Michael Hall retweeted
Acting Army Secretary Adam R. Telle said Monday that each military service has its own strengths, but the Army is the foundation of the joint force. trib.al/LmXcgjQ
Michael Hall retweeted
"Gambling is morally wrong. Gambling is built on the desire to obtain something for nothing. Its structure requires that any gain comes at other's expense. It is hard to reconcile that with the commandment to love our neighbor as ourselves."
—President D. Todd Christofferson (@ChristoffDTodd) #GeneralConference
churchofjesuschrist.org/lear…
Michael Hall retweeted
Dario has written that we need to “pace the frontier,” and Sam has agreed. People may be surprised by my response: go ahead.
You guys are the frontier. By any reasonable metric — market share, revenue growth, model capability — the two of you have a duopoly on frontier intelligence. You’ve also claimed the lead is widening because of recursive self-improvement.
I don’t see what you see in the lab. If the unreleased models are scary enough that you think you should slow down, I support your decision to be responsible.
But stop pretending you need anyone else’s permission. Stop pretending antitrust law has to be suspended so you can form a cartel. Stop pretending you need a regulatory approval process that supersedes product liability. Stop pretending METR is independent when it is intertwined with Anthropic’s investors and staff. Stop pretending you need those same evaluators to police competitors who aren’t even at the frontier.
Most of all, stop pretending the motivation to slow down is purely altruistic. You face massive product-liability exposure if your products enable a truly damaging cyberattack. The market already punishes models that behave in unpredictable or unauthorized ways. After the Hugging Face episode, it is simply good business for OpenAI and Anthropic to trade some raw power for reliability and predictability. Call it alignment if you want. It is also just giving customers what they want.
Pacing the frontier would also create breathing room for a more intelligent conversation about regulation than Bernie Sanders’ “shut it all down.” China is very unlikely to join a global agreement, as you know, and that has to be taken into account as well.
So go ahead and pace the frontier. You are the ones setting it. The easiest way not to build superintelligence is for you to agree not to build it. Demanding your preferred regulatory framework as the price of that will look like blackmail of the public and the political system. So just do it.
If you do, you’ll buy goodwill for the next conversation. If you don’t, we’ll know this was just another bid for regulatory capture — or an election-season psyop.
Michael Hall retweeted
Even before the 9/11 attacks, Col. Richard "Rick" Rescorla was a decorated war hero with a Silver Star from his actions in Vietnam.
25 years ago today, Rescorla saved 2,687 people and paid the ultimate sacrifice.
Here’s how it happened. 🧵
ALT Rick Rescorla in Vietnam
ALT Col Rick Rescorla
Michael Hall retweeted
The kids are “Nixonmaxxing.” More than half a century after Watergate, conservative youth are discovering the aesthetic, and adopting the attitude, of the late Richard Nixon. on.wsj.com/4wdu6CY
Michael Hall retweeted
Angelversaries matter.
To most people, it’s just another date on the calendar. To a Gold Star family, it’s the day our world stopped. It’s the day we remember every detail, every phone call, every knock at the door. It’s the day we need to know someone else remembers too.
When we lay our loved ones to rest at Arlington National Cemetery, we do so because we trust them. We trust them to care for the place where America’s heroes rest. We trust them to treat those sacred grounds, and the families who return there, with dignity, compassion, and respect.
Unfortunately, that isn’t always the experience families have.
This Gold Star mom had flowers delivered just days before her son’s angelversary so they would be there on the anniversary of his death. Instead, they were removed before that day ever arrived. Whether it was policy or an honest mistake doesn’t change how it felt to a mother who simply wanted her son remembered.
Tomorrow marks CPL Benjamin Stephen Kopp’s angelversary.
If you’re in the Washington, D.C., area and are able to stop by Arlington National Cemetery, would you consider taking Ben a small bouquet or even a single flower? Not because flowers are what matter most, but because his sacrifice, and his family, deserve to know they are not alone.
