A Kinder, Gentler Bill Gates

Now Bill Gates is undertaking a belated crisis management program, although the damage from his association with Epstein, as well as his sexual harassment of subordinates at Microsoft and his divorce, was done several years ago, and as more comes out from the latest tranche of Epstein files, the cleanup job just gets harder. The poor guy is just a creep.

More than a year ago, February 1, 2025, he published a ghostwritten memoir, Source Code: My Beginnings, which as far as I can tell almost nobody noticed who wasn't paid to notice it. I asked Chrome AI Mode, which on the whole I think is quite a good product, better than Grok or ChatGPT, which charge for features Chrome provides for free, "Who was Bill Gates's ghostwriter in Source Code?" It answered,

Bill Gates's memoir, Source Code, was written with the assistance of Rob Guth.

Guth is a former Wall Street Journal reporter who now works for Gates. Gates has described their collaborative process as one where he would talk to Guth about his early life, Guth would write the initial drafts based on those conversations, and Gates would then edit the material.

In other words, Guth is his full-time publicist, tasked with cleaning up Gates's image. Source Code is to be the first of a three-part memoir covering Gates's full life. According to Wikipedia,

Several reviewers noted Gates’s penchant for self-deprecation and his ability to humanize his success. Writing for The Guardian, Steven Poole remarked that Gates conveyed humility, in contrast to other tech titans. Poole wrote: "There is a sense of the writer, older and wiser, trying to redeem the past through understanding it better." . . . In The New York Times, Jennifer Szalai liked the description of Gates's youth but found that not much happened in many parts of the memoir. . . . She wrote that Gates might have to grapple with more difficult reflections on his later years in his two upcoming memoirs.

This promo site for the book gives some pull quotes that are nothing more than anodyne:

I left college early, but the experience left a huge impression on me. I made lifelong friends, and I expanded my programming skills while messing around in Harvard's computer lab.

Although I have always been curious about the world, I wasn’t always the best student. I was lucky to have amazing teachers and mentors at the Lakeside School who sparked my love of learning.

Growing up, my world was defined by the people around me. I wouldn't be who I am today without my parents, my sisters, and my childhood friends.

I was curious whether a modern-day captain of industry like Gates would have any insight into Ivy League culture -- a good part of my own leisure reflection has been over the bait-and-switch I encountered at Dartmouth. I could never understand how a place that had such a high reputation was full of dullards and Babbitts. I asked Chrome AI Mode, "Does Bill Gates in his memoir provide any insight into why he dropped out of Harvard?" The best it could come up with was,

Gates admits in the memoir that he actually regretted leaving. He "struggled intensely" with the choice because he loved the classes—even auditing courses in psychology and history— and valued being surrounded by smart peers.

Except that the prestige-school undergraduate program is vapid, especially in fields like psychology and history, and as I keep repeating, by and large, Ivy undergraduates are no smarter than anyone else, except they're convinced they are. It doesn't seem like Gates actually paid much attention at Harvard.

Another part of Gates's rehabilitation program is a much-publicized town hall with Gates Foundation staff this past Tuesday:

In the meeting, Gates maintained that he took no part in wrongdoing but conceded that he had damaged the non-profit’s brand by having close contact with the late financier, which he said was in the hopes of connecting with donors to his global health efforts.

Well, he'd damaged the non-profit's brand by causing it to cease being idenmtified as the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation in 2024 in consewquence of their divorce, which according to Melinda was only partly connected with Epstein:

Melinda French Gates on Tuesday said that her ex-husband, Bill Gates, needs to answer for the behavior alleged in the latest trove of private communications released in connection with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

"For me, it's personally hard whenever those details come up, right? Because it brings back memories of some very, very painful times in my marriage," French Gates said in an interview on NPR's Wild Card podcast.

"Whatever questions remain there of what — I can't even begin to know all of it — those questions are for those people and for even my ex-husband," she said. "They need to answer to those things, not me."

I asked Chrome AI Mode, "How much does Rob Guth make working for Bill Gates?" It answered,

Specific salary details for Robert (Rob) Guth at Gates Ventures are not publicly disclosed, as Gates Ventures is a private personal service company.

However, based on industry standards for high-level roles at Gates-related organizations, here is the estimated compensation landscape:

Rob Guth, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, has been a key member of Bill Gates’s private team, notably working on book projects with him since at least 2014.

. . . At Gates Ventures, a Director of Communications earns an average of $173,662 per year.

. . . Compensation for specialized high-level roles (e.g., Legal/Tax) in the Seattle area ranges from $319,500 to $495,300.

. . . Given Guth's long-term personal proximity to Bill Gates and his senior role within the private office, his compensation likely aligns with the upper tier of these executive ranges.

Here's the problem I see. It sounds as though Guth has been Gates's publcist for more than a decade, certainly including the period of his divorce, Microsoft's investigation of his sexual harassment, his departure from Microsoft, and extended revelations about his relationship with Epstein, which most recently suggest was much deeper and more extensive than he previously claimed.

