands for AI infrastructure. DOE announced creation of an “AI data centre engagement team” to leverage programmes including loans, grants, tax credits, and technical assistance. Executive Order 14179 explicitly directs the Commerce Department to launch financial support initiatives for data centres requiring 100+ megawatts of new energy generation.

Federal permitting reform has been reoriented specifically toward AI data centres. Trump's executive order accelerates federal permitting by streamlining environmental reviews, expanding FAST-41 coverage, and promoting use of federal and contaminated lands for data centres. These provisions directly benefit companies with the political connections to navigate federal processes and the capital to invest in massive infrastructure, effectively creating higher barriers for smaller competitors whilst appearing to promote development broadly.

The Institute for Progress proposed establishing “Special Compute Zones” where the federal government would coordinate construction of AI clusters exceeding five gigawatts through strategic partnerships with top AI labs, with government financing next-generation power plants. This proposal, which explicitly envisions government picking winners, represents an extreme version of the public-private convergence already underway.

The environmental implications of this infrastructure expansion remain largely absent from political discourse despite their significance. Data centres already consume approximately 1-1.5% of global electricity, with AI workloads driving rapid growth. The water requirements for cooling these facilities place additional strain on local resources, particularly in regions already experiencing water stress. Yet political debates about AI infrastructure focus almost exclusively on competitiveness and national security, treating environmental costs as externalities to be absorbed rather than factors to be weighed against purported benefits. This framing serves the interests of companies seeking infrastructure subsidies whilst obscuring the distributional consequences of AI development.

Governance Capture and the Concentration of AI Power

The systematic pattern of political investment, regulatory influence, and infrastructure access produces a form of governance that operates parallel to democratic institutions whilst claiming to serve national interests. Quinn Slobodian, professor of international history at Boston University, characterised the current situation of ties between industry and government as “unprecedented in the modern era.”

Palantir Technologies exemplifies how companies can become simultaneously government contractor, policy influencer, and infrastructure provider in ways that blur distinctions between public and private power. Founded with early backing from In-Q-Tel (the CIA's venture arm), Palantir built its business on government contracts with agencies including the FBI, NSA, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE alone has spent more than $200 million on Palantir contracts. The Department of Defence awarded Palantir billion-dollar contracts for battlefield intelligence and AI-driven analysis.

Palantir's Gotham platform, marketed as an “operating system for global decision making,” enables governments to integrate disparate data sources with AI-driven analysis predicting patterns and movements. The fundamental concern lies not in the capabilities but in their opacity: because Gotham is proprietary, neither the public nor elected officials can examine how its algorithms weigh data or why they highlight certain connections. Yet the conclusions generated can produce life-altering consequences (inclusion on deportation lists, identification as security risks), with mistakes or biases scaling rapidly across many people.

The revolving door between Palantir and government agencies intensified following Trump's 2024 victory. The company secured a contract with the Federal Housing Finance Agency in May 2025 to establish an “AI-powered Crime Detection Unit” at Fannie Mae. In December 2024, Palantir joined with Anduril Industries (backed by Thiel's Founders Fund) to form a consortium including SpaceX, OpenAI, Scale AI, and Saronic Technologies challenging traditional defence contractors.

This consortium model represents a new form of political-industrial complex. Rather than established defence contractors cultivating relationships with the Pentagon over decades, a network of ideologically aligned technology companies led by politically connected founders now positions itself as the future of American defence and intelligence. These companies share investors, board members, and political patrons in a densely connected graph where business relationships and political allegiances reinforce each other.

The effective altruism movement's influence on AI governance represents another dimension of this capture. According to Politico reporting, an anonymous biosecurity researcher described EA-linked funders as “an epic infiltration” of policy circles, with “a small army of adherents to 'effective altruism' having descended on the nation's capital and dominating how the White House, Congress and think tanks approach the technology.” EA-affiliated organisations drafted key policy proposals including the federal Responsible Advanced Artificial Intelligence Act and California's Senate Bill 1047, both emphasising long-term existential risks over near-term harms like bias, privacy violations, and labour displacement. Critics note that focusing on existential risk allows companies to position themselves as responsible actors concerned with humanity's future whilst continuing rapid commercialisation with minimal accountability for current impacts.

The Geopolitical Framing and Its Discontents

Nearly every justification for deregulation, infrastructure subsidisation, and concentrated AI development invokes competition with China. This framing proves rhetorically powerful because it positions commercial interests as national security imperatives, casting regulatory caution as geopolitical liability. Chris Lehane (OpenAI's head of global affairs) explicitly deployed this strategy, arguing that “if the US doesn't lead the way in AI, an autocratic nation like China will.”