Let’s show this Gold Star mom that she’s not carrying this day by herself. Let’s make sure Ben’s sacrifice is remembered, and that on the anniversary of his death, there’s no doubt that Americans still care. ♥️🇺🇸♥️
Michael Hall retweeted
Compare Calvin Coolidge on America’s 150th anniversary:
“It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers."
Michael Hall retweeted
The approval of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress on the 4th of July, 1776 represented the ultimate political gamble.
The American revolutionaries were fighting against the world’s most powerful country, and the vast majority of colonists in America either opposed or were indifferent to independence.
While the odds were slim, the consequences for failure were severe. All 56 men who later signed the Declaration faced an assured death by hanging were the Revolution to fail.
And they had a lot to lose. The leaders of the Revolution were generally wealthy and influential in the colonies.
But they had suffered what Jefferson called a “long train of abuses” over the previous decade, and believed that failure to take a stand would lead to the destruction of their liberty.
So when they pledged their lives, fortunes and sacred honor, they meant it.
The Declaration was the ultimate political line in the sand: rights are God-given, not government-granted; government is legitimate only upon the consent of the governed; and government’s purpose is to safeguard the natural rights of the people.
What began as a conservative rebellion seeking the preservation of traditional English rights evolved into a political revolution that laid the foundation for the rise of the greatest republic in history — and that produced transformational consequences around the world.
We as Americans in 2026 are inheritors of this legacy of liberty and the beneficiaries of the courage, wisdom and dedication of the Founding Fathers.
We can acknowledge that our society and nation face a lot of problems. Whether there will be an America 500 celebration may very well depend on how this generation of Americans tackle these challenges.
But there can be no doubt that we are fortunate to be citizens of this republic. And we have a small group of patriots, who took a risky stand 250 years ago, to thank for that.
Happy America 250!
Michael Hall retweeted
Anthony Bourdain died on this day eight years ago and him describing Waffle House is still the single-most important description of America that has ever been articulated.
Michael Hall retweeted
ALT Bobby Cox: 1941-2026
ALT We are overcome with emotion on the passing of Bobby Cox, our treasured skipper. Bobby was the best manager to ever wear a Braves uniform. He led our team to 14 straight division titles, five National League pennants, and the unforgettable World Series title in 1995. His Braves managerial legacy will never be matched. Bobby was a favorite among all in the baseball community, especially those who played for him. His wealth of knowledge on player development and the intricacies of managing the game were rewarded with the sport’s ultimate prize in 2014 - enshrinement into the Baseball Hall of Fame. And while Bobby's passion for the game was unparalleled, his love of baseball was exceeded only by his love for his family. It is with the heaviest of hearts that we send our sincerest condolences to his beloved wife, Pam, and their loving children and grandchildren.
Michael Hall retweeted
He won the Civil War, broke the Klan, went bankrupt at 62, got terminal throat cancer, and wrote one of the greatest books in American literature in the final year of his life. He finished it 5 days before he died.
Ulysses S. Grant was born 204 years ago today.
His name wasn't even Ulysses S. Grant. He was born Hiram Ulysses Grant in Point Pleasant, Ohio on April 27, 1822. The congressman who nominated him to West Point wrote down the wrong name. Grant kept it. The "S." stands for nothing.
He hated his father's tannery and loved horses. Graduated 21st of 39 at West Point. Fought in the Mexican-American War, then came home convinced it was an unjust war designed to expand slavery. He later said he believed the Civil War was divine punishment for it.
He married Julia Dent in 1848, into a slave-owning Missouri family. His abolitionist father refused to attend the wedding. In 1859, broke and desperate, Grant freed the one enslaved man he'd briefly owned instead of selling him. He could have gotten a year's wages.
In the Civil War he became what no other Union general was: relentless. Vicksburg (July 4, 1863) split the Confederacy in half. Lincoln then gave him every Union army. His Appomattox surrender terms: officers kept sidearms, men kept horses for spring planting, no one prosecuted.
