Music Thread: Brazilian Music? Who'da Thunk It!

And who knew that Garrett is a Dead-Head!

Speaking of The Dead, I am no fan, but out of their hundreds of discrete songs and thousands of chaotic concert versions, there are several that I really enjoy. And click the Croc photo above to hear my favorite. Yes, I have linked to it before and I will link to it again! I am nothing if not repetitive!

I didn't listen to much music this week...but at dinner one night we were serenaded by a Brazilian musician who did some very pleasant stuff. Normally I am not enamored of live music during dinner...it's either too loud (GET OFF MY LAWN!), or it is discordant...or both!

But this guy had volume down pat, and it was all quite pleasant. And new. Of course you can measure my knowledge of Brazilian music in picograms.

Posted by: CBD at 07:30 PM | Comments (334) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Hobby Thread - December 7, 2024 [TRex]

[Approach to Monument Valley, Forrest Gump Point, Utah]

Welcome hobbyists! Pull up a chair and sit a spell with the Horde in this little corner of the interweb. This is the mighty, mighty officially sanctioned Ace of Spades Hobby Thread.

We gave the Ace of Spades Wheel of Hobbies(TM) a spin and it landed on a theme of the road trip for this week. Apparently the Wheel is interested in hearing getting out on the open road. Please make sure you have made a bathroom stop before we get underway.

The road trip has many different flavors. Could be a family vacation to see more of the world, a tour of national parks or wine country or baseball parks, a holiday voyage to spend the holidays with relatives, a spontaneous decision to jump in the car for an irrational but perfectly explainable trip to see a concert or a sporting event. Some road trips have structure and others are much more random. Some are about the destination and others are more about the journey. Some are about sharing quality time with those around you and some are about hating anyone in your limited space with the passion of a thousand suns.

Are road trips a hobby? For the leisure traveler, they are often an integral part of exploring the world and making memories. That counts as a hobby. For those held hostage in the back of a station wagon or minivan for hours on the way to see relatives you do not really know or remember, it may not be much of a hobby. At this point, what does it matter? Either way, there are likely to be stories and memories.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:30 PM | Comments (365) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ace of Spades Pet Thread, December 7

* * *

Good afternoon and welcome to the almost world famous Ace of Spades Pet Thread. Thanks for stopping by. Kick back and enjoy the world of animals.

Would you like a treat?

Let's relax a little with the animals and leave the world of politics and current events outside today.

Posted by: K.T. at 03:28 PM | Comments (91) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, Dec. 7

Happy Saturday! Anything like the above where you live?

Neal in Israel:

When the heat of summer began to break, the green of the hibiscus's leaves strengthened and it began to flower more vigorously.

Wow. Beautiful.

We have heavy fog here right now, so the contrast is welcome.

Posted by: K.T. at 01:31 PM | Comments (34) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Notre Dame Cathedral - A story in the news with backstories

Notre Dame Cathedral on fire, 2019

The number of new, important issues which have been headlining in the news lately makes it hard to follow them all, especially during the holiday season. And sometimes it seems like we are not meant to follow them, but rather to allow them to wash over us to increase a sense of anxiety. But the re-building of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and its re-dedication this weekend is not just a flash-in-the-pan story.

Notre Dame

Some History - Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo’s most enduring cultural legacy is not Les Misérables and Jean Valjean’s struggle to find something resembling justice in a world that shows no mercy to the poor. The 19th century French author’s most profound mark on France, and the world, is a monumental Gothic cathedral, whose spires and rose windows are as iconic as the Eiffel Tower. To a large extent, the Notre Dame, which will be reopened on Saturday after burning to the ground in 2019, is of Victor Hugo’s making.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame, published in 1831, begins with the introduction of the beautiful gypsy Esmeralda, the hunchback Quasimodo, the archdeacon Claude Frollo, the enamored Pierre Gringoire and Captain Febo de Châteaupers... But suddenly, the novelist interrupts the narrative to speak about the desecrated state of the Parisian cathedral, which was so rickety, it looked as though it might collapse at any moment. Neither the Gothic nor the Middle Ages had been defended at that time, nor was there yet the idea that the monuments of the past should be preserved. In fact, they were often considered annoying monstrosities that had to be got rid of as soon as possible (a view that persists in some areas).

The novelist launches into a vindication of medieval and Gothic art, accusing the authorities of being responsible for their decline, not only from a lack of conservation, but also due to the imposition of current tastes on the past. "Fashions have wrought more harm than revolutions," he points out, in a phrase that could be applied to some of the barbarism inflicted on the Notre Dame.

Thanks to Hugo’s efforts, Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, an architect also fascinated by the Middle Ages, was able to undertake a massive restoration project. In fact, as the world watched the fire unfold live in astonishment, the point of no return — the moment when it seemed certain that Notre Dame would be lost — was marked by the collapse of its iconic spire, which was designed by Le-Duc. The spire was a masterwork inspired by a similar structure that had been lost two centuries earlier.

