“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
There’s no politeness quite like neighborly politeness.
DOGE Bull 0
Ring of Fire discusses a whistleblower’s report that DOGE compromised almost every living American’s social security number by uploading them to the cloud.
Afterthought:
Just because someone knows how to make computers dance jigs, it doesn’t mean he or she knows how stuff works in the bigger wider world.
Q. E. D.
Republican Thought Police 0
The editorial board of the Las Vegas Sun finds it distressing that the Trump maladministration is coming after an honorably-discharged veteran for having the unmitigated gall to peacefully stand up to Donald Trump’s not-so-secret police. Here’s a tiny bit from their editorial:
Take note that Mavalwalla is not accused of striking officers, vandalizing vehicles or destroying property. While some other participants were arrested at the time of the protest, Mavalwalla wasn’t among them. Nor is he accused of participating in any violence or property destruction. Instead, weeks later, on the day he was moving into a new home with his girlfriend and children, the FBI arrived at dawn, shackled him in front of his family and charged him with “conspiracy to impede or injure officers.” He now faces the possibility of a $250,000 fine, up to six years in prison and an additional three years of supervised release.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
Mind-numbing? At Psychology Today Blogs, Cornelia C. Walther warns that relying on AI can dumb us down. A snippte:
She goes on to offer some techniques to negate the negative.
In related new, El Reg reports on the newly-instituted AI Darwin Awards.
QOTD 0
Maximilien Robespierre:
The secret of liberty is to enlighten men, as that of tyranny is to keep them in ignorance.
Establishmentarians 0
The man who is arguably the most irreligous person in America has now come out as an establishmentarian.
So we should ask that question that should always be asked of establishmentarians: What’s in it for him?
Because establishmentarianism is always, when you boil it down, about power and control, never about souls.
The Bill of Particulars 0
At Above the Law, the actions of the Trump maladministration lead Mark Hermann to ask a question:
Follow the link for the list of Trump’s actions which made him pose that question.
A Notion of Immigrants 0
Writing at the Inky, Jenice Armstrong finds herself dismayed the Trump maladministration’s attempts to retaliate against Congresswoman LaMonica McIver for trying to do her job.
No summary of excerpt can capture the scope and nuance of Armstrong’s piece. Just go read it.
A Tune for the Times 0
From the Youtube page:
This may not be one of Paul Simon’s most successful songs, but it was a fun vibe to work up at the start of a new school year – getting instruments out for the first time since a summer holiday. The original was the second single from the album “Paul Simon” (released 1972) and the inscrutable story in the lyrics is set in the Queens neighbourhood where he grew up. By coincidence, it was apparently performed with Stephen Colbert in 2015 on The Late Show – the programme that this week tore into Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s record and showed some of his fiery testimony in the Senate, an episode which also made it into European news coverage (story here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c….
Needless to say, the world is watching with alarm the compromising of America’s public health systems, including the dismantling of the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) – which has now lost its chief medical officer, director of immunisation, and director of emerging diseases (among many others) – while misinformation spreads, rates of vaccine uptake plummet, new outbreaks of measles kill again, and some states gallop headlong towards removing mandates that had the overwhelming backing of the scientific and medical communities.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
A tool for learning? At Psychology Today Blogs, Michael Hogan warns us that “(o)ver-reliance on AI risks eroding students’ knowledge and skill development through reduced cognitive effort.”
The Interview 0
At the Portland Press-Herald, R. Mark Bernstein asks, “If you needed a job done, would you hire a person with this resume?”