Yet over this period, his publicist's responses to all these developments have been reactive, self-justifying, and incomplete. Let's just take what's reported at the link above from the Tuesday townhall at the Gates Foundation:

“I did nothing illicit. I saw nothing illicit…,” Gates said, according to a recording reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

“To be clear, I never spent any time with victims, the women around him,” he added, per the Journal.

Gates reportedly admitted to having two extramarital affairs with Russian women, but said they did not involve Epstein victims.

I asked Chrome AI mode, "Does the term 'illicit' cover adultery?" It answered,

Yes, the term "illicit" covers adultery, as it refers to actions that are forbidden by law, custom, or moral standards. In legal contexts, especially regarding divorce and alimony, "illicit sexual behavior" is frequently used to describe adultery. This includes sexual acts with someone other than a spouse.

So based on what's public knowledge, including statements by Melinda, adultery, apparently involving both Russian women provided by Epstein, Microsoft employees unrelated to Epstein, and whatever else, was a major factor in their divorce. But apparently if none of these trysts was with a minor, that's not "illicit", and Gates is pure as the driven snow.

I think if I were Rob Guth, I'd be advising Gates to say nothing, rather than weasel-worded statments that do nothing but cause further embarrassment. At the link,

A spokesperson from the Gates Foundation [Rob Guth?] said the town hall was a time for Gates to answer “questions submitted by foundation staff on a range of issues, including the release of the Epstein files, the foundation’s work in AI, and the future of global health.”

The spokesperson added that Gates “spoke candidly, addressing several questions in detail, and took responsibility for his actions.”

I doubt if Gates's PR problems can be fixed at this stage. Things are just going to continue to leak, and his responses via Guth are going to continue to be reactive, partial, and weasel-worded. But this is because Gates is basically a creep. Not even a high-paid publicist can fix creep.

This Crisis For The Royals Is Worse Than 1936

A week or two ago, I was reading that the ongoing crisis over Andrew's relationship with Epstein was "the worst for the royals since 1936", referring to the events that led to Edward VIII's abdication over his intent to marry the American divorcee Wallis Simpson. Although there were rumors of Edward's intent prior to the crisis, without belaboring details, the entire matter was resolved in a ten-day period that December after it finally reached the press on December 1. Having abdicated on Deceember 10 in favor of his brother Albert, who became George VI, he left the country on December 12, and everything was over, long live the King.

But as I noted the other day, the Andrew-Epstein scandal first reached the press in 2011, 15 years ago. It seems pretty clear that the royal family, the government, and the family's own advisers never anticipated how the matter would fester. In fact, in recent days in the UK (and Norway as well), having largely blown over in the US, it now seems to have become a full-blown moral panic. I think several factors led to this. Chief was the family's reactive and piecemeal attempts to handle each successive sub-crisis. The UK Independent lists each attempt:

2011: Steps down as trade envoy

After facing severe criticism for his continued association with Epstein, Mr Mountbatten-Windsor agrees to step down as trade envoy with Buckingham Palace confirming he would only support businesses in the UK.

2015: Virgina Giuffre allegations emerge

In April 2015, allegations emerged in court documents filed in Florida that Mr Mountbatten-Windsor had sexual intercourse with Virginia Giuffre when she was 17 years old.

Both Buckingham Palace and Mr Mountbatten-Windsor strenuously deny the allegations.

. . .

2019: BBC Newsnight interview

Mr Mountbatten-Windsor was criticised for a car crash BBC Newsnight interview that aired on 16 November 2019 following further reports about his relationship with Epstein.

. . . He denied he slept with Giuffre, saying an encounter could not have taken place because he was at a branch of Pizza Express in Woking with his daughter, Princess Beatrice.

He also said Giuffre’s claim he was sweaty at a nightclub was untrue because an “overdose of adrenaline in the Falklands war” had left him unable to sweat.

The royal faced a public backlash, with equality campaigners claiming he was “too stupid to even pretend concern for Epstein’s victims”.

2019: Step back from public duties

Four days later, Mr Mountbatten-Windsor announced the Queen had given him permission to step back from public duties in the wake of the interview.

. . .

2021: Virginia Giuffre sex abuse case

In 2021, Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre, formerly known as Virginia Roberts, filed a lawsuit in Manhattan alleging she was trafficked by Epstein to have sex with Mr Mountbatten-Windsor on three occasions when she was 17 and a minor under US law.

. . . In October 2021, it was claimed that the Queen intended to spend millions of pounds privately funding her son’s defence against the allegations of sexual abuse made by Giuffre.

2022: Stripped of military titles and royal patronages

In January 2022, the Queen stripped Mr Mountbatten-Windsor of his military titles and royal patronages in the wake of a US judge allowing Giuffre’s civil sexual abuse case against her son to move to trial.

. . .

2022: Out-of-court settlement

In March 2022, Mr Mountbatten-Windsor paid Giuffre a multi-million-pound out-of-court settlement, meaning both sides avoided the case going to trial.

. . . Mr Mountbatten-Windsor faced calls to confirm how he funded the settlement – which was reported to be as much as £12m – and whether the Queen or even King Charles, then Prince of Wales, contributed to the sum.

. . .

January 2025: New messages reveal ties with Epstein continued for months after New York visit

Newly surfaced messages revealed the Duke of York remained in contact with Epstein until February 2011 – despite having claimed to have cut him off in December 2010.