“Le-Duc was passionate about the Middle Ages,” said Didier Rykner, author of Notre-Dame. Une affaire d’etat (Notre-Dame. A Matter of State). “He tried to return the cathedral to the Middle Ages: to leave the monument not in the state it was in during the Middle Ages; but the state it should have been in at that time.” Several other sites in medieval France, from Carcassonne to Mont Saint-Michel — whether seen as stunning or verging on kitsch — were also restored by Le-Duc, who pioneered the notion of the Middle Ages as a pivotal era that shaped modern identity.

Posted by: K.T. at 11:10 AM | Comments (266) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Classical Saturday Morning Coffee Break & Prayer Revival

Good morning Horde. The first Saturday of December. Are you preparing for the Holiday? If so, you are in my prayers.

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 08:44 AM | Comments (301) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 7 December 2024

Top Story

• What is AI good for?
  
  A reader (I have readers?) wrote noting that my coverage of AI is almost entirely negative and wondering what AI is actually good for, presumably on the basis that private investors would not throw that many billions of dollars into something that didn't have at least some chance of making money, unlike, for example, the government.
  
  It's a good question.
  
  First we should probably note that there are two broad classes of AI being actively researched right now: Generative AI and Discriminative AI.
  
  Generative AI, driven by LLMs - large language models - is behind all the well-known AI instances worth untold billions of dollars. OpenAI's ChatGPT, Twitter's Grok, Anthropic's Claude, Google's Gemini, and Microsoft's Copilot; and open-source or nearly open-source solutions like Meta's LLaMA and Mistral's Mistral.
  
  The goal of generative AI is to ingest a huge amount of information in advance, and then, given a short and simple prompt, process that information in order to produce a response.
  
  Discriminative AI does the opposite. Given a data prompt of something in the real world - video, or sound, or an image - it uses a classifier to determine what it is examining. Is this apple ripe for the robotic apple-picking machine to pick it? Is it even an apple in the first place? What kind of spider is this that just bit me? Do I need to call an ambulance, or will it save me time to just lie down and die?
  
  

(continued)

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (279) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Friday ONT

Hi Folks! Welcome to the ONT. Sorry I can't be here right now, I'm on stage, but Buck has graciously agreed to post this for me. Thanks Buck! How's this for a cool story?

Posted by: WeirdDave at 10:00 PM | Comments (323) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Otterly Cute Cafe

You probably don't know this, because you're not Sea Otter Experts like I am (and nurse ratchet is), but sea otters are compulsive fans the Home Alone franchise.

Male sea otter asks humans for help, because his girl is stuck in a neck by the dock. The couple are reunited!

Sea otter check-up.

Pup squeals as his mom grooms him.

Meanwhile, here's an evil river otter bringing suffering and hatred to the world.

I think the difference is that river otters have shorter hair which appears smoother and better groomed, whereas sea otters have fluffy, spiky, unruly bed-head type hair.

And of course, river otters are evil. For some reason.

Grooming the chinchilla, if you'll pardon my French.

Cute dogs greet their master.

Separation anxiety.

ICYMI: Woodcutter's apprentice is a raven.

Even robots are worn out by Friday.

Posted by: Ace at 07:40 PM | Comments (421) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ramaswamy, Musk Meet with Congressional Republicans to Talk DOGE
Plus: Update on Assassin

This might end up being the most serious budget-cutting effort in decades.

Ramaswamey and especially Musk bring something to budget/efficiency that we rarely see: excitement and public interest. That might be enough to get actual results.

On the other hand, it could be -- and probably will be -- another case of the unchangeable, unreformable government once again protecting its own interests and its phoney-baloney jobs.

Congressional Republicans are planning to work closely with Tesla CEO Elon Musk and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, the pair co-leading Trump's newly formed spending cuts project, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

The DOGE duo made their rounds with lawmakers in Washington, D.C. on Thursday, spending the morning with members of the Senate DOGE Caucus before heading to a meeting with House GOP leaders and House DOGE Caucus representatives.

The pair, who will spearhead efforts under President-elect Trump to slash government spending and strengthen government efficiency under the incoming Trump administration, wrapped up their day on Capitol Hill by addressing a joint meeting with Republicans of both chambers.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., incoming chair of the DOGE House subcommittee, revealed that, during the meeting, Musk said there would be a "naughty list" and a "nice list" for lawmakers.

"There will be a lot more that is expressed in the days ahead," Johnson said as he left the meeting. "Stay tuned for more to come."

That's a good sign. This isn't going to change unless those fighting change are called out and exposed as phonies and Regime operatives.

Co-chairs of the DOGE House caucus said there was a "big discussion" during the meeting with Musk and Ramaswamy about education and the redundancy of government workers.

"There is so much waste, fraud and abuse. There is so much inefficiency. Where do we begin?" DOGE Caucus co-chair Rep. Aaron Bean, R-Fla., said.

...

Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, walking out of the meeting, told reporters that "we're going to gut the fish."

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, however, was skeptical of them relying on the new department to cut costs.

"It's a little rich to go, 'Oh DOGE, save us.' What, from ourselves?" Roy told reporters. "What I told them is, their best role is to expose the absolute stupidity coming out of this body."

