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Depeche Mode fans flock to Prague’s Charles Bridge to recreate 1988 band photo
A new trend has emerged at Prague's Charles Bridge, where tourists now line up to recreate a famous photo of the members of Depeche Mode | WBBM Newsradio 780 AM & 105.9 FM
The politics and possibilities of ‘AI could kill us all’
I found myself fielding a lot of questions from folks who don’t usually talk much about AI this week. They were mostly along the lines of “do you think AI is going to kill us all?” or “how worried should I be about this human extinction stuff?” Motivating this wave of existential anxiety was the highly dramatic resignation of now-former Anthropic employee Jacob Coxon, who quit his job while publicly sharing his concerns about safety practices at the leading AI companies. More specifically, he declared that almost everyone at OpenAI and Anthropic, the leading AI labs, believes that there’s a decent chance the AI systems they’re producing could “kill us all” by the end of the decade, and the companies aren’t “acting responsibly.” Other AI safety researchers, including those still employed at Anthropic and OpenAI, all confirmed that yes, Coxon is correct, they’re all worried that their company’s products might prove fatal for the entire human race as well. Two more AI employees quit and joined the chorus. Now, the warning shot has been covered everywhere from the Wall Street Journal to Fox News to WIRED to the Guardian. I understand why all this sounds scary, but my response to those who have asked, has generally been: No, you don’t need to worry that AI will kill go rogue and kill us all. But that does not mean we shouldn’t worry, period. Far from it. The companies building AI products are now among the wealthiest and most powerful entities in the world. And they very much are building enormous engines of mass surveillance, extraction, and automation. They can and have allowed their AI systems to carry out felony hacks of other companies, provided the government with autonomously generated kill lists, and sold enterprise technology to firms around the world that is explicitly intended to replace jobs. But “AI” has done these things not because they have all-powerful minds of their own but, ultimately, because people have programmed, calibrated, and directed them to. In other words, it’s not AI we need to worry the most about. It’s the people and corporations working to profit from and gain power by deploying it. The technology is sophisticated, sure, and, especially in cybersecurity contexts, potentially disruptive to plenty of existing systems. But if we want to stop this predatory, profiteering, and extractive form of AI—and it’s worth noting that at this point, most people do—we absolutely can. A quick note/plea: I can only do all of this with the support of readers like you, so if you find value in independent, critical tech journalism and analysis, please consider becoming a paid subscriber. I want to keep as much of this un-paywalled as absolutely possible, and I need your support to do so. Many thanks to all who continue to chip in, it’s very much appreciated. Onward. Subscribe First, some context: AI industry folks like Coxon have been discussing the prospect that AI will destroy humanity for years. Even before the beginning of the AI boom, many working in the industry, from the executive staff to the rank and file researchers, have obsessed over ‘x-risk’, or the possibility that AI will become sentient or semi-sentient and move one way or another to exterminate humanity. This is ostensibly why Elon Musk bankrolled OpenAI in the first place, and is the grounds for his lawsuit alleging OpenAI betrayed its charter by abandoning its nonprofit status to become a commercial enterprise. Many AI engineers and startup founders have calculated their own personal p(doom), or the probability that the tech product they are working on will initiate an actual humanity-extinguishing apocalypse. 10-25% p(doom)s are pretty common. (I wrote about a long weekend I spent among these folks at one of their top conferences here, to give you an idea of their ideas and belief systems.) Sam Altman himself drove the narrative of the imminent rise of a super-powerful AI, or artificial general intelligence, to prominence by declaring that the technology he was building posed an existential risk to humanity. This idea is in other words baked into the DNA of modern AI companies and into the products they engineer. It’s also why the industry is routinely accused, by myself and others, of “doom marketing,” ie, using such proclamations and framings to impart the sheer power of the technology behind your product onto investors, partners, consumers, and the state. Some ambient understanding of this tendency may have helped prevent the press from repeating the claim every time one of the x-risk folks made it over the years, including when they quit their jobs at AI companies while doing so. Yet Coxon’s AI x-risk alarm has broken containment, as they say, and has exposed the idea to the mainstream media once again. This has happened, I think, for a number of reasons. First, when AI CEOs were going around saying AI might kill everyone in 2023, their companies were well-capitalized, but not nearly to the extent they are today. They were more easily dismissed as eccentric geeks of the sort that Silicon Valley is supposed to produce. Now, not only do their products have much greater market saturation, but people are more aware of a) the often unethical ways the executives and companies comport themselves b) the other adverse impacts of AI that have already arrived, and c) the physical cost of building these systems, particularly when it comes to data centers. Finally, toss in the constant stream of headlines in 2026 about AI models going rogue or potentially upending the world’s infrastructure. [ ](https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/with-the-backlash-to-data-centers) [ With the backlash to data centers, Flock and AI glasses, a mass opposition to big tech is underway. Silicon Valley is in denial. ](https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/with-the-backlash-to-data-centers) Brian Merchant · Aug 27 [ Read full story ](https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/with-the-backlash-to-data-centers) As a result, general sentiment was already overwhelmingly skeptical of AI and its overlords, so the table was pretty well set for someone to come along and say ‘just a reminder, the companies that are building the product that promises to take your job and leave a data center in your neighborhood also think that it might exterminate the human race’ and get a strong reaction from the media and the public. The question is: Should we understand this stuff as hype, strategically fanned to feed already swelling valuations? Is it doom marketing? Genuine cause for alarm that the infrastructure that undergirds modern life is facing a novel threat vector? Or reason to be sincerely worried that AI companies are amassing too much power, and that their products are genuinely dangerous? The answer, I’m afraid, is “yes.” Let me try to untangle all of this a bit, because arguments over how to navigate this moment are extremely heated right now, as they are essentially arguments over how to approach the politics of AI at a moment where there may be a unique opening for action. Those sympathetic to AI alignment concerns and x