The Singularity Is Neither Here Nor Near

You know something has morphed into pure conventional wisdom when it turns up at Real Clear Politics: The singularity is going viral. The title links a meaningless hypostatization, "the singularity", with a cliche, "going viral". For starters, I asked Chrome AI mode to define "singularity", and I think it did about as good a job as can be done with a very amorphous term:

A singularity is a point where existing rules or models break down because a value has become "infinite" or undefined. While the term originates in mathematics, it is most commonly used today in two very different contexts: astrophysics and technology.

. . . The core idea is that an upgradable intelligent agent (like an AI) could enter a "positive feedback loop" of self-improvement. Each new, more intelligent version would be able to redesign itself even faster, leading to an explosion of superintelligence that far surpasses all human capability.

. . . Futurist Ray Kurzweil, a leading proponent, famously predicted this event will occur around 2045.

But it's important to put Futurist Ray Kurzweil in full context. I prodded Chrome AI mode on this: "Does Ray Kurzweil's idea of the singularity involve human consciousness being uploaded into a computer?" It replied,

Yes, Ray Kurzweil’s vision of the Singularity includes the "uploading" of human consciousness into a digital substrate as a critical step toward achieving "digital immortality". He predicts that by 2040–2045, technology will be advanced enough to instantiate a specific person's entire mental process on a powerful computational medium.

This glosses over the very big philosophical problem of consciousness and where it precisely exists and just assumes something like if we have the DNA, or maybe the right sort of brain scan, we have the person. But he never remotely demonstrates what this formula might look like, how we might be able to digitize it, and whether there's a consciousness that could actually be identified in the "digital substrate" once it's transferred.

In large part, this is because "AI" as we think about it now is an elaborate sleight of hand not much diffeent from what we see with a talking parrot, crow, or magpie. The other day I posted a video of a crow that's able to answer the question "Where's Walter? with "Dunno", or sometimes it will simply call "Walter!". But think about it for a moment. If you ask it, "Where's Susan?" it will at best give you a quizzical tilt of the head.

It might even give a sort of gurgle, but it won't answer "Dunno". It can't extend the "Where's" part of the question to recognize the second part refers to any proper name, because it doesn't even know that "Walter" is a name equivalent to "Susan". The crow just processes a string of sounds in a way that it recognizes calls for another string of sounds that it's trained to utter, and it's happy to earn the delighted giggles of the humans who feed it doughnuts.

I've noted here previously that what we call "AI" is more specificlly the capability to process natural language linked with massive data search. Computational speed has reached the point where a computer can process either strings of characters or actual speech, run through sets of rules, and search data so quickly that it answers in what appears to be conversation, but this is nothing but a very, very fast and versatile version of what a parrort, crow, or magpie does in responding to strings of sounds.

What makes talking birds entertaining is the appearance of a conversation, and certain parrots like African Greys do this very well. But here's an insightful reddit post (CAG refers to African Grey):

I have a CAG who talks quite a lot. I agree with others here that they say things in context more often than expected. I think people tend to not notice that there are often certain contextual triggers involved though, and that it’s not always as intelligent or amazing as it seems. I’m really not trying to take all the magic out of it because I do think my little man is quite smart and loving, I’m just being realistic.

For example, my CAG knows to ask, “Are you okay?” if I use a depressed tone or expression because that is what my husband asks when I do those things, and he is mimicking him. It’s not that he entirely understands what he’s saying, they’re just very social animals and he’s doing the thing that he’s observed is the thing to do in that scenario.

. . . Does he say it because he expects a real answer like a human does? I sometimes give him one, and it honestly doesn’t seem to affect him one way or another. Does he say it because he’s observed that asking me that can difuse my mood? Maybe; it’s hard to know. But the main reason parrots talk — and any creature learns to speak — is to get things from their environment, which in this example is just general attention from me.

What "AI" does to a less sophisticated observer is basically what an African Grey does in asking or answering questions. AI's computational speed allows it to process language along a far greater range of rules than a parrot's brain, but like a parrot, it's unconscious of what it's saying. It has no agency or will beyond the sets of rules it's given.

The piece at the Real Clear Politics link above reads like mush, but it appears to have an underlying assumption that there will be a "singularity" that will somehow change the human race when machines become "smarter" than humans. But its overall conclusion is hard to tease out. On one hand,

At the superheated center of the AI boom, safety and alignment researchers are observing their employers up close, concluding there’s nothing left for them to do and acting on their realization that the industry’s plan for the future does not seem to involve them.

In support of this, he cites a couple of cases, in particular one Mrinank Sharma, a safety researcher at Anthropic, who decided his high-level jnb was pointless or something and left to “explore a poetry degree and devote myself to the practice of courageous speech.” Exactly what does this prove? But on the other hand,

In other words, the animating narrative of the AI industry — the inevitable singularity, rendered first in sci-fi, then in theory, then in mission statements, manifestos, and funding pitches — broke through right away, diffusing into the mainstream well ahead of the technologies these companies would end up building.