Posted by: Ace at 06:40 PM | Comments (271) | Trackbacks (Suck)

DEI-Crazy Biden Administration Finds One Group It Won't Extend Hiring Prefernces To: Veterans, Of Course

The Biden Administration is so DEI-crazy that they demanded a DEI concession in the investigation of a fatal air collision: Biden's race-hustler officials demanded that this crucial investigatory panel be chosen according to DEI factors.

364 people died in this collision, and Biden wants it investigated by a firm that is diverse but not necessarily competent.

A judge rejected this lunacy.

Boeing plea deal over 737 MAX fatal crashes rejected -- judge faults feds' DEI requirement

A federal judge on Thursday rejected Boeing's agreement to plead guilty to fraud in the wake of two fatal 737 MAX crashes, faulting a diversity and inclusion provision in the deal regarding the selection of an independent monitor to audit the planemaker's compliance practices.

Boeing and the Justice Department now have 30 days to update the court on how they plan to proceed in the case, Judge Reed C. O'Connor of the Northern District of Texas ordered.

Spokespeople for Boeing and DOJ did not respond immediately to requests for comment.

Relatives of the victims of the two 737 MAX crashes, which occurred in 2018 and 2019 and killed 346 people, have called the agreement a "sweetheart" deal that failed to adequately hold Boeing accountable for the deaths of their loved ones.

The judge's objections center on the government's diversity and inclusion policy covering the selection of an independent monitor to oversee Boeing's compliance with the agreement for three years.

"The plea agreement requires the parties to consider race when hiring the independent monitor," O'Connor wrote in his decision. "In a case of this magnitude, it is in the utmost interest of justice that the public is confident this monitor selection is done based solely on competency."

Biden has directed every single agency to put DEI at the highest priority in staffing.

But there's a problem: Those damn white men that Biden is determined will never have a job in government kept getting hired.

How? How was this happening?

Well, there was a provision in the law going back to the 40s giving military veterans who actually served in battle a preference in being hired for federal job.

As more straight white men serve in battle than any other group, this was an oversight allowing straight white men to get jobs without discrimination against them, a dangerous back-door permitting them to get jobs which must be eliminated so that only racial minorities, women, and gays can get federal jobs.

So Biden revoked the post-WWII provision.

Debra Heine:

The Biden regime has quietly revoked the veterans hiring preference for civil service jobs and promotions, which since the 1944 Veterans Act gave eligible veterans preference over others for appointments in federal civil service selection, a memorandum obtained by American Greatness shows.

The goal of the veterans' preference law was to "provide a uniform method by which qualified veterans [could] receive special consideration for federal employment," according to Military.com.

By law, veterans who are disabled or who served on active duty during certain specified time periods or in military campaigns are entitled to preference over non-veterans both in hiring from competitive lists and in retention during reductions in force.

New guidelines from the Defense Civilian Personnel Advisory Service (DCPAS) now stipulate that "veterans' preference should be considered on an equal basis as other qualified candidates."

...

A source from the U.S. Air Force told American Greatness: "This is government-wide hiring has ramped up like never before seen. They are literally packing the federal workforce with as many loyalists and subversives as they can. Worst of all, they think it is their duty to do so."

He added: "Since DEI is getting pettifogged rather harshly (and rightly so) this is yet another way they can worm into the bureaucracy--at the expense of veterans."

The source told American Greatness that "veterans are being cast aside for this new workforce (wokeforce)."

Posted by: Ace at 05:40 PM | Comments (223) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Judge Dismisses Toughest Charge Against Daniel Penny

The two charges against Penny were manslaughter in the 2nd degree, requiring a "reckless" disregard for human life state of mind, and criminally negligent homicide, requiring the somewhat less serious state of mind of "criminal negligence." Which is more than standard civil-suit negligence.

Yeah, the distinctions between "recklessness" and "criminal negligence" are thin and nebulous.

The jury reported they were deadlocked on the top charge. On a motion from prosecutors, the judge dismissed manslaughter as a charge.

I assume their idea is that they will clear the top charge so that the jury can compromise on the less-serious charge.

But.... to be honest, I think the jury members who believe in the right to self-defense could have been pressured to accept the lesser charge to avoid the more serious charge. By dismissing the most serious charge, the defenders of self-defense (and simple reason) can no stick to their guns and refuse to convict on the lesser charge, too.

The manslaughter charge is now gone, forever. If it had gone to verdict, and the jury was still deadlocked, then the Soros prosecutors could have re-tried that charge. But having dismissed it, it is now dismissed with prejudice, extinguished. (There's some rule that once a jury is empaneled, the charge cannot be dismissed without prejudice. That keeps prosecutors from continually charging, then dismissing, then re-filing charges against someone to keep in in court forever without resolution.)

The jury has been dismissed and will reconvene on Monday.

This is certainly good news for Perry, but if the jury deadlocks again on the second charge, then Alvin Bragg and his murderer's row of racist prosecutors will just charge him with that crime again.

In Trump's first month, he should charge the DOJ with conducting an investigation into Bragg's DA office for discriminatory prosecution based on race. She has admitted she gives black defendants very light charges because they've had "hard lives."

