Monday Evening

enjoy

Tiny Fleet

Unsurprisingly, Elon's Robotaxi fleet is much smaller than he promised it would be.

Sure Why Not

Exclusive!

Iran is reportedly developing chemical and biological warheads for its ballistic missiles, even as the country faces mounting domestic unrest fueled by a collapsing currency and soaring inflation, according to an exclusive report published by Iran International on Sunday.

At least the Bushies put a little effort into this stuff.

AI PR Cycle

We stated with assertions that AI was so powerful that it would become Skynet, moved onto promises about curing cancer and inventing new materials, then to claims about how being a "prompt engineer" was the future of work, then to... um, horny chatbots I think? Now back to Skynet.

A leading AI boss has warned that the developing technology could become “uncontrollable” in the next few years without proper regulation.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today, CEO of Microsoft AI, Mustafa Suleyman, said that fear over the future of AI is “healthy and necessary”, adding: “I honestly think that if you’re not a little bit afraid at this moment then you’re not paying attention.”

Lunch

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Remarkably Incurious

I actually don't think we need to have full knowledge of presidential health, constantly updated. That idea seems to be part of the general misguided and anti-constitutional elevation of the presidency to a place it shouldn't be.

But the complete lack of interest by most of the press in Trump's very obvious health/treatment issue is notable.

I am sure this is where some journalist would lecture me that they have been busy chasing down the story with no success, so what else can they do? But we all know they can create an issue out of nothing when they want to, and this is certainly more than nothing. Visibly more than nothing.

Speaking Of Bill Barr

If I were a journalist/news outlet that allowed myself to be suckered by his transparent Mueller report "summary," I would have some regrets. Shame, even. Unless I was in on it.

Maybe Somebody Should Ask Bill Barr

Brown was a key journalist working on Epstein stuff for the Miami Herald.

Morning

Monday funday

Sunday Happy Hour

Get happy.

Sure Why Not

Political considerstions aside, anyone would be nuts to book a gig at the Kennedy Center now.

NPR is still calling it the Kennedy Center which is somewhat surprising.

So Move

Rich guys threaten to move whenever any state suggests raising taxes, and of course our numerous publications dedicated to presenting the views of rich guys type it up.

If you are rich it is trivial to spend 183 days in another state to establish residency.  I don't think any state should care if these guys move, but the fact that they get loud and lobby against this stuff shows that, surprisingly, most of these guys don't want to move to Tallahassee. 

California, specifically, is already a very high tax state and somehow they love it and can't leave.  Weird.

The Excluded But Dominant View

For years we have been told that Wokenes shas taken over all of our powerful cultural institutions, especially The Liberal Media, and yet not a single newspaper has an opinion columnist who is even arguably the vessel through which the Woke Manifesto is expressed.

Instead you have very right wing conservatives, moderate conservatives, and some standard Democrats who themselves spend half their time arguing with mostly imaginary people to their left.

Here is the list of recent NYT opinion columns.  Where is all this Woke I keep hearing about?

The NYT is especially bizarre because they in no way present the range of relevant political opinion in this country.  They are not required to do that, but that is often the excuse used to justify the choices they do make.

Morning

Sunday Funday.

Saturday Happy Hour

Enjoy

Karoline Leavitt Is Pregnant

And I hope she gets the finest medical care at the level she supports for all women.

Lunch

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PR For The Rich and Famous

Elon Musk has made plenty of confidently wrong predictions over the years. I will even grant him some credit and say that earlier he probably even believed some of them, though saying  that he believed something isn't much different than saying Trump believed something. They are actually quite similar.

But nothing he said would have mattered all that much if both tech and mainstram journalists didn't treat his utterances as the proclamations of a genius.  And, then, being complicit in the con, remaining unwilling to revisit their own role.

There are a couple of points in time when Elon would have gone bust if not for his hype team in the press and some financial interventions by either deluded or corrupt (both) elected officials.

Elon barely talks about Mars anymore. It was his whole thing!

Defenders of "American" Civilization Have Never Encountered It

I think it is the case that lots of people believe that immigration began in 1990s because the past, for some, is nothing more than fake stories, but I don't know what do about people  who look at Martin and Sinatra and think "Mayflower children." 

I don't know how to deal with people who don't mind being confidently wrong and feel no shame when they are.

Morning

Slacker Saturday