The China framing contains elements of truth alongside strategic distortion. China has invested heavily in AI, with projections exceeding 10 trillion yuan ($1.4 trillion) in technology investment by 2030. Yet US private sector AI investment vastly exceeds Chinese private investment; in 2024, US private AI investment reached approximately $109.1 billion (nearly twelve times China's $9.3 billion), according to research comparing the US-China AI gap. Five US companies alone (Meta, Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle) are expected to spend more than $450 billion in aggregate AI-specific capital expenditures in 2026.

The competitive framing serves primarily to discipline domestic regulatory debates. By casting AI governance as zero-sum geopolitical competition, industry advocates reframe democratic oversight as strategic vulnerability. This rhetorical move positions anyone advocating for stronger AI regulation as inadvertently serving Chinese interests by handicapping American companies. The logic mirrors earlier arguments against environmental regulation, labour standards, or financial oversight.

Recent policy developments complicate this narrative. President Trump's December 8 announcement that the US would allow Nvidia to sell powerful H200 chips to China seemingly contradicts years of export controls designed to prevent Chinese AI advancement, suggesting the relationship between AI policy and geopolitical strategy remains contested even within administrations ostensibly committed to technological rivalry.

Alternative Governance Models and Democratic Deficits

The concentration of AI governance authority in politically connected companies operating with minimal oversight represents one potential future, but not an inevitable one. The European Union's AI Act establishes comprehensive regulation with classification systems, conformity assessments, and enforcement mechanisms, despite intense lobbying by OpenAI and other companies. Time magazine reported that OpenAI successfully lobbied to remove language suggesting general-purpose AI systems should be considered inherently high risk, demonstrating that even relatively assertive regulatory frameworks remain vulnerable to industry influence.

Research institutions focused on AI safety independent of major labs provide another potential check. The Centre for AI Safety published research on “circuit breakers” preventing dangerous AI behaviours (requiring 20,000 attempts to jailbreak protected models) and developed the Weapons of Mass Destruction Proxy Benchmark measuring hazardous knowledge in biosecurity, cybersecurity, and chemical security.

The fundamental democratic deficit lies in the absence of mechanisms through which publics meaningfully shape AI development priorities, safety standards, or deployment conditions. The technologies reshaping labour markets, information environments, and social relationships emerge from companies accountable primarily to investors and increasingly to political patrons rather than to citizens affected by their choices. When governance occurs through private negotiations between tech oligarchs and political allies, the public's role reduces to retrospectively experiencing consequences of decisions made elsewhere.

Whilst industry influence on regulation has long existed, the current configuration involves direct insertion of industry leaders into governmental decision-making (Musk leading DOGE), governmental adoption of industry products without competitive procurement (xAI's Grok agreement), and systematic dismantling of nascent oversight frameworks replaced by industry-designed alternatives. This represents not merely regulatory capture but governance convergence, where distinctions between regulator and regulated dissolve.

Reshaping Competitive Dynamics Beyond Markets

The intertwining of political capital, financial investment, and AI infrastructure around particular companies fundamentally alters competitive dynamics in ways extending far beyond traditional market competition. In conventional markets, companies compete primarily on product quality, pricing, and customer service. In the emerging AI landscape, competitive advantage increasingly derives from political proximity, with winners determined partly by whose technologies receive governmental adoption, whose infrastructure needs receive subsidisation, and whose regulatory preferences become policy.

This creates what economists term “political rent-seeking” as a core competitive strategy. Palantir's stock surge following Trump's election reflects not sudden technical breakthroughs but investor recognition that political alignment translates into contract access. xAI's rapid governmental integration reflects not superior capabilities relative to competitors but Musk's position in the administration.

For newer entrants and smaller competitors, these dynamics raise formidable barriers. If regulatory frameworks favour incumbents, if infrastructure subsidies flow to connected players, and if government procurement privileges politically aligned firms, then competitive dynamics reward political investment over technical innovation.

The international implications prove equally significant. If American AI governance emerges from negotiations between tech oligarchs and political patrons rather than democratic deliberation, it undermines claims that the US model represents values-aligned technology versus authoritarian Chinese alternatives. Countries observing US AI politics may rationally conclude that American “leadership” means subordinating their own governance preferences to the commercial interests of US-based companies with privileged access to American political power.

The consolidation of AI infrastructure around politically connected companies also concentrates future capabilities in ways that may prove difficult to reverse. If a handful of companies control the computational resources, energy infrastructure, and governmental relationships necessary for frontier AI development, then path dependencies develop where these companies' early advantages compound over time. Alternative approaches to AI development, safety, or governance become increasingly difficult to pursue as the resource advantages of incumbents grow.