risk arguments—which increasingly includes a faction on the left who want to shut down AI over safety concerns—argue that people who dismiss AI as all hype have their heads in the sand. Meanwhile, critics of the x-risk narrative—which I might note includes a cadre of investors and tech folks on the right, too—argue that it is hype and can be used to further inflate valuations or for pursuing regulatory capture. The challenge is that many feel that dismissing AI as just hype or purely marketing also diminishes the urgency of taking on the AI industry as the novel and threat to labor, civil society, and the public sphere it is; others that by accepting the industry’s own terms, we imbue it with undue power and enable it. But let’s be clear: Declarations that AI is so powerful it might end the world are a kind of marketing, and anyone who says otherwise is just as off base as those who say that’s all that it is. If you don’t think that these sub-trillion dollar companies have higher-ups who noticed that when their founders talked about super-powerful dangerous AI they got spikes in media interest and phone calls from investors, or that those founders didn’t notice that themselves, and lean into certain narratives to advantage their products, then I don’t know what to tell you. Not all marketing is a Pepsi ad campaign with a celebrity spokesperson. Yet confronting the AI industry should certainly be considered an urgent project. Do I share the x-riskers’ fear that out-of-control, super-intelligent AI agents might end the world? I do not. I’ve read a good deal of AI extinction literature over the last couple of years and I have not come across a credible, step-by-step documentation of how exactly AI might move from self-recursively improving AI to killing every single human on the planet. Most of what I’ve read seems predicated on a sort of reverse Ian Malcolmian logic: Eventually, it becomes smart enough and AI, uh, finds a way (to exterminate humanity). Are the AI companies also overstating and dramatizing what their products can do? Yes, pretty much all the time. They’re in a knife fight for market share and are trying to win customers and government contracts before their investors come knocking. And yet. They have concentrated enormous amounts of compute, have extensive data collection and surveillance capacities, have inserted themselves into the state in numerous capacities, including military kill chains, and they are being run by egomaniacal billionaires who are rushing to monopolize an entire new market. The way I think about their most recent frightening-seeming exploits is not as a “swarm of rogue AI agents building a new civilization” or whatever, but as corporations with a hitherto-unimaginable amount of compute at their disposal recklessly experimenting with automation programs, completely unafraid of any repercussions because we have been unwilling or unable to impose any on them. So I think we should welcome any newfound imperative to hold them accountable. I also think that ultimately, the AI critics, Pause AI folks, leftists, doomers, effective altruists, and, honestly, most of the public, want a lot of the same things: legitimate checks and limits on AI companies’ power, actual transparency into what the companies are doing, and for more of AI to be under public control. (Ultimately, a lot of what animates the x-risk fears are rooted in just that: a fear of losing control.) How we move towards all this, exactly, is the question of the day, and while there’s much to be argued over in terms of building a viable political platform to challenge the AI industry’s power, I do want to cast a vote against one particular approach. Not to pick on Chris here, as there are a lot of folks out there proposing stuff like this, and the policy ideas actually stem from AI safety groups. But not only would this be challenging to land politically (I can already hear the ‘China will beat us to AGI’ calls) and all but unworkable in practice, this approach is a) far too limiting, b) fails to address the current harms caused by AI and c) would likely only wind up serving Anthropic and OpenAI; it’s what regulatory capture looks like in action. Full model transparency is the floor for what should be on offer here. If these companies believe their products will kill us, the very least we deserve is to know how. It’s in the public interest. I would also argue we might get a lot of the way to stopping any currently envisioned robot apocalypse simply by forcing AI companies to assume liability, and to submit to the full brunt of the law. If Sam Altman were liable to be charged with a felony for approving the hack on Hugging Face1, if Google was forced to pay defamation fines each time it published a false and injurious AI Overviews, these companies might suddenly find cause to restrain their models’ output, and we might hear less about rogue AI. We would need to introduce new frameworks and available tools for tracking automated lawbreaking, to be sure, but I’d wager that little would frighten the AI companies more than actually being held accountable for what their products enable. To that end, Illinois has passed an AI liability law, which the industry fought tooth and nail, and Florida is considering one. The next steps would be towards moving AI under public control; again, it’s only reasonable, since everyone, not just AI insiders, should get a say over how a technology whose developers say might kill us is developed and deployed. Dismantling the whole industrial project as currently structured should be on the table, too, pending democratic input. But that’s for another post. For now, suffice to say that while I won’t be losing any sleep about an AI-enabled extinction event, Mr. Coxon and co. have given us an opportunity to underscore the urgency of the clear and present damage AI companies are doing, the extreme power they wield and the extent to which they hold themselves unaccountable, and the abundance of political capital there is out there for taking them on. Subscribe 1 Purely speculative! I do not know if he did or not.
What can the Texas Ag Commissioner do about data centers and flock cameras? We ask the Democratic candidate
Organizer and rancher Clayton Tucker is running against beekeeper and businessman Nate Sheets to be the Texas Commissioner of Agriculture in November. Lone Star Politics talks to him about his quest to take on data center and flock camera companies and what exactly the Ag commissioner can do about those issues.
Flock cameras explained: How the license plate readers work
Flock Safety's license plate readers are raising privacy concerns and igniting a surveillance debate. Here's what you need to know.
Can canned cocktails revive the booze business?
Young customers are flocking to ‘ready-to-drink’ beverages as other alcohol sales slump
Troy council passes law setting standards for use of Flock cameras
One provision requires the city to delete all data from the license plate reader (LPR) technology within 72 hours.
Apple's iPhone 18 goes on sale as customers line up at stores worldwide
Crowds flocked to Apple stores worldwide for the iPhone 18 launch, as the tech giant rolled out advanced camera upgrades, AI photo detection and its new flagship devices.
As Troy mayor vetoes Flock law, council president promises override
Mayor Carmella Mantello says the law is biased in favor of criminal defendants. Council President Sue Steele says the veto was expected.