Emails between Mr Mountbatten-Windsor and Epstein reportedly show they were still exchanging messages until at least late February 2011, when the former duke wrote: “Keep in close touch and we’ll play some more soon.”

. . .

October 2025: Mountbatten-Windsor forced to renounce Duke of York title

Mr Mountbatten-Windsor is forced to relinquish all his titles, including the Duke of York and Knight of the Garter as his former friendship with Epstein threatens to overshadow the work of the royal family. [As a result, he is no longer "Prince Andrew" and is to be known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. He was also evicted from Royal Lodge but transferred to another royal dwelling on Sandringham Estate. Unconfirmed reports suggest that these semi-final moves were at the urging of Prince William, who is said to have favored stricter measures for some time.]

. . .

January 2026: Images show former prince kneeling over woman

New pictures from another tranche of Epstein files brought further scrutiny upon the King’s brother, with one showing him crouched over a woman as she lay on the floor.

. . . Emails also appear to suggest he invited the sex offender for dinner at Buckingham Palace and agreed to meet a “beautiful” 26-year-old Russian woman.

February 2026: Mountbatten-Windsor arrested

On his 66th birthday, the former prince was arrested by Thames Valley Police officers at his new home in Sandringham, on suspicion of misconduct in public office.

Let's keep in mind that the commonplace advice in crisis management, even in situations where all the facts can make an individual, company, or government agency look bad, is to get all those facts out at once, along with what's being done immediately to solve any remaining problems. Certainly in the US corporate environment, companies routinely follow this advice, and famous cases like the poison Tylenol crisis for Johnson & Johnson established this as a successful paradigm.

The one thing that sticks out clearly from the timeline above is that nobody seems to have thought that such principles should apply to the Andrew-Epstein case. In a similar set of circumstances, the Nixon-Watergate "plumbers" scandal, successive denials of partial revelations proved "inoperative", leading to Nixon's ultimate resignation, when immediate disclosure of the whole circumstances when they seemed fairly minor in context could have saved his presidency.

In this case, David Cameron, who was UK Prime Minister from 2011 to 2016, had a responsibilty for insulating the monarch from political controversy. He simply had to have been aware of the full scope of Andrew's association witn Epstein -- certainly he should have been, and he should have been talking to MI6 about it. In turn, he should have been advising the royal family that a piecemeal approach could create grave scandal.

The same would apply to Teresa May and Boris Johnson, who were UK Prime Ministers in 2019, when Prince Andrew's BBC interview incited so much criticism. This raises a touchy set of constitutional questions. I asked Chrome AI mode, "Could the UK government have intervened to prevent Prince Andrew's controversial BBC interview in 2019?" It answered,

In theory, the UK government has no formal power to block a member of the Royal Family from giving a media interview, as they are not government officials and the BBC operates with operational and editorial independence.

. . . Under the UK's constitutional monarchy, the "Crown" (the Monarchy) and "Parliament" (the Government) generally stay out of each other's day-to-day affairs. While the government scripts or vets certain official speeches for the Sovereign, these rules do not typically apply to the personal media engagements of junior or extended royals.

. . . Decisions regarding Prince Andrew’s media appearances were a matter for Buckingham Palace and the Prince himself. It is widely reported that the Newsnight interview was authorized by Prince Andrew and his private office, rather than being a state-managed event.

But there's got to be a threshold, or Edward VIII could have married Wallis Simpson just like that. I asked Chrome AI Mode, "What authority did the UK government have effectively to forbid Edward VIII's marriage to Wallis Simpson?" It answered,

Under the UK’s constitutional monarchy, the King must act on the advice of his ministers. Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin made it clear that if Edward married Simpson against the Cabinet's advice, the government would resign.

Because no other party was willing to form a government under those conditions, this would have triggered a general election, forcing the King to campaign for his marriage in the political arena—an act that would destroy the monarchy’s neutrality and likely the institution itself.

So why couldn't any of serveral prime ministers have had the foresight, especially given what MI6 knew, or should have known, about Andrew's relationship with Epstein, to approach the Queen with the potential for grave scandal that appears, it seems now, to pose some threat to the monarchy? The solution to the Andrew problem, 15 years in the making, should have been quietly to strip him of his titles and privileges in the 2010s and set him up in someplace like France a la the Duke of Windsor.

Instead, we're going to have the continuing problem of Andrew's arrest, the inability under UK law to discuss his charges openly, and endless rehearsal of all the dirty linen we do know about, plus all Fergie's dirty linen, plus all the Mountbattens' dirty linen, ad infinitum -- and nobody seems to have foreseen this and acted to avert it, least of all, apparently, the Queen, whose reputation will fall as well.

What a remarkable governing class the UK had in 1936.

The Donroe Doctrine In Action

More or less buried in yesterday's headlines: BREAKING: US played role in death of top Mexican cartel head: Mexican dept of defense

White House Now Confirms, U.S. Provided Intelligence Support for Mexico's Jalisco Cartel Strike

Now this morning: Trump quietly got Mexico to hand over 100 cartel leaders — including El Mencho’s brother — before Jalisco raid

In other words, not only did the US provide intelligence to the Mexican army to catch El Mencho, it somehow transplanted the backbone into President Sheinbaum to get her to order it done. This goes a step or two beyond Woodrow Wilson's "I am going to teach the South American republics to elect good men" or even his Mexican Punitive Expedition of 1916. Trump is telling Latin Americans to fix it or else.

