James Varney: FEMA is Hoarding Billions of Dollars in Disaster Relief Money

But they'll give people without power or internet access $750 if they manage to get on the internet and apply for it.

And are not rejected -- which is reportedly happening to many or even most.

Although the Federal Emergency Management Agency told Congress last month that it had $4 billion in its Disaster Relief Fund, officials also warned that the Fund could have a shortfall of $6 billion by year's end, a situation FEMA says could deteriorate in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene.

While FEMA is expected to ask Congress for new money, budget experts note a surprising fact: FEMA is currently sitting on untapped reserves appropriated for past disasters stretching back decades.

An August report from the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Inspector General noted that in 2022, FEMA "estimated that 847 disaster declarations with approximately $73 billion in unliquidated funds remained open."

Drilling down on that data, the OIG found that $8.3 billion of that total was for disasters declared in 2012 or earlier.

Such developments are part of a larger pattern in which FEMA failed to close out specific grant programs "within a certain timeframe, known as the period of performance (POP)," according to the IG report. Those projects now represent billions in unliquidated appropriations that could potentially be returned to the DRF (Disaster Relief Fund)."

These "unliquidated obligations" reflect the complex federal budgeting processes. Safeguards are important so that FEMA funding doesn't become a slush fund that the agency can spend however it chooses, budget experts said, but the inability to tap unspent appropriations from long-ago crises complicates the agency's ability to respond to immediate disasters.

"This is an age-old game that happens and it doesn't matter what administration is in," said Brian Cavanaugh, who served as an appropriations manager at FEMA in the Trump administration. "It's unfortunate how complex disaster relief has become, but it's skyrocketing costs."

Cavanaugh said neither action from Congress nor an executive order from the White House would be required to tap those funds because FEMA is operating on the sort of continuing resolutions Congress routinely authorizes. If the money is part of "immediate needs funding," DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas could draw from the billions in untapped money to help the victims of Helene and then inform lawmakers he was compelled to do so, leaving elected officials facing charges they sought to pinch pennies when Americans were desperate.

FEMA did not respond to a request for comment about whether it could access the earmarked funds.

Of course. Why should the Lords hoarding $73 billion of the peasants' money answer the peasants' questions about it?

Mayorkas just claimed that FEMA was out of money.

Mayorkas, whose Department oversees FEMA, stressed the agency is not broke, and both he and other FEMA officials said this week there was enough money in the Disaster Relief Fund to meet the needs of victims of Hurricane Helene, which with a death count of more than 200 stands as the most lethal storm to hit the U.S. since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

...

The price tag on some of those services, such as those associated with assistance to immigration, has seen an unprecedented surge due to millions of illegal entrants during Biden's term. FEMA has spent more than $640 million on those programs in 2024, leading to criticism this week from Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and others.

...

Portnoy first called attention to FEMA's unspent funds in conversations with RealClearInvestigations on Sept. 8. He said it seems bizarre that federal officials would have a pot substantial enough to cover a projected shortfall while adding billions to the Disaster Relief Fund, but fail to draw on it.

"There is all that money just sitting there," Portnoy said. "They're saying they don't have enough money but when you juxtapose it with the more than $8 billion, well, why not use that right now in Florida and other places?"

The "unliquidated obligations" have stayed on FEMA's books because it "subjectively" extended the deadlines on some projects. The deadline for 2012's Superstorm Sandy has been extended to 2026.

"As a result, the potential risk for fraud, waste, and abuse increases the longer a program remains open," a DHS report concluded.

And here's why: FEMA is deliberately keeping open these fake "obligations" to make the case for more federal funding.

Although DHS could probably reach into such unliquidated obligations to help restore order in areas devastated by Helene, experts note that bureaucracies are loath to resort to such tactics when budget negotiations are near, as they are when the fiscal year ends this month.

In other words: They don't want to draw from their hoarded stacks of billions because that would undermine their claims that they're "out of money" and need billions more.

This country is sick.

Posted by: Ace at 03:30 PM | Comments (369) | Trackbacks (Suck)

In the Wake of Helene, with the Harris-Biden FEMA Missing in Action, Ron DeSantis Refuses to Take Kamala Harris' Phot-Op Phone Call

#Based.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is not taking calls from Vice President Kamala Harris about storm recovery just over a week after Hurricane Helene hammered parts of his state.