Video below.

Posted by: Ace at 04:53 PM | Comments (161) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Biden Looks Literally Old As Death Now

Before that: Americans say Biden is the worst president of the past 50 years, sinking lower than Carter.

[The Daily Mail:] Yet when 1006 registered voters were asked to rank the last nine presidents in order, from best to worst, Biden came at the very bottom of the table, making him the worst in 47 years.

Some 44 percent placed him as one of the worst two, while only 14 percent placed him in the top two, giving him a net score of 30 points underwater.

That was worse than Nixon, who came out with negative 25, and Donald Trump, with negative 15.

James Johnson, cofounder of J.L. Partners, which conducted the poll, described the results as "diabolical" for Biden.

"There's always a recency bias, and as Joe Biden is the incumbent, he starts off at a disadvantage there," Johnson said. "But regardless of that, these numbers are worse than I expected."

He continued, "Voters have obviously looked at his age, general conduct in office, his botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, the situation at the southern border, and decided that, in their view, it qualifies him to be the worst president in modern history."

I can't wait until the public re-evaluates the disastrous, poisonous Back Obama presidency. Biden was, after all, just Obama's third term. There's nothing Biden did that Obama didn't want him to do.

Biden took off a hat yesterday and it played havoc with his hair plugs.

@Jarvis_Best started digitally aging him but that's just coals to Newcastle.

Video of Mark Halperin pointing out that Biden's mental decline was obvious and known by everyone in the media -- and covered up the media. He calls it one of the "greatest scandals of any sort in American history, and certainly one of the greatest media scandals."

Pardon the audio watermark, I can't find a copy without it.

But here's the text:

HALPERIN: "I saw Joe Biden's mental acuity decline in 2017. I talked about it on a regular basis. It's some combination of Trump derangement syndrome and not wanting to be ostracized for doing anything that might help Donald Trump win.

"The irony is the reason Joe Biden has left the position he's in, the reason Donald Trump was reelected, there are plenty of reasons. A big one is a silence in the media. I think it's one of the biggest scandals of any sort in American history and certainly one of the biggest media scandals.

"People say they didn't see behind the all you needed was others c-span subscription to know there was a level of mental decline and they stood silent. The donors were spending time with him in living rooms. They saw it, Clooney said it but far too late."

Posted by: Ace at 04:00 PM | Comments (344) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Trans-Identifying Men Invade Women's Bathrooms at Capitol

These bearded, angry, mentally-ill weirdoes would never, ever make a woman feel uncomfortable in a private vulnerable place.

Videos below. Before that, the NYT wrote an article wondering if transgender activists will back off their maximalist, confrontational approach to making other people live with their sickness.

I objected to this article, as the NYT was attempting to blame trans activists for trans extremism.

Are they part of it? Of course. But you know who actually enforces trans extremism on us? The leftwing propaganda media like the New York Times, which targets anyone pushing back against trans extremism and bullies and shames and deplatforms them, and of course, the Democrat Party itself.

The NYT didn't ask if the Democrat Party would moderate on the trans issue.

It's just those darned trans activists! This tiny group of nobodies has all the power! Not the leftwing civilization-razing media and its Democrat politician front-men!

JK Rowling responded to the piece. Her objection was that the Times pretended that the great sin of trans activists was merely being too outspoken.

They were guilty of nothing more than (checks notes) "unsparing criticism."

She points out: the real problem is the never-ending attempts to deprive people of their income and, of course, the constant death-threats.

The New York Times won't mention those, of course, because it protects the trans activists as it pushes their agenda.

Opponents of gender ideology haven't merely 'endured unsparing criticism'. I haven't simply been told I 'betrayed real feminism' or received a few book-burning videos.

I've been sent thousands of threats of murder, rape and violence. A trans woman posted my family's home address with a bomb-making guide. My eldest child was targeted by a prominent trans activist who attempted to doxx her and ended up doxxing the wrong young woman. I could write a twenty thousand word essay on what the consequences have been to me and my family, and what we've endured is NOTHING compared to the harm done to others.

By standing up to a movement that relies on threats of violence, ostracisation and guilt-by-association, all of us have been smeared and defamed, but many have lost their livelihoods. Some have been physically assaulted by trans activists. Female politicians have been forced to hire personal security on the advice of police. The news that one of the UK's leading endocrinologists, Dr Hillary Cass, was advised not to travel by public transport for her own safety should shame everyone who let this insanity run amok.

Lest we forget, gender apostates have been targeted for crimes such as doubting the evidential basis for transitioning children, for arguing for fair sport for women and girls, for wanting to retain single sex spaces and services, especially for the most vulnerable, and for thinking it barbaric to lock in female prisoners with convicted male sex offenders.

Now the political landscape has shifted, and some who've been riding high on their own supply are waking up with a hell of a hangover. They've started wondering whether calling left-wing feminists who wanted all-female rape centres 'Nazis' was such a smart strategy. Maybe parents arguing that boys ought not to be robbing their daughters of sporting opportunities might, sort of, have a point? Possibly letting any man who says 'I'm a woman' into the locker room with twelve-year-old girls could have a downside, after all?