Housing, CSCU auditing, school technology: CT politics news
Plus: PURA holds electric rates steady and Gov. Ned Lamont gets an endorsement from the Connecticut Association of Realtors.
Man Covers Car in Special Wrap That Breaks Flock Cameras' Electronic Brains
A researcher has come up with a special, computer-generated pattern wrap that can allow a car to evade detection from Flock's cameras.
Cut the cameras: Flock surveillance cameras spur rare bipartisan backlash
Politicians on the right and left are pushing back against Flock as more Americans voice opposition to the tech
This week in politics: Special election and flock cameras debate
KTVU political analyst Nolan Higdon joined us on "Mornings on 2" to break down Aisha Wahab’s special election victory in the East Bay and the rising bipartisan debate over license plate surveillance cameras.
Flock is facing a surveillance backlash. Meanwhile, its drone business is booming
As cities push back against its license plate readers, the $8.4 billion surveillance company is betting big on police drones, raising fresh questions about privacy and oversight.
Click here to see Tapatío's squad for Dorados clash
Tapatío will have the opportunity today to get back to winning ways against Dorados. In Matchday 8 of the 2026 Apertura of the Liga de Expansión, the Young Flock will visit the team from Sinaloa at ...
SPC, FilmNation Flocked the NY Film & Entertainment Soccer Tournament
Filmmakers and executives flocked the NY Film and Entertainment Soccer Tournament which raised $15,000 for charities.
Trump, Flock cameras and Florida politics fire up Brevard readers
Editor's Note: The Question of the Week will return next Sunday.
Gov. Abbott blocks funding in Texas for Flock cameras as bipartisan fury brews
The automated license plate readers aren’t popular with the public. Politicians are catching on.
Hacker stegan0gram reveals Flock AI surveillance capabilities
Hackers hijacked a Flock camera and discovered its software generates over a million of images from a single vehicle using license plate recognition for surveillance.
The Political Recap: Will Virginia ban Flock cameras?
Here’s your weekly roundup of what happened in Virginia politics on The Political Recap.
Community members raise concerns about Flock cameras, New Chauncey
The addition of Flock cameras and updates to the New Chauncey neighborhood plan led to community concerns being voiced at Tuesday’s city council meeting.
Amid national backlash, Patel throws support behind Flock cameras
FBI Director Kash Patel on Tuesday praised Flock cameras as being a useful tool for federal investigators, touting their use to help track down criminals. The prolific use of Flock cameras by private businesses, police departments, local districts, and states nationwide to automatically record the license plates of all passing vehicles has sparked scrutiny in […]
7+ Florida Politics Now: Discussing Flock Cameras and Hope Florida
On this episode, we’re discussing Flock camera removal in the state and the future of Hope Florida.
Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta brings crowds and boosts local businesses
Balloon Fiesta's large crowds generate significant revenue for some local businesses, with tourists flocking to shops and restaurants across the city during the nine-day event.
Flock CEO: Drones are our fastest-growing business
Flock, the license plate-reading company, is developing its drone business. CEO Garrett Langley says drones could help police and citizens stay safe.
It’s 2026. Do you know where healthcare AI’s ‘social license’ is?
Contactless credit-card readers and police radar guns enjoy broad social license to operate just about anywhere. Self-driving cars and flock safety cameras don’t. AI in healthcare?
Scenes from Up in the Sky
Thousands flock to Friday-Saturday music festival at Buttermilk
Power & Politics: Suffolk town supervisors push for change in tax cap calculation; Vote 2026 debates; Flock camera fallout
Southold Town Supervisor Al Krupski joins the show.
Europe's biggest arena braces for Celine Dion ticket scams
Celine Dion fans are facing ticket scams as they flock to Paris for her comeback shows. The Plenitude Arena, hosting 26 concerts, warns of scammers exploiting high demand.
Comic Fans Flock to Ninth Annual IV Entertainment Convention
Heroes and villains came to life at the ninth annual Imperial Valley Entertainment Convention, as attendees got the chance to meet artists and voice actors and have fun dressing up like their favorite fictional characters.
Google’s AI Is Telling Users That Flock Cameras Are Filled With Valuable Gold and Copper
It's AI-on-AI violence.
Discover the stats from Mexico’s Clásico in Oakland
Guadalajara once again showed that El Clásico de México is a game like no other. On a night that brought thousands of Chivahermanos together in California, the Sacred Flock claimed another victory i...
Florida Business Owners Accused of Scattering Mothballs to Drive Off Protected Shorebirds
Two business owners on St. Pete Beach are facing charges after wildlife officers say they tried to make an entire flock of protected shorebirds pack up and leave — not with noise, not with nets, ... R...
Case of avian influenza identified in Racine County poultry flock
DATCP said the birds in the backyard poultry flock have been depopulated and won’t enter the food system.
Flock tightens safeguards on surveillance cameras after backlash
On Thursday, CEO Garrett Langley outlined new safety and privacy changes for the surveillance camera network "that came from listening."
Candidates answer Flock, data center, business questions at NAACP forum
Four local candidates took part in the Henderson NAACP’s “Can We Talk?” forum, answering questions that included topics of data
Flock Safety's fastest-growing business is police drones
What if a drone arrived before the police? Flock Safety's fastest-growing part of its business is drone as first responder technology. Credit: AJC
A cybersecurity researcher covered a Toyota in an AI-generated pattern to confuse Flock cameras
Donut Media plans to release video of the test in the coming weeks.
