Sure there is. To land a man on the Moon in time for Donald Trump to take credit for it. Surely no one is so gullible as to think the two-year time frame is about anything else?

When Trump's legal team were arguing in Trump v. United States that his attempts to overturn the 2020 election were legal, his lawyer was asked, by Judge Pan of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, "A president could sell pardons, could sell military secrets, could order SEAL Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Would such a president be subject to criminal prosecution if he's not impeached?"

In response, lawyer D. John Sauer, representing Trump, insisted that for any purported crime connected to a president's "official duties" the president was above the law, until and unless impeached and removed by the Senate prior to being prosecuted. While U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit did not agree, their ruling was appealed the United States Supreme Court, which found in favor of Trump's interpretation and held that the President was entitled to broad immunity.

From the Supreme Court's opinion, "The nature of that power requires that a former President have some immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts during his tenure in office. At least with respect to the President’s exercise of his core constitutional powers, this immunity must be absolute. As for his remaining official actions, he is entitled to at least presumptive immunity." It also noted that commanding the military is among the President's core powers.

This opinion was issued in October 2023. Subsequently, President Biden could have ordered Mr. Trump shot by SEAL Team Six,or thrown in Guantanamo, or killed by a drone strike; or done the same to members of the Supreme Court, and, according to their own ruling, he would have been immune from any criminal liability for such acts. That he never took action to abuse the insane authority granted him by the Court likely speaks well of him as a human being, but it does not change that the Court did place the President above the law. As Justice Sotomayor summed it up in her dissent, "Orders the Navy’s Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune."

Given that the United States Supreme Court told Biden he could legally have Trump shot by SEAL Team Six, the claim that the Biden administration "went to extreme measures in an attempt to prevent Trump from running for office" is simply a lie. The Biden administration did nothing to prevent Trump from running for office in 2024. They barely bothered to charge him for stealing classified material and refusing to return it. "Oh no, a judge Trump appointed keeps pointless dragging out his case. Nothing we can do folks!" is the a pro forma attempt to enforce the law.

"Imagine standing on a planet and looking up at a green star. It feels like something out of science fiction."

I believe the late Lin Carter has this covered.

What they've launched is a data center the same way David Hahn built a nuclear reactor in his shed. (If he was alive today, he could IPO his reactor startup and make billions.)

If you keep clicking down the rabbit hole, down at the bottom of their Methodology section, Waymo explains they're adjusting the data they're using to account for differences in human and Waymo route selection, variation by locale, etc.... based on peer-reviewed papers published by Waymo employees.

https://waymo.com/safety/impac...

If you dig through their methodology description what you find is that they're adjusting their numbers based on papers published by people who work for Waymo. And they also promise that they're counting all the accidents where there was any damage or anybody got hurt, because of course they report all of those, doing otherwise would be a crime! Or at least a rule violation. (From their phrasing, I get the impression that there are a large number of unreported, or at least uncounted here, "the Waymo vehicle bumped into something at very low speed and no damage was done" incidents.) And that they're still doing an unspecified amount of remote driving by humans. Which all boils down to "Self-driving car company says its self-driving cars are safer than human drivers!"

I get that the data cannot be usefully compared one to one with the data for human driver. Even if you had perfect reporting, Waymo simply isn't going to choose the same routes human drivers will; there will be stretches of road Waymo will likely never travel, just because of its business model. And there's probably not a lot of good research being done on these statistics (although I don't know that for a fact), so it makes a degree of sense that Waymo employees would be publishing. But claiming "we're using peer reviewed standards for our data adjustments" without a disclaimer that the writers work for Waymo is not a good look, nor does it encourage confidence on my part.

But one item I was not able to find, is where Waymo would fall in a ranking of human drivers, What happens if you take out the worst 1% or 5% of human drivers? How about if you take out incidents involving impaired drivers? It seems like these would be natural data sets, but I was not able to find them. (Maybe my search-fu and time is just insufficient.)

And since it will be friendly, we could call it, "super friend intelligence". That seems like it would be quite accurate.

I'm sure their AGI that's coming any day now can figure that out for them. /s

No need for that last one. The Trump Cabinet already has that covered.

Insane dictator is insane, says (and does) insane stuff.

The judges who aid and abet him, the Congress that fails to remove him, they're the bigger traitors here. Trump belongs in a managed care facility. They belong in prison. (And the "impeachment is not a priority" Democratic leadership aren't much better.)

The loss of meaning is intended.

Altman can't hype spicy autocomplete snake oil as a miracle machine if public discussion makes clear distinctions.

What, like one of the enlisted guys? Maybe an E-3?

Surely you're not suggesting anyone important be held responsible for their actions? This is the United States of America! /s

The current United States government says a lot of things, many of which are decoupled from reality. This statement was very likely issued solely because the occupant of the White House wanted to hear it. This "admission" or "acknowledgement" has no zero relevance to the question of whether or not the United States actually has on-orbit weapons.

Also also, we need an excuse for why we're not hitting the milestones I promised.