Category: Politics

The stupidity to which American citizenship condemns us all.

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Too Much Press for the Craven and Cowardly

If one is not comfortable with employment in a company whose CEO is fawning over the chief competitor’s CEO, then why would one vote for a politician who fawns over the nation’s mortal enemy? Nigel Farage’s unalloyed admiration for Vladimir Putin makes him nothing short of a traitor to his nation and to humanity. Were the UK dominated by a sensible government like that of Winston Churchill’s, Farage would have been isolated as Oswald Mosely was. Instead, Farage is granted every courtesy of a normal politician, rather than jail time. Prison is the only appropriate dwelling for craven reprobates who worship despots. The United Kingdom is another bastion of freedom dangerously close to losing its way and its privileges.

The Reform UK leader told the BBC that “of course” the war was President Vladimir Putin’s fault.

Source: West provoked Ukraine war, Nigel Farage says

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“I’m with Stupid”: OpenAI’s Naked Desperation and Cynicism

Given that OpenAI’s ChatGPT is only slightly less prone than other artificial “intelligence” engines to hallucination, outright deceit and manifest stupidity, the only reason that one can surmise for their decision to train their engines on the output of a media company that is proudly committed to deception, propaganda and ideological and racial biases is that the ostensible newspaper of record is suing them in court. The decline of the New York Times is not a matter of debate, but it has, thus far, not plunged to the depths of irrelevance and rank incompetence as the NewsCorp properties. It is the manifestation of Sam Altman’s mania and ruthlessness. Though he is running a business that hinges entirely on whether his “intelligent” algorithms return correct answers, he is willing to sacrifice the entire endeavor to avenge the New York Times. Sam Altman is committing himself to the ugliest legacy in Silicon Valley: Musk’s.

Sam Altman-led OpenAI has signed a deal that will give it access to content from some of the biggest news publications owned by media conglomerate News Corp , the companies said on Wednesday. Source: Sam Altman’s OpenAI signs content agreement with News Corp | Reuters

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Netanyahu’s Political Parachute is not a War

The gross insult in the entire affair in Gaza is that most media buy into the Netanyahu propaganda point that this is a war. Wars are fought between nations, between governments or between armies organized by one of the former entities. Hamas is neither a government nor a representative body of any Palestinian constituency. Hamas is not an organized military by any stretch of the definition, and the only task of which it is capable is the wholesale slaughter of unarmed civilians: a hallmark of imbeciles, not of trained soldiers. Hamas’s ineptitude at conducting warfare is manifested repeatedly when they have to be ferreted out by force from hospitals and schools and by the ease with which Israel has reduced the region to rubble.

The military incursion into Gaza is just that: a military incursion. It is not a war. In the absence of any military resistance, the Israeli military is not conducting war. It is just as gross an insult to the Israeli military to pretend that Hamas’s imbeciles are worthy adversaries. Those who accept the “war” ascription are deprecating the vaunted Israeli military to the level of Hamas’s imbecile terrorists. It will be a point of shame and utter humiliation for the Israeli army to assert that it is fighting a worthy adversary.

Continue reading “Netanyahu’s Political Parachute is not a War”
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By Embracing Cynicism, ADL Risks Its Authority

The Antidefamation League fulfills an important, essential function in exposing, explaining and countering hate in the world, but it’s difficult to paint its high profile “Campus Antisemitism Report Card” as anything other than a cynical concession to pressures it is getting as a member of the Israeli media PR juggernaut. Uncharacteristic of the ADL, the document completely lacks context for the activities that it claims to use in rendering the grades. No explanation is offered of what CCI means, of what “active Jewish life” means, of what “recent anti-zionist student government activity” means. There is nuance in what students express, and none of these measures offers any insight into or indication of whether antisemitism has gained converts on campuses, or whether The ADL’s grading criteria can measure the acceptance of antisemitism on campuses. Critically, ADL makes no attempt to disprove the notion that the same minority of biased students are simply more vocal now. Even worse, the ADL makes no attempt to distinguish between activities that are protected by the first amendment and activities that do not violate campus rules.