BUSINESS UPDATE: Attracting World-Renowned Piercing Educators to Oswego
Growing number of renowed piercers are coming to Oswego to share knowledge at newly opened Aqua Spa Float Center piercing suite Submited by Aqua Spa Float Center & Wellness Boutique [caption id=attachment_11066 align=alignright width=450] Recent opening of Aqua Spa Float Center piercing suite.[/caption] Professional piercers and educators from countries including France, Scotland and India have come to Oswego’s Aqua Spa Float Center & Wellness Boutique to share their knowledge In the past year and a half, the Port City has become a destination for some of the industry’s most respected educators through the efforts of the Aqua Spa Float Center & Wellness Boutique. Beginning in January of 2025, Aqua Spa Float Center envisioned a new version of body piercing, one where elegance, safety and personal expression could converge. According to the Aqua Spa, piercing is no longer just a trend — it’s a refined form of personal identity, luxury styling and self-investment. It’s not only about the jewelry — it’s about the entire experience. The team welcomed first guest piercer Ruben Triguero, a senior French piercer, piercing stylist and international educator, who has over two decades of experience and has worked in some of the world’s best studios, including Paris, Rome, New York, Miami, Los Angeles and Dubai. In those studios, he offered his expertise and refined styling skills. Triguero is a prominent figure and leader in the piercing community and shares his knowledge with piercers teaching classes for the industry’s most prestigious organizations, including Latinoamérica Body Piercing Association (LBP) and Association of Professional Piercers (APP). He is currently the senior international instructor of the APP. Triguero has a passion for creating stunning, personalized piercings for clients around the world. Education and Mentorship Following a year of success and popularity, Aqua Spa Float Center hosted the grand opening of its private dedicated piercing suite in March. Aqua Spa Float Center & Wellness celebrated this next chapter with a grand opening and ribbon-cutting ceremony attended by the Oswego Mayor Robert Corradino, members of the Greater Oswego-Fulton Chamber of Commerce, local business owners and community members. The educational focus, aligned with Aqua Spa Float Center’s vision and mission, had already begun expanding beyond clients. Aqua Spa has hosted multiple workshops and continuing education opportunities for professional piercers, inviting studios from across the region to gain hands-on experience from internationally recognized instructors without the expense of traveling to national or international conferences. These educational events have welcomed nationally and internationally recognized professional piercers and educators from countries including France, Scotland, India, and throughout the United States. Aqua Spa also continues to collaborate with talented regional and local professionals, creating opportunities for education and mentorship that benefit both industry peers and clients throughout Central New York. Aqua Spa Float Center & Wellness Boutique owners — Tammy Wilkinson and Terry LeRoi — have been deeply rooted in the piercing industry with over 30 years in business as LeRoi Fine Body Jewellery. Combining that experience with holistic wellness, self-care and self-expression is the new concept with the client Luxe Piercing Experience at the Aqua Spa Float Center. “At LeRoi Fine Body Jewellery and Aqua Spa Float Center, we’ve been fortunate to work with many of the world’s most respected piercers through our involvement with the Association of Professional Piercers and by attending conferences across North America and Europe,” said LeRoi, founder of LeRoi Fine Body Jewellery and co-owner of Aqua Spa Float Center & Wellness Boutique. “Those experiences have shown us that education is what drives our industry forward. “Not every piercer or studio can travel to major conferences like the APP Conference in Las Vegas or APP Benelux in the Netherlands, so we’re committed to bringing that level of education here. Hosting internationally respected educators like Jef Saunders allows our clients to experience the highest standards of professional piercing while giving piercers throughout the Northeast the opportunity to learn from some of the very best in the profession. That’s something we’re incredibly proud to offer our community.” When asked about the client experience, Wilkinson explained that education is at the heart of every appointment as well. “Our vision is to nurture and enhance wellness, balance and harmony through a multi-modality-centered facility, and we aspire to empower sustained, positive change, well-being and self-awareness; and educate to the benefits of natural health, holistic wellness and life balance,” Wilkison explains. “Piercing is no different. The piercing experience feels just as peaceful and rejuvenating as any other spa services. From the moment our clients arrive, they are in the very best hands with our kind and professional Wellness Ambassadors and experienced APP guest piercers.” Wilkinson also explained that piercing clients receive stellar care: every Luxe Piercing appointment includes a one-on-one private piercing in Aqua Spa’s dedicated piercing suite, their choice of custom jewellery by LeRoi Fine Body Jewellery, thorough after-care instructions and complementary check-up appointment, complementary whole-body red light therapy session in the Class II NovoTHOR medical device to promote healing, and access to many rejuvenating spa services. Piercing clients get 15% off during any event. According to Wilkinson, “Health and safety are always our highest priority when you come in for a piercing or jewelry installation. Before each appointment, all tools and jewelry are sterilized in a Statim autoclave, and every surface in the piercing room is carefully disinfected. During the procedure, your piercer will wear a mask and change gloves as needed to maintain a sterile environment. Once your piercing is complete, your piercer will go over detailed aftercare instructions with you. Following these steps is crucial to ensure proper healing before you leave our sanctuary.” As a part of the experience, guest piercers include a thorough anatomy review of the client’s desired piercing to ensure the new addition will work in harmony with the existing. “Our clients are enjoying building and creating ear curations with these international professionals. It’s a unique styling event and a chance to highlight self-expression,” Wilkinson said. Clients and piercers throughout the region are flocking to this piercing destination in Upstate New York. The Luxe Piercing Experience has welcomed clients and piercers alike from around the globe. Owners Wilkinson and LeRoi hope to continue the momentum with more educational seminars with industry experts to be a hub of knowledge and expertise. They hope to establish LeRoi Fine Body Jewellery and Aqua Spa Float Center as legacy businesses known for their lasting, positive impact on the piercing and holistic wellness industries.
167th Ozaukee County Fair; food, live entertainment, and midway rides
For 167 years, families have been flocking to Cedarburg to celebrate the summer with food, live entertainment, and midway rides. Brian Kramp has a first look at this year's Ozaukee County Fair.
Integrated Openings Solutions opens Little Flock location
Integrated Openings Solutions, a Lenexa, Kan.-based commercial openings systems integrator, recently opened a new location in Little Flock, near Rogers. The opening at 1721 W. Acorn Drive, just off U.S....