A source familiar with the situation said he was dodging the Democratic presidential nominee's calls because they "seemed political," according to a DeSantis aide.

"Kamala was trying to reach out, and we didn't answer," the DeSantis aide told NBC News.

The same person said "not to my knowledge" when asked if DeSantis had spoken to President Joe Biden.

Last week, DeSantis said Biden had called him, but he was flying at the time so could not take the call. Biden was in north Florida last week to survey storm damage, but DeSantis was holding a news press conference that had already been scheduled in another part of the state so they did not meet. A source familiar with the planning said that the Biden team had invited DeSantis to the event in north Florida.

DeSantis has been in direct contact with Federal Emergency Management Director Deanne Criswell.

People noticed that during Helene, Kamala Harris decided to campaign for office by going on a leftwing highly-sexual podcast called "Call Me Daddy."

Thereon, she announced that there were no laws -- zero -- dictating what a man must do with his body.

Posted by: Ace at 02:21 PM | Comments (423) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Major "A-List" Celebrity Horrified That Videotape of Him at P-Diddy's Sex Party Will Leak

Sorry for the lateness!

And thank you, Charlie Brown's Dildo.

Boy that's a sketchy sentence to write.

Specifically, it's a major male A-list celebrity -- "higher profile" than Diddler -- that was taped while P-Diddler was having sex with him.

The male celebrity involved in the alleged Sean "Diddy" Combs' sex tape being shopped around is reportedly "horrified" over the footage possibly being released.

A source told The Post on Friday that the situation has been a "total nightmare" and "triggering" for the individual, who has yet to be identified.

...

"It brings up some really disturbing and bad memories," they continued. "He feels like he was victimized years ago and is now being victimized yet again. If this footage gets out, it will follow him for life. It will be on the internet forever."

...

The Post reached out to Combs' rep for comment -- as well as the mystery celeb's spokesperson -- but has yet to hear back.

The outlet added that it remains unclear whether the celebrity was a victim of a sex crime or an adult at the time the video was recorded.

The footage, notably, depicts a man who appears to be Combs having sex with a younger male, who appears to be the A-lister in question.

Additionally, a Department of Homeland Security officer could not confirm to The Post that the star was in the footage they have obtained from sex parties at Combs' mansions.

"There are recognizable names," the agent said.

While the officer would not "confirm any of their identities," they did confirm that "it's more than just that one."

Attorney Ariel Mitchell-Kidd, who has allegedly seen "stills" of the clip being shopped around, claimed to NewsNation that the other person is "more high-profile than Mr. Combs."

She alleged, "I can verify that it exists. That it's real and that the other person in the video is very visible. There's no question of if it's that person in the video."

Diddler's team denies the existence of the tape and says Mitchell-Kidd is just trying to get attention.

Relatedly: Denzel Washington and his wife supposedly used to attend the Diddler's parties, but stormed out one night.

Allegedly.

Denzel Washington had fighting words for Sean "Diddy" Combs at one of the disgraced rapper's parties back in the early aughts, according to a new report.

The Oscar-winning actor, 69, "screamed" at Combs before he "stormed out" of an all-night party that the music mogul hosted in 2003, an unnamed source told Us Weekly.

The outlet describes the insider as someone who was "friendly" with Diddy "in the early 2000s."

"Denzel screamed, 'You don't respect anyone,'" the source claimed.

"[Denzel and his wife, Pauletta] had been partying until dawn [with Diddy], and they had seen something and stormed out," the insider continued.

...

Combs was known for hosting wild and lavish parties long before his arrest. The expensive affairs were always populated with A-list celebrities, such as Washington.

Diddy's $3 million 40th birthday "party of the century" at New York's Plaza Hotel in 2009 was among the rapper's famous bashes that the "Equalizer" star attended.

Though Washington has never publicly spoken about Combs' soirees, comedian Brandon T. Jackson has said the "Fences" actor advised him to always leave Hollywood parties "before the devil get there."

"Denzel always told me, [when] we be at the parties, 'You leave 30 minutes before the devil get there. OK?' Always remember that Denzel would leave the parties early," Jackson said on the "Breaking the Machine" podcast in January.

A clip of the interview has gone viral since Combs' arrest.

Some celebrities have spoken up about Diddy's parties, including Marlon Wayans, who said he always left early.

