January, 2024 archive
Putin’s Fifth Column 0
Thomas Geoghegan offers a theory as to why the Trump and the Trumpettes are so hostile to the U. S. aiding Ukraine in its battle to defeat the Russian invaders. Here’s a tiny bit from his article:
The whole piece is worth the few minutes it will take you to read it.
Twits Own Twitter X Offenders
0
It looks like the self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” is at it again.
Still Rising Again after All These Years 0
Patrick Henry once said
It appears that the New Secesh beg to differ. It appears that they are choosing to secede again, only, this time, without bothering to put it in writing.
Dis Coarse Discourse 0
Robert Reich has some suggestions for our news media. A snippet:
Good jounalist should not seek “balance” between truth and lies.
Via Balloon Juice.
The Hunt for Hunter 0
The Arizona Republic’s E. J. Montini highlights the hypocrisy of Republicans’ attempts to smear President Biden by proxy. As background, Hunter Biden agreed to testify in public before the House Oversight and Accountability Committee and Judiciary Committee, declined to do so in private. Now Republican’s are threatening to hold in contempt.
Montini reminds us:
One of those representatives was tough-talking Rep. Jordan, he of the no “special treatment” promise.
Jordan, along with Republican Reps. Kevin McCarthy, Scott Perry, Mo Brooks and Arizona’s own Andy Biggs were subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 committee.
Biggs, Jordan and the others ignored those subpoenas, refusing to testify.
Today’s Republican Party is a vile and loathsome thing.
Deceptive by Design 0
At Psychology Today Blogs, Penn State professor Patrick L. Plaisance looks at the hazards of designing Chatbots and similar “AI” mechanisms (after, that’s what they are: mechanisms) to interact with users (i. e., people) as if said mechanisms were people. For example, he mentions programming them so that they appear to be typing or speaking a response at a human-like speed when, in actuality, they formed their complete response in nano-seconds.
He makes three main points; follow the link for a detailed discussion of each.
- Anthropomorphic design can be useful, but unethical when it leads us to think the tool is something it’s not.
- Chatbot design can exploit our “heuristic processing,” inviting us to wrongly assign moral responsibility.
- Dishonest human-like features compound the problems of chatbot misinformation and discrimination.
A Tune for the Times 0
From the Youtube page:
This week, at a rally, Donnie Bonespurs (aka, Donald Trump) bravely attacked the late John McCain, showing Donnie is scared of no one, at least no one who is dead or severely handicapped. Bonespurs cleverly belittled McCain to his adoring crowd of morons and sycophants, by making fun of how McCain couldn’t even lift his arms (debilitated by years of torture by the North Vietnamese) to vote against gutting Obamacare, having to resort to a very unmanly thumbs down. The heroic Bonespurs, said to write his own brilliant comedy material, showed his followers again that there are no depths to which he will not go to endear himself to a roomful of unpatriotic rubes.
Proud Bonespurs admirer, Falcon E. DeEtte was so impressed by Bonespurs’ fearless assault on a dead war hero, that he wrote this song.
All the News that Fits 0
Thom discusses the explosion 0f “pink slime”–that is, political propaganda masquerading as newspapers and newspaper websites. He also points out that this is a peculiarly right-wing phenomenon (that part starts at about the six minute mark and is well worth a listen).
Gamergate Goes to Harvard 0
Writing at The Philadelphia Inquirer, Will Bunch thinks there’s more than meets the eye in the who-shot-john over ex-Harvard president Claudine Gay. A snippet (emphasis added; follow the link for his reasoning.
But the conservatives who drove the frenzy over Gay care about proper citations in obscure dissertations as much as the misogynistic dudes behind Gamergate pretended their orgy of harassment was actually about ethics in video-game journalism. This was a proxy war over something much, much bigger: Who controls the narrow pipelines into America’s elites, and how to preserve ancient hierarchies around race, gender, economic class, and social status.
Inaction Is an Action 0
Robin Abcarian reminds us of a lesson my Daddy taught me through example:
Voting is not a right. It is a duty.
Election Insurrection 0
David talks with a Capitol Police officer, one who voted for Trump in 2016, about the events of January 6, 2021, when Donald Trump tried to overthrow the goverment of the United States.
