Sure Why Not

It is definitely a problem that supposedly educated people think that spicy autocomplete actually knows things, instead of being able to assemble word patterns in an attempt to provide the answer whoever is querying it is looking for, as that it what it is programmed to do.

Former New Jersey Lt. Gov. Dale Caldwell has been on a media blitz this week, seeking to clear his name after resigning amid allegations of sexual harassment and ethics violations.

And in one unusual comment, Caldwell revealed that he ran his case through AI platforms for help.

In an on-camera interview with NJ PBS, Caldwell said he fed the investigative report through different artificial intelligence platforms about 59 times, asking in repeated prompts: “What would your findings be?”

It is not actually a moral or legal authority. It is not God.

A million judges and attorneys just cried out in agony:

"Everyone should put that through," he said. "And I think we can use AI to stop legal abuse."

The man's wiki bio: 

Dale Gilbert Caldwell[1] (born July 6, 1960) is an American academic administrator and author who served as the fourth lieutenant governor and 35th secretary of state of New Jersey from January to September 2026. A member of the Democratic Party, Caldwell was the first man to serve as the state's lieutenant governor. He previously served as president of Centenary University from 2023 to 2025, and was the university's first black president.[2][3][4]

A former president of the Educational Services Commission of New Jersey (2001–2024), Caldwell was also the founding president of the College Achieve of Greater Asbury Park Charter School[5] and served as a member of the New Brunswick Board of Education from 1998 to 2024. He is also the pastor of Covenant United Methodist Church in Plainfield, New Jersey.[6] Following a report alleging that Caldwell had engaged in sexual harassment and ethics violations, Caldwell announced his resignation in September 2026.[7]

Your honor, the computer says I am good, actually. I move to dismiss! 

Morning

Maybe Monday.

Happy Hour

Maybe it will happen tonight. It could!

Juiceless

It is reasonable to fear that Donald Trump will decide he can run for president again, but only because it will be one more opportunity for the balls and strikes gang to destroy whatever is left of the constitution. 

He wouldn't actually win again (and yes there are other election shenanigans and coup concerns of course).

90 Bucks

I am still laughing at Trump's 90 buck promise. Of course any amount of money is welcome (if it shows up) to people who need it, but a one time gift of just 90 bucks is gonna be a joke even to them

Morning

Sunday funday.

I am doing a 10K+ trail run which is going to be a bit more trail (and hill) than I thought when I signed up.

Doxxing Cotton

I am not surprised that Trump would do this, just a bit surprised he is doing it over this issue.

Lunch

Quiet day.

"Nearly $100"

My teen nieces would be, um, less than thrilled if their birthday present was a hundred bucks. I admit that for awhile I thought maybe their expectations were a bit high, but then I thought about my birthday cash presents from non-parent relatives when I was a teen, did the inflation math, and realized...nah, actually, they were right.

Nice to know it's very easy to do this stuff if you want to (I mean in practical terms, not endorsing the illegality).

Morning

Slacker Saturday.

Happy Hour

get happy

Modern Warfare

Pete thinks it's about making sure his WARFIGHTERS have enough T, but really it's about making sure your ships and other important things don't get hacked.

WASHINGTON/LONDON, Sept 17 (Reuters) - US Coast Guard and FBI personnel boarded two commercial vessels bound for the United States in the Gulf of Mexico last month after indications that hackers ‌had broken into their computer networks, the agencies said on Thursday.

The unusual operation, carried out on August 21 and August 24 aboard two foreign-flagged ships, comes as US authorities grapple with a series of cyber incidents that media reports have linked to Iran since the outbreak of conflict between Washington and Tehran.

Prayers For Benny

You can pray for bad things, of course.

Two people detained outside a Chicago-area immigration detention center last year are suing right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson for defamation, saying he falsely portrayed them as violent extremists who assaulted federal officers.

Illinois residents Kyle Frankovich, a data scientist at Harvard University, and Maureen Foody, a contract court reporter, filed the lawsuit Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. They said they were detained while protesting peacefully outside the Broadview detention center, but that Johnson knowingly framed them as criminals and “left-wing terrorists” in videos he posted to millions of viewers.

It is good that genuine public figures have a hard time suing for defamation, but I do think "normal" people should feel a bit more empowered to do so than they seem to.

Sure Why Not

Gramps is mixing things up.

Trump on Midnight Hammer strikes on Iran: They unloaded every single bomb—went right down air chutes into this uhhh drug factories, really, that's what they were doing. They were nuclear and drugs. They were doing drugs. These drug factories/nuclear factories were hit so hard pic.twitter.com/U0nY3LO315

— Acyn (@Acyn) October 2, 2026

Hanging out at the drug factory, hanging out at the nuclear factory, I'm hanging out at the nuclear drug factory.

Boom Boom

I am very sure that Trump's "plans" regarding Iran change day to day, depending on the sewage sloshing around his skull and who he talked to last, but escalation remains a serious possibility.

The United States is deploying a third aircraft carrier strike group to waters in the Middle East close to Iran, a US official has told Al Jazeera, as the war enters its eighth month and both sides weigh escalation and diplomatic engagement.

Who knows what anyone imagines it would achieve, but that was also the case with Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya.  Even war's biggest champions are never able to articulate just what the fuck they want to happen.

 

Well Okay Then

I suppose it makes perfect sense to to him.

Bernstein, whose term on the UM board ends in 2028, said the Jewish community in Michigan faces a “grim choice” in the November election: "Either compromise my commitment to Zionism or compromise my commitment to democracy. Both of which are non-negotiable, right?"

Single issue purity politics voters. Shaking my head. 

Morning

Fondue Friday

Happy Hour

Get happy

Puddinghead

Well okay then (Time interview. It's real).

TIME: I'm curious about your dinner last night with Dario.

Trump: Oh.

Yes, exactly. Do you still disagree with his views on what he calls AI safety?

I spoke to him about his views, and they're much different, I think, than what is portrayed in the media. First of all, I liked him and his wife a lot. They had dinner, and we were going to meet at 7:00. But I was at the big Presidents Cup. I was the chairman of it in Chicago at Marion, which is great. Actually, that was yeah, Medinah, at Medinah, last year, Marion, this time of year, it was really great, and so I called, I said, "Could we make it a little bit later?" He actually saw the helicopter land, so we made it a little bit later. We got in at about 10. We stayed for more than two hours, talked about a lot of things. Very smart guy. Maybe different than I thought, a little bit. Really a little bit different. But no, he understands. 

The whole thing is like that. 

Unpopular President

I don't know how low it can go, but does it really matter? It's low enough.

For some reason the article doesn't give the headline result, which is that Trump's approval is at 31% (pdf), a new low for that specific poll (AP-NORC).

Strong approve is only 15%.

I don't think I ever noticed before that even at his peak popularity, his strong approval (in this poll, at least) topped out at 25%.

That's your MAGAs.