Posted by: Ace at 01:25 PM | Comments (540) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Open Thread

Posted by: CBD at 12:30 PM | Comments (443) | Trackbacks (Suck)

THE MORNING RANT: There Is a Widespread Collapse in Confidence of Federal Agencies, which is Also an Opportunity for Trump to Clean House After His Inauguration

FEMA, under the leadership of Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, has been somewhere between ineffective, absent, and adversarial in response to the devastating flooding in Appalachia. The agency is also running out of money, having diverted its budget to facilitating an invasion of illegal aliens into the US. Most shockingly, this is a surprise to almost no one.

The Secret Service seems to no longer have the capability – or inclination - to protect the Republican presidential nominee from the most obvious threats. Once unthinkable, the magnitude of this reality under Kimberly Cheatle’s highly politicized leadership is somehow not even shocking.

The Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimondo, stated last week that she "hasn't been particularly involved" regarding the port workers strike that was impending. Of course she hadn’t been. And that surprised almost no one.

In any normal administration, the name of the Transportation Secretary would be unknown, but with repeated transportation calamities, we have come to know that Pete Buttigieg is a hapless figurehead who is completely uninformed about transportation industries and the movement of goods in this country.

I could go on and on, to include NOAA, the CDC, the FDA, NASA, the Pentagon, etc.

The core issue is that the American public no longer has any expectation that federal agencies can provide their core services, nor that the “leadership” of those agencies has any ability to run them. We understand now that those in charge are simply given these positions as political rewards, and to use those agencies to advance the greater left-wing political agenda against the establishment’s political enemies. Sadly, those political enemies include about half of the country.

I’ve started to write an essay about this several times, with the thesis being that the rot in these institutions is such that they are beyond salvaging, and that if there is any good news about the situation, it’s that this widespread collapse in confidence provides a rare opportunity for a reformer to start cleaning house. I’ll be voting for that reformer in a couple of weeks.

But I just read a couple of other great essays in the past few days, so instead, I am going to quote from those. I cannot summarize the situation any better than Jeffrey Carter and T.J. Harker did in these pieces. There is much more in their essays than I have excerpted, so I encourage you to click and read them in full.

1) Jeffrey Carter: “Total and Utter Incompetence”

Mayor Pete and the Department of Transportation are nowhere to be found. They must be working on high-speed rail while I-40 and I-26 are crumbling.

Secretary Mayorkas was predictably MIA. He stated FEMA, an agency he oversees, needs more money to handle the situation. That guy would screw up a one-car funeral. He is so incompetent.

Of course, Kamala Harris and Mayorkas spent $1B of FEMA money on illegal aliens. That fact should be particularly galling to anyone. It shows government money no matter where it is budgeted is fungible. It also shows where the priorities of people like Harris are. They aren’t with citizens of the US, but with illegals they helped come in.

Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM | Comments (500) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Mid-Morning Art Thread

The Innocent Eye test
Mark Tansey

Below the fold is a different kind of art...

Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (328) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Morning Report — 10/7/24


Good Morning Kids. Today marks one year since the greatest single-day orgy of slaughter and barbarity against Jews since the end of the Second World War. What was equally-shocking was the near orgasmic glee and support that far too many here in America and in the west in general showed and continue to show – not for the victims (including infants who were literally roasted alive in front of their abused and tortured parents before they were cruelly dispatched) but for the perpetrators.

The cancer of anti-semitism, that is the world's oldest hatred, has metastasized and grown exponentially since the end of World War Two when perhaps naively we (including people like myself the actual child of a Shoah survivor) felt secure here in America, and especially in supposed bastions of tolerance and multi-ethnicity such as New York, perhaps the most Jewish city on the planet outside of Israel itself, and yet nowhere in my hometown was safe, especially and most ironically on college campuses the alleged centers of tolerance, openness and intellectual inquiry and enlightenment.

What the events of one year ago demonstrated, was that the forces of darkness and evil are on the march and that what happened in Israel is just one front in an ongoing war against real tolerance, real openness and real freedom by an evil that seeks to snuff it out and thereby capture the world for its own nefarious purpose.