Mealy-mouthed retconning of what has actually happened over the past ten years is predictable but will not stand. I don't doubt those who've turned a blind eye to the purges of non-believers, or even applauded and encouraged them, would rather minimise what the true cost of speaking out was, but 'yes, maybe trans activists went a little over the top at times' takes are frankly insulting. A full reckoning on the effects of gender ideology on individuals, society and politics is still a long way off, but I know this: the receipts will make very ugly reading when that time comes, and there are far too many of them to sweep politely under the carpet.

Posted by: Ace at 03:00 PM | Comments (331) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Jury is Deadlocked in the Daniel Penny Soros Prosecution

Deadlocked.

UPDATE: Jurors are instructed to continue deliberating under an Allen charge, after the defense asked for a mistrial, saying such would be "coercive." The judge disagreed, sending the jury back to deliberations.
Advertisement

Afterward, another note came in. Jurors are seeking clarification in determining whether a person reasonably believes physical force is necessary: "We'd like to better understand the term 'reasonable person.' Can the judge elaborate?"

"Ultimately, what a reasonable person is is up to you to decide," the judge told jurors. He suggested a two-part test: Did Penny actually believe Neely would use deadly force? Would a reasonable person in Penny's position have the same beliefs?

***Original story***

Jurors are deadlocked in Daniel Penny's trial over the death of Jordan Neely.

Following days of deliberation since they started debating the case Tuesday afternoon, the jury told the judge presiding over the proceedings that they're struggling to come to an agreement on a verdict concerning the top charge of second-degree manslaughter.

As they were mulling over the former U.S. Marine's fate, the 12-person panel sent a note Friday morning saying they could not reach a consensus on whether or not to convict Penny of "recklessly" causing Neely's death.

"We the jury request instructions from Judge [Maxwell] Wiley. At this time, we are unable to come to a unanimous vote on Count 1 -- manslaughter in the second degree," read the note, sent around 11 a.m.

If the jury is unable to reach a decision, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Maxwell Wiley reportedly would be required to hand them what's known as an "Allen charge," i.e. instructions urging jurors to agree on a unanimous verdict.

The name is derived from an 1896 Supreme Court decision in Allen v. United States.

It's considered controversial, and critics warn that such instructions could push jurors to switch up under peer pressure.

"In this case, I think that they can't move on to Count 2 unless they find the defendant not guilty of Count 1," Wiley told both sides despite protests from the prosecution. "I have to at least try to ask the jury to find a verdict on Count 1."

The latest development on the fact-finding body being deadlocked heightens speculations that the trial will result in a hung jury, meaning a retrial.

...

Legal analyst Jonathan Turley noted that the question now is whether the judge will instruct the jury to consider the second charge of criminal negligence. Wiley did express doubt over whether, in the absence of a unanimous verdict on the manslaughter charge, he could tell them to move on to the criminally negligent charge.

Even if the jury rejected the top charge, the prosecution was hoping they'd compromise on the lower one. That could still be the case, depending on what the court instructs.

"Many of us cannot see how this case could have produced a conviction with the layers of reasonable doubt in the evidence," Turley tweeted. "The absence of clear causation makes a conviction difficult to justify in such a case."

Perfect.

Prepare for all white men to be "deadlocked" in their decision-making about intervening to save anyone else in NYC, forever.

Start carrying guns, lefties. Because you demanded that cops stop policing, and you want to hang civilians who step into the breach.

So you c*nts are on your own now.

Posted by: Ace at 02:00 PM | Comments (377) | Trackbacks (Suck)

"Trust the Science (TM)" High Priest Jake Tapper: Is Global Warming Causing This Increase in Earthquakes?

He's as good at The Science (TM) as he is at writing novels.

Before that, Joe and Mika are getting more blowback from communists, perverts, and other criminals. This time it's David Frum.

On Wednesday morning, Frum joined Scarborough and Brzezinski to discuss Trump's defense secretary pick Pete Hegseth and reports that his heavy drinking had worried his Fox News colleagues.

"If you're too drunk for Fox News, you're very, very drunk indeed," Frum joked on "Morning Joe."

During the ad break, a producer spoke into Frum's ear, warning him not to repeat his comments on Hegseth's alcoholism allegations, Frum wrote in a column for The Atlantic.

"The comment was a little too flippant for this moment that we're in," Brzezinski said on "Morning Joe" during the next segment. "We have differences in coverage with Fox News, and that's a good debate that we should have often, but right now I just want to say there's a lot of good people who work at Fox News who care about Pete Hegseth, and we will want to leave it at that."

So Frum penned a piece for The Atlantic tearing apart what he called Brzezinski's "apology."

"It is a very ominous thing if our leading forums for discussion of public affairs are already feeling the chill of intimidation and responding with efforts to appease," he wrote.

Scarborough lectured viewers for 20 minutes on Thursday morning while he ripped into Frum's column.

"The sound of fear? The apology? None of that is true," he said.

These jerkoffs are jockeying for position and knifing each other as their whole corrupt grift sinks into hell.

Rachel Maddow is also furious at Joe and Mika for having a slightly different grift than she has.

MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow is reportedly furious with her Morning Joe colleagues for meeting with Donald Trump after he won the presidential election.

Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski visited the president-elect a little over two weeks ago at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, to 'restart communications' and set a 'new approach' ahead of his second term.

Maddow, along with other hosts at the troubled liberal network, are calling this move by the married Morning Joe co-hosts 'opportunistic,' according to a report in The US Sun.

'The meeting at Mar-a-Lago created a lot of tension in the teams, and many other stars...see both Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski as opportunistic and with very low self respect and forgetting their values of being journalists with independence and integrity,' said a journalist who's worked at MSNBC for 15 years.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, the journalist made it clear who has a problem with Morning Joe pivoting from calling Trump a fascist and an admirer of Adolf Hitler to having a cordial meeting with him to figure out coverage going forward.

'They have lost a lot of credibility. Rachel Maddow is pissed at them as are other presenters like Chris Hayes and Ari Melber. They are so frustrated,' the journalist said.

MSNBC disputed this report, claiming that Maddow hasn't said anything on air or off air about Scarborough and Brzezinski meeting with Trump.

'Any insinuation otherwise is merely speculative,' an MSNBC spokesperson told The US Sun.

That denial is so weak it's essentially an admission.

MSNBC's ratings remain down, though Joe and Mika's ratings are mostly stable after falling after the election.

Maddow's ratings, on the other hand...

Despite this, Morning Joe hasn't dropped as much as other MSNBC shows. Between the third quarter (pre-election and Trump meeting) and November, Morning Joe lost 14% of its audience. In comparison, the network's prime-time 9 pm hour hosted by Alex Wagner (and Rachel Maddow on Mondays) was down 32%.

In addition, Chris Hayes was down 15%, Joy Reid 30%, and Lawrence O'Donnell 24%. Nicolle Wallace, the usual ratings leader for the network, was also down some 14%.

That depressive derp-faced dog and cradle-robbing cougar adultress usually leads the network in ratings?

News networks, in general, are down post-election, with MSNBC down 47% and CNN down 33%. On the week of the Trump meeting announcement, even Fox News saw a small 9% dip. Meanwhile, in prime time, MSNBC lost 52% of its viewers, while CNN dropped 39%.

Joe and Mika did not appear on MSNBC today. But they're traveling to Arkansas to interview Clinton, so their absence might mean nothing.

Posted by: Ace at 01:00 PM | Comments (381) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Notably Potent Pugilist Keir Starmer Demands That His MPs Ram Through an Elder Euthanasia Bill Without Taking the Time to Debate, or Even Read, It

Europeans are so enlightened.

The terrifying thoughtlessness of Britain's assisted-dying debate

The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill passed its second reading in the House of Commons on Friday by 330 votes to 275. The news was greeted enthusiastically by assisted-dying campaigners in Parliament Square, while a demonstration against the bill, held by disability-rights group Not Dead Yet in Old Palace Yard, grew sombre and even tearful.

As regrettable as it may be, I wasn't surprised the bill passed. Although it was ostensibly a free vote and there should have been no whipping of any MPs, there have been rumours of 'soft whipping'. In other words, No10 made it known what was expected of MPs, even while publicly insisting they could vote with their consciences. UK prime minister Keir Starmer certainly made no secret of his support for assisted dying. It is not difficult to imagine this had some influence over the 200 or so new Labour MPs who owe their political careers to him.

The pro-assisted-dying camp also gave MPs very little time to examine and familiarise themselves with the bill. The 38 pages of text appeared just 17 days before the vote. Those who managed to read it all found glaring inconsistencies and problems. Then, just four-and-a-half hours were allotted to debate it in the Commons (the 2004 ban on fox hunting, in contrast, was only passed after a government inquiry and 400 hours of debate). Yet Labour's many new, inexperienced MPs were assured there would be time to iron out the difficulties. They were encouraged to vote on the principle, rather than on the bill itself.

On this, they were misled. This second-reading vote was to agree to the wording of this particular bill, not to affirm the principle of assisted dying more broadly. The process of getting a private members' bill through parliament is such that it will be very hard to roll back or amend at a later stage.

...

Even if the bill's success was not just a product of political strategising, it certainly didn't pass because of the rhetorical brilliance of its exponents. Liberal Democrat MP Christine Jardine, who sponsored the bill, clearly had no idea of even the basics. She was incapable of giving a straight answer when asked on BBC Newsnight how the coercion of patients would be spotted and prevented. Leadbeater herself has only ever displayed a vague understanding about what her bill would involve.

This low-information debate was truly at its worst during the discussion in the Commons last week. Leadbeater was long on empathy and short on knowledge, repeating stock phrases like 'we are not talking about a choice between life or death; we are talking about giving dying people a choice of how to die'.

In Canada, people are being assisted by the state in killing themselves over financial fears and loneliness -- exactly the sort of thing the proponents of state-promoted suicide said would never happen, and would be stopped if it began to happen.

The failed rogue state of the UK is now going down the same path of Eliminating the Undesirables.

