Founding partner @Argus_Insight. Tracking foreign influence with @FARAmonitor.
Joined August 2008
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Are you a journalist/researcher/public affairs pro tracking foreign influence? You may be interested in a new product I’ve developed. Automated daily summaries of new FARA filings as they drop. Contact me for details: lachlan at faramonitor dot com. faramonitor.com
Googling for general news coverage of a widely covered story these days is less a search for a particular outlet or a routine click on the top result than it is a calculation of the website least likely to vomit pop-ups, auto-play videos, and newsletter signups onto my screen.
Perfect microcosm of so many aspects of urban life and policy, in DC and elsewhere: "The problem is that D.C. fundamentally designed these programs with responsible riders in mind, rather than the jerks (or literal children) who might abuse them."
Wrote for Citycast DC about how the city turned Lime and other shared scooter/ebikes into a public nuisance and safety debacle. Molly’s horror story is worse than mine. dc.citycast.fm/opinion/how-d…
For a hilarious but slightly unsettling experience, go to america.gov and type in "play minecraft"
Ad copy: power to the people, down with the special interests!
Ad targeting: hello fellow yuppie, I see you like yachts and Rolexes
I mean, the ratio of straight men to women was probably about even
Another indication of a “D.C. party”? The ratio of men to women.
“Like, four or five to one,” Swank said. “Not ideal.”
@mara_hop & @emilyykennard report on the data center party
washingtonsun.com/national/a…
In awe of Hoover's description of this guy, which says he "stands at the forefront of entrepreneurial innovation in the third-party reproduction and legal sectors"
Wild.
A @HooverInst fellow runs a "California baby factory" for PRC citizens to have USA kids. Clients include Xu Bo, a billionaire with ~300 American kids via surrogacy.
He previously helped a Chinese firm sell Hawaii lege internships to Chinese citizens for $5k each.
Lachlan Markay retweeted
For 3 years I’ve been following the plight of residents living in King Cove, Alaska, a remote town in the Aleutians where people keep dying in plane crashes and medical emergencies because faraway environmentalists and others concerned about the goose population will not let them build a road to an all weather airport located just 18 miles away, in the next town over. They’ve been fighting for 40+ years and have just been stymied again.
It’s a complicated story.
But:
“Underneath all the legalese, the history, and the details is a single ugly question, one that perhaps should never have been asked: How many geese is a human life worth?”
(Link in reply)
Taps the sign xitter.cf/GlobalAffairs/status/2…
The X Safety team conducted an investigation into suspected Chinese inauthentic accounts involved in influence operations:
We identified a bot farm of approximately 200,000 accounts. Within this farm, we found 200 accounts posting in a manner that could manipulate a legitimate debate about American AI and energy policy.
These posts contained claims that AI data centers are driving up household electricity prices and straining the grid. Others included AI-generated cartoons that depicted data-center operators enriching themselves at the public's expense.
We remain committed to maintaining an open and authentic platform where people debate topics of public interest. We take seriously any attempts to undermine the integrity of the global town square and suspend accounts that violate our Authenticity policy.
Lachlan Markay retweeted
The X Safety team conducted an investigation into suspected Chinese inauthentic accounts involved in influence operations:
We identified a bot farm of approximately 200,000 accounts. Within this farm, we found 200 accounts posting in a manner that could manipulate a legitimate debate about American AI and energy policy.
These posts contained claims that AI data centers are driving up household electricity prices and straining the grid. Others included AI-generated cartoons that depicted data-center operators enriching themselves at the public's expense.
We remain committed to maintaining an open and authentic platform where people debate topics of public interest. We take seriously any attempts to undermine the integrity of the global town square and suspend accounts that violate our Authenticity policy.
Remarkable chutzpah for a foreign sockpuppet account to throw around Tel Aviv as an epithet under a profile photo of a person...from Tel Aviv
Lachlan Markay retweeted
TX: you want to build some "clean energy," son? sounds like gay communism. anway, here's your permit
CA: oh my Gooood yaaass kween clean energy!! but your 3,000 page report on harms to nonbinary snail communities wasn't sufficient for the HOA so see you in court for 30 years
It's very very hot in Texas.
But the grid is fine.
Electricity prices are manageable.
What happened?
🔋🔋🔋🔋BATTERIES!!! 🔋🔋🔋
heatmap.news/energy/texas-gr…
It doesn't say "fuck Selina Meyer," it's "fuck, Selina Meyer!"
I talked to the head of the Michigan Independent @JoeConason (who called from a New York number). He said the headline was meant to identify El-Sayed as a "veteran doctor" rather than "veteran, doctor."
When I asked whether that headline would be accurate, he said El-Sayed "has been a physician for a long time," which is not true.
I wonder if the explicitly pro-data center International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union (@IBEW) knows it's funding this political messaging in Wisconsin