As is said in Hebrew; Am Y'israel Chai The People of Israel Live. Certainly the decapitation strikes over the past several weeks that have dealt a seemingly mortal blow to Hezbollah, as well as the ongoing ground offensive against Hamas in the wake of last year's attack. and an anticipated strike against the head of the snake itself, Iran that could perhaps result in the liberation of that country after 45 years of being run by dark age Mullahs who see armageddon as a desirable political aim in bringing about an alleged Islamic age of permanent global conquest. With that said, I cannot understand how Israel so masterfully pulled off these operations that must have taken many months if not years to plan and execute, and yet were so utterly caught off guard one year ago. That will have to be for the Israeli people to sort out lest an attack of this sort happen again. Despite the staggering victory against the terrorists, the past 1,500 years of Islam should serve as a lesson that even if only one of these bastards remains standing, he won't rest until he can take out even one Jew. And with over a billion of them scattered all over the four corners of the world, while still whacking themselves in the forehead with the koran or with a sword, there are sure to be further victims. And not just Jews, but anyone who refuses to submit. By the way, "ISLAM" in English translates as submission.

Meanwhile, here at home the same will to power and to dominate free people continues apace. While Donald Trump returned to the site of the first assassination attempt on his life at Butler PA for a raucous and massive rally. The junta that runs this country, in the wake of its criminal ineptitude in bringing assistance to the victims of hurricane Helene is literally forbidding private citizens from independently working to render assistance to their neighbors.

Early voting in North Carolina starts in just days, and Appalachian voters in the western, deep-red stronghold of the state are still desperate for help with basic necessities after destruction wrought by Hurricane Helene. A slow-rolled disaster relief response from federal and state government agencies has many wondering if the Democrats in charge are trying to suppress the votes of the predominantly Trump-supporting region.
“As rescuing survivors and repairing damage continues in North Carolina, the alarming lack of state-level adjustment regarding the conduct of this year’s election has begun to appear intentional on the part of Democrat Governor Cooper and his allies,” a press release from the Election Transparency Initiative, run by former acting deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Ken Cuccinelli, stated.
The vast majority of the 28 counties and tribal areas included in the emergency declaration are Republican strongholds, and the voters there can make or break a win for former President Donald Trump in the tight swing state he only carried by about 75,000 votes in 2020.
According to an analysis by The Federalist, 604,119 voters in the emergency declaration region cast their ballots for Trump in 2020, while 356,902 chose President Joe Biden. That 247,217-vote difference is more than three times Trump’s margin of victory in 2020.
Trump voters in the affected region also made up 10.9 percent of the total 5,545,848 votes cast in 2020, and the average county voter participation rate is 77.3 percent.
Voter suppression in the disaster zone could be catastrophic for the Trump campaign, and the malaise shown by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Cooper, and the Democrat-run North Carolina State Board of Elections (NCSBE) raises significant questions about a life-threatening power play from Democrats and deliberate election interference in order to carry the state for Vice President Kamala Harris in November.

Considering that the so-called Secretary of Transportation Buttigieg has grounded all Private drone and air traffic over the hurricane ravaged areas where victims can be spotted and helped, And as of right now, pre-existing electoral shenanigans notwithstanding, the polls and other indicators were not looking good for Mrs. Emhoff and Tampon Timmy. I put nothing past the powers that be. It's also good old retribution against a region populated by people who in the main oppose their agenda.

WIth all of that as a set up, check this out:

The Biden-Harris junta has been trying to create the appearance of engagement, and yet, even those efforts have fallen flat. Last week, Kamala Harris’s announcement of $750 checks for those who have lost everything—a disgusting insult to the intelligence and dignity of the American people. This pathetic gesture was bad enough, but on Saturday evening, Kamala added even more insult to injury.
In a tweet from her official VP account, Kamala Harris felt it was appropriate to boast about a new humanitarian aid package... for Lebanon. While Americans ravaged by Hurricane Helene are left to fend for themselves due to insufficient federal aid. The Biden-Harris administration, never shy with throwing money around to other countries, announced a $157 million aid package for humanitarian relief. "The people of Lebanon are facing an increasingly dire humanitarian situation," Kamala tweeted. "I am concerned about the security and well-being of civilians suffering in Lebanon and will continue working to help meet the needs of all civilians there."
She continued, "To that end, the United States will provide nearly $157 million in additional assistance to the people of Lebanon for essential needs such as food, shelter, water, protection, and sanitation to help those who have been displaced by the recent conflict. This additional support brings total U.S. assistance to Lebanon over the last year to over $385 million."