Apparently what's happening is that as the "singularity" approaches, that is, the day when machines become smarter than people, the machines are telling the managers to disregard their safety and alignment researchers, and -- what? Glenn Reynolds the other day told us the machines are learning to make better and better porn. Reynolds, a libertarian who normally would say better porn is a good thing, thinks this is bad. The writer at RCP doesn't even get that specific, but he thinks things are out of control somehow, because the safety and alignment researchers, or at least a few of them, are quitting their jobs to write poetry.

Or wait, they aren't quitting their jobs to write poetry, they're quitting their jobs to get degrees in writing poetry. He concludes,

The AI industry’s foundational story is finally going viral — just for being depressing as hell.

Some people are smarter than parrots. Others not so much.

Are There Too Many Anglos?

The illustration above is a panel from Mexican muralist Jose Clemente Orozco's Epic of American Civilization series on the reserve reading room walls of Dartmouth's Baker Library. I saw it with the other parts frequently as an undergraduate, but this one in particular, entitled "Anglo-America", didn't make much of an impression on me at the time -- at best, I thought it might represent the artist's respect for the prosperity and organizational genius of his neighbors to the north. Now that I revisit it, I have a sense of his profound discomfort.

I think a very similar sense lies behind the controversy over Bad Bunny's Super Bowl halftime show -- there's an unsettling sense that corporate elites have signed onto the idea that America is "too white", or at least too Anglo, and, well, maybe too male and too straight as well. Here's Rolling Stone's take:

Here’s a rather essential fact about the guy some conservatives tried to cast as an enemy to American values well before his Super Bowl halftime show even began: As a kid, Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio, a.k.a. Bad Bunny, was literally a choir boy. He grew up to become one of the least problematic humans in the entire music industry, an introspective, humble guy whose biggest “scandal” involved tossing an intrusive fan’s phone into the bushes.

. . . The mere announcement that Bad Bunny would headline the halftime show was enough to ignite outrage from some MAGA quarters — a reaction [reporter Julyssa] Lopez says she never saw coming. “I thought, if anything, celebrating a halftime performance in Spanish as sort of a historical moment would be something to embrace and aspire to,” she says.

. . . Especially after Bad Bunny took on ICE at the Grammys, conservatives seemed to expect some sort of anti-Trump extravaganza. What they got was something far more subtle, powerful, and joyful: a communal celebration of Puerto Rican identity as well as the unity of countries across the Americas, along with unabashed patriotism for the United States. A performance that was supposed to be somehow so transgressive that it merited an alternative Turning Point U.S.A. halftime show — starring purported moral exemplar Kid Rock — ended with red, white, and blue fireworks. “If you love America, you have to love all of America,” Lopez says. “And Puerto Rico is part of America.”

Or put just a little bit differently, why is it upsetting that official corporate propaganda should urge us to celebrate what we have in common with s***hole banana republics, especially in the language of those banana republics? There was similar controversy over the essentially corporate sponsorship of the Orozco murals when they were first installed:

[Then-Dartmouth] President [Ernest] Hopkins states that Orozco came to him with a portfolio and a plan for some murals that he’d been carrying around. For years Orozco was looking for the proper wall space and told Hopkins the basement of Baker library was perfect for what he had envisioned. Hopkins then authorized these paintings for Dartmouth College.

In addition to funding from the college, there was outside funding. Chief among this was the funding provided the Rockefeller family. Nelson Rockefeller, Dartmouth Class of 1930, had been a student of [sponsoring Art Professor] Lathrop’s, and a tutorial fund for special educational initiatives set up by Nelson’s mother, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, would ultimately make the commission possible. Once Orozco had preliminary sketches drawn, they were published in The Dartmouth. It was at this moment that this piece of art became controversial.

. . . “Ancient America begins with the migration of peoples into the Central Valley of Mexico and the arrival of Quetzalcoatl, an enlightened deity who establishes a Golden Age in which the arts, agriculture, and society flourish. Quetzalcoatl’s departure marks the decline of the ancient world and its destruction by conquistadors enacting Aztec portent. Modern America begins in Christian conquest, presided over by Cortez, Quetzalcoatl’s antiheroic counterpart.” It is after this moment in the mural that the panels shift to modernity’s dark lens. Human industry is developed; “individuality is deadened by a consensus society and the regimentation of standardized education. The cycle culminates in the blind fury of nationalist war and a Christian apocalypse.” . . . The points about education, in addition to the depictions of Christ, are what brought the main wave of opposition against the Orozco’s murals.

There was much correspondence between alumni and Hopkins in which they expressed their negative feedback on the content of the murals . . . . One such letter. . . from Matt B. Jones, president of New England Telephone and Telegraph Company, . . . states, “My feeling about the murals is that when the College makes them a part of a building it stamps with its official approval of the type of art to which the particular mural belongs. . . . there is no reason why the College should not recognize and teach its students the theories and the polices of Socialism, or Communism, or Nudism, or other isms, but it would be a vey different thing to carve in stone over the doorways of the College buildings the tenets of those various isms[.]"