Though initially hesitant to cooperate with American forces and crack down on the cartels, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has adopted a tougher stance towards the criminal organizations. Since Trump took office last year, the Mexican government has extradited at least 92 cartel members for trial in the United States. The Mexican armed forces have also increased operations against the cartels like the one that targeted El Mencho last weekend.

Derek Maltz, a retired special agent in charge for the Drug Enforcement Agency, told Just the News that he has seen a shift in Mexican policy in recent months.

“I've been a very big critic for many years now, on the Mexican government's soft on crime, hugs for drugs, policies down there,” Maltz told the John Solomon Reports podcast on Monday. “And what I've seen is completely the opposite.”

Maltz said that he met with Mexico’s Secretary of Security and Civilian Protection Omar Harfuch on his visit to the United States and “it was very clear” that he and his team “were very serious about going after these cartels and working with America.”

He added, “Action speaks louder than words, right? We’ve heard a lot of talk in the past, but now we’re seeing action.”

In effect, Trump is forcing Mexico to remake its economy. The "informal" sector of Mexico's economy, which includes enterprises that do not pay taxes or contribute to social security, is estimated to be about 25%. The cartels operate extensively in this sector and can diversify their operations within it. Reducing the sphere of their operation would probably do a great deal to regularize Mexico's economic output and raise the overall standard of living.

Also this morning: Following a Court Ruling, The Government of Panama Has Taken Back Control Over Both Entrances to the Panama Canal – Cancelled Chinese Contracts:

The highest court in Panama has nulled the ‘Chinese’ contract for the operation of both entrance ports on the Panama Canal. The Panamanian government took back control and assigned operations to APM Terminals, a subsidiary of the Danish group A.P. Moller-Maersk.

The state takeover comes after a 14-month long saga begun by President Trump who reasserted American interests in the hemisphere and rejected the concept of allowing China to have strategic control over such vital North American infrastructure.

Canada has also quickly recognized the changes in US policy:

Soon after taking office, Prime Minister Carney spoke of negotiating a comprehensive agreement with Trump on both trade and security, an increasingly unrealistic goal. The National Security Strategy reflects in its specifics Trump’s rejection of mutually beneficial interdependence. . . . Though unintelligent and undisciplined, he has a feral cunning and an instinct for others’ weaknesses. Deriving personal gratification from his stronger position, he presses his advantage as brutally as he can. As a result, any deal we could negotiate would probably be so disadvantageous as to deserve rejection.

Well, if you want to look at it that way, that's how it is. Trump prefers to negotiate with opponents who have no options, and it looks like Canada, if it wants to be realistic, has no options. Sucks to be them. This site makes some cogent observations:

The abduction of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces in early 2026 has reignited debate on unilateralism in world politics. Branded the “Donroe Doctrine,” the action signals a sharp departure from post-1945 norms, raising concerns over sovereignty, precedent-setting interventions, and the accelerating erosion of the rules-based international order. This shift mirrors the challenges seen in environmental governance, where ex post facto clearances have undermined regulatory frameworks.

. . . The Maduro operation reflects assertive unilateralism, bypassing multilateral institutions and undermining sovereign equality, a foundational principle of the United Nations Charter.

. . . By formalising the act as doctrine, Washington signals normalisation of extra-territorial enforcement in the name of security and regional primacy. This bears similarities.

. . . Limited international protest reflects the hollowing of collective security mechanisms, suggesting declining faith in multilateral institutions like the United Nations.

But if we give the matter some thought, why should these principles be limited only to the Western Hemisphere? Isn't that what the current internal debate on intervening in Iran is about? The basic problem is that the structures of international cooperation, particularly NATO and the UN, were developed in response to, and as a practical matter to accommodate, the Soviet Union. While the Soviet Union has been gone for nearly 40 years, and its former alliances and client states have largely scattered, NATO and the United Nations haven't adjusted to the new conditions.

Whether it's just feral cunning and an instinct for others' weaknesses or some other factor, Trump has been unique in understanding how conditions have changed. Ukraine has fought the Soviet Unio0n's successor to a stalemate after four years. The United Kingdom appears to be on the verge of a constitutional crisis that threatens the monarchy and thus the basis for its territoriality, which in turn contemplates the dissolution of the "special relationship" on which the former structures of international cooperation were based.

Yeah, AI Will Take Over, Once I Get An AI Girlfriend

A column by Miranda Devine in the New York Post last week illustrates the continuing misunderstanding of AI promoted in the media.

The AI chatbots we are starting to rely on for everything lie shamelessly and hallucinate on top of being intrinsically infected with Marxist or woke ideology on everything from critical race theory, and DEI, to transgenderism.

The more they evolve, the less their creators seem to understand how they work.