7+ Florida Politics Now: Discussing Flock Cameras and Hope Florida
On this episode, we’re discussing Flock camera removal in the state and the future of Hope Florida.
Missouri activists want fewer cameras on citizens and more on politicians
Missouri conservatives are pushing back on Flock cameras while demanding more transparency through livestreaming in the state Senate.
The Politics Hour: Will Loudoun pause data centers?
Loudoun County Board Chair Phyllis Randall on the big vote on a data center mortarium and NOTUS's Martin Austermuhle talks local law enforcement's use of Flock cameras.
Florida orders removal of Flock cameras from state highways
The Florida Department of Transportation is revoking permits for automated license plate readers on roads in the state highway system.
Graham replacement hopefuls make final pitches before special election: Iran war, DSA, Flock cams and more
Nine Republican candidates clashed over the Iran war, flock cameras and the filibuster ahead of South Carolina's Aug. 11 Senate primary vote.
One Tech Tip: How to avoid Celine Dion ticket scams as she makes her grand concert comeback
Celine Dion fans are facing ticket scams as they flock to Paris for her comeback shows.
Flock Donations to Local Politicians’ Groups Skyrocket as Protests Against AI Cameras Mount
As fed-up activists target Flock, the surveillance camera company is increasing donations to associations for mayors and other local officials.
Trump, Flock cameras and Florida politics fire up Brevard readers
Editor's Note: The Question of the Week will return next Sunday.
The Weekend Mauling: 9/5/26
Links! The KC Star breaks down KU’s blowout win over Long Island SI writes that Nik McMillan lived up to his billing in his Jayhawk debut Queen Creek, Arizona (literally right down the street from where I live) has made it a specific crime to damage Flock cameras The John Fetterman drama keeps getting weirder […]
Hackers Got Inside a Flock Camera. Its Data Shows How the System Really Works
A hacker collective pulled down a Flock camera and dumped its data. The files included thousands of videos and logs showing that the device captured 1.6 million images of 50,000 vehicles in 21 days.
Europe is warming to America's obsession with AC
As Europe recorded its hottest June on record, Europeans flocked to buy AC units, eroding a decades-old divide with America.
Power & Politics: Suffolk town supervisors push for change in tax cap calculation; Vote 2026 debates; Flock camera fallout
Southold Town Supervisor Al Krupski joins the show.
'The Swan: Behind The Mirror' director Erin Lee Carr on the doc's shocks and flock
New to Hulu, this documentary will have you raging over the 2004 reality TV nightmare.
Sunday Briefing: Special interests in politics; Flock cameras
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – On this week’s Sunday Briefing: With millions of dollars being spent on Ohio’s U.S. Senate race, it will be one of the most watched this November. “There are billionaires wh…
What do you need to know before Tapatío v Alebrijes?
Estadio Tecnológico de Oaxaca will be the stage where Tapatío will look to earn points away from home once again. Against Alebrijes, the Young Flock will have the chance to confirm its good form in ...
Flock cameras draw opposition from across the political spectrum
As political races heat up heading into the midterms, candidates from both parties are increasingly joining the fray to voice concerns over Flock surveillance cameras.
Flock Cameras, the ‘Surveillance State,’ and a Political Reckoning | WSJ Politics Newsletter for Aug. 27
Plus, Hakeem Jeffries scrambles to find balance among the Democratic Party’s competing factions, and states face confusion over new mail-in ballot rules.
2028 Presidential ‘Shadow Primary’ Descends on the Midterm Elections
The schedule is especially packed in New Hampshire, an early presidential nominating state where there is a competitive Senate race Democrats are flocking to this month.
Why Gen Z Fashion Shoppers Are Flocking to Shoppable Livestream Shopping Events
The way young shoppers find, judge and buy clothes is being rebuilt in real time.
Analysis | Are Flock cameras the next bipartisan political issue?
Lawmakers and 2026 candidates on both sides of the aisle are questioning whether Flock cameras have proliferated too quickly.
Democrats keep coming to South Carolina to stump for midterm candidates. It's all about 2028
Democrats are flocking to South Carolina to campaign for midterm candidates, even though Republicans dominate state politics.
Cudahy business removes Flock camera over growing privacy concerns
More and more community members across southeastern Wisconsin are pushing back against Flock cameras. Eagle Sports Range in Cudahy removed its Flock cameras due to privacy concerns from customers.
Rain, local politics, Flock off, AI Armageddon and fall color
Living high in the Rocky Mountains in a town tied to a ski area, it is natural that weather is a nor
Albany County Flock case fuels push for ALPR guardrails
An Albany County sheriff's investigator is accused of conducting more than 4,000 unauthorized Flock camera searches. The case is renewing debate over privacy, police oversight, and proposed statewide rules for license plate readers.
Thomas Massie introduces bipartisan "Flock-Off Act"
The cameras have faced scrutiny around the country over privacy concerns.
Students flock to Radford’s new $1.2 million, 10,000 sq. ft. e-sports facility
On Oct. 23, Radford University will hold a ribbon-cutting on its new state-of-the-art e-sports facility.
Integrated Openings Solutions opens Little Flock location
Integrated Openings Solutions, a Lenexa, Kan.-based commercial openings systems integrator, recently opened a new location in Little Flock, near Rogers. The opening at 1721 W. Acorn Drive, just off U.S....
JesserCo., Culture Genius, Uproxx, Comscore Leaders on Creator Boom
Digital leaders discuss why audiences and brands are flocking to the creator economy in a session from Variety's Entertainment and Technology Summit.
Lone Star Politics: Aug. 16, 2026
The growing debate over data centers continues in cities across North Texas. Plus, pushback over the use of flock cameras.
Why investors are flocking to agriculture bets
Agriculture is attracting investors as the outlook for global food prices gets more complicated heading into 2027.
