99.8% Accuracy

A big problem with "computer say no" technology is that nobody understands the implications of false positive rates.

Sainsbury’s has paused the use of AI face scanning in one of its stores after a customer was wrongly identified as a shoplifter and ejected from the shop.

... 

A Sainsbury’s spokesperson said: “We have contacted Mr Arnold to apologise for his experience at our Dulwich superstore. The incident was caused by human error, not the facial recognition technology. Customers can be reassured that the Facewatch system has a 99.98% accuracy rate, and every match is reviewed by a trained manager.”

It isn't even clear what "99.98% accuracy rate" means here. I suspect it is a very made up number, so I am not going to use some ADVANCED MATH, which I might if I had any idea what it was supposed to mean. 

I will interpret it in the most generous (to them) way possible: 9998 times out of 10000 when it identifies a match with a "known shoplifter" it is correct.  This means 2 times out of every 10000 the alarm goes off for a wrong person.

According to their website, this (fake) number includes "human expertise" which presumably means the "trained manager."

99.98% accuracy, thanks to our combination of distinct specialised algorithms and human expertise

So 9998 times out every 10000 sounds pretty good, right! This is a major supermarket chain. It has 1500 stores (I don't know if facewatch is in all of them, but let's assume it is).  Of  the system dings just once per week per store, you're going to harass a wrong person about every 6 weeks.

But if the system only dings once per week per store, it's hard to imagine any calculation such that it's worth it.  If, instead, it dings once per day per store (on average), you're going to harass a wrong person once per week. That's potentially 4 bad news stories per month.

This is leaving aside just how people get on the "known shoplifter" list in the first place.

Is It Because You Suck, Seth

I have long been confused about why he thought he could win against Markey from the right in a Massachusetts Dem primary.

Primary numbers: We're just two weeks away from the Massachusetts primary, and a new poll released this morning by WCVB and the University of Massachusetts Amherst shows incumbent Sen. Ed Markey with a big lead over Rep. Seth Moulton among likely voters in the Democratic race for Senate. Among 445 registered voters interviewed for the poll, 60% of respondents said they would vote for Markey if the primary was being held that day, compared to just 32% for Moulton.

WHOCOULDANODE

Not faulting the whistleblower, of course, but our media largely played along with bullshit they knew was bullshit because they liked it.

The Trump administration’s findings that three Ivy League schools violated civil rights law by tolerating antisemitism were predetermined by political priorities that blew past the evidence and cast aside standard investigative procedures, according to a whistleblower account provided to Congress.

The disclosure, by Haley Van Erem, a veteran Justice Department civil rights attorney, involves investigations into whether Harvard, Brown and Columbia universities broke the law by allowing antisemitism to flourish on their campuses.

Good Cop/Bad Cop

[oops not sure how this post got pushed down for a bit..back up top!] 

We do love this comedy routine, with Ben-Gvir playing Bad Cop to Netanyahu's Good Cop.

Israel's far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, in a podcast published over the weekend, called for "30 to 40" people to be killed per night in targeted assassinations in the Gaza Strip. 

...

"Not just those who pose an immediate threat," added the Israeli cabinet member. "There are people there who are not worthy of life. They shouldn't live. They're not even people."

The AJC's response is even too much for Baby Bird Barak!

 

Is That A Big Number

 Whiskey Pete forgot to ask how many missiles there were.

President Trump won’t even be straight with the country about how he’s running out of weapons – when his war has depleted well upwards of 90% of certain crucial munitions, as Zeteo has learned. When reporters have dug in on this topic, he’s huffily accused them of “treason,” and pledged that those responsible for leaking the information “are being hunted down” aggressively.

Paywalled (like everything) but you get the idea. Generally there has not been enough reporting on the damage - self- and Iran-inflicted - done in this "war." 

Thank You For Your Attention To This Matter

I guess they'll do just that.

Speaking on Fox News on Monday, Trump said that Iran should “put up the white flag of surrender” in the five-month-long US-Israel war, confirming that his administration had opened a direct backchannel with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Morning

Tireless Tuesday.

Happy Hour

get happy

So Much For ZIRP

 30 year Treasury going up up up...

Rabid Lambs

I occasionally think about how many column-inches were filled over the years lamenting how the Online Left was rude and filthy and undignified. Real Americans would be repelled and never vote Dummycrat again!