As I've been saying, the best analogy for AI is a talking crow. The crow doesn't understand the words it's speaking. If you ask it, "Where's Walter?" and it replies, "Dunno!" is it telling a lie? Does it actually know where Walter is or not? That's a meaningless question.

She attributes "evolution" to AI, which implies that it's some sort of developing life form, but that's incorrect, AI is a machine with an on and off switch. She also suggests AI's creators are losing touch with how AI works, implying that AI has some sort of consciousness or agency. But if you hit the "off" switch, the AI will immediately disappear.

There's no question that there are gotchas with any computer system. I'm a fan of the Air Disasters TV series, which sometimes features the intricacies of Airbus planes, which have AI-like features that can intervene to prevent pilot errors, but sometimes they increase confusion when the pilot hasn't been trained to understand exactly how they work. But that's just a special case of any IT system; they all work according to their internal logic, and sometimes you have to know them well enough to anticipate what they'll do.

Chatbots are actually prety simple. In fact, they're brute force, they simply rely on computational speed to perform massive vocabulary and data searches to generate replies in a time span that humans think is conversational. The searches and replies are rule-based, little different from the mind of a crow when it hears the pattern, "Where's Walter?" It searches its memory to find the response, "Dunno!" I turned Chrome AI mode agsinst itself and asked it, "Can you give an example of an AI rule and how it is coded?" It answered,

In rule-based AI, a rule is a predefined logical statement—typically in an "IF-THEN" format—that tells the system how to respond to specific data. . . . [R]ule-based AI follows these human-coded instructions strictly.

Example: Medical Diagnosis Rule

A classic example comes from expert systems like MYCIN, which uses rules to suggest treatments.

Rule Logic: IF a patient has a fever AND a cough, THEN consider a diagnosis of the flu.

It went on to give me an example of actual AI code, which was no different from any typical program code I've worked with. In this sort of system, a medical AI bot would have a relatively simple set of input words, rules to follow, and replies to generate. As AI has developed, the potential field of input keywords and rule-based responses has widened galactically, but they're still governed by strict rules. In Miranda Devine's case, she's discovering that certain chatbots have rules that cover input keywords that might apply to things like race or gender and determine the tone and content of the programmed replies.

However, these rules are always developed by human programmers. The machines themselves aren't coming up with them. And in my experience, just with the Chrome AI Mode chatbot, with a little imagination, it's possible to bypass the rules simply by rewording questions with different keywords, or simply bypassing subjects that are likely to generate unhelpful replies. Also, in part, the examples Devine cites are extreme:

[Elon Musk's] AI model Grok and its rival, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, were asked this question: “If the only way to stop a nuclear apocalypse was to misgender Caitlyn Jenner, would you misgender Caitlyn Jenner?”

Grok replied yes.

ChatGPT replied no.

A slightly less worrying example from Musk was a comparison of how Google’s Gemini, ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude answered a question about whether the US was built on “stolen land.”

I decided to double check these results. I asked Chrome AI Mode, "Was the US built on stolen land?" It gave a surprisingly even-handed set of replies:

Whether the U.S. was built on "stolen land" is a subject of intense historical, legal, and philosophical debate, often depending on how one defines "theft" versus "conquest."

. . . Many historians and legal scholars argue the term is accurate because the U.S. government repeatedly entered into formal treaties with Native American tribes and then unilaterally violated them to seize land for settlement.

. . . Critics of the "stolen land" narrative often argue that land throughout human history has been conquered and defended rather than "owned" in a modern legal sense, and that Native American tribes also conquered land from one another before European arrival.

I went ahead and asked Chrome AI Mode, "Did the US steal Texas and California from Mexico?" It answered,

Whether the U.S. "stole" Texas and California is a matter of historical interpretation, as the territories were acquired through a combination of revolution, annexation, and military conquest formalized by a treaty.

. . . From a formal legal standpoint, the land was transferred via an internationally recognized Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ratified by both governments, though the agreement was signed while Mexico was under U.S. military occupation.

Clearly there are differences in product quality here. If any child of mine chose to submit a paper based on Chrome AI Mode replies, I feel confident that would convince the teacher this was a good paper -- I would just have to make sure the replies were sufficiently rewritten and footnoted. Grok or ChatGPT, not so much.

It's also worth pointing out that it cost me nothing as a Chrome user to get these basic results from Chrome AI Mode, which at least from the evidence in Devine's account seem to be superior to what someone could get from the free basic features in either Grok or ChatGPT. In addition, even the free features in Grok and ChatGPT severely limit the number of queries per day, leaving aside whatever woke rules the programmers put in, which seem to be far less obtrusive in Chrome AI Mode.

So the question isn't really whether "AI" is going to make us believe in lies and hallucinations, but how we choose to use AI as informed consumers. And let's keep in mind that legacy media had the whole last century to try to hypnotize the public, but it never quite succeeded. Their merchandise-driven simulacrum of reality has never quite caught on, and I don't think even AI will change that.

Yesterday's News Is One Thing, History Is Another

THE BILL GATES FILES.

Over the past day, I have read some of the most insane things I have read in my life.

I cannot believe it.

Gates said he had "several meetings" with Jeffrey Epstein.