The Nazis wanted to kill the weak and economically unproductive, and they are rightly denounced as monstrous eugenicists.

The leftwing wants to kill the weak and economically unproductive, and they are hailed as forward-thinking humanitarians.

So it really just comes down to your fashion sense -- pink and mauve, or black leather? That's the difference.

Posted by: Ace at 12:00 PM | Comments (412) | Trackbacks (Suck)

THE MORNING RANT: It’s Time to Stop Blaming HR for Woke Corporations; Corporate Hostility to Any Labor Expense

There are a couple of theses related to woke corporations I’ve been meaning to write about, but I’m not sure I have an entire essay worth of thoughts about either, so I’ll just throw them out right now, with just a few additional comments.

1) Left Wing HR reps are not to blame for wokeness in corporate America; Woke executives are to blame.

It has become a cliché among many of us on the right that HR (Human Resources) is to blame for corporate wokeness. While HR may have been one of the first outposts in corporate office suites that was more likely to vote Democrat, HR staff are not influencing the left-wing activism emanating from corporate C-Suites.

In general, HR representatives are little different from other corporate desk jockeys who are moving stuff along the workflow that must be performed. The policies and legal compliance that HR reps must administer have been assigned to them by corporate executives, and a great many corporations now outsource most of their HR work.

I have worked with plenty of HR people over the years, most of whom have been women, and most of whom have been delightful. Not one of them spoke with the woke, activist, political passion that I have heard from white, male executives with Ivy League degrees.

2) There is an emerging corporate / private equity attitude that Salary & Wage Expense is a huge affront to a business’ financial objectives, and that only “mind jobs” should even pay middle-class wages.

This is dangerous territory, as I know I’m treading very close to the left-wing phrase, “living wage,” but I’m going to walk the tightrope. Of course, entry level jobs and unskilled, high turnover jobs are going to be low wage, but there are classes of jobs in service industries and manufacturing that require knowledge, experience and skill, but there is a disturbing corporate hostility to paying much above entry-level wages for these positions.

My opinions have not necessarily changed, but they have evolved. From my years of working in the auto industry, I had developed a hardened, anti-union attitude. I would state the obligatory comments about unions having perhaps served a purpose at one time early on in the industrial revolution, but my main gripe was that the unions seemed to be fighting for members to be paid and to receive benefits for not working (early retirement, idle labor pools, etc), which is obviously not sustainable for the corporations paying the employees not to work.

Much has shaken out, with union membership having plummeted, and too many corporations (especially those controlled by private equity) now looking at any level of Salary & Wage Expense on their Income Statement as a problematic cost that is eating into profit. Outsourcing and offshoring led to the general corporate acceptance of using foreign labor that is exploited in a way that is offensive to western sensibilities. Those same woke executives teaching us to “look inside ourselves and at our nation’s troubled history” each Juneteenth are often supporters of 21st century slavery – in third world countries - if it will reduce their cost of labor.

In other words, the pendulum swung WAY too far the other direction, from unions demanding compensation without providing labor, to corporations expecting labor without much compensation.

In addition, there seems to be an attitude that any job that doesn’t require sitting at a desk with a computer monitor and spreadsheets is not worthy of a middle-class wage. That is, only “mind jobs” are worth paying a middle-class wage.

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM | Comments (240) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

The Crèche I
Albrecht Anker

Posted by: CBD at 09:34 AM | Comments (408) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 12/6/24

Good morning kids. Well, here's something different to start the day off, and yet tragically all too familiar, but not for any of the reasons you'll hear from the propagandists in the Leftist-controlled media complex.

Two kindergarteners were critically wounded when Glenn Litton, a monster with a long criminal record and apparent delusions, tricked his way into the school and then opened fire in a small California town.

Glenn Litton lied to gain access to the Feather River Seventh-Day Adventists school by claiming to be the grandfather of a prospective student before opening fire on the children.

The gunman wrote in a note that the shootings of children were “carried out countermeasure in necessitated response to America’s involvement with genocide and oppression of Palestinians along with attacks towards Yemen.”

The media emphasizes that Litton was mentally ill and I’m sure his sense of reality was probably none too grounded, but the note also makes it clear that he had been feeding off pro-terrorist propaganda on social media probably supplemented by media coverage.

Even apart from his recent support for Islamic terrorism, Litton was a poster boy for California’s revolving door criminal justice system.

Well, if I were say Joe Scarborough (God-forbid!), I'd say he'd have to be mentally ill. He should've shot up a synagogue. After all Netanyahu and his pal Trump are both literally Hitler. Doing this only gives Trump a talking point with which to attack us, the good guys, the defenders of our precious democracy!

This happened on the heels of what looks to my non-Kojak eyes as a targeted hit on the CEO of United Healthcare.

Hours after the killing, the NYPD held a press conference and made clear they believe the killing was targeted not random.

NYPD Chief of Detectives Joe Kenny pointed out that the suspect was wearing a “distinctive gray backpack,” black face mask, light brown jacket, and black and white sneakers. He said the suspect “[ignored] numerous other pedestrians,” approached Thompson from behind, and shot him in the back.