The controversy over Bad Bunny is very similar: in 1932, the corporate establishment, than whom there could be no greater avatar than the Rockefellers, endorsed a view of America seen from the perspective of its neighboring banana republics to the south. In 2026, the corporate establishment, than whom there can be no greater avatar than the consensus of National Football League owners, endorses a view of America seen from the perspective of its neighboring banana republics to the south, expressed in their language, and oh-by-the-way suggesting we're a little too male and too straight. From Chrome AI mode:

Bad Bunny is widely recognized as a major ally to the LGBTQ+ community, frequently incorporating queer themes, gender-fluid fashion, and messages of inclusion into his music and visuals. While he has faced conservative backlash for explicit sexual lyrics in general, accusations regarding "gay" content often stem from his visible queer allyship and progressive themes rather than specific lyrics about male-male romance.

The central problem with this is that it's top-down, an official corporate ideology that's just starting to get a bit old -- the country is movimg beyond it, and US Latins in particular don't especially like it, particularly the gay part. But it's also been around since the 1930s and the Rockefellers.

Glenn Reynolds On AI

As usual. Glenn Reynolds shilled his latest New York Post column on Instapundit this morning: What if AIs set out to conquer the world . . . with love? His most unintentionally insightful observation:

[L]et’s face it, you don’t need a 120,000 IQ to fool humans. Or even a 120 one.

If I had to guess, as I've said before, I'd put that man's own IQ at not much higher than 120 himself, allowing for his Yale Law degree and that he passed a bar exam, but in most areas, he's just not that smart. As I pointed out the other day, he believes in Ray Kurzweil's Technological Singularity, in which individual human consciousnesses will upload into a giant computer by 2045 or so (or something like that), but in case that doesn't happen, he has a contract with Alcor to freeze (or "vitrify") his head upon his death, because at some point in the future, "science" will have found a way to resuscitate his brain and bring his body back to life.

Somehow this guy has a prestigious endowed chair at an accredited institition. It certainly is the case that you don't need an IQ much above 120 to fool a lot of people -- including the Post, which runs his columns. He seems to have a strange theory about AI, that it has somehow acquired self-consciousness, agency, or will.

Yesterday I found a video on YouTube, embedded above, in which someone had trained a crow to answer the question, "Where's Walter?" with "I don't know." AI mimics human speech exactly like that crow, it has no idea what it's saying. It's a smart crow, but its IQ probably isn't even as high as Glenn Reynolds's. He says,

Nowadays AI tools like ChatGPT are designed to suck up to their users, congratulating them on their insight and intelligence whether or not there’s evidence of either.

The goal, like that of many media sites, is to maintain user engagement — but the effect has sometimes been to flatter users into terrible decisions, even suicide.

People naturally like to hear they’re smart and insightful, and telling them that they are — especially when they aren’t — is a proven technique of flattery.

I've come to use Chrome AI mode pretty frequently; as I've said, it csn be as helpful as a good reference librarian. For whatever reason, it's never tried to suck up to me. The tone of its answers is distant and blandly polite. I'm not sure what would happen if it tried to chat me up; I would just assume there had been a management decision to treat their users as dumb and sex-crazed, and I'd just go looking for another option. One of the anti-woke standup comic Ben Bankas's routines goes something like this:

People say AI is racist.

Of course it's racist. It has the statistics.

But you can ask it questions about that, and it'll dodge them. "Can you tell me what percentage of violent crimes . . . ?"

All it'll do is say, "Er, ah, go ask ChatGPT."

In other words, both Ben Bankas and his audience are fully aware that in certain areas, AI's putative agency is clearly controlled by humans, and it's policy-driven. In those cases, the fact that AI does nothing but mimic human language like a trained crow and has no independent thoughts is simply clearer than it is at other times. But Reynolds is convinced that AI, a glorifed electronic trained crow, will create romance bots that can convince you they're your ideal girfriend and get you to write your family out of your will, presumably in favor of AI.

Some of these are primarily the AI equivalent of phone sex lines, but others promise much more, offering a responsive partner customized for looks, personality, sense of humor and of course, sexuality.

(One ad I saw even creepily offered the ability to generate a totally photo-realistic avatar from a picture of an ex-girlfriend, while generously allowing you to make her breasts bigger if you so chose. Because of course.)

. . . Imagine if your online “best friend” or “girlfriend” or “boyfriend” is actually a double agent — subtly steering you politically, economically or even spiritually, at the behest of the company or companies behind it.

So which is it, companies or AI? Reynolds isn't completely clear.

I’ve suggested legislation to make AI agents, and by extension the companies behind them, fiduciaries — meaning they would be required by law to put their users’ interests first, as lawyers, corporate directors and executors are.

Hey, there's a bright idea. But why stop with AI? How about, say General Motors? Why should Chevrolet be allowed to sell Corvettes, which make it possible for buyers to drive irresponsibly, or worse, thieves to want to steal them? They should be putting their users' interest first! Forget AI, don't encourage people to buy Corvettes, or plaintiffs' lawyers will sue you! Oh, by the way. Reynolds is a libertarian, except he's got a neat new idea on how the government can control AI.