Reconfiguring the Politics of Technological Power

The selective investment patterns of political figures and networks in specific AI companies signal a broader transformation in how technological development intersects with political power. Several factors converge to enable this reconfiguration. First, the immense capital requirements for frontier AI development concentrate power among firms with access to patient capital. Second, the geopolitical framing of AI competition creates permission structures for policies that would otherwise face greater political resistance. Third, the technical complexity of AI systems creates information asymmetries where companies possess far greater understanding of capabilities and risks than regulators.

Fourth, and perhaps most significantly, the effective absence of organised constituencies advocating for alternative AI governance approaches leaves the field to industry and its allies. Labour organisations remain fractured in responses to AI-driven automation, civil liberties groups focus on specific applications rather than systemic governance, and academic researchers often depend on industry funding or access. This creates a political vacuum where industry preferences face minimal organised opposition.

The question facing democratic societies extends beyond whether particular companies or technologies prevail. Rather, it concerns whether publics retain meaningful agency over technologies reshaping economic structures, information environments, and social relations. The current trajectory suggests a future where AI governance emerges from negotiations among political and economic elites with deeply intertwined interests, whilst publics experience consequences of decisions made without their meaningful participation.

Breaking this trajectory requires not merely better regulation but reconstructing the relationships between technological development, political power, and democratic authority. This demands new institutional forms enabling public participation in shaping AI priorities, funding mechanisms for AI research independent of commercial imperatives, and political constituencies capable of challenging the presumption that corporate interests align with public goods. Whether such reconstruction proves possible in an era of concentrated wealth and political influence remains democracy's defining question as artificial intelligence becomes infrastructure.

The coalescence of political capital around specific AI companies represents a test case for whether democratic governance can reassert authority over technological development or whether politics has become merely another domain where economic power translates into control. The outcome of this contest will determine not merely which companies dominate AI markets, but whether the development of humanity's most powerful technologies occurs through democratic deliberation or oligarchic negotiation.

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References & Sources

• How Elon Musk's $130 million investment in Trump's victory could reap a huge payoff
• Musk-linked contributions to Trump total $270M
• Elon Musk's budget-cutter role creates dangerous conflicts of interest
• Elon Musk's Grok AI Inks Deal With Trump Admin
• Trump's victory will benefit Elon Musk and xAI
• AI companies upped their federal lobbying spend in 2024
• OpenAI has upped its lobbying efforts nearly seven-fold
• How Palantir is mapping the nation's data
• How Palantir is rising in the Trump era
• Palantir and Accenture Federal Services Join Forces
• OpenAI and Anthropic alignment evaluation exercise
• Findings from Pilot Anthropic-OpenAI Alignment Exercise
• AI Governance through Markets
• Peter Thiel's network infiltrating Trump's White House
• Peter Thiel's Allies in Trump's Government
• OpenAI is under pressure as Google, Anthropic gain ground
• From OpenAI to Anthropic: who's leading on AI governance?
• Frontier Model Competition Is Wide Open
• OpenAI Grapples with Losses, Competition, Internal Turmoil
• Trump rescinds Biden executive order in AI regulatory overhaul
• Trump signs executive order to block state AI regulations
• Trump AI executive order may not be legal
• Trump signs order for single national AI regulation standard
• Strategic Federal Actions to Strengthen AI and Energy Infrastructure
• DOE Announces Actions to Enhance AI Leadership
• Build AI in America: Anthropic Energy Report
• Compute in America: A Policy Playbook
• How OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's lobbying power tamed Washington
• OpenAI Lobbied EU to Water Down AI Regulation
• Marc Andreessen-Backed Super-PAC Fighting State AI Regulations
• Andreessen Horowitz founders plan to donate to pro-Trump PACs
• Crypto Won Big in 2024. AI Is Angling to Do the Same in 2026
• AI and policy leaders debate web of effective altruism
• US-China AI Gap: 2025 Analysis
• AI Industrial Policy: US and China Geoeconomic Battlefield
• Managing Industry Influence in US AI Policy
• Centre for AI Safety 2024 Year in Review

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Tim Green UK-based Systems Theorist & Independent Technology Writer

Tim explores the intersections of artificial intelligence, decentralised cognition, and posthuman ethics. His work, published at smarterarticles.co.uk, challenges dominant narratives of technological progress while proposing interdisciplinary frameworks for collective intelligence and digital stewardship.

His writing has been featured on Ground News and shared by independent researchers across both academic and technological communities.

ORCID: 0009-0002-0156-9795 Email: tim@smarterarticles.co.uk

In Summary: * The day started VERY early for me. I was standing at the curb well before sun up, hauling tall trash bags out of my big brown trash bin before the trash truck came to collect it. I was worried that I might have mistakenly thrown away something I shouldn't have. Now I get to go through each of those bags again, very carefully, and look for an old photo album of the wife. Better safe than sorry, ya' know.

