2023 archive
News that Should Never Have Been 0
Stephen takes a brief look at some rather disturbing recent events.
A Notion of Immigrants 0
Paul Krugman uses data and facts–remember data and facts?–to skewer the bigots’ arguments that immigrants take jobs away from American citizens. A snippet:
Follow the link for the data and facts.
The Pusher Men 0
Sam and Peter Mougey discuss the merchants of addiction.
Persons Sometimes Forget: Words Have Meanings 0
I think my old Philly DL friend Noz might be onto something.
Precedented 0
Gene Collier, writing at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, says that the behavior of Donald Trump and his dupes, symps, and fellow travelers remind him of a book he recently read.
What’s the book? you might ask?
QOTD 0
Josephine Tey:
When a man’s personality is entirely facade, . . . it was dfficult to decide how much of the facade was barricading and how much was mere poster-hoarding.
Tey, Josephine (Elizabeth MacKintosh), To Love and Be Wise (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2020) p. 126
(Sticky) Meta: Migration 0
The operating system of the VPS (virtual private server) provided by my hosting provider has reached EOL (end of life). Sometime soon, my hosting provider will migrate this site to a new, currently supported OS.
This site may be unavailable for a bit, hopefully for no more than a few hours. But it will not go away.
Update 2023-12-23:
I have been notified that migration is scheduled for December 28. Expect little or no posting on that day.
If all goes well, normal (?) activity will resume with minimal interruption.
This New Gilded Age 0
No rooms for the weary: E. J. Montini writes of the shortage of affordable housing for working people in the Sedona, Arizona’s mystical mecca for tourists. Here’s a tiny nugget (emphasis added):
So much so, that the city may designate an area at Sedona Cultural Park, normally a performance venue, as a place where working people living in their cars will be able to stay safely.
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
I tried a couple of titles for this post, but I eventually realized that what we are seeing is the New Secesh still rising again, so I recycled a recurring title, because it reflects a recurring theme.
If you are brave enough look behind the rhetoric of Trump and his dupes, symps, and fellow travelers, what you will see is racism, bigotry, and hate.
And hate sells, because hate allows persons to avoid responsibility, to avoid caring, to avoid thought.
The Privatization Scam 0
Eric Foster calls out the school voucher con for the underhanded fraud that it is: a violation of the public trust and of governments’ fiduciary duty to the citizenry. Here’s a bit (emphasis added):
I comment his entire piece to your attention.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. (Updated) 0
Gwynne Dyer doesn’t seem to believe they hype about AI. A bit from his piece about the recent “AI Safety Summit” at Bletchley Park:
There is plenty to worry about in how “smarter” computer programs will destroy jobs (now including highly skilled jobs), and also in how easy it has become to manipulate opinion with deep fakes and the like.
Addendum:
Bruce Schneier suggests “ten ways in which AI will change democracy.”