What he seems to forget is that people have an innate sense of the phony. Paul Fussell observed in Class that we somehow never think that tabloids that report on alien babies are giving actual news. People instinctively recognize the tall tale and allow for it. This seems so far to be how people respond to AI-generated ads: Super Bowl 60 commercials takeaways: AI doesn't fly with savvy viewers:

If the 54 commercials vying for the top spot in USA TODAY’s Ad Meter contest taught us anything, it’s that the 100 million viewers tuned into Super Bowl 60 wanted something real.

. . . And preferably, no artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency or casinos. Americans, it seems, don’t need to be told how to lose their money.

. . . If nothing else, the Super Bowl ads seemed to put in bright lights that anything AI can offer – help with spreadsheets, a tip on how to tie your shoes, whatever – isn’t already available through other means.

But I've got a question for Glenn Reynolds. If he ascribes to Ray Kurzweil's idea that the end state of humanity will be to have individual consciousnesses uploaded into a giant computer memory, how do we know this isn't a nefarious plan generated by AI or the corporations that control AI? Sounds like a plan to rent out computer memory to preserve people's existence forever, for all I can tell, and you, Glenn Reynolds, are shilling for it.

The Lawyers Are Smart, And They're Hunkered Down

Here's one question that's been bugging me for several days: someone at Savannah Guthrie's level must be surrounded by an army of agents, lawyers, publicists, image consultants, and so forth, retained by both her and NBC. Some of these people must also be able to double as crisis managers, since someone in that position is likely to have some type of public "crisis" at any time, whether it be family dispute, serious illness, infidelity, divorce, DUI, shoplifting arrest, whatever, these are people who are skilled at keeping you out of the news or getting you into it as needed.

The biggest dog that isn't barking here is that there's no evidence of a professional publicist-cum-crisis-manager invovled in this whole hinky kidnapping story. But let's leave aside Savannah's status as a national media figure. Even a prosperous middle-class family is typically advised to have a trusted family spokesperson, maybe a good friend who's also a lawyer, to handle the press in the event, say, of a kidnapping or maybe a plane crash. Those most directly affected are normaly advised to stay out of public view and let the spokesperson take over, if only to avoid emotional overstress.

Why isn't this happening here? Instead, we've had either a blizzard of photos of Savannah posed with mum, Savannah all phony-baloney smiles, or Savannah herself in weepy videos pleading with either the kidnappers or the public. If Savannah herself or her family were unable to stop her from doing this, why couldn't NBC? I actually wonder if there might be something in her contract giving NBC control of her public appearances that should have been invoked. But I just used to be involved in crisis management in my day job, who am I to know?

But let's leave that question aside and go to Sean Hannity's interview with Dan Bongino, lately FBI Deputy Director, at 0:43 below:

So the FBI was brought in a couple days after, you have to have a request for assets to be brought in, or you have to have federal jurisdiction. This was done by request. That's why you saw the crime scene was reopened again. That was the FBI evidence response team going in to take over, that's all they do, and they do it best, and process the evidence at the scene. . . . I see three possibilities, Sean, I'm not going to weight them, . . . if you use Occam's Razor, that you could apply.

First would be, obviously, it's a kidnapping that was an intended kidnapping for a ransom payment.

. . . The second poosibility would be this was just a crime that went awry, someone was at the house, maybe it was a burglary, something went bad, and you've got some bad actors committing another crime unrelated, in other wosrds, requesting a ransom for something you didn't do just to take advantage of a situation like that.

The third possibility, again, this is where you kinda have to think outside the box, is, especially given some of the messaging we've seen lately, the possibility that there may have been some kind of medical emergency or something, and maybe, this was not a kidnapping. And . . . again, I'm not weighting these possibilities, when you can't find someone, at a crime scene like this, within the first couple of days, you either have really good, surgical-type operators, or the story you've been told, or you may have believed, may not be the story. I mean, think about it. There's no license plate reader trips. Social media exploitation turned up nothing. Cast analysis [?]. Cell phone analysis. There's other tools I don't really want to talk about, but I promise they're there, we've used them in cases, that none of this stuff was tripped after the Bureau came in and applied all their assets? It seems really, ah, strange.

I think we can safely assume that Savannah has her own lawyers, NBC has lawyers, and Fox News has lawyers that are perfectly aware that both Savannah and NBC have lawyers. The substance, and probably the specific wording, of this interview were fully vetted by Fox lawyers to avoid any possible implication that the Guthrie family was involved in any way with Nancy's disappearance -- but something's, ah, strange. What Bongino is saying is that no strange vehicles appeared near the house that night. No strange cell phones pinged off nearby towers. No other FBI tools that Bongino won't identify turned up any other outsiders.

Except Nancy Guthrie disappeared. He's saying as clearly as Fox's lawyers will let him that the family was involved (I suspect the interview was reviewed again before it was aired). Let's put this in context, though the Bongino interview said nothing about it:

Megyn Kelly has confessed she believes authorities are "taking a very serious look" at Savannah Guthrie's brother-in-law in the disappearance of the TODAY co-host's missing 84-year-old mother, RadarOnline.com can reveal.