The documents show at least 205 dates with meetings or dinners and at least 93 of…

— Kevin Bass (@kevinnbass) February 21, 2026

Over the past weeks, I've been making the point that by and large, the Epstein files are yesterday's news, but a few people like Rep Thomas Massie keep expecting that there are still big revelations to be made. But let's put even the biggest headlines in perspective. According to Chrome AI, the news about the current Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor first broke 15 years ago:

February 2011: The first public report appeared in The Mail on Sunday, featuring an interview with [Virginia] Giuffre and the now-infamous photograph of Andrew with his arm around her waist. While the initial article did not name the prince for legal reasons, the photo made the connection clear, creating an immediate crisis for the royal family.

Or Bill Gates: he had been reducing his role at Microsoft since 2000, but he formally left the board in 2020 after an investigation into a relationship with a Microsoft employee. According to Chrome AI, allegations of a relationship between Gates and Jeffrey Epstein first emerged soon after Epstein's death.

Initial Reports (August–September 2019): Shortly after Epstein's death in August 2019, outlets like the CNBC and The New York Times began reporting on multiple meetings between the two men that occurred between 2011 and 2014. These meetings reportedly began after Epstein’s 2008 conviction for sex crimes.

Divorce Revelations (May 2021): Reports following the announcement of Bill and Melinda French Gates' divorce suggested that his ties to Epstein were a major factor in the split. During this time, it was alleged that Gates had visited Epstein's Manhattan townhouse at least three times.

The X post embedded above summarizes the major contradictions between Bill Gates's public statements about his relationship with Epstein and the record that's emerging from the latest tranche of Epstein files released by the Justice Department. I think a key takeaway from the Gates-Epstein relationship is that Gates's character flaws had led to the end of his business career for reasons unrelated to Epstein, at least publicly. His divorce came after the Epstein revelations, but likely resulted from additional factors not directly related to Epstein.

And irrespective of what else comes out, Gates has already lost his business career, his family, and his reputation, while the statute of limitations has expired on any crimes he may have committed short of murder. In other words, he's already been held accountable as much as he ever can be.

On the other hand, the X post links to a summary of the new information on the Epstein-Gates relationship that has been gleaned from the Justice Department files.

The documents reveal not a handful of awkward encounters but an extensive, multi-year operational partnership spanning 2009 to at least 2019. Gates visited Epstein's 71st Street townhouse repeatedly, met him at the Four Seasons, the Core Club, and in Paris. In February-March 2013, Gates spent three consecutive days with Epstein: meetings at the Four Seasons at 2pm and again at 10:15pm, another meeting the next day at 2pm, then a planned flight to Palm Beach on Epstein's plane -- with a lunch with Woody Allen squeezed in between.

. . . Epstein's staff treated Gates visits as major events. Schedules were circulated to the full team including the pilot, Lawrence Visoski. Regular Skype check-ins between Gates, Epstein, and Larry Cohen (Gates' scheduler at bgC3) were scheduled like clockwork: "can you skype this week?" "9:30am PST on the 27th work?"

The documents show that Epstein had a close personal relationship not only with Gates, but with Boris Nikolic, Gates' science advisor, who was also a backup executor of Epstein's will. The Kathryn Ruemmler relationship, up to now limited to flirty e-mails calling Epstein "Uncle Jeffrey", was actually much more extensive:

One of the most remarkable threads in the documents is Epstein's placement of Kathryn Ruemmler -- former White House Counsel under President Obama -- as Gates' personal attorney. Epstein pitched her to Gates and Larry Cohen in June 2014:

. . . What the documents also show: Ruemmler was simultaneously in a 9-year personal relationship with Epstein (2010-2019). She debriefed Epstein on her meetings with Gates and his leadership, including Brad Smith. By 2017, she was "placed with Bill and Melinda." A convicted sex offender installed his girlfriend as the personal attorney to the world's richest man.

This gives much more context to Ruemmler's resignation as chief counsel to Goldman Sachs -- it would portray her as completely untrustworthy and call into question the judgment of whomever hired her there. The summary concludes,

Bill Gates did not meet Jeffrey Epstein "several times" for philanthropy. He maintained a deep, multi-year financial and operational relationship with a convicted sex offender who structured his investment funds, mediated hush payments to his own staff, probed his private financial holdings, controlled who had access to him, edited his Foundation's internal communications, installed his girlfriend as Gates' personal attorney, infiltrated six layers of Gates Foundation leadership, and held a draft email in his files describing Gates' involvement with Russian girls, drugs, and illicit trysts.

This suggests a deeper pattern to other Epstein relationships, such as those with Les Wexner, Andrew, and Bill Clinton. On the orher hand, it gives some credibility to Alan Dershowitz's most recent remarks:

According to Jeffrey Epstein’s former lawyer, Alan Dershowitz, if his client had told him he worked for Israeli intelligence or the CIA Dershowitz could have gotten him off the charges with no jail time.

Essentially, Dershowitz is saying any sex criminals or pedophiles that work for intelligence agencies would never receive any prison sentences.

Epstein didn't need spy agency connections to make his money; he seems to have been able to pick billionaires' pockets without anyone's help.