Antisemitism on campuses is not news. Antisemitism has been equally pervasive on campuses as it has been in the society at large. The ADL has gone against its mission to bring clarity to issues of hate by muddying the waters. What makes this “report card” so pernicious is that it is so cynical: the ADL is propagating many stereotypes that it is committed to fight as a part of its mission. The US may have lost one more feeble speed bump against madness.

Source: Campus Antisemitism Report Card | ADL

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New York Papers Eat It on Disparaging San Francisco

The two top New York newspapers, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, have been conducting two seemingly coordinated campaigns of disparagement against San Francisco’s cultural and economic preeminences over the past decade. The two papers amplify the most irrelevant stories of misery in San Francisco and quash stories of San Francisco’s economic resilience and its irreplaceable and unrivaled creative and generative DNA. The paradigmatic stories revolved about the massive coverage they gave the departure of Tesla and Oracle headquarters to Austin, TX, and the total lack of coverage they gave to the fact that the most critical Tesla and Oracle HQ staff ultimately returned to the Bay Area. Even the meatiest portion of this story in the Journal carefully avoids providing scale to San Francisco’s economic prowess:

San Francisco has largely weathered the broader crunch in startup funding. Investment in Bay Area startups dropped 12% to $63.4 billion last year. By contrast, funding volumes for Austin, Texas, and Los Angeles, two smaller tech hubs, dropped 27% and 42%, respectively. In Miami, venture investment plunged 70% to just $2 billion last year.

Source: Tech Leaders Fled San Francisco During the Pandemic. Now, They’re Coming Back. – WSJ

It is particularly telling that the story cites the $2 billion mark for Miami in order to disparage Miami in relation to SF’s $63 billion startup capital availability, but the Journal deliberately avoids citing the same numbers for Austin, Los Angeles and New York. In fact, New York is not even mentioned because it would draw attention to the fact that New York’s economy revolves around the motion of money rather than its application to creating businesses. Thus, the story exists solely to disparage all cities except New York, whose most prominent citizen is an ex president who was bolstered by these two papers for decades and who is now a convicted fraudster and slanderer and will soon be a multiply convicted felon.

The “culture wars” propagated in the media is a fiction carefully crafted by New York media to detract from the real culture war: New York’s desperation to be more relevant than San Francisco after it lost its leadership to San Francisco under the weight of its own conservativeness (read sloth) and unrivaled corruption (need anyone say anything more than the presumptive GOP nominee?). New York’s economic might comes from the deals that its revered names like Goldman Sachs broker for the Bay Area companies that are building the future. New York’s wealth is coming from the puny commissions it earns from SF companies, and clearly this irks publications like the Journal, who will likely confirm their own irrelevance by endorsing the criminal candidate for presidency in September.

The greatest American intellect, Mark Twain, became a legend as a writer in San Francisco, and ultimately elected to die in New York. Much more so than the rumors of Twain’s demise, the rumors of San Francisco’s demise are and forever will be exaggerated and totally bogus.

Founders and investors who ditched the Bay Area for Miami and elsewhere are returning to a boom in artificial intelligence and an abundance of tech talent. Source: Tech Leaders Fled San Francisco During the Pandemic. Now, They’re Coming Back. – WSJ

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No Accountability = No Currency

The fact that cryptocurrencies are the vehicles of choice for predators, white supremacists and terrorists (article below) has now garnered jail time for the CEO of Binance, the largest exchange in the world. Cryptocurrency is as perniciously persistent as “social media”: with so many people invested, governments are hesitant to intervene, especially while it generates tax revenue. Cryptocurrency is the oxycontin of the financial world, but there will not be one manufacturer to hold to account once the carnage accumulates.