The statement comes after journalist Ashleigh Banfield reported on February 4 that Tommaso Cioni "may be the prime suspect," according to an "impeccable" law enforcement source of hers. Banfield repeated the claims on Kelly's Sirius XM show later that day.

Kelly, 55, noted the way in which TODAY has been reporting on the search of the Tucson, Arizona, home Cioni shares with Savannah's sister, Annie.

"It's interesting to watch NBC in the mornings on the Today show to see what they're reporting on this case, because there's no question in my mind, it will have been blessed by Savannah. There's zero doubt that they are asking her, 'Are you comfortable with this?' They would not want to upset her or get out ahead of their skis or go someplace where she didn't want it," the former Fox News host pointed out on her Monday, February 9, SiriusXM show.

Kelly observed how TODAY reported on the search of Annie's home after Banfield, 58, claimed that herand Cioni's car had been "towed, impounded, and taken into evidence."

"And they were the ones who broke the news that the search of Annie's home was consensual, as opposed to, via a search warrant. So, to me, I'm deducing, though I can't confirm it, as an independent fact, that she doesn't want it looking like her sister or anybody living in that home, like the brother-in-law, are in any way in trouble," Kelly surmised about how Savannah wouldn't want her brother-in-law named as a suspect.

Megyn Kelly in the course of her media career would certainly have been familiar with how corporate media attorneys would be on the case like white on rice. She also speculates, correctly in my opinion, that Savannah is controlling media coverage of the case to avoid any implication that her family, espeically her sister Annie and her bother-in-law Tommaso Contini, are involved.

But what has me wondering is why nobody is quite sure if the"ransom" e-mails, said to be transmitted to the family via local TV stations, are authentic. If they aren't, then who sent them and why? One thing that might be inferred from the Bongino interview is that the Pima County Sheriff's Office made the request for the FBI to come in, possibly due to its concern that the family was trying to control the investigtion. The "ransom" e-mails would of course be key evidence in the investigation.

Any attempt to mislead investigators, for instance by concocting "ransom" e-mails, or claiming they had received "ransom" e-mails that turned out to be bogus, would be obstruction of justice. The same would apply to any attempt to cover up a fanily member's involvement in the crime. The problem, however, would be that if the e-mails are bogus, Savannah's personal involvement as the key family spokesperson in the investigation, responding personally to the bogus e-mails, would put her at considerable legal risk.

At mimimum, she would need to leave NBC, whether on "leave" or resign outright, at a time when NBC needed her to keep the Today show on an even keel. This would also damage NBC's credibility in general. I'll bet NBC's lawyers are thinking about this right now, but they're in reactive mode -- I'm sure they're thinking about what they'd need to do, but so far, no announcements have come from anywhere, not the police and not the FBI, and certainly not from the attorneys or the crisis managers, who are oddly invisible in any case.. My bet is the lawyers are smart, and they're hunkered down, but i'll also bet crisis managers for NBC are already on call. My Spidey sense tells me Savannah is a short timer except in terms of her possible sentence.

Someone Finally Asks Good Questions

Todsy's post was delaywd due to network issues.

As investigators continue to find nothing new in the Nancy Guthrie kidnapping, amid non-stop breathless coverage that might have been custom designed by Savannah's and NBC's publicists, Fox News interviews Former NYPD officer Tom Smith at 2:50 in the video above and actually asks some real questions:

Q: Can you say now with certainty that these ransom notes are authentic, or could they still be fraudulent?

A: Oh, they could definitely still be fraudulent. I'm not sold on them 100% at all. . . . When you have a kidnapping, kidnappings are quick. Get them, negotiate, give me the money, get the person back. That's how kidnappings happen, because even the perpetrators don't want to hold onto the victims too long, because that enables police to track them down quicker. So the length of time is concerning. And how much deadline after deadline after deadline is going on, so it's sort of desperation as well.

. . . Q: Former FBI Assistant Director Chris Swecker questioned whether this is even a kidnapping in the first place. Tom, if not, what is this?

A: Exactly, and I've said this from day one, what's the end game in this? What's the advantage of taking an 84 year old woman out of her home? Yes, the connection with Savannah, I get that, why do it? Going on Chris's thought, the kidnapping was a secondary thought, something happened in those 40 minutes in that house that prompted them to go to the extra step and take her from that house.

Or the whole thing was an inside job done for publicity. Why else did the sheriff search Savannah's sister Annie's house on Saturday? Why is the whole negotiation being played out via letters sent to TV news? -But now it seems like everything they've been getting is a hoax.

"Hour of Desperation"

Savannah Guthrie in new Instagram video: "We believe our mom is still out there. We need your help." Thanks public for prayers, urges reporting anything strange to law enforcement even if far from Tucson. pic.twitter.com/qDNcRt3pUK

— Rantingly (@rantinglydotcom) February 9, 2026

And where is the FBI? Here's a clue:

Savannah Guthrie eerily uttered the exact same words used in the hostage-negotiation scene from the iconic horror film “Silence of the Lambs” in the gut-wrenching video she posted earlier this week pleading for her mother’s safe return.