Technology, immigration, inflation, health care key topics in Third District debate
Immigration, inflation, health care, AI, data centers, and flock cameras were topics of discussion Wednesday (Oct. 14) during the debate between Arkansas’ Third Congressional District candidates. The debate ahead of...
Case of avian influenza identified in Racine County poultry flock
DATCP said the birds in the backyard poultry flock have been depopulated and won’t enter the food system.
Concerns about misuse of flock cameras cross Alabama’s political aisle
U.S. Sen. Katie Britt, R-Alabama, joined colleague Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Georgia, in asking the Department of Justice to give guidance on flock cameras.
Influencers with 46M followers urge Home Depot, Lowe's to drop Flock
A group of influencers with a combined following of 46M followers are demanding Lowe's and Home Depot drop their Flock Safety contracts.
Lancaster County lawmakers support regulating Flock cameras
Across Lancaster County, video cameras are recording the license plates of passing cars, along with their vehicle make, model and paint color, and storing that information in searchable databases.
Packers end training camp with joint practice vs. Arizona Cardinals
Fans flocked to Lambeau Field to watch the Packers and Cardinals practice and enjoy rare access to NFL players in final open practice of training camp
Flock cameras are creepy. They might still be worth it.
We probably shouldn’t de-Flock the police.
Google's AI told people Flock cameras were full of gold. They weren't.
The story starts with a meme: privacy advocates joking online that Flock's surveillance cameras are secretly loaded with valuable metals, worth cracking open for scrap. AI Overviews...
Mad Science: ‘Shaun The Sheep: The Beast Of Mossy Bottom’ Directors Steve Cox and Matthew Walker
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Chartbook 464 The"China squeeze" - the politics of development counterfactuals.
There are three types of China shock discourse. Each has a distinct temporal register. China shock 1.0 was a phrase coined by US academics in the 2010s to retrospectively summarize the impact on particular US labour markets, which they identified through painstaking empirical investigation. China shock 2.0 on everyone’s lips in Europe in the mid 2020s is an alarm raised by trans-Atlantic policy thinkers warning of a coming disaster which they project onto Europe’s ailing car industry. The third type of China shock discourse - commonly known as the “China squeeze” launched most recently by Indian economists Shoumitro Chatterjee and Arvind Subramanian in the pages of Foreign Affairs - mobilizes a different, more speculative temporal register: the counterfactual realm of alternate history. The China squeeze argument asks not what has happened, or what is going to happen, but what might have been. Specifically, what options for economic development might have been open to Global South economies like India or the economies of sub-Saharan Africa, had it not been for China’s spectacular industrialization since the late 1990s and the persistent competitiveness of China’s manufacture in low-skilled segments. Chatterjee and Subramanian’s argument is that whilst China has built a powerful position in electrical machinery and other high-skill manufacturing, which is now delivering China Shock 2.0, it also continues to run a trade surplus in low-skill, labour-intensive manufacturing. This surplus is large and has remained largely unchanged in fifteen years. Indeed, in the 2010s, in trade with low-income countries, China’s surplus rapidly increased. On their reading, this squeezes low-income producers in low-skill sectors in which they “should” be able to compete. Source: “China’s Mercantilist Squeeze on Developing Countries” Shoumitro Chatterjee and Arvind Subramanian. Peterson Institute for International Economics 26-7 May 2026 Chatterjee and Subramanian’s wording is telling: (emphasis mine) The canonical trajectory of economic development in the post-World War II period is for countries to transition from agriculture to manufacturing, first in low-skilled manufacturing and then later on to high-skill manufacturing (Herrendorf, Rogerson, and Valentinyi 2013). At the global level, this implies that high-income countries (HICs) that once specialized in low-skilled activities cede manufacturing export space to poorer countries that come along to occupy that space. In 1965, advanced economies accounted for about 60 percent of global value-added exports in four key low-skilled manufacturing sectors, i.e., apparel, leather, textiles, and footwear. Over time this share declined and began to be occupied first by the East Asian tigers and, beginning in the late 1990s, by China. Today China accounts for about 50 percent of the global market. The question is whether China, with its rising prosperity, is continuing to behave like its richer counterparts and ceding export space to poorer followers or to behave unlike them and continuing to occupy space. In terms of the conceptual maneuvers it performs, of the three China shock discourses, the “China squeeze” argument is by far the most ambitious. After all, it bases its critique of China on a counterfactual imagining of the world. Like any counterfactual argument, to construct this alternative reality it must rely on a heuristic model. To make their argument Chatterjee and Subramanian mobilize two key claims. The first reference point is the actual history of rich-country industrialization, what they refer to as the “canonical path”. The idea is that countries transition from agriculture to light industry and low-skilled manufacturing and from there up the value chain. To make this useful as a standard of comparison and a means to construct a normative standard, they adjust sectoral export shares for two factors: 1. the underlying level of economic development of the exporting country, as measured by national income and 2. the degree to which the sector in question is internationalized. The idea being that for a high income country to have a high export share in low-skill sectors is anomalous and even more so if that particular product is highly internationalized and thus suitable for being “conceded” to lower-income competitors. Where should this process end? Here Chatterjee and Subramanian introduce their second benchmark. Their normative idea of a global development path is one in which, in due course, low-skill manufacturing exports are distributed in proportion to a country’s share in the global labour force. They imagine, in other words, a world of proportional, polycentric global development without much national specialization in low-skill manufacturing. A useful benchmark is that, in labor-intensive manufacturing sectors, a country’s share of world exports should be broadly commensurate with its share of the world’s low-skilled labor endowment. … In the Heckscher-Ohlin model, this would be true if value added per worker and export propensities, i.e., fraction of output that is exported, are the same across countries. It is this pleasant liberal vista of orderly global development, progressing towards a general distribution of low-skilled manufacturing against which they judge reality and conclude that the low-income countries are suffering a “China squeeze”. China is not exiting low-skill sectors fast enough Allowing for its gdp level and the degree of globalization, China’s share of low-skill manufacturing exports is far higher than it “should” be. Relative to population, its low-skill share of exports is far too high. That in turn