Prayers, etc.: * My daily prayers

Health Metrics: * bw= 227.19 lbs. * bp= 168/100 (61)

Exercise: * kegel pelvic floor exercise, half squats, calf raises, wall push-ups

Diet: * 06:20 – 1 pb&j sandwich * 09:35 – 1 cheese & seafood salad sandwich * 12:30 – bowl of home made chicken noodle soup * 15:40 – 1 fresh apple * 19:00 – ½ Wendy's Junior Cheeseburger, chicken tenders, 1 chocolate milkshake

Activities, Chores, etc.: * 04:00 – listen to local news talk radio * 04:40 – bank accounts activity monitored * 05:00 – pull trash for resorting * 05:45 -read, pray, follow news reports from various sources, surf the socials * 10:00 – start my weekly laundry * 14:00 – finished folding the last of the laundry * 15:00 – listening to The Jack Riccardi Show * 16:00 – tuned in to The Flagship Station for IU Sports ahead of tonight's NCAA men's basketball game between the Siena Saints and the Indiana Hoosiers...and the Hoosiers win 81 to 60. * 19:00 – watch old game shows and eat dinner at home with Sylvia * 19:30 – time now to wrap up the night prayers, listen to relaxing music, and quietly read my way to bedtime.

Chess: * 14:55 – moved n all pending CC games

The first thing I did was download the ISO image for Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS. Then I used balenaEtcher to create a bootable USB drive. I got an error when doing this on Windows 11, and after some searching, I found that the solution was to run balenaEtcher as Administrator for the image to work. Even then, I still got another error, I don’t remember exactly what it was. In the end, I switched to Rufus to create the bootable USB, and that worked.

I managed to create the bootable USB and installed Ubuntu on my old ASUS VivoBook Pro laptop. All the hardware worked out of the box, which was great. Even the NVIDIA graphics card was recognized and installed automatically.

So far, I've tested:

• Wi-Fi/Sound/keyboard/mouse/monitor: no issues at all
• Bluetooth: worked well with Jabra Evolve headphones
• Firefox Browser: perfect
• Standard Notes: I installed the app and it works beautifully
• Nirvana: web based and works perfectly as a PWA app
• Steam: installed it and played Banished. It ran even better than on Windows, with more options to adjust zoom, scale, and font sizes
• Deezer: installed an app and listened to music with my headphones
• Calibre: successfully installed for e-book management. I still need to explore using it to open library e-books shared in the Adobe Digital Editions .acsm format. The internet suggests this is possible with some plugins
• LibreOffice / OnlyOffice: great alternatives to the Microsoft suite, it will be easy to switch
• pCloud: created a free account to test it out (seems pretty good!)
• MEGA: created a free account to test it out (didn’t like it that much, for some reason)

Things that I tried but did not work:

• Installing Dropbox and getting it to integrate with Nautilus (did not work at all!)
• Setting up GNOME Online Accounts for OneDrive: I kept getting an error saying the service could not connect
• Installing the MEGA application on Linux: nothing happened, and it didn’t work out

Things I want to test:

• Plugging in my Kobo to see if Calibre recognizes it (I forgot to test this)
• Dropbox: I still have a Dropbox account, and it was the first option that came to mind to replace OneDrive. I read that Linux support is good, but on my first attempt I couldn’t get the native app working. I’ll revisit this
• pCloud Drive: this seems like another solid alternative to OneDrive. I tested it on Windows, and it worked great; now I want to see how well it integrates with Linux
• Discord: there’s a Linux app available. I still need to try it
• Lenovo Universal Dock: I have a ThinkPad dock that I use to connect my monitor and peripherals to my other laptop. I expect it to work with Linux on my ThinkPad X1, but I also want to see if I can get it working with the ASUS laptop. The internet seems to agree that it should work, but I still have to figure it out.
• Emails in Mozilla Thunderbird
• I started with Ubuntu, but I'm intrigued to at least try out Linux Mint. I am not sure if I liked the GNOME desktop environment. It could be because I didn't actually do any customization. Something to explore.

Something I want to do first, before I continue more testing

• The ASUS laptop I'm using to test Linux has a 256GB SSD + 1TB HDD. I made the mistake of installing Ubuntu on the HDD, instead of the SSD, so Ubuntu didn't feel that smooth, it's a bit sluggish (still better than Windows 10, tho). So before I continue any explorations, I will start over and do a full reinstallation on the SSD.