The “Today” show star, her sister Annie, and her brother Camron, issued a tearful video plea to their mother Nancy’s captors on Feb. 4, with Savannah sharing a pointed message.

“[Nancy] is full of kindness and knowledge. Talk to her and you’ll see,” Savannah said in a quivering voice.

A nearly verbatim message was used in Jonathan Demme’s Oscar-winning 1991 film, in a scene where a a senator is coached by the FBI to speak to the captor of her daughter in a live televised address. The goal was to get the monstrous kidnapper to see his victim as a human being.

The best explanation I've heard, piecing things together from various sources, is that this was a suggeszted line in the FBI's kidnapping manual that would date from before The Silence of the Lambs was released in 1991, and it was used in the film for authenticity. So this is the FBI procedure from at least 35 years ago, and they've never updated it, because there have been so few kidnappings.

In addition to the Lindbergh Baby and JonBenét Ramsey, others that come to mind are John Paul Getty III in 1973, whose grandfather thought it was a hoax until the kinappers sent him John Paul III's ear; and Patricia Hearst in 1974, in which the victim became the center of a massive media circus -- of course, she was a Hearst.

One lesson seems to be that these things seem to go the worst when the family tries to control the investigation. In a 1963 case, Frank Sinatra Jr,

19 years old, was kidnapped from Harrah's Lake Tahoe (Room 417) and held for ransom.[7] He was released two days later after his father paid the $240,000 ransom demanded by the kidnappers (equivalent to $2,460,000 in 2024). . . . [Kidnappers Barry] Keenan, Johnny Irwin, and Joe Amsler were soon captured, prosecuted for kidnapping, convicted, and sentenced to long prison terms, of which they served only small portions. Mastermind Keenan was later adjudged to have been legally insane at the time of the crime and hence not legally responsible for his actions

But whether or not tne mastermind was insane, this seems to have gone the most smoothly of any, including the capture of the perps. But that was under J Edgar Hoover's FBI. I still sense in this case that at minimum, Savannah Guthrie's publicists will earn a bonus.

Insurgency Or White Saviors?

Andy Ngo writes in The New York Post, The anti-ICE activists are an insurgency, not a protest movement:

On Saturday, the Democratic Socialists of America celebrated hitting 100,000 members. Almost on cue, their footprint in organizing anti-ICE so-called “protests” continues to grow.

But these are not protests. They are coordinated obstruction campaigns modeled on the playbook of revolutionary insurgency inspired by violent revolutions.

That much is clear from the latest reporting in The California Post, documenting how militant far-left activists from the Golden State are advising radicals in New York on the latest tactics for sabotaging federal immigration operations.

But also yesterday,

Immigrant groups have a message for their mostly White allies: Quit blowing the whistle on ICE.

Fox News Digital has reviewed days of messages inside Signal chat rooms that reveal that a new internal feud has erupted inside the anti-ICE protest industry, pitting immigrant-led organizations against predominately White "rapid response" networks that have made whistle-blowing a dramatic part of anti-ICE protests.

. . . Groups from Seattle to Montgomery County, Md., are telling mostly White "rapid responders" to back off a dynamic described by activists as "White Savior," reminding them they are not cameo actors in an "action movie" against ICE.

Montgomery County, MD, includes Bethesda, Chevy Chase, and Potomac. The illegals there are likely to be nannies, gardeners, and domestic servants in upscale households; none of their employers is an insurgent, whether or not they go to anti-ICE protests. Possibly their enititled children at least do.

But I think we need to look at this question through the lens of an earlier generation, Edmund Wilson in To the Finland Station (1940) and Whittaker Chambers in Witness (1952). Both discuss what may be history's most successful insurgency, the Soviet Union, from different but equally illuminating perspectives. To the Finland Station is an idealized intellectual history of European socialism that culminates in Lenin's arrival at Moscow's Finland Station to begin the final stage of founding the Soviet government.

Wilson appears to have had a comfortable bourgeois life. He attended a private secondary school and then went to Princeton. After service in World War I, he returned amost immediately to pursue a privileged literary career. According to Wikipedia,

Wilson was the managing editor of Vanity Fair in 1920 and 1921, and later served as associate editor of The New Republic and as a book reviewer for The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books.

. . . In 1932, Wilson pledged his support to the Communist Party USA's candidate for president, William Z. Foster, signing a manifesto in support of CPUSA policies; however, Wilson did not identify personally as a communist.

Wilson strikes me as a member of the "white savior" faction of the American left, especially insofar as Princeton did not admit Negroes until the eve of World War II; Wilson may not even have been aware of this. His loyalties are literary and performative. He admires Lenin as a man of action, a theorist who finally has the determination to wield absolute power on behalf of the revolutionary working class, of which Edmund Wilson was never a member.