yields the conclusion that huge numbers of jobs - the authors suggest tens of millions - are being hoarded by China. For the four sectors captured in figure 4, this excess in value-added exports is $110 billion in 2022. For all low-skilled sectors overall captured in appendix figure D.1, excess value-added exports amount to $365 billion. The crowding out of LMIC exports by China is therefore substantial. Both these claims have in common that they are strong structuralisms. The first is that development paths ought to resemble each other. The second is that broadly speaking as far as low-skilled manufacturing is concerned, all countries are alike. If the world currently diverges from the distribution of trade implied by these assumptions, if China is not following the advanced economy path and has huge exports, this must be the result of “policy”, which the authors then put in question as illegitimate or unfair. Thus the naturalistic construction of a canonical path leading to a “level” distribution of low-skilled manufacturing reveals itself to be a polemical tool. From the point of view of China shock polemics, this discourse is no doubt welcome. But as an account of economic history, it must surely be regarded as nothing short of bamboozling. Development paths do not follow a regular, natural sequence. As David Fishman put it aptly, “development is not a queue”. They are always and everywhere, through and through political. Development is not so much a process, as a project. Each such project is more or less well adjusted to its context. As Gerschenkron taught uneven and combined development implies differentiation rather than simple imitation on a single parth. It may be true that Europe and the US exited relatively early from low-skill work. But clearly technology has changed. As C&S themselves point out, China no longer enjoys a low wage environment. Do they really believe that such huge differences can be accounted for either by industrial policy, which as they admit does not operate powerfully in low-skill sectors, or by exchange rate manipulation? What is overwhelmingly dominant in explaining the persistence of “low-skill” manufacturing in China are surely the network effects of complex supply chains. Indeed the label of “low-skill” may miss the point. The degree of globalization which Chatterjee and Subramanian decide to conjure away in their model of the development path - to allow for the fact that Europe and American textiles exporters did not enjoy just-in-time logistics in the 1950s - obscures the point that the networks through which Chinese factories supply the world are themselves key parts of the low-skill industrialization project. China isn’t knocking out 1970s style “cheap”. It has redefined the entire product cycle. C&S’s casual reference to “T-shirts” is telling. In today’s “fast fashion”, there is weight on both terms. Fashion and fast. China’s success in delivering on both at unprecedentedly high speed and at unprecedentedly low cost, isn’t a low-skill operation at all. If we see development trajectories not as the serial repetition of the same, but as distinctive, crafted projects that cumulate in complex agglomerations of skill, technology and labor, then this explains why the assumption that low-skilled manufacturing should follow the distribution of population flies in the face of all experience. As countless cases attest, low-wage, low-income developed economies are not by themselves the makings of a competitive production base. As Leon Liao puts it quite fairly: “International trade has never been allocated according to population. A country’s population gives it no natural claim to an equivalent share of global exports." And the remarkable fact is that Subramanian alone and with co-authors has long been making this point, not to pillory China, as is the case of the tendentious _Foreign Affair_s and Peterson pieces, but to highlight the great counterpart to China’s industrial success, namely India’s relative failure. The much-quoted Foreign Affairs piece showed low-skill export shares only for China, not for India. If you put both countries in the picture as Chaterjee and Subramanian have done on other occasions, the picture looks like this. China is far above the line, but India, almost as large in terms of population, is no less anomalous, just in the opposite direction. As far as global populations are concerned, and the imagining of tens of millions of “squeezed” jobs, it is this Sino-Indian pair that account for a huge share of the action. What this graph reveals is not China’s cheating, but India’s “greatest development failure”, at least this is the argument made Arvind Subramanian, this time in co-authorship with Devesh Kapur, in their major book, A Sixth of Humanity. Independent India’s Development Odyssey which appeared with Oxford University Press earlier this year. In this highly critical work on India’s development, China is repeatedly evoked, not to criticize but as a benchmark against which to illuminate what India’s political economy has not delivered i.e. large-scale formal employment for hundreds of millions of citizens. Kapur and Subramanian leave no doubt, if you want to understand why China, not India was the main driver of manufacturing globalization from the 1980s, don’t look to slots opening up in the division of labour thanks to the liberal mindedness of advanced economies, look to the contrasting political economy of the Maoist PRC and India’s post-independence political economy. As Kapur and Subramian note: The great divergence between China and India did not begin in 1978 with the Deng reforms—it was well underway by then. In one of the great ironies of modern history, the conditions created by Maoism turned out to be a great launching pad for industrial globalization. As the comparison of India and China in 1980 makes clear, to imagine manufacturing would be equally distributed when populations are so differently endowed in terms of educational and nutritional is fanciful. Here is the data from Kapur and Subramanian, data which I explored back at the very beginning of Chartbook. As Kapur and Subramanian insist, the striking fact is that even as India’s growth accelerated from the 1980s, structural change has not. Formal employment in India lags woefully behind. Why? As Kapur and Subramanian note, the path-dependent impact of India’s poor early start was devastating. The list of factors they mention is long and weighty: We argue for a new five-fold explanation applicable at different stages of Indian history: in the initial stages, the legacy of two key pre-1980s policies, the neglect of agriculture and the strangling of the domestic private sector, were critical. The failure of broad-based agricultural growth militated against rural industrialization, which would have been devoted to satisfying local needs that would have necessarily been labour intensive. Then, when the boom came after 1980, the thicket of regulation and broader labour protections that were legislated prematurely in a nascent democracy, underpinned by a deep ideological aversion to private capital in general and big capital specifically, became a barrier to attaining the size that would be necessary to compete globally. Similarly, the reforms after 1991, while wide-ranging, did not quite encompass non-tradeable inputs critical to manufacturing, namely, land, logistics infrastructure and power. A combination of low investment (logistics infrastructure), regulation (land) and the continued monopoly supply by state governments (power), combined with residual socialism, kept costs at 75–100 per cent above