A new front has emerged in Israel’s fight against the funding of Iran-backed militant groups from Hamas to Hezbollah: A fast-growing crypto network called Tron.

Source: Focus: New crypto front emerges in Israel’s militant financing fight

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First Eunuch Sighting in the US Perhaps Ever

The expression on the face of the man in the picture below screams emasculation. He has lost not just control but any and all possession of whatever remnants of masculinity–physical or otherwise–he may have possessed yesterday. Dispossessed of his own gonads, he succumbed to the mob threatening to burn them and announced the start of the most useless inquiry in the history of political witch hunts. This man is proof enough–indeed, the embodiment thereof–that it takes balls to do the right thing.

The White House plans to send a letter to top US news executives on Wednesday, urging them to intensify their scrutiny of House Republicans after Speaker Kevin McCarthy launched an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden, despite having found no evidence of a crime.

Source: White House to send letter to news execs urging outlets to ‘ramp up’ scrutiny of GOP’s Biden impeachment inquiry ‘based on lies’ | CNN Business

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David Frum Redefines then Embodies the Self-Hating Jew

“Self-hating Jew” has been the epithet of choice for self-identifying “conservative” American Jews to hurl at any Jew who dares to mention or to defend human rights in Israeli occupied territories because, the perverse argument goes, these Jews care more about the minorities in these territories than the Israeli populace. This is, of course, the classic ad hominem attack instigated by those who have lost the argument based on principles, and the devoted support that the same “conservative” Jews throw behind some of the most racist politicians in the US is not, therefore, surprising. The pride with which David Frum displays it on the radio and the pages of The Atlantic is, however, novel. In his pathetic attempt to debunk the validity of the 14th Amendment clause that prohibits an insurrectionist from pursuing public office, Frum states:

Continue reading “David Frum Redefines then Embodies the Self-Hating Jew”
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The Proper Context for Oppenheimer

If you plan to watch Oppenheimer, then be sure to watch this absolute gem of a documentary, which features many interviews with the Nobel Laureates who worked under Oppenheimer during The Manhattan Project, to have the proper context. For my money, there is nothing more valuable than the original source, even it is a bunch of really lovable old men.

Pay close attention to the fact that Leslie Groves ignored all the gossip around Oppenheimer and fought to assign him as the leader of the project. This critical decision by a legendary general and even more legendary manager is a beacon for our time: the character and capabilities of people are infinitely more important than their perceived politics. Groves was perhaps the greatest judge of character.

Peripherally, the documentarty revives the ultimate debate between which is harder, science or engineering. All the scientists interviewed in this film agree that the atomic bomb was conceptually simple, and its realization was a matter of mere engineering. Who wants to dive in?

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Merchandizing: the Pinnacle, Apogee and Zenith of Cynicism

The objective behind government regulations is preventing the breaches of trust that can annihilate entire economies. In addition to the financial devastation they cause, such breaches breed cynicism at large and discourage people from participating in society and the marketplace because “what’s the point” comes to describe the prevailing attitudes. Equally nourishing to cynicism are smaller breaches–more like insults–like the sale of Wagner Group merchandising, described in the article linked below, and the application of cryptocurrency and Youtube to funding hate groups and misinformation. Though they will not make entire economies collapse, these breaches undermine optimism, trust and good will arguably in a much more harmful way.

We should not have to “take the bad with the good”. Progress means that we have figured out to how to maximize the good and to minimize the bad. The hijacking of new commodities and old marketing methods for the purpose of aiding and abetting the malfeasance of ignoble people undermines the perception and the reality of progress. And, if we don’t feel as if we have progress, then, indeed, what is the point?

Online prices for merchandise bearing the insignia of Russia’s Wagner group – a human skull against a black and red backdrop – have shot up since its abortive armed mutiny, with buyers posting five-star reviews and support for the mercenaries.

Source: Wagner merch soars in price after abortive mutiny