Reading archive 2025-07-17

Earle-Sears shakes up campaign for Va. governor as fundraising, polls lag: Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears (R) has asked her campaign manager — a pastor with no political experience — to step away from that role.

A developer promised a supermarket for a new neighborhood. Now it can’t deliver.: Developer Jair Lynch wants city to sign off on a smaller store after it says delays sunk deal with larger, full-service grocer. - "Kirby Vining, a Stronghold resident who helped lead Friends of McMillan Park’s opposition to the project, argues that Jair Lynch could have avoided overpromising and under-delivering. 'Be careful what you ask for and what you promise,' he said in a phone interview. If Jair Lynch had built flexibility into its original proposal, he argued, the developer 'could have building permits right now.'" [ed. note: counterpoint - if FoMP hadn't held up the process for years, Harris Teeter would never have pulled out of the project in the first place]

Democrats try a new tone: Less scripted, more cursing, Trumpier insults: Party leaders are swearing more, recording more direct-to-camera videos and trying to project an authenticity many voters have come to associate with Trump.

Why the Gen Z stare has every generation talking A deadpan look is drawing comparisons to the boomer ‘lead paint’ stare and the millennial pause.

With Epstein conspiracy theories, Trump faces a crisis of his own making

Maurene Comey, daughter of James Comey and prosecutor of Jeffrey Epstein, is fired: Comey, who had worked in the U.S. attorney’s office for nearly a decade, prosecuted both Jeffrey Epstein and his associate Ghislaine Maxwell.

The world is choking on screens. Just as this book foretold. Neil Postman’s “Amusing Ourselves to Death” at 40 is truer than ever.

Human Stigmergy: The world is my task list

An etymological knockout

China Is Putting Data Centers in the Ocean to Keep Them Cool China is pulling ahead of the rest of the world in sinking data centers that power AI into the ocean as an alternate way to keep them cool - "Many companies have sited their data centers in some of the driest regions of the world, including Arizona, parts of Spain, and the Middle East, because dry air reduces the risks of damage to the equipment from humidity, according to an investigation by the nonprofit journalist organization SourceMaterial and the Guardian. Partly to address water concerns, China is now putting a data center in the wettest place there is: the ocean. This June construction began on a wind-powered underwater data center about six miles off the coast of Shanghai, one of China’s AI hubs."