Banished on Linux

Note: I wrote and published this post on Linux 🙂

#linux #tech

Depuis quelques semaines avant qu’Amazon décide de tirer un trait sur la série “Wheel of Time”, j’avais décidé de proposer une adaptation du monde de Robert Jordan en jeu de rôles. L’équipe de Geek Fabula avait fait un actual play dans cet univers, ce qui avait bien évidemment fait écho à une période importante pour moi où je jouais la campagne Prophecies of the Dragon toutes les semaines avec des amis dont certains sont décédés aujourd’hui. Qu’importe le passé, l’univers de la Roue du Temps a cette capacité de mêler le côté martial et royaliste des univers médiévaux au mélange des cultures beaucoup plus contemporains, et la série a encore poussé d’autres crans dans la représentativité et l’inclusivité (pour le meilleur ou pour le pire). Il fait partie de ces univers qui utilisent le surnaturel à petites doses en s’appuyant sur les intrigues très humaines de nations en déroute.

Un monde où chacun ne peut compter que sur ces ressources est un monde où les compétences valent plus que le hasard. J’avais d’abord opté pour le système engrenages qui a de nombreuses qualités pour motoriser la Roue du Temps : il donne autant d’importance au social et au mental qu’au physique, il s’appuie largement sur les compétences mais aussi sur des particularités uniques (les traits), il est simple mais avec beaucoup de sous-systèmes en option.

Mais depuis que j’ai découvert le système de Damien Coltice, auteur de Zombiology qui a repris le d100 pour proposer avec un système moderne, j’ai envie de l’utiliser dans de nombreux contextes. Et le système de stress, associé à la gestion des émotions et des blessures psychologique, se prête tout autant à du survival horror qu’à un monde fantastique où une divinité maléfique serait en train de corrompre les esprits et les créatures. De plus, l’organisation de la création de personnage en formations se plie également fort bien à un schéma origines + métier + aventure. C’est donc acté, je réécris petit à petit tout mon texte pour motoriser la Roue du Temps avec le système de Zombiology. L’auteur nous a promis un vrai nom pour son avènement en licence libre. Pour l’instant je l’appelle Adrénaline.

GO HOOSIERS!

I'm tuned in to The Flagship Station for IU Sports ahead of tonight's NCAA men's basketball game between the Siena Saints and the Indiana Hoosiers. The plan is to stay with this station and listen to the call of the game.

And the adventure continues.

This year, I find myself in an unusual circumstance. I don't necessarily have that holiday spirit but I've got ... something. I might even put up a tree this year.

As a consequence of my uncharacteristic mood, please enjoy this holiday stroll through old favorites and new ones too.

Those jingle bells

Image by Bianca Van Dijk from Pixabay

I've never been so much of a Grinch but I'm not really into Christmas. I've only got so much patience for holiday music. Music gets stuck in my head easily and getting Little Drummer Boy stuck in my head even once is intolerable. It might be surprising to hear that I'm kind of grooving to the Worst Christmas playlist by the Effin Birds creator. Some of the songs in it are old favorites. Some are cynical cash grabs. Some are well-intentioned but flawed attempts. I'm not going to say which I think Christopher Lee's heavy metal Christmas album. After a few hearty laughs, I still enjoyed his rendition of Silent Night.

Some of the best holiday music written in the past century has close ties to Holiday Specials. Somehow, Christmas doesn't seem like Christmas without Vince Guaraldi's A Charlie Brown Christmas or the music from How The Grinch Stole Christmas! While Boris Karloff's You're A Mean One, Mr. Grinch is a crowd-pleaser, I think Welcome Christmas is the real musical star of the original Grinch special.

Tis the season

I don't usually say so unprompted but my favorite Christmas movie is Gremlins. It really is a Christmas movie. It's not quite cynical but it's also not really the kind of thing a major Christmas enjoyer would recognize as a Christmas movie.

It's A Wonderful Life is my runner up. A movie that's not really so much about Christmas as it is about working class communities supporting each other in the face of the real villain of the Holidays: obscenely wealthy guys.

Over the past few years, I've watched some new Christmas movies and some that aren't quite new but are new to me.

A Christmas Story and Silent Night, Deadly Night are two of the latter. I've heard a lot about A Christmas Story over the years. The reality wasn't anything like what I'd imagined. I try to go into movies knowing as little as possible. Basically everything I had heard was about the protagonist being told he would shoot his eye out if he got a BB gun for Christmas. That was a part of the story but it was really more a series of vignettes based on stories written by Jean Shepherd about his own life. It's not a bad movie but, kind of like my experience with The Goonies, I had to have been there (at the time the movie was in its heyday or at a similar time in my own life). I really wasn't so it's not for me.

Silent Night, Deadly Night is a horror movie. More particularly, it's a slasher horror movie. It's thematically a Christmas movie in that it takes place around Christmas and the slasher is dressed up in a Santa Costume. There were a curious number of lies told about the movie when it first came out. Santa is, for sure, not murdering people in that movie. Some very respected reviewers gave it nonsensically bad reviews. Is it high art? No. It doesn't need to be, though.