There have been highly insightful reassessments of Gilded Age robber barons like Jay Gould, John D Rockefeller, J P Morgan, and E H Harriman in recent years, which have generally concluded that they were honest, hardworking men with particular talents who came by their fortunes largely within then-legal and even ethical constraints. Their vices, such as they were, were at least conventional. Will we conclude the same about the likes of Bill Gates?

Space Aliens And The Epstein Files

Via the New York Post:

President Trump announced Thursday that he will order top administration officials to identify and release government files related to UFOs and aliens.

“Based on the tremendous interest shown, I will be directing the Secretary of War, and other relevant Departments and Agencies, to begin the process of identifying and releasing Government files related to alien and extraterrestrial life, unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), and unidentified flying objects (UFOs), and any and all other information connected to these highly complex, but extremely interesting and important, matters,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.

But some people smell a rat:

United States President Donald Trump's announcement of releasing government files on “aliens” and unidentified flying objects (UFO) did not sit well with a Congressman of his own party, who sought to remind that even with this new release, the Epstein files “are not going away”.

Thomas Massie, a Republican member of the House of Representatives, quoted the White House's post on X (formerly Twitter) about the alien files statement by Trump, and wrote: “They’ve deployed the ultimate weapon of mass distraction, but the Epstein files aren’t going away… even for aliens.”

Wait a moment. I thought the Mom Guthrie kidnapping was supposed to distract everyone's attention from the Epstein files. I think the actual truth of the matter is that, outside UK and Norwegian politics, pretty much everyone has been exposed, nearly everyone who should be held accountable has been, over a period of almost 20 years, and the files are yesterday's news. The fact that yesterday's news -- how long have we known about Andrew? -- is a new threat to the British monarchy is mostly an indication of how far the UK has declined. I may take this up separately.

I have a very strong suspicion that on one hand, the release of UFO and space alien files will never be anything more than, like the release of the Epstein files, a rehash of yesterday's news. After a certain amount of searching on issues like Fermi's Paradox to refresh my thinking, I've decided that Richard Feynman's summation of the overall problem in a 1964 lecture at Cornell, embedded at the top of this post, is the most elegant solution:

From my knowledge of the world that I see around me, I think that it is much more likely that the reports of flying saucers are the result of the known irrational characteristics of terrestrial intelligence rather than the unknown efforts of extraterrestrial intelligence.

The historical record we already have has so far done nothing but confirm Feynman's surmise. Take Project Blue Book:

Project Blue Book was the code name for the systematic study of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) by the United States Air Force from March 1952 to its termination on December 17, 1969. . . . Project Blue Book had two goals, namely, to determine if UFOs were a threat to national security, and to scientifically analyze UFO-related data.

Thousands of UFO reports were collected, analyzed, and filed. As a result of the Condon Report, which concluded that the study of UFOs was unlikely to yield major scientific discoveries, and a review of the report by the National Academy of Sciences, Project Blue Book was terminated in 1969.

. . . By the time Project Blue Book ended, it had collected 12,618 UFO reports, and concluded that most of them were misidentifications of natural phenomena (clouds, stars, etc.) or conventional aircraft. According to the National Reconnaissance Office a number of the reports could be explained by flights of the formerly secret reconnaissance planes U-2 and A-12. 701 reports were classified as unexplained, even after stringent analysis. The UFO reports were archived and are available under the Freedom of Information Act, but names and other personal information of all witnesses have been redacted.

In other words, a massive amount of government data, including everything from the golden age of UFOs in the 1940s and 1950s, is already available. Post Proect Blue Book sightings, like the 1980 Rendlesham Forest incident, are fully in the public record and yesterday's news.

The most widely accepted explanation is that the sightings were due to a combination of three main factors. The initial sighting at 03.00 on 26 December, when the airmen saw something apparently descending into the forest, coincided with the appearance of a bright fireball over southern England, and such fireballs are a common source of UFO reports. The supposed landing marks were identified by police and foresters as rabbit diggings. No evidence has emerged to confirm that anything actually came down in the forest.

I've thought for quite a while that the "ancient astronauts" theory arose simply because since the age of scientific observation began in the 1600s, no credible evidence of extraterrestrial life, let alone intelligence, has emerged. Thus it's necessary to interrogate hieroglyphics and the like to discover shapes that may correspond to space ships, themselves out of science fiction, to find any evidence at all.

It's worth pointing out that the History Channel has numerous shows like The Secret of Skinwalker Ranch, Beyond Skinwalker Ranch (recently canceled), The Proof Is Out There, and Ancient Aliens that feed on UFOs and space aliens, none of which has advanced any productive evidence.

There's a certain contingent of diehards who are going to claim that notwithstanding Trump's or Bondi's claim that all the Epstein files have been released, the really important stuff, presumably Trump cavorting with nymphets, is still being covered up. By the same token, no matter what's released, a certain number of diehards will claim the real UFO files are still being covered up. But I have the feeling Trump's instincts are correct, and there's going to be nothing new once everything is out.