As president (1869 to 1877) he did something no president would do again until LBJ: used federal troops to crush the Ku Klux Klan. He suspended habeas corpus in 9 South Carolina counties, prosecuted Klansmen before predominantly Black juries, and broke the first Klan.
His presidency was also rocked by scandal: Black Friday 1869. Crédit Mobilier. The Whiskey Ring. Belknap. Grant himself never took a dime. He was just disastrously loyal to corrupt friends. The pattern damaged his reputation for a century.
After the White House, he toured the world for 2 years. Dined with Queen Victoria. Met the emperor of Japan. Then in 1884, a Wall Street partner named Ferdinand Ward ran what we'd now call a Ponzi scheme. Grant was wiped out. 62 years old. Penniless.
Weeks later he was diagnosed with terminal throat cancer. Mark Twain offered to publish his memoirs. Grant wrote in agony, sometimes 50 pages a day, racing the disease to leave Julia an inheritance. He finished the manuscript July 18, 1885. He died July 23.
The book made Julia $450,000, about $14M today. It's now considered one of the finest memoirs in the English language. For decades historians ranked Grant a failure. Since 2000 he's jumped 13 spots in the C-SPAN survey, the biggest rise of any president.
Happy birthday, General 🇺🇸
Michael Hall retweeted
Everybody needs to read this - these new revelations legitimately completely transform our historical understanding of Richard Nixon.
Nixon basically had conclusive proof that the Joint Chiefs of Staff systematically spied on him and attempted to undermine him as part of a right wing plot against his government.
If he had publicised this world-historic scandal during Watergate, he might have actually rallied enough support with the public to save his Presidency. His paranoia and sense of being under constant siege was much mocked at the time, but these revelations show that he actually had good reason to feel this way.
But rather than publicise this extraordinary scandal, Nixon decided to go to his grave with the secret, solely to protect the honour and integrity of the US armed forces and America's international reputation for democracy during the Cold War.
We are only learning about it now, 32 years after his death.
Nixon was such a good man. Far from being ''a crook,'' he is perhaps one of the most honourable men to ever be President.
Michael Hall retweeted
We're going around the Moon. Come watch with us. Artemis II's four-astronaut crew is lifting off from @NASAKennedy on an approximately 10-day mission that will bring us closer to living on the Moon and Mars. The launch window opens at 6:24pm ET (2224 UTC). xitter.cf/i/broadcasts/1jxXgeyMk…
Michael Hall retweeted
Update: My soon-to-be wife said we can move the wedding if I get 1 million reposts. Make it happen boys. @CollegeGameDay @PatMcAfeeShow @JoeyMcGuireTTU
Michael Hall retweeted
August 8th. Alive Day.
A day that reminds me of the cost of service.
Honoring CSM Kevin Griffin, MAJ Thomas Kennedy, MAJ Walter Gray, and USAID’s Ragaei Abdelfattah.
Service is more than wearing a uniform, it’s standing shoulder to shoulder, running toward danger so others make it home.
I’ll spend my life earning what they gave.
#NeverForget #HonorTheFallen #GoldStarFamilies #LiveToHonor
Michael Hall retweeted
Larry K. Allen, known as "Larry TwoCans," is a Native American who served as Command Sergeant Major in the 2nd Ranger Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment. Around 1988-91, Larry was posted to 22 SAS Regiment as part of an exchange program. Respecting the selection process of 22 SAS, Larry took part in and passed selection, making him one of the very few foreign personnel to do so (we all know Beckwith and Dick Meadows passed selection, he’ll dick married the daughter of a SAS big wig). He met every requirement necessary for service, just as any potential SAS Blade needs too. With both international and personal reputation on the line, it was no small achievement. Larry "Two Cans" was badged and served in 22 SAS for three years before returning to the Ranger regiment. Images show Larry wearing the sandy beret of 22 SAS, shaped in the distinctive style of the US Rangers, whose beret shares the same colour as all commonwealth SAS Regiment's.