Three movies that are actually pretty new and Christmas related are: Anne and the Apocalypse, 8-Bit Christmas, and Happiest Season.

Anne and the Apocalypse is a zombie Christmas musical. The songs were great. The stories were great. The way they were combined ... someone needed to have seen a few more musicals before taking a pass at this. The leads give really understated performances in the songs themselves which is ... distracting if you've seen more than one musical. Still, it's a great zombie movie, a pretty good musical, and it's got some Christmas in it too. If that sounds fun to you, give it a shot.

8-Bit Christmas is a 80s nostalgia piece that's kind of cashing in on the 80s nostalgia we see in places like Stranger Things. It also tells a very Goonies like story of a group of kids in the 80s getting up to an adventure around Christmas. While it is banking on a certain type of nostalgia, it never gets distracted from the point: telling a good story. How cheesy and underwhelming the NES would be today is absolutely an element of the enjoyment of the movie. It's a great way of reminding us adults that the stuff we were obsessed with was pretty cringey too when were that age. It won't join my yearly roundup but I think it's worth a watch.

Happiest Season is something I've been after for a long time: A cheesy budget holiday movie for queer folks instead of specifically for people who are telling themselves they are impossibly straight. Clea DuVall directs and co-wrote the screenplay. Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis play partners who are this close to getting married but one of them is in the closet. Daniel Levy plays a familiar role for him but his character has a much healthier perspective than in Schitt's Creek. The story beats are familiar but it's a fresh take and not just because many of the characters are queer. Saying more would be a spoiler. This was exactly what I wanted it to be and some times that's the exact right thing.

Wrapping this up

I've got guesses about what has me in a holiday mood. That's more a topic for me and my diary, though. At least for once, I can be a little less of a bah humbug about the whole thing. If you've stuck it out this far, thanks for joining me. Merry Christmas, you old savings and loan!

Oh, and hey, I did end up putting up that tree.

Speaking of the season, I have a guest blog about another point of winter nostalgia which will go live on Long and Short Reviews on Boxing Day.

Support the author

I've got two books out in the Vay Ideal series. It's a science fiction adventure series built around an eclectic assortment of travelers who find themselves running an independent ship. I'd love it if you'd check them out. While you can buy them on Amazon, the cover links will take you to a landing page which will let you choose any one of several other stores also.

#Christmas #Nostalgia #movie #music

JOURNAL 22décembre 2025

Après le service on est venues discuter avec les clients. Ils étaient curieux de savoir nos liens de parenté, ce qu’on faisait en dehors etc. On a parlé de la France forcément, de mon travail, de l'activité de A au ministère? Ils sont intéressés par ce qui se passe en Ukraine, tout ça, bref trois heures ! On sort du onsen la nuit est magnifique, plus un nuage ici, on voit toutes les étoiles de l'univers c’est fantastique, ça m´hypnotise. Notre chambre est à l'écart mais elle est belle, les tatami sentent bon et c’est bien chauffé par le sol.

I am enjoying my time off

There’s no snow, but a thin layer of frost is covering the land, giving the fields the impression of a badly shaped princess cake, were the marzipan brownish yellow instead of green.

The sun shines brightly however, and today the moon sickle was thin like on the flag of some Muslim country, and the sky was pink and purple

And pure white smoke rose from chimneys of the factories as we passed them in our 2015 volvo, which with it’s diesel engine, social democratic red colours, and inside coated with dog fur felt like an accidental statement compared to the teslas and polestars crowding the treacherous roads, slick with ice.

And in my heart I felt OK

Aaaand the last MVP feature is implemented. Today I've added a photo upload for each entry. The user can add 5 images to each entry and can choose one main photo, which is then displayed on the entry list. And the user can remove the images as well.

This gives the app a nice personal touch. I hope that I don't reach any limits soon with this in Supabase. I never used the file storage before. It's a bit exciting; there are a lot of first times in this project. 😀

👋

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80 of #100DaysToOffload
#log #AdventOfProgress
Thoughts?

Beginnings require only observation, from there, slow or fast, motion comes as does the day.

8:50 am sat WET

Today comes, not with a bang, but persistent intention to be drunk with life.

We are staying with friends for a few days in Porto, Portugal.

The apartment building isn’t attractive. Built in the last 15 years, it is blocky and devoid of visual interest. An absolute contrast to the care and ornament of the old city.

The interior of the apartment is warm and welcoming though. Very large rooms. a stark contrast to what I am used to. Warm wood floors, and in the living room, a floating rock wall. On the wall are tiny sea urchin shells and life sized Indian honey bees crafted from metal. The shells gathered from walks on the beach here; the insect effigies acquired from artisans in India, where our friends lived for five years.