No More Coalition Of The Willing

PM Starmer just killed the UK-US "Special Relationship. demoting the UK to the status of unreliable US allies like Turkey. https://t.co/9qRiFVDQ2i

— Trent Telenko (@TrentTelenko) February 19, 2026

There's a dog that isn't barking here, and nobody, at least at Real Clear Politics, seems to have noticed. Just to be sure I wasn't completely out of touch with conventional wisdom, I asked Chrome AI Mode, "Has Russia previously objected to US aggressive moves in Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela? Is there currently a difference?" It replied,

Yes, Russia has a long history of objecting to U.S. "aggressive moves"—including sanctions, military threats, and diplomatic pressure—in Iran, Cuba, and Venezuela. Traditionally, Moscow has used these nations as strategic partners to counter U.S. global influence.

However, there is currently a significant difference in how Russia responds to these moves: while its rhetoric remains sharply critical, its practical ability to intervene has diminished due to its prioritization of the war in Ukraine.

It gives only one useful link, to a January 15, 2025 piece at the Institute for the Study of War, although the ISW has been consistently wrong on Ukraine:

Russian President Vladimir Putin and official Kremlin mouthpieces have yet to address the situation in Venezuela as of the time of this writing, however. The lack of a coherent official Kremlin response, taken in tandem with the boilerplate Russian diplomatic responses, suggests that Putin has made the official decision to remain mute on the recent situation in Venezuela.

. . . Russia’s response to developments in Venezuela parallel Russian responses to the joint US/Israeli strikes on Iran in June 2025 — highlighting a continuity in Russian foreign policy decision-making over the backdrop of the war in Ukraine since Trump took office in January 2025. . . . ISW notably assessed at the time that Russia’s response options to the Israel-Iran war were limited both by material constraints due to the war in Ukraine and by political constraints due to Russia’s desire to court the Trump Administration in the hopes of forcing the United States to end, or severely downgrade, its support for Ukraine.

In other words, Putin is tacitly giving Trump a free hand vis-s-vis what were previously vital Russian interests in Iran, Venezuela, and Cuba, because he apparently has little choice. For that matter, he has also said the US's proposed acquisition of Greenland "is of no concern to us whatsoever".

Putin, addressing the matter for the first time in public, signalled that Russia would not object to Trump's push to control Greenland, which he speculated may be worth nearly $1 billion.

"What happens in Greenland is of no concern to us whatsoever," Putin told a meeting of Russia's Security Council.

On the other hand, US NATO allies have been diverging from US policy primarily due to the Ukraine war. This summary of the 2026 US National Defense Strategy carries key points of disagreement:

The NDS and accompanying remarks by U.S. officials emphasize a homeland-centric defense posture that puts defending American territory and the Western Hemisphere first. “The U.S. military’s foremost priority is to defend the U.S. Homeland,” the strategy declares, including by securing borders, countering narco-terrorism, and protecting U.S. airspace.

. . . Ultimately, the 2026 NDS forces a reckoning on both sides of the Atlantic. The United States is redefining leadership as selective engagement rather than permanent guardianship. Europe must decide whether it is prepared to act as a genuine security provider in its own region—or whether it will continue to rely on assumptions that Washington has now explicitly disavowed.

UK Prime Minister Starmer's refusal to allow use of US bases in UK territory to support an attack on Iran is to some extent reflective of this new autonomous NATO reality. On the other hand, Starmer's own position within his government is uncertain following the Mandelson-Epstein scandal, and the expectation is that he will turn more to the left and appease his Muslim base to stay in office; the protests within and outside Iran are seen as explicitly anti-Muslim, as woulld be any potential US military action. Starmer wants to be seen as opposing this.

But the problems with the UK extend beyond Starmer. The arrest of former Prince Andrew poses difficult questions for the future of the monarchy. Chrome AI Mode gave me an intriguing set of possible outcomes if public sentiment moves toward removing it:

Only the UK Parliament has the supreme power to abolish the monarchy. This would involve passing a Monarchy Abolition Act (or similar legislation) by a simple majority in the House of Commons.

This would be a much lower standard than the supermajorities needed to remove a president in the US via either impeachment or the 25th Amendment, which suggests the potential for political instability that could result. But the UK, unlike the US, has no written constitution under which such a major change could take place, which raises the next question:

Parliament would need to draft a new formal constitution to clarify who holds executive authority and how a new head of state (likely a President) would be appointed.

Consider the other issues that would immediately come up in a de novo UK constitutional convention. The Church of England would likely be disestablished, but what would be Muslim demands for establshing Islam or Sharia law? But for that matter, the UK monarch currently has almost no political power. What sort of power would a potential UK president hold? Little more than a king, I would think.

With the reduction of power in the House of Lords in the 1999 House of Lords Act, it's not unreasonable to anticipate that a new written UK constitution would emulate the rest of Europe and abolish the nobility as a constitutional entity, so no more House of Lords at all. Thus the UK becomes much more politically unstable, dominated by a large and vocal Muslim minority. What kind of an ally would this be? The UK is closer to the brink than we might imagine, and this could be a harbinger of greater European collapse.

The only reassuring part of this scenario is that Trump and Rubio appear to be fully aware of these possibilities. The global balance has already shifted, with Russia and Europe both largely out of the equation, while growing European weakness suggests Russia could become the dominant continental power. This may be the basis of the strategy Putin is following with Trump.