Well, at least the Junta has its priorities straight!

Have a good day.

ABOVE THE FOLD, BREAKING, NOTEWORTHY
• Tropical Storm Milton is expected to develop into a “near major hurricane” — a hurricane close to a Category 3 rating — before making a potential mid-week landfall on the west coast of the Florida Peninsula, according to the National Hurricane Center. The natural disaster is forecasted to arrive mere days after Category 4 Hurricane Helene struck the Sunshine State on Sept. 26 and made its way up through Georgia, the Carolinas and Tennessee, taking the lives of at least 223 people.
  Potential Hurricane Slated To Hit Florida Just Weeks After Helene Decimated Rural South, Forecasters Say
  
• “Over the next year, we expect some individuals with terrorism ties and some criminal actors will continue their efforts to exploit migration flows and the complex border security environment to enter the United States.”
  FRONTLINES: DHS warns terrorism threat in US high as illegal immigrants continue to flood through border
  
• Victor Davis Hanson: Modern society's focus on credentials has created a two-tiered system, where multi-talented individuals are criticized, and elites oversee a dependent underclass.
  We Are in Need of Renaissance People

Posted by: J.J. Sefton at 06:57 AM | Comments (314) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 7 October 2024

Top Story

• Insecure "Deebot" vacuum cleaners made by Chinese company Ecovacs are recording you and taking pictures and measuring every corner of your house and sending the data back to the manufacturer. (ABC) (no, the other one)
  
  But you agreed to this when you were silly enough to buy one of their products.

  The Chinese home robotics company, which sells a range of popular Deebot models in Australia, said its users are "willingly participating" in a product improvement program.

  When users opt into this program through the Ecovacs smartphone app, they are not told what data will be collected, only that it will "help us strengthen the improvement of product functions and attached quality".

  But I can use the app to delete my data, right?

  It also states that voice recordings, videos and photos that are deleted via the app may continue to be held and used by Ecovacs.

  But at least the data doesn't go any further, right?

  Cybersecurity researcher Dennis Giese reported the problems to the company last year after he found a series of basic errors putting Ecovacs customers' privacy at risk.

  "If their robots are broken like that," he asked, "how does their back-end [server] look?

  "Even if the company's not malicious, they might be the victim themselves of corporate espionage or nation state actors."

  But... Lerian Jihad time.

   

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (66) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Overnight Open Thread (10/6/24)

*****

The Quotes of The Day

Quote I

"I think that's what President Trump did. He triumphed against massive adversity. He's still doing that with bullets flying by his head," Constantino said. "And we triumph too. Nobody thought we could build a massive sticker company or a massive tech company in upstate New York." Sticker Mule CEO Anthony Constantino

Quote II

But we now know that that was an overly simple view, that if the platforms, whether it’s Facebook or Twitter or X or Instagram or TikTok, whatever they are, if they don’t moderate and monitor the content we lose total control and it’s not just the social and psychological effects it’s real harm, it’s child porn and threats of violence, things that are terribly dangerous. Hillary Clinton

*****

The Comments of The Week

Submitted by OrangeEnt.

136. They're useless layabout dipshits whose job descriptions are, as far as i can tell, to vomit out a couple hundred words a day of copy-pasted propaganda and then go find something to do with their genitals from noon to bed time.
Posted by: Warai-otoko at October 02, 2024 04:34 PM (DDGz9)

149. I'M RIGHT HERE
Posted by: ace at October 02, 2024 04:37 PM (KRtlO)

Runner Up Comment of The Week

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 10:00 PM | Comments (460) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gun Thread: It's October Edition!

Howdy, Y'all! Welcome to the wondrously fabulous Gun Thread! As always, I want to thank all of our regulars for being here week in and week out, and also offer a bigly Gun Thread welcome to any newcomers who may be joining us tonight. Howdy and thank you for stopping by! I hope you find our wacky conversation on the subject of guns 'n shooting both enjoyable and informative. You are always welcome to lurk in the shadows of shame, but I'd like to invite you to jump into the conversation, say howdy, and tell us what kind of shooting you like to do!

Holy Shitballs! How in the ever-loving Hell did it get to be October? Seems like just last week it was September! Going to be a little bit of a rip-off edition this week, guys and gals. Your ol' pal Weasel went to the farm-o this week to check on things and do some neglected chores, so I didn't have much time for Gun Thread writing.