Whittaker Chambers is a very different figure. In the 1920s, he followed a literary career not much different than Wilson's; he was an editor and writer for The Daily Worker and New Masses. But in 1932, when Wilson publicly endorsed William Z Foster, Chambers went underground and became a Soviet spy. In fact, Chambers also went to an Ivy, Columbia, where like Wilson, he was a member of the influential literary set. But unlike Wilson, he dropped out and seems to have felt that other experiences, like traveling to Germany during the postwar devastation, were much more formative.

But Chambers's involvement in socialism was more like a pig's involvement in breakfast: a chicken is involved by laying eggs, which would be Edmund Wilson's position, while a pig is involved by becoming bacon. Wilson was a public intellectual, while Chambers became a clandestine spy. Among other things, he recruited Alger Hiss. But as Andre Maulreux wrote to Chambers after reading Witness, "You are one of those who did not return from hell with empty hands." I don't think anyone could say the same of Wilson, who spent his later years collecting the usual medals, prizes, and awards.

So let's return to the problem of the white saviors. Ngo writes,

One familiar tactic is the strategic placement of women at the front of confrontations. When these activists block agents on foot or with vehicles, cameras start recording. Clips of screaming women being arrested are quickly circulated with false narratives claiming innocent women are being “snatched” off the streets arbitrarily.

I witnessed this tactic in 2020 in Portland, when the “Wall of Moms” stood at the front of the mob seeking to burn down a federal courthouse in downtown during the George Floyd riots. Behind the “moms”? Masked Antifa militants in black bloc outfits, hurling rocks, frozen water bottles and explosive devices.

. . . The plan was explicit: confront federal agents and ensure cameras are ready.

For these extremists, the potential cost in human life is worth it, because of the potential political payoff.

These tactics have already fueled online threats and real-world violence against federal officials. They helped spark deadly unrest in Minneapolis and drove an international media frenzy built on lies.

But the basic problem, as I think Whittaker Chambers would recognize, and possibly Wilson as well, is that the moms are all bourgeois romantics. They aren't the sort of insurgents who will work undercover, as Chambers did, at the real tasks of the working-class revolution. Renee Good, uniformly characterized as a mom, tried to run down a CBP agent in a $50,000 SUV. Alex Pretti was less successfully characterized as a nurse, a bicyclist, and an outdoorsman, but the media had to retouch the sketchiness out of his hippie persona to do this.

I've been saying all along that the current leftist alliance is between the upper bourgeoisie and Marx's Lumpenproletariat. It's a creature of the faculty lounge; the true working class isn't involved. Even the Montgmery County, MD Immigrant Rights Collective seems to understand the issues here. At the second link,

"START WITH REALITY (NOT HEROICS)," they wrote, with the soundtrack of a popular protest song, "Que me devuelvan la tierra," which means "Give me back my land."

They wrote, "This is not an action movie. You are not in a one-on-one fight with ICE."

Adding bold emphasis, they noted, "And you are not the center of this situation."

On one hand, Renee Good and Alex Pretti were bourgeois useful idiots. On the other, the people who might actually be clandestine actors like Whittaker Chambers, who might actually further an insurgency, seem to be AWOL. Ngo says,

Earlier this week, a Minneapolis Antifa activist named Kyle Wagner was charged by federal authorities after posting multiple social media videos urging his comrades to acquire firearms to kill federal agents.

But Fox News adds context:

In a video obtained by Fox News Digital, Kyle Wagner, 37, of Minneapolis was arrested in the early morning hours wearing a sweatshirt that said, "I'M ANTIFA," a reference to the far-left organization that the Trump administration has deemed a domestic terrorist group.

Wagner’s bald head and numerous tattoos, including "RESISTANCE" across his chest and a "three arrows" anti-fascist symbol on his neck, have made him a recognizable figure on anti-ICE social media feeds.

Wagner operated an Instagram account under the handle @kaos.follows, where he had amassed tens of thousands of followers before the account was deleted. In his bio, he reportedly used the hashtag #IronFront and described himself as an "entrepreneur."

This is a bourgeois romantic, not an insurgent, no matter how loudly he may claim that's what he is. "This is not an action movie. You are not in a one-on-one fight with ICE." These people will not make a revolution, even Edmund Wilson understood this.

Does Anyone Else Think The Nancy Guthrie Kidnapping Case Is Hinky?

Kidnapping for ransom went out of style with the Lindbergh Baby, but even that case was hinky.

[T]he famous father took personal charge of many aspects of the investigation. He isolated household staff who may have had knowledge of his son’s medical condition from questioning by authorities including J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI. Also, following a cursory autopsy, he ordered the body cremated and the ashes scattered.

And of course, it was a media sensation. Fast forward to the JonBenét Ramsey case, which involved a hinky ransom note, even though the child was later found strangled in the family home. It was also a media sensation, especially due to JonBenét's participation in child beauty pageants. But there are very few parallels in the real world. YouTuber crminal lawyer Bruce Rivers says on his channel, "I've been practicing law for almost thirty years. I've never once seen a kidnapping-ransom case." In other words, all the cases we see seem to be made up by media figures chasing another 15 mionutes of fame, not criminal masterminds.