Our room, when I wake at 8:30a is pitch black. Here they have incredible steel shutters that close to protect against storms, break-in AND light when completely closed. My body is alive and excited to tell me it is morning and time for life, but from a photon’s perspective, this is a closed book. I may as well be lost between galaxies— but even then, I’d have starlight.

Darkness

This place is utterly dark!

In this living womb, it is a space of rest and imagination. And my mind travels far away from here to familiar smells and faces, indulging where reality prevents. It brings a smile and glow to me that only I can see. Even angels could not peer into this moment that is wholly mine in which to bask.

The dark be damned! In this moment, I become my own brilliant day star, power med by thoughts of another.

But, fantasy cannot sustain a life—only occasionally supercharge it.

Peeling my form from the bed, I stumble to tend to the needs my aging body demands first thing in the morning. Finally fully awake, I step out onto the deck to greet the day.

Outside

The sky is not glorious, but the bakery below is always a welcome sight. And smell.

A woman in a gunmetal puffy coat with little tennis shoes saves out of Snopoas, the little restaurant/bakery I can see, and scoot-runs to a little silver car with black wheels, no hub caps, two door hatch back. She must have been cold, people don’t dash off and then just sit there for 90 more seconds. He is probably fiddling with his phone while she savors the wash of hot coffee.

As they zip away, i notice an older couple have come out to walk their dog. It is a large German shepherd whom they have proved a wheelchair for. The dog walked tiredly on jots front legs while dragging its useless hind legs as they dangle from the contraption.

No doubt they love the dog, but it seems selfish to let it suffer this way. It is a dog. I love dogs, but they are not designed for an existence beyond their 10 or 15 years.

The kind thing would be to put it down and rehome a new dog. 😔

It’s kind of sad. I think they may have replaced the affection they had for a child, with this dog.

I turn to shower and dress. The beach is calling to me.

And so I must go.

United States Air Force Colonel Barbara Cho, spokesperson for the Pentagon, made a shocking announcement today whether to reconsider their relationship with Santa after allegations of divulging classified information to a group of children during a Zoom meeting.

Stephen Willis, the father of a 14-year old daughter, were both present during the online call. He said during the interview, “It’s crazy. Santa’s face was bright red, his speech slurred, and he ranted that his sleigh was a prototype based on alien technology constructed at Area 51.”

Colonel Cho has denied all allegations of Santa’s sleigh being based on alien technology, that Area 51 exists, and that an alien craft landed on Roswell back in 1947. She referred to Project Blue Book, a decade long plus study that concluded all allegations of alien UFOs have been proven false.

In a final statement, Colonel Cho said, “We take this matter of national security seriously and hope to settle this matter for the sake of our children.”

DOJ spokesperson Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Ana said that an investigation is underway and wouldn’t comment any further until the investigation is complete. He also said, “We’re also investigating the father, Mr. Willis, why his daughter still believes in Santa Claus.”

Santa declined an interview and has denied all allegations about the matter.

#news #parody #santa #airforce #doj

Lydia's Weekly Lifestyle blog is for today's African girl, so no subject is taboo. My purpose is to share things that may interest today's African girl.

This week's contributors: Lydia, Pépé Pépinière, Titi. This week's subjects: Corporate Christmas Chic: The Accra Girl’s Playful Guide to Slaying the Festive Office Season, 2026 Fashion prediction, Wedding rings, and Level Bar and Lounge

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Corporate Christmas Chic: The Accra Girl’s Playful Guide to Slaying the Festive Office Season. Ah, Christmas in Accra — where the harmattan breeze is giving “soft life,” the traffic jams sparkle with fairy lights, and every office turns into a runway for festive corporate slay. If you’ve been wondering how to blend professionalism with a sprinkle of holiday magic, gather round, sis. It’s time to unwrap the corporate Christmas fashion trends taking over Accra this season! The Christmas-But-Make-It-Corporate Colour Palette: If you think red and green are the only options, think again. The Accra corporate girl is remixing tradition: Champagne gold blouses tucked into crisp tailored pants. Emerald pencil skirts with neutral bodysuits. Berry red suits for the daring queen. Metallic accents here and there because why not? It’s giving glamour without shouting “I’m the office Christmas tree.” Tip: Harmattan dust + white clothing? Choose wisely. Or carry wipes. You know your enemies. Ankara… But Festive! Nobody does Christmas creativity like the Accra fashionista: Ankara with gold foiling. Wax prints featuring deep greens, burgundies, or navy. Subtle shimmer woven into patterns A dramatic peplum top here, a structured blazer there. This is the season to let African prints mingle with corporate silhouettes. From Makola to the boardroom, the slay is intentional. Statement Sleeves With Corporate Discipline: Puffy sleeves, bishop sleeves, ruffles — the girls are not holding back. But of course, we balance it with: Straight-leg trousers. Midi skirts. Minimal accessories. Let the sleeves do the talking while you close deals like the star you are.