With that, step into the dojo and let's get to the gun stuff below, shall we?

Posted by: Weasel at 07:00 PM | Comments (315) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Food Thread: Braising...It's not just fancy welding!

[generic photo of braised meat. No, that's not a brisket!]

My first big braise of the season went off without a hitch, and I even got a pint of beautiful beef tallow out of it! That 13 pound brisket was untrimmed, so I went to town and then rendered the trimmings on a very low flame on the stove. It took a couple of hours, but I was left with beautiful beef tallow for frying potatoes or dipping bread (not really) or any manner of delicious things.

Back to the braise! I seared the trimmed brisket in a roasting pan on the stovetop. It was sort of a pain in the *ss, but I did an okay job. Then I sweated a ton of onion and carrot (cut big and chunky) and celery until it was soft (and maybe it picked up some color), then wine, chopped tomato, a bit of ketchup for sweetness, and a big handful of fresh thyme. I even pretended to use Bay leaf! Oh...I tied the thyme up with some twine so it was easily recovered after cooking.

Then covered the whole shebang and into the oven for four hours at 422 Kelvin.

When it was done I pulled the brisket out to rest a bit before chilling, and transferred the braising liquid and vegetables to a pot to cool. Then into the refrigerator for a day, after which I scraped the fat off the top and reheated for service. I chilled the brisket because cutting it when it was chilled was really easy.

Anyway, it sounds more complicated than it was. It took a fair bit of time because it was large and there was lots of chopping to be done, but it is a simple dish than when executed well is delicious, and can feed an army...or 12 people if you are counting.

Yup...lots of leftovers too!

Posted by: CBD at 04:00 PM | Comments (320) | Trackbacks (Suck)

First-World Problems...

Hardwood floors are great! Even 100 year old ones.

Except, the repairs done by well-meaning knuckleheads over the years are particularly well suited for...at best...the ripping of socks, and...at worst...the ripping of flesh!

I am unfortunately well aware of the three nails that just love...love...love! to emerge as the floors flex. I discovered them many years ago, and that discovery was accompanied by much swearing and gnashing of teeth.

Slapping hot iron on it is a tempting fix.

Or maybe I need to rent a jackhammer.

Or a backhoe.

Posted by: CBD at 02:00 PM | Comments (308) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Free Speech Is Under Attack, And There Is No Accommodation With The Attackers

We are not granted the right to speak freely. That is an integral part of our humanity, a God-given, natural right. The 1st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution merely restricts the government from attempting to control our free speech.

Except...the inexorable slide into totalitarianism that began with the 28th president, the unrepentant racist and socialist Woodrow Wilson*, has accelerated over the past 20+ years, and we are now faced with the total destruction of our freedom. Because without free speech, what do we have?

But there are signs of a revolt against this galloping fascism, and Matt Taibbi has planted his freedom banner firmly in the earth! Sure, he can be a wackadoodle, and I recall at least one of his articles claiming that Donald Trump is "infamously corrupt," without the silly little detail of facts to buttress his claim.

Here is the full text of his recent speech, and it is absolutely worth reading in its entirety.

Matt Taibbi Full Speech at "Rescue the Republic" Event in Washington, DC

“Freedom of speech” is a beautiful phrase, strong, optimistic. It has a ring to it. But it’s being replaced in the discourse by “disinformation” and “misinformation,” words that aren’t beautiful but full of the small, pettifogging, bureaucratic anxiety of a familiar American villain: the busybody, the prohibitionist, the Nosey Parker, the snoop.

H.L. Mencken defined Puritanism as the “haunting fear that someone, somewhere is happy.” That streak of our early European settlers unfortunately survives in us and keeps surfacing through moral panics. Four hundred years ago it was witches, then it was Catholic immigrants, then “the devil’s music,” comic books, booze, communists, and now, information.

Because “freedom of speech” is now frequently described as a stalking horse for hate and discrimination — the UN High Commissioner Volker Türk scolded Elon Musk that “free speech is not a free pass” — it’s becoming one of those soon-to-be-extinct terms. Speech is mentioned in “reputable” media only as a possible vector for the informational disease known as misinformation. Soon all that will remain of the issue for most people is a flutter of the nerves, reminding them to avoid thinking about it.