Defying The Priests

I'm pretty sure that Official Washington would be much more upset about Trump disobeying the Supreme Court - in a clear, unambiguous fashion  - than just about any other sort of NORM (law) breaking.

It is, of course, the least democratic (small 'd') and least accountable of the branches, so you understand why it appeals to them.

Gotta Pay

Mr. Trump, Sir, there are very nasty people on the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court on Monday turned away President Donald Trump’s longshot effort to deny a $5.6 million payment he was ordered to make three years after a jury found he sexually abused and defamed the former magazine writer E. Jean Carroll.

Travels With Natalie

When he first ran and lost, Ossoff wasn't this guy.

Ossoff: While the sailors on the Lincoln fight his war, while he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his meetings. He golfs and trades stocks. So he doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on… pic.twitter.com/6KqephHAd3

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 16, 2026

Natalie is Natalie Harp, someone the press weirdly doesn't say much about (you can guess why - it starts with 'A' and ends with 'ccess'). Maybe they'll have to!

Thank You For Your Attention To This Matter

I think it's difficult to know what the "US" has been planning given that the "US" in this case is a senile rapist who shits himself and takes instructions from his friends on the TV, but I do not think the Iran "hardliners" are crazy here!

Iran’s hard-line leaders huddled in Tehran and came up with a different plan, according to Iranian and Arab officials. In their view the pact was likely just an attempt by the U.S. and Israel to take pressure off the global economy and buy time for a bigger attack down the road. Instead of putting faith in talks, they took the past two months to prepare for a bigger fight.

Their efforts include giving the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps more control of the country’s regular army, appointing hardened veterans of the war with Iraq and past internal crackdowns to key posts, expanding domestic counterintelligence operations and ramping up production of missiles and drones. The leadership quickly seized the initiative, attacking ships to tighten Iran’s grip on Hormuz and expanding the battlefield to the Red Sea, which Saudi Arabia has used to get around Iran’s chokehold on the Persian Gulf.

Arab intelligence officials have picked up evidence—including communications between Iran and militia allies in countries such as Yemen and Iraq—of a strategic shift inside the country’s hard-line leadership to get their forces ready to widen the war and raise the costs for the U.S., officials familiar with the findings say. Alarming weaker Gulf countries like Kuwait, Iran’s leaders are increasingly talking about offensive operations on enemy territory.

The "US" in the form of Trump can't be trusted, as he makes clear every day.

Morning

Mean Mister Mustard Monday

Happy Hour

Get happy

Jared to the Rescue

Finally an adult in the room.

Kushner meetings: US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law held rare talks with Hamas’ leader in Egypt as he works to advance a Gaza ceasefire plan rejected by Israel, sources told CNN. Jared Kushner, a central figure in the administration’s Middle East diplomacy, is also expected to meet Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

What Do We Call People Who Are Friendly With Bigots

I know we've had years of propaganda telling us that only intolerant lefties wouldn't listen, respectfully and raptly, and without any disrespectful response, to their racist uncles ranting on Thanksgiving, but I am one of those intolerant lefties and I don't actually feel the need to put up with bigots.

Sure family is family and longtime friends are a bit like family. Some relationships are a bit complicated and you can't always untangle yourself. But there is no need, generally,  to be chummy with transphobes and islamophobes and people who eagerly advocate for policies to resegregate society.

There is also no need to be chummy with people who are chummy with them.

Contra the revolutionary view of the New York Times on speech, I do think shaming and shunning is good. So do they, of course, they just think that *you* should be shunned and shamed when you step out of line, but not people who actually matter like them and their friends.

For all the tolerance and enlightenment that modern society claims, Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country: the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned.

 

Ok Dude

 I hope the professional centrists keep bringing out the big guns.

It's Summer 2026

I'm not especially forgiving of people who believed this and thought it was good, but I can get that they believed it. What I definitely don't get is not realizing by July 2026 that it was a dumbass thing to believe.

Brent Jindra, a tech salesman, voted for President Trump three times, drawn by his aggressive immigration agenda. He never imagined the crackdown would ensnare his own wife.

...

“The allure of the MAGA campaign was around illegal entries of criminals,” said Mr. Jindra, 48. “There was never a mandate for this president to turn the barrel of the gun and start going after people who legally entered.”

...

Mr. Jindra considered himself a MAGA patriot until his wife’s detention.

“She did not jump a wall, she did not swim a river,” he said. “She came in Trump’s beautiful, big front door.”

I'm sorry for her. He's too stupid to tie his shoes.