2026 Fashion prediction. People will change the colour of their hair frequently, at great cost and using all sorts of poisonous chemicals, to suit the colour of the dress they are wearing. Please mention me to friends when you see it happening.

Wedding rings. We're coming to the end of the year and many of us look at our achievements and failures. I decided to do some cleaning up in my phone. And found that almost 6 years ago Covid started in Ghana and the rest of the world. Memories of the lockdown, most of us lost some friends, the security guys at the supermarkets became all powerful and measured your temperature (they didn’t but anyway they pointed something at you) and it was legal to enter a bank with a mask on your face. And worldwide discussions about vaccines which are still ongoing today, and some claim it never happened, that it was just something like a common cold. Meanwhile the West tried to keep the show going by injecting monies into airlines that were not flying and restaurants which were closed, and today we have not yet solved the problem of how to get that money back and one can say that the world is in a recession of which the end has not yet been seen. As a safe haven people now put their money into Gold which's price has skyrocketed so that the average person cannot afford a golden wedding ring any more. Covid.

Level Bar and Lounge, Asafoatse Tempong Street, Kuku Hill Crescent Osu, Accra. It’s in the same street as the Republic Bar. We went there to scout the place, next evening Accra Fashion Week @ 25 was to have an event there, and I wanted to be sure I could find the place. The interior is worth going for, and it is big, you can be out or in. We were there on a Tuesday evening around 9 pm, and were the only customers. In that big place. They only have the QR code menu, I don’t like that, unfortunately you see it more and more. I told my guest to make a second choice because I expected most of the things on the menu not to be there. But to my surprise all went well, the service was good, we had Chicken Marocain with couscous, nice and different, seafood fried rice which was nice, and shrimp tempura which I will come back for. Prices are reasonable, but bring change, they don’t have it, next evening again they had no change. This is one of the things HE John Dramani Mahama was talking about, poor customer service, and not having change is an endemic one. If you are the owner and you see you have no change you go to the bank in the morning and get change. You’re supposed to bank your earnings from last night anyway.

Lydia...

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[22.xii.25.b : lundi / 7 December] to find (in this case) is not a matter of chance, but of formulation … after a period of reading, meditation, prayer, composition, and contemplation : just at the point where the growth of my private library has been limited by material concerns, that is the moment when the ship can drop anchor, I can suit up, and prepare myself for a descent in the abysses. Fiction is an ethical expression, a way of living in the world, distinct from the strictures of realism. Fiction is the world in which we practice the art of escape, but not escape from, but an escape into the innermost, the highest. Just as I don’t need anyone to witness my reading, my meditation, my prayer, my contemplation, I don’t need anyone to witness my composition : but when taken altogether, the object is to reach a reader, to make contact : the symbols work both ways. When the Parson says, “Contact has been made,” he could be speaking for the Zebrafish and not on behalf of the Nucleus of the Swarm. What the Story shows is the defeat of “I see evil everywhere”. Some call it surrealism, but it’s good old fashion true fiction.

It’s funny thinking about V.W.’s anxieties, concerning the value of her work, I mean. Looking back … who knows what the future holds? V.W. writes:

“Robert Bridges likes Mrs Dalloway: says no one will read it; but it is beautifully written, & some more…”

better to be beautifully written than to be read … still it’s worth reading, esp. in that beautiful annotated edition.

Here’s the beginning of V.W.’s theory about fiction: “I don’t think it is a matter of ‘development’ but something to do with prose & poetry, in novels … Reality [is] something … put in at different distances … One would have to go into conventions; real life; & so on. … And death—as I always feel—hurrying near. 43: how many more books?”

I take “development” here to be progress in the sense of new approaches, new techniques … like what scientists & technologists are always going on about, what’s new! coz new sells. Just read Don Quixote. That could have been written yesterday. Not that I don’t think Anaïs Nin’s critique of the novel, her desire for a novel of the future, is on point. Novels are just a concept. Why should we buy their distinction between prose & poetry? Why is this not a poem? Is it that the one with the largest collection of the tiniest boxes wins? What kind of game is that? Not to mention the strain on the eyes.

Death. Death? Where is your … ding! time’s up!

Keep the books comin’ I say.

They called me the Ice Queen:

a framework of discarded beauty
     hung on a battered shape
     with firmness of flesh & blue of eye
the formidable manner has gone

the sun coming out
               having had my cry
     now, to write
            a list of Christmas presents