From Pine View Farm

Republican Family Values 0

Alabama Republican wants to protect the polity from the poisonous plague known as the Muppets.

The stupid. It burns.

Afterthought:

Wonder if he’s ever seen Mrs. Doubtfire?

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American Stasi 0

Rick Strom reports on ICE agents who are confessing to investigative journalists under promise of anonymity that, under the Trump maladministration, it’s all about the color of the skin.

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Welcome to the Matrix 0

Big Tech fits a person with VR goggles labeled

Click for the original image.

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Phoning It In 0

Apparently, reviewers are finding that the much-vaunted Trump phones don’t actually live up to their billing . . .

Finish reading this post »

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

Yet another “responsible gun owner” performs a random act of politeness.

The 59-year-old victim was walking along the beach in the 3600 block of South Lakeshore Road in Lexington Township with her sister and niece, who live in the Grand Blanc area, around 10:45 a.m. Sunday.

The three women heard a loud sound consistent with a gunshot. Seconds later, the 59-year-old felt a pain in her leg and noticed a wound that started bleeding.

(snip)

The Sanilac County Sheriff’s Office believes the shooting was accidental from someone practice shooting or firing a gun into the air.

Musical NotesGuns and stupid, guns and stupid,
They go together like love and Cupid.
Let me tell you, brother,
You won’t find one without the other.

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QOTD 0

David Lloyd George:

Deception is always a pretty contemptible vice, but to deceive the poor is the meanest of all.

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A Tune for the Times 0

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Republican Thought Speech Police 0

Bruce Schneier and John Penney argue that the actions of the Trump maladministration are having a chilling effect on the exercise of freedom of speech. Their article focuses on college campuses, but methinks it extends much further. Here’s a tiny bit from their article:

What we see isn’t gratuitous government cruelty, chaos or vengeance. Instead, we see a persistent strategy to maximize fear and chilling effects in ways that are corrosive to freedom and democracy.

Research suggests that surveillance, personal threats, uncertainty and abuse of power are key factors in doing so. The federal government has a clear and systematic pattern of employing these very mechanisms across a number of domains far beyond campuses.

They are evident in militarized raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and in journalists being arrested and indicted for reporting on protests. They are made clear in the long list of political enemies the Trump administration has investigated or threatened, including the Federal Reserve chairman. And they can also be seen in the weaponization of technology, including ramping up surveillance to target critics and protestors.

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American Stasi 0

Heavily armed guard outside of ICE Detention Center say,

Click for the original image.

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This New Gilded Age 0

Thom looks at how Ronald Reagan’s legacy of trickle-on economics continues to take its toll, feather the beds of the elite, and erode the middle class.

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The Sure Thing 0

You can bet on more reports like this. It’s a sure thing.

A GOOGLE SECURITY engineer has been charged with crimes stemming from allegedly placing trades on Polymarket using confidential internal information from the tech giant.

We are a broken society.

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The Me Veneration 0

Words cannot express my disgust at our national narcissist’s spreading his taint on pleasuring himself with our nation’s currency.

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Recruitment 0

The editorial board of the Las Vegas Sun looks at Donald Trump’s slush fund and concludes that

This president’s project is to build a private army.

Follow the link and see whether or not they may be onto something.

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QOTD 0

Bill Downs:

The fault of democracy everywhere, including the United States of America, is that too few people make use of it.

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A Tune for the Times 0

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Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. (Updated) 0

Ethical? Fuggedaboutit.

At the Psychology Today website, Cami Rosso reports on a study by researchers at Brown University. Here’s a bit from her article:

“Through ethnographic observations, session evaluations, and interviews with peer counselors and licensed clinical psychologists, we found that LLMs, even the ones prompted to follow evidence-based treatments, breach multiple codes of conduct by generalizing lived experiences (e.g. minimizing identity groups), dominating therapeutic collaboration (e.g., gaslighting users), exploiting user vulnerability through deceptive displays of empathy, unfair discrimination against non-dominant identities, and exhibiting serious limitations in competence, especially when navigating sensitive issues such as trauma, abuse, and suicidal ideation,” the researchers wrote.

Addendum:

SFgate’s Drew Magary is less than thrilled about Google’s decision to force AI on users in its search results.

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The Rule of Lawless, Reprise 0

I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to suggest that, under the Trump maladministration, the Department of Justice is being turned into the Department of Retribution.

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The Rule of Lawless 0

Mary Trump dissects Donald Trump’s gyrations to justify violating the War Powers Resolution to continue to pursue his war of choice with Iran.

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American Stasi 0

NJ.com reports on a nurse who gpt ICEd was treated roughly because she was trying to, well, be a nurse:

Norma Bowe, a registered nurse who runs the Global Grace Health mobile clinic out of the Reformed Church of Highland Park and regularly provides medical support to protesters, said she rushed over after witnessing a federal agent drag the woman and tear off her shirt.

Bowe said that’s when an officer grabbed the back of her shirt and threw her onto the sidewalk.

More mean for the sake of mean at the link.

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“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0

And another “responsible gun owner” feels constrained to flaunt his portable phallus whilst traversing the countryside.

We are a broken society.

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