The Climates They Are a-Changing . . . 0
. . . and the Trump maladministration is all for the day when Richmond, Virginia, will once more be a beachfront.
I fear for my grandchildren.
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Guns and whiskey, guns and whiskey.
Don’t mix them together when you’re feeling frisky,
Because if you do, my brother,
You’ll let yourself in for a spot of bother.
One more time, “responsible gun owner” is an oxymoron.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
Corrosive? At the Psychology Today website, Cornelia C. Walther reports that “(r)esearch found that AI improved efficiency while eroding underlying expertise and agency.”
To put it another way, relying on AI to do our thinking for us may make us dumber.
Just Deserts 0
Warning: Mild language.
“History Does Not Repeat Itself, but It Often Rhymes”* 0
Bloomberg’s Max Hasting hears a rhyme:
I cheated by putting my first sentence above in the present tense. These words were, in fact, written in July 1914 by Germany’s Albert Hopman, about Kaiser Wilhelm II.
Follow the link for the rhyme.
(Broken link unbroken.)
______________________
*Mark Twain.
Republican Thought Police 0
At SFgate, a report of the purging of the history of the Blackfeet people at Glacier National Park contains this nugget (emphasis added);
Methinks an edit is called for and that this phrasing more accurately describes what’s going on here:
- They want to “restore truth and sanity to American history” as long as the truth does not “disparage white, racist Americans past or living.”
The Bad Bunny Hop, Reprise 0
Sam and the crew dissect what MAGA’s furor over Bad Bunny at the Super Bowl tells us about the culture war mongers.
This New Gilded Age . . . 0
. . . and Michael in Norfolk thinks he knows who the robber barons are.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
Promoting passivity? At Psychology Today Blogs, John Nosta posits that the risk of AI “isn’t machine thought, but emergent passivity in us.”
QOTD 0
John Nettles, in the voice of DCI Tom Barnaby:
Now that answers about a dozen questions. If only I knew what they were.
Break Time 0
Off to drink liberally.
The Rule of Lawless Meets a Notion of Immigrants 0
The EFF reports that the Trump maladministration wants to track those who disagree with its tactics. A snippet:
These subpoenas are unlawful, and the government knows it. When a handful of users challenged a few of them in court with the help of ACLU affiliates in Northern California and Pennsylvania, DHS withdrew them rather than waiting for a decision.
These subpoenas are unlawful, and the government knows it.
Smoot-Hawley Redux 0
Farron discusses how much Trump’s tariffs are costing American consumers.
I think those folks who claim that Donald Trump truly doesn’t understand how tariffs work may be onto something.
Words Have Meanings, American Stasi Dept. 0
At Above the Law, Jonathan Wolf reports that :ICE “kidnapped” some of the staff of his favorite burrito shop. Later on in the article, he explains his use fo that term (emphasis added):
The color of someone’s skin or the fact that they speak English with an accent does not amount to probable cause.
Republican Thought Police, Still Rising Again after All These Years Dept. 0
It’s no jump to claim that the Trump maladministration wants to erase history that puts the lie to their prejudices.