The end game is not controlling speech. They’re already doing that. The endgame is getting us to forget we ever had anything to say.

As we all know, particularly from Orwell, and as Taibbi points out in his speech, the ultimate point of manipulating language is to take away the vernacular of freedom and liberty. If we do not even have the means to express ourselves, then we are merely serfs.

His last few paragraphs make that point quite forcefully, and he expresses it in exactly the way the budding totalitarians in our government/media complex deserve to be spoken to!

We need to take off our oh-so-polite gloves. Speak to the censors as if they are the scum of the earth, because that is exactly who they are. They plot to destroy our freedoms, and they deserve our contempt and hatred and vitriol...loudly, at length, in public! Give them no quarter, push back at every opportunity, and never let them forget that we outnumber them.

*Yes, there is an argument to be made that our loss of freedoms began with Abraham Lincoln!

[Hat Tip: TC]

Posted by: CBD at 12:00 PM | Comments (284) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Morning Book Thread - 10-06-2024 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading. Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...

So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, pour yourself a cup of pumpkin spice coffee, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM | Comments (276) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 6 October 2024

Top Story

• Back at the dawn of time - which is to say, a few years ago - when an AI didn't know how to answer a question it would say it didn't know how to answer the question. Either that or tie itself into knots, spit out an entire ream of gibberish, and crash.
  
  AIs today are much more sophisticated. Like many humans when they don't know how to answer a question, they lie. (Ars Technica)
  
  This is what you get when you reward answers rather than accuracy. It's the comment spam problem all over again.
  
  What's worse, the more advanced the AI - the larger its training set - the stronger the tendency to lie.
  
  And the more effort that is put into supervising the AI after the bulk training - a process called alignment - the stronger the tendency to lie and get away with it.
  
  It's not really lying, of course, since the current crop of commercial AIs have no intentionality. It's just that they also have no concept of truth, and the way they are trained rewards giving answers, not just giving the right answer.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM | Comments (218) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Overnight Open Thread (10/5/24)

*****

The Saturday Night Joke

"THE TELEPHONE"

Digging to a depth of 1,000 meters last year, French scientists found traces of copper wire dating back 1,000 years.
The French came to the conclusion that their ancestors had a telephone network centuries ago.

Not to be outdone by the French, English scientists dug to a depth of 2,000 meters. Shortly thereafter headlines in the UK newspapers read: "English archaeologists have found traces of a 2,000-year-old fiber-optic cable and have concluded that their ancestors had an advanced high-tech digital communications network a thousand years earlier than the French."

One week later, Israeli newspapers reported the following: "After digging as deep as 5,000 meters in a Jerusalem marketplace, they found absolutely nothing. They thus concluded that 5,000 years ago Jews were using wireless." (H/T My Buddy Ron)

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 09:50 PM | Comments (332) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Music Thread: The Unbearable Lightness Of Messenger Bags

Look what we found in Garrett's closet!

Posted by: CBD at 07:30 PM | Comments (210) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Hobby Thread - October 5, 2024 [TRex]

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. By sheer random coincidence, a spin of the Ace of Spades Wheel of Hobbies(TM) has come up with a theme of DISASTER PREPARATION for this week.

What are the odds that disaster prep would come up on the Wheel of Hobbies(TM) with so much devastation being experienced by the good people of North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Virginia? The Wheel knows all.

We can not assume that government is on the way to rescue or help. We need to be able to survive and take care of ourselves, our families and those near and dear to us.

You might be wondering whether disaster preparation is really a hobby. With enough enthusiasm and commitment, anything can be a hobby. We do not need to resolve that issue today. Let us agree to call it a worthy endeavor that permit our continued enjoyment of hobbies, so it is hobby-adjacent. Work with me here.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:30 PM | Comments (214) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ace of Spades Pet Thread, October 5

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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 03:17 PM | Comments (50) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, Oct. 5

Hi! Is everybody okay after the storms? Fire danger gone where you are? I still worry. We are still having hot days here, but cool nights. It makes a difference when there is some cool time in the morning.

Aren't you impressed by the window box above?

My window boxes in Manitoba, Canada. Still blooming in late September in spite of a cold Zone 3 winter coming.

Conservative Hippy

The look great! Hope they last a while longer. And look at the one below:

Posted by: K.T. at 01:29 PM | Comments (45) | Trackbacks (Suck)