Wednesday, May 31, 2023
Hype Machine
Quite impressed the SV guys are going with, "AI will change the world and be worth trillions, also it might destroy the world, also you must give us more money and protect us from competition so we can make sure it doesn't destroy the world."
It's just a fancy chatbot. We're no closer to "AI" than we were 20 years ago.
(I am sure someone will disagree with that, but really we're not)
It's just a fancy chatbot. We're no closer to "AI" than we were 20 years ago.
(I am sure someone will disagree with that, but really we're not)
The Sensibles
Regularly there are issues that the sensible centrist commentariat decides they are Serious about and anyone to the left is childish, ridiculous, and, especially, hurting their own cause. I don't think The Left or any of its meager institutions are perfect, of course, but The Sensibles are always claiming that there are compromises to be had that no one has actually put on the table, and that magically align with just what The Sensibles want.
Somehow it's always The Left - the most powerless political group unless you define power as "ability to annoy me on twitter" - who fail to embrace these compromises and not, you know, The Chamber of Commerce.
Basically it's always like the mythical "abortion compromise" that only exists in their heads. If only those PRO-ABORTION EXTREMISTS had been willing to compromise (party with whom they are supposed to compromise unspecified) then abortion would still be legal. That kind of thing.
This Dave Roberts thread is about energy transmission, with the basic punchline:
Not understanding - or pretending not to understand - who actually has power is one of their issues.
Somehow it's always The Left - the most powerless political group unless you define power as "ability to annoy me on twitter" - who fail to embrace these compromises and not, you know, The Chamber of Commerce.
Basically it's always like the mythical "abortion compromise" that only exists in their heads. If only those PRO-ABORTION EXTREMISTS had been willing to compromise (party with whom they are supposed to compromise unspecified) then abortion would still be legal. That kind of thing.
This Dave Roberts thread is about energy transmission, with the basic punchline:
Details matter, and the "compromise" only exists in the heads of the people who are used to getting everything they want. When they don't, they imagine that it's the meddling kids who are to blame instead of THE FUCKING FOSSIL FUEL LOBBY.Turns out, if you lie down with a bunch of people who want more fossil fuels & less clean energy, you wake up with ... more fossil fuels & less clean energy. But at least you got a few sweet, sweet months of lecturing activists about not being Serious.
— David Roberts (@drvolts) May 29, 2023
Not understanding - or pretending not to understand - who actually has power is one of their issues.
Tuesday, May 30, 2023
Occasionally Throw One Into The Volcano To Appease The Gods
So rare for "white collar" criminals to actually go to prison.
BRYAN, Texas (AP) — Disgraced Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes is in custody at the Texas prison where she will spend the next 11 years serving her sentence for overseeing an infamous blood-testing hoax, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Quite The Day For The Guardian Media Group
Gotta get more bigoted!
In mid-April, a group of senior writers and editors at The Guardian met as part of the company’s ‘Diversity and Inclusion Week’ to discuss pushing gender-critical narratives ‘fearlessly,’ with the paper’s anti-trans slant clearly not enough for them.
The Chris Christie Decade
I see the column from Michelle Cottle was just the initial push for their old favorite GOP Daddy, Chris Christie. Maggie's going all in.
"We love GOP politicians who yell at people, so virile and manly" seems to be the common theme of their political crushes. Michelle Cottle said as much.
Bullies yelling at each other! Now this is the politics we crave! Everything else is BOORRRRIIIING.
"We love GOP politicians who yell at people, so virile and manly" seems to be the common theme of their political crushes. Michelle Cottle said as much.
Getting a NYT columnist to promote you just before a NYT journalist goes big with your SUPER PAC and likely presidential campaign, that's just smart politicking, baby.
The Worst News Media On The Planet
That fucking newspaper has been doing good reporting on the UK media, which contrary to the views of many Americans who imagine it's all like BBC World Service, is, genuinely, the worst in the world.
Spiked because they're all jolly chums, basically.
Inside The Financial Times newsroom this winter, one of its star investigative reporters, Madison Marriage, had a potentially explosive scoop involving another newspaper.Cohen's about as left wing as peak "Chris Hitchens screaming about Clinton, Islamofascism, and the Iraq war" which is to say not at all, but he was coded as such. You'll struggle to find anything left wing in anything he has ever written. This is a good example from the era.
A prominent left-wing columnist, Nick Cohen, had resigned from Guardian News & Media, and Ms. Marriage had evidence that his departure followed years of unwanted sexual advances and groping of female journalists.
Spiked because they're all jolly chums, basically.
But her investigation on Mr. Cohen, which she hoped would begin a broader look at sexual misconduct in the British news media, was never published. The Financial Times’ editor, Roula Khalaf, killed it, according to interviews with a dozen Financial Times journalists.It was the Russians and transgenders wot did it!
...
The British news media is smaller and cozier than its American counterpart, with journalists often coming from the same elite schools. Stringent libel laws present another hurdle. And in a traditional newsroom culture of drinking and gender imbalances, many stories of misconduct go untold, or face a fight.
In a phone interview, Mr. Cohen said he did not have the “faintest idea” about Ms. Siegle’s accusation and questioned why she had waited so long to report it. He said the conversation with the copy editor was “joking” among friends. He blamed their accusations on a campaign by his critics, including advocates for Russia and for transgender rights.
Monday, May 29, 2023
Oh They're Just Stupid
Don't worry I'm not going spend a dozen posts reminiscing about the glorious Iraq war years, but it is, I think, important to remember just how stupid that era was. It revealed just how stupid even the supposedly smart pundits were. Tom Friedman is no Jonah Goldberg but, actually, he is!
If Tom Friedman Is That Transparently Stupid And Awful
Then what must we think of the people who think/thought he's smart?
Happy Suck On This Day! 20th Anniversary!
It was 20 years ago today...
I think it [the invasion of Iraq] was unquestionably worth doing, Charlie.
...
We needed to go over there, basically, um, and um, uh, take out a very big stick right in the heart of that world and burst that bubble, and there was only one way to do it.
...
What they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house, from Basra to Baghdad, um and basically saying, "Which part of this sentence don't you understand?"
You don't think, you know, we care about our open society, you think this bubble fantasy, we're just gonna let it grow?
Well Suck. On. This.
Okay.
That Charlie was what this war was about. We could've hit Saudi Arabia, it was part of that bubble. We coulda hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could. That's the real truth.
Poolshare
I have no deep thoughts on this but was amused.
The sounds of summer fun ripple up from ads for Swimply, an app that allows homeowners to rent out private pools to strangers looking to enjoy cool water under the hot sun. But that seasonal chorus has sharply divided suburban residents of Montgomery County as the local government considers formally regulating the short-term amenity rentals — potentially becoming the first in the nation to do so.Precisely the type of activity that single use zoning is designed to prevent.
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