After an ICE raid detained ~75 people at an Omaha meat plant, its president claimed “production dropped to about 20%” as more employees skipped work because they felt “traumatized.” Now, “market analysts” are concerned deportations could (maybe) “disrupt” food production at a time when meat plants are short on labor. I’m glad to see this agitprop on the timeline, as it's been a few days and I was starting to experience spontaneous strains of independent thought, but now my sanity returns. Remember, citizen: we must never enforce solutions to complex, nation-destroying problems if negative downsides to those solutions exist. The drug addict must never be cured, for withdrawal is painful. A child must never be denied, for scolding is unpleasant. And the law must never be enforced, because factories exploiting illegal immigrants may be short-staffed. “Consequences” is just another word for extremism. Shhh, now go back to sleep.

Meta plans to buy a 49% stake in Scale AI, a startup that gives training data to AI companies, and put Alexandr Wang (Scale’s CEO) in charge of Zuck’s new “superintelligence” lab. The lab is tasked with building “artificial general intelligence,” aka AI that’s as good as a human brain, and now Zuck is working overtime to staff it, allegedly offering — and personally negotiating — upwards of $10 million/year salaries for top AI researchers. (The NYT claimed, vaguely, that some “compensation packages” are hitting the 9-figure mark.) Which all means: (a) Meta is behind on AI and Zuck knows it; and (b) the already insane war for AI talent just got crazier. Now, how much will it take for these geniuses to jump ship to a less hot AI destination? $20 million? $75 million? Some kind of youth-preserving, black-market stem cell smoothie promising everlasting life? I mean honestly, at that point… who can blame them?

Ah, Yosemite National Park: the wildlife, the hiking trails, the rugged natural beauty, the giant trans pride flags hanging from rock features, the… wait, what?? It’s true, folks — Yosemite Sam transitioned to Yosemite Samantha last month after protestors tied said flag to the park’s iconic El Capitan. Yosemite has apparently been inundated with protestors lately using El Cap’s granite monolith as the backdrop for political demonstrations: climbers also hung a “Stop the Genocide” banner protesting Israel’s war in Gaza, as well as an upside down American flag to oppose Trump’s National Park staffing cuts. In response, officials recently banned flag displays at park features, with violators facing 6-month jail sentences, and on behalf of anyone not a barista by occupation: we say thank you, heroes. The last thing I need when I’m escaping internet bullshit in the beautiful wilderness is moreinternet bullshit. Don’t BlueSky my blue sky!