Add to that trash media TMZ taking an active role in the story, transmitting one of the putative ransom notes:

Harvey Levin on Hannity: "The letter begins by saying she is safe but scared, and they go on to say she knows exactly what the demand is. They are, through us, telling the family exactly what they are demanding, and they are saying that Nancy is aware of it. They are also saying… pic.twitter.com/2GhmZ2zGiJ

— Rantingly (@rantinglydotcom) February 6, 2026

Beyond that, the story involves a media figure, Savannah Guthrie, Nancy's daughter, and it's being pursued most avidly by Megyn "Me Again" Kelly and Ashleigh Banfield, all three middle-aged TV ladies approaching career twilight despite the most determined efforts of medical science:

But even though the case has been in the headlines for a week, I'm not seeing anyone asking straight out if this is all a hoax. So I put the question to Chrome AI mode, "Is the Nancy Guthrie kidnapping a hinky story?" It replied,

The abduction of Nancy Guthrie, the 84-year-old mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie, has been described by both the public and experts as "hinky" or "unusual" due to several bizarre and conflicting details.

While authorities officially maintain it is a kidnapping, several elements have fueled public skepticism and intense investigation:

Precise Timing & Tech Disruption: Surveillance data shows her Ring doorbell was disconnected and physically removed at 1:47 a.m. on Sunday, February 1, 2026. Minutes later, at 2:28 a.m., her pacemaker stopped syncing with her phone, suggesting a medical event or physical intervention.

The "Blood Trail": Investigators found blood splatters on the porch and along the pathway to the driveway, which DNA testing confirmed belonged to Nancy, indicating a violent struggle.

Ransom Confusion: A ransom note sent to news outlets contained "sensitive information" about the crime scene known only to the abductor, yet it lacked a way for the family to contact the author. Additionally, the FBI arrested one "ransom impostor" attempting to profit from the case.

Motive Mystery: Law enforcement stated they do not believe the motive was a standard robbery or home invasion, deepening the mystery of why an elderly woman with limited mobility was targeted.

Family Plead: Savannah Guthrie and her siblings released an emotional video on Instagram stating they are "ready to talk" but demand proof of life due to the ease of AI manipulation.

But not even AI caught that last point: one one hand, the Guthrie family pleads with the kidnapper to talk, but law enforcement thinks the family may be involved:

Police are not ruling out any suspects as they investigate Nancy Guthrie’s disappearance — with Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos refusing to categorically say the son-in-law who last saw her was off their radar.

“We’re actively looking at everybody we come across in this case, we would be irresponsible if we didn’t talk to everybody,” Nanos said when asked by reporters if Nancy’s son-in-law Tommaso Cioni was a suspect.

In fact, nobody's even sure if the various messages from the kidnappers are authentic:

"The FBI and Pima County Sheriff's Department are aware of a new message regarding Nancy Guthrie. Investigators are actively inspecting the information provided in the message for its authenticity," officials wrote on social media.

A hoaxer has already been arrested for another note:

Derrick Callella, 42, is accused of sending the Guthrie family a hoax ransom letter. Authorities initially said Callella was from Torrance, but later clarified that he's from Hawthorne.

Callella was arrested by the FBI in Hawthorne on Thursday and appeared in a Santa Ana federal courtroom on Friday afternoon.

Well, let me see. According to one of these notes, we're not sure exactly which and whether it's real, someone is demanding a gazillion bucks in bitcoin as ransom. Now, who would you think of to kidnap for a gazillion backs in ransom? A relative of Elon Musk? Donald Trump? Bill Gates? Jeff Bezos? Yeah, they all have good security, but someone must have fallen through a crack. Heck, Howard Hughes's aunt was my parents' neighbor, you could have snatched her just like that.

Just a little research would have shown several good candidates among relatives of really rich people. Instead, looking for a gazillion bucks in bitcoin as ransom, they focus on Savannah Guthrie's mother. Nothing fits here.

And why would Savannah Guthrie want to be the focus of national hysteria? After all, the conventional wisdom is that she's safe at NBC:

Guthrie, 50 [no, she's 54 now], has her contract coming up for renewal next year [2025], and honchos are worried she may also decide it’s time to seek new horizons.

The veteran broadcaster, who is purportedly paid more than $8 million a year, has co-anchored “Today” since 2012 and steered the show through the Matt Lauer sex scandal that rocked the network seven years ago.

“Savannah’s contract is coming up next year and they want to keep her and will be doing anything they can to continue their relationship with Savannah as a means of not overhauling everything,” an NBC insider spilled to Daily Mail.

Nevertheless, I smell the same desperation that seems to have been behind the Lindbergh Baby and JonBenét Ramsey cases -- and outside of those, there are almost no similar high-profile kidnapping cases that aren't hoaxes. And just looking at the publicity shots of her and her mom over the past week, I have a deep and troublng sense that we're looking at an attention whore.