efficient supply. These factors were compounded on the supply side by the government, which dominated the formal labour market and established exorbitantly high wages at the lower end of the skill spectrum. This made their employment in the labour-intensive sector by the private sector less attractive. Finally, when the services sector and its exports boomed, wages soared even further via a Dutch Disease effect: one successful tradeable sector killed and cannibalized another less-skilled tradable sector, namely, manufacturing. Thus, scarcity-inducing policies of the planning era, precocious democracy and a Gandhian aversion to size; inefficient, monopolistic supply of critical non-tradable inputs; the behemoth of government; and super-successful skill-intensive services successively undermined India’s unskilled labour employment opportunities. The employment failure seems to have been over-determined. … Less quantifiable but no less important are some of the sociological factors that have undermined manufacturing and factory jobs. Take the impact of the success of the IT sector—located in urban areas with better working conditions, such as air-conditioned offices, good schools for children and attractive entertainment options. It became a more attractive place for engineering and management graduates to flock to. … Consider manufacturing and female employment. Indian society makes it difficult for women to work, reflected in India’s unusually low female labour force participation (elaborated in Chapter XIII). Indian society, in particular the routine harassment of women in public spaces, makes it even more difficult for them to travel long distances to take up work.37 Combined with onerous regulations on creating hostels and dormitories for women—which, in turn, prevents multiple shifts of operation—factories need to be located in areas with a large female labour pool. While firms can take apparel plants to female labour or bring them to the plants by building large-scale dormitories, this raises costs. If there was a case for subsidies to encourage labour-intensive manufacturing, housing subsidies to build dormitories for women workers would be a good place to start. All of this meant, that when opportunities did open up, in part thanks to adjustments in China, India was in no position to take advantage. Here is the account of the 2020s from Kapur and Subramanian. It stands in dizzying contrast to the one-sided, “China squeeze” argument delivered in the Peterson and Foreign Affairs pieces: In 2022, for example, India’s share of global exports in clothing (the canonical labour-intensive sector) was 3.1 per cent compared to 32 per cent for China. This is extremely disappointing because China started vacating export space in this sector after the Global Financial Crisis as its wages started rising; it then vacated further space in the aftermath of geopolitical developments that led investors to seek alternative investment locations. Between its peak and today, China lost about 7.5 percentage points of global export share (worth about $43 billion in 2022); over this period, India’s export share remained stagnant at 3 per cent, while that of Vietnam and Bangladesh rose by 3.5 to 4 percentage points. China’s loss did not translate into any gain for India in terms of low-skill exports and employment. Put differently, when the conditions for dynamism and prosperity were established after 1991, and even more tantalizingly when the global export opportunities opened up, it was as if India was a high-wage economy and only skilled labour could benefit from the dynamism. It had converted its physically abundant unskilled workforce into an economically expensive resource, penalizing its use. It is not my mission here to argue for or against Kapur and Subramanian’s interpretation of India’s development trajectory. The point in this context is simply that the “China squeeze” such as it is can only be understood, in relation to the heavy burden of domestic constraints that Kapur and Subramanian so unsparingly enumerate. I am concentrating here on India because it is the great counterpart to China and the unspoken reference point of the “China squeeze” discourse. But the point is more general. Can anyone with a straight face suggest that the main problems afflicting the development of South Africa or Nigeria, the great centers of mass underemployment in sub-saharan Africa, are cheap competition from China driven by Beijing’s industrial policy and an undervalued RMB? Likewise, is the main problem of the American working-class the threat of Chinese competition or the manifest crisis of social reproduction in the United States itself? The point here, as in the discourse around China shock 2.0 in Europe, is to insist that we should not normalize the world and pathologize China, without actually investigating what is going on in America’s industrial wastelands, the German car industry, or India’s lopsided labour market. One-sided pathologization should be understood for what it is, a polemical gesture. Concepts like China shock and China squeeze are, what Reinhart Koselleck, following Carl Schmitt, would have described as “asymmetrische Kampfbegriffe”, or “asymmetrical counter-concepts” or “asymmetrical combat concepts”. If the function of arguments like the “China squeeze” is to alert elites in the rest of the world of the need to rejuvenate and energize their development projects, so be it. But let us see the resulting discourses as the mobilizing interventions that they are. Interestingly, a significant slice of China’s public sphere - the so-called industrial party - have been obsessed for the last twenty years with precisely these questions of counterfactual economic history. Since the mid 2000s, a massive online discourse developed around an alternative history in which Chinese techno-patriots were asked to imagine how they would proceed if they had the possibility of traveling back in time to transport modern technology into the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) thus averting the “great divergence” of the 18th and 19th centuries. It is a fantasy of course, but also a goad. The point was not directed at Westerners. The alternate history is dramatically nationalist, but few n the West had even heard of it until recently. The adherents of the industrial party are not liberal moralists. They don’t project natural ladders of international development and ask why others don’t cede space. They take the Realpolitik of global economic development for granted. Their pointe was directed against fellow Chinese. The rallying cry of the alternative narrative was this: Now that we are beginning to gain steam and push forward on our national development path, now that we are breaking out of the inferior position assigned to us even in the early years following WTO accession, do not lose yourself in humanistic imaginings about better futures. In the spirit of Deng, they called on China to embrace the hard truth of development. Perhaps one might of the Industrial Party as a cultural trend born out of desire for symbolic revenge against those who had inflicted the century of humiliation. In terms of the various temporalities of the “China shock” - retrospective, prospective and counterfactual - one might think of the Industrial Policy discourse as truly speculative, conjuring up the China shock that never was. Or perhaps one might better think of it as imagining a world in which a powerful China was no shock at all, but simply a defining fact of modern history. I love putting out Chartbook. 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