Breitbart News noted the suspect in Wednesday’s killing of Thompson allegedly left a message on shell casings which consisted of the words “Defend,” “Deny,” “Depose.”

There are reports that Thompson and other board members are under investigation for insider trading and other major frauds but given the nature of the aforementioned evidence at the scene, and the anti-capitalism of lefties is more likely what triggered this shooting or that the shooter had a personal grudge against the company. When these things elicit public expressions of glee from such psychos as Taylor Lorenz who has been experiencing her first episode of mittleschmerz for almost40 years, with no signs of stopping.

Her near orgasmic glee at the gunning down of this man, and of course the two attempts on Trump just tells you everything you need to know about the Left.

The sick irony here is that the insurance industry, like much of the healthcare industry was essentially completely devoured by the US government with the passage of Obamacare in 2010. So that only compounded their inherent, and primarily government-caused flaws prior to that date, via the vast bureaucratic garbage that lines the pockets of politicians, bureaucrats and go-along-to-get-along C-suite denizens in the aforementioned industries along with of course Big Pharma. Here's your fascism, Leftists, right here! Get it while it's hot. Pro-tip, it's not Trump. It's Democrats and RINOs pointing the gun of big government power at the head of business and forcing them in bed with them. Sadly, some don't need the threat and are eager to play the part of Alfred Krupp to the real literal Hitlers in this re-enactment of pre-1933 election Germany.

In part, Trump's agenda is the dismantling of this hideous, ravenous, gluttonous beast that is sucking the life, freedom and prosperity out of every honest, hard-working decent American. And to our great misfortune, the GOP-E is part of that multi-headed hydra and is working as hard as the Democrats to derail any chance Trump has of ending their reign of terror, error and venality at the public trough.

The key to that of course is derailing his cabinet nominees, among them some of his staunchest allies, not merely personal, but in terms of policy and politics, such as Pete Hegseth and Kash Patel.

Disposing of Collins, Murkowski, and every other miserable bastard RINO in both chambers of Congress should be considered crucial to draining the swamp, every bit as much as legislatively and via starving the bureaucracies of funds so they cannot continue their mission to preserve protect and defend the 100-year counter American Revolution.

Here's a very compelling essay from author D. Parker, at American Thinker. Can't disagree with a single thing. Yet like so many other authors, myself included, his title leaves us hanging on: "Burying Communism For Good." The multi-trillion dollar and multi-score million victims question gentle reader is of course "HOW?!"

As we have seen with the Left, its willingness and zeal with which it embraces political violence in order to advance its agenda of dissolution and destruction for total control (ditto their allies of convenience in Islam)

Remember, Billy Ayers, Barack Obama's neighbor, benefactor and political mentor/booster once claimed that when he Ayers an his band of Weatherman overthrew the US government, they would likely have to round up and liquidate upwards of 25 million dead-ender Americans who would refuse to bow down and submit to their new new-order, who Obama later referred to as "bitter clingers"

Force is the primary differentiating factor between communistic (or whatever) systems and those based on economic liberty.  It's the only way those systems can work, and it’s the reason they need to finally be on the ash heap of history.  Because in the 400 years of failure from the concepts that ‘have never really been tried before’ billions of people have been oppressed, and untold millions (we know that at least over 100 million) have been thrown into cattle cars, shipped to concentration camps and gulags, and murdered.

It's been 400 years of running the same experiment on something that “has never really been tried before” — over and over, in every country, and under every possible condition, and it’s failed to work every time.  The result has been misery and mass murder.  Experiments where a country has been divided, with economic liberty on one side, and socialistic slavery on the other.  Where you could easily see which side was free by looking at which side of the wall had graffiti, and which side had anti-personnel mines with trip wires so sensitive that they needed an extra wire so birds wouldn’t set them off.It’s more than obvious that we must be rid of these ideologies, humanity can no longer afford their cost in lives and liberty.

As I commented at the end of the headline in the link: In order to bury Communism for good . . . We are probably going to have to literally bury several millions of Leftists to do it. What they have always had in mind for us. It's not pretty, but the truth seldom is.

Please note, I am NOT condoning anyone commit any unprovoked act of violence. But unless there is some non-violent and legal way to deprogram at least a third of the population and wrest control of Academia and the media for at least the next 50 years. Things are going to get ugly. As if you think they're ugly now!

Thanks and have a great weekend. And remember Pearl Harbor tomorrow, on the 83rd anniversary of the attack.

And if you can, please do hit the tip jar, linked below. For those of you who have, your support is appreciated beyond words.

ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
• Daniel Greenfield: A "response to America’s involvement with genocide and oppression of Palestinians"
  Gunman Shot Kindergarteners in California for ‘Palestine’

• Which political party started the civil war to preserve that "original sin" then destroyed black America and America itself as founded, for nearly 200 years since to attain absolute power???? Now lament the Arab/Islamic world for being at the historic epicenter and continuing the slave trade - JJS
  Piece of shit Criminal Daughter-Raper Biden Laments America’s ‘Original Sin’ of Slavery in Angola

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 07:33 AM | Comments (422) | Trackbacks (Suck)