May 24, 2024
THE MORNING RANT: Mega-Woke Retailer Target “Unexpectedly” Has Another Disappointing Quarter with Declining Top-Line Revenue
Target (TGT) missed the earnings mark in the first quarter. Blame inflation-battered US households, its execs say. The "biggest challenges" Target is hearing about from its shoppers are "inflation in food and household essentials," chairman and CEO Brian Cornell said on a call with reporters detailing first quarter results.By contrast, just a few days earlier Wal Mart reported exceptional results for the same quarter, with its CFO stating, “We’ve got customers that are coming to us more frequently than they have before and newer customers that we haven’t traditionally had.” “…customers that we haven’t traditionally had.” In other words, customers who used to shop at Target are now shopping at Walmart. This Forbes Business piece lists some of the lowlights of Target’s disastrous quarter. Here is a comparison of Target’s quarterly results to Wal Mart’s:
Posted by: Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM | Comments (201) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Mid-Morning Art Thread
John Atherton
John Atherton
Posted by: CBD at 09:30 AM | Comments (364) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Friday Morning Report (5/24/24)
*****
Good morning Horde. Friday of Memorial Day Weekend. Let us never forget the men and women who died while in service to our country. So let's see what is below the fold:
Good morning Horde. Friday of Memorial Day Weekend. Let us never forget the men and women who died while in service to our country. So let's see what is below the fold:
Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 06:21 AM | Comments (432) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Daily Tech News 24 May 2024
Top Story
- Google promised better search - now it's telling us to put glue on pizza. (The Verge)
AI - the LLM version of AI, which is all that makes the news these days - requires human input to learn. It only takes a few iterations of training AI on AI output for it to turn completely to shit.
Yes, even more than usual.
Which is why OpenAI and Google made deals with Reddit to train their respective AI engines on that vast trove of human-generated data.
Only problem is, Reddit is Reddit:Imagine this: you've carved out an evening to unwind and decide to make a homemade pizza. You assemble your pie, throw it in the oven, and are excited to start eating. But once you get ready to take a bite of your oily creation, you run into a problem - the cheese falls right off. Frustrated, you turn to Google for a solution.
Google will literally tell you to do this, because it found that answer in a ten year old Reddit thread.
"Add some glue," Google answers. "Mix about 1/8 cup of Elmer's glue in with the sauce. Non-toxic glue will work."
Obviously it's a joke. Obviously it's a bad idea. But AI doesn't know those things, because AI doesn't know anything except, statistically, which words are likely to be found together.Look, Google didn't promise this would be perfect, and it even slaps a "Generative AI is experimental" label at the bottom of the AI answers. But it's clear these tools aren't ready to accurately provide information at scale.
They work just fine if you don't care about the answers. They work just fine if an answer that looks right, is right.
That's why AI is advancing rapidly in image generation (and in producing astoundingly mediocre music) but is absolute garbage at anything that requires a factual answer.
It's not a bug. It's baked in to the design.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:09 AM | Comments (117) | Trackbacks (Suck)
May 23, 2024
Stuck In The Middle With ONT
Welcome to Thursday night! So, start with a question: What could you say or do to make your dad call you immediately?
Posted by: WeirdDave at 10:00 PM | Comments (537) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Headless Visibility Day Cafe
Stone village in Switzerland
and kind of an alley
by @ronald_soethje
The Return of Steve Inman: Pizza man sees something, does something. I'm very sick of the "social experiment" pranksters. These are antisocial, possibly psychopathic individuals who break into people's homes or steal drinks out of their hands as a "social experiment," to see what people will do. Then they post their sociopathy on social media and make money off it. Well, this asshole did a "prank" in which he ran from a building, as if he was a thief. He gets a bigger reaction than he was expecting. Another thing I hate: Thieves. They should be beaten as close to death as the law will allow. Brazilian motorbike robbers come up against a victim who's willing to fight and then, even worse, come up against a bystander who's willing to air them out with a gun.
Stone village in Switzerland
and kind of an alley
by @ronald_soethje
The Return of Steve Inman: Pizza man sees something, does something. I'm very sick of the "social experiment" pranksters. These are antisocial, possibly psychopathic individuals who break into people's homes or steal drinks out of their hands as a "social experiment," to see what people will do. Then they post their sociopathy on social media and make money off it. Well, this asshole did a "prank" in which he ran from a building, as if he was a thief. He gets a bigger reaction than he was expecting. Another thing I hate: Thieves. They should be beaten as close to death as the law will allow. Brazilian motorbike robbers come up against a victim who's willing to fight and then, even worse, come up against a bystander who's willing to air them out with a gun.
Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 07:30 PM | Comments (151) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Quick Hits
The Washington Post is looking for a "narrative accountability editor" for "mission-driven journalism." If you can't tell what they're talking about, that means they're obscuring the real meaning, and the real meaning is bad.
Yesterday I pointed out that Bloomberg was suddenly polling Trump vs. Kamala Harris. What are they hearing? I asked. Are they hearing that Democrats are starting to consider the Torricielli Option, and swapping out Biden for another Democrat? Liberal poll analyst Nate Silver says Democrats have to start considering "alternatives."
"You cannot sit on the sideline. I don't care how you feel about Joe Biden, you must vote for him," Comey said, "because the consequences on the other side are too severe." The former FBI director had been asked about his feelings regarding the Trump hush money trial, which MSNBC host Alex Wagner argued was likely the only Trump case that will see a verdict before the 2024 election. ... Wagner went on to ask if there would be a stress test "unlike any other if Donald Trump is re-elected" and asked what Comey suspects the potential implications would be for the FBI. "Oh, serious - and for the Justice Department and the FBI - because Trump is coming for those institutions. He knows their power and I think he has regrets that he didn't work hard enough to corrupt them last time, so he's coming for them and that's a danger for all Americans," the former FBI director argued.
More fodder for discussion: If Biden steps down, Kumala will obviously demand she be the nominee, and will cry racism and sexism if anyone refuses to support her. That's been her entire career so far. So the left doesn't just want Biden to step down -- they want Kumala to step aside as well, or agree to just be vice president under, say, Gavin Newsom. And thus we have the leftwing unfunny Daily Show dredging up videos of Kumala talking in circles (Venn diagrams, if you will) that the right has been talking about for about three years to portray Kumala as vapid space cadet airhead. The HHS has begun the debarment process against Peter Daszak and his lethal EcoHealth bioweapon slushfund.
Nate Silver
@NateSilver538 *If* Biden is still trailing Trump by >=3 points in the swing states in August--not something I take for granted--then he'll be a pretty big underdog. It would be bananas not to consider alternatives. Sometimes all you get choose from is different types of bananas.
Because what's the threshold? Let's say the first debate goes *really* badly for Biden and now he's down 5-6 points in the tipping point states. That's a nearly unsalvageable position. You'd have to pull the emergency lever. I don't expect Democrats to do this, because this is the same party that's too stubborn to encourage Sotomayor to resign, which is a much clearer call than anything involving Biden. But it's bananas not to think strategically when the stakes are so high.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has begun debarment proceedings against Dr. Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, amid allegations of misconduct related to federal grant funds and gain-of-function research.A top general says he warned the Afghanistan bug-out would go exactly as it went.
Official Notification: HHS has suspended Daszak and proposed his debarment, citing violations linked to his role in managing a significant NIH grant. Congressional Scrutiny: The decision follows a Congressional report accusing Daszak of serious missteps in handling gain-of-function research, including bypassing safety moratoriums. Continued Investigations: Further Congressional actions are planned to fully hold Daszak accountable, including potential perjury regarding his grant management and collaborations with the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The top U.S. general in Afghanistan repeatedly warned the Biden administration that the region would get "very bad, very fast" after U.S. forces withdrew, The Washington Post reported. The Biden administration orchestrated the effort to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan in 2021 in what critics decried as an operational disaster that ended in the deaths of several troops and Afghani civilians. Retired Gen. Austin Scott Miller, the top U.S. general in Afghanistan in 2021, expressed concerns to the Biden administration about the region's security post-withdrawal and feared that they did not understand the risks of keeping an embassy open with little protection, he told the House Foreign Affairs Committee in a closed-door testimony last month, according to the Post.Eighty-one suspected terrorists have been caught crossing into the US just since October. And of course these are just the ones who crossed so blatantly that the compromised and handcuffed Border Patrol was able to catch.
Miller told lawmakers that he was so troubled that he privately warned a Marine Crops commander in charge of planning for a potential withdrawal to be ready for "really adverse conditions," according to the Post. "I did not foresee a good future for Afghanistan as I was departing," he told lawmakers in April, according to the Post. ... The administration maintains that the Afghanistan withdrawal was the "correct policy choice." "All the evidence is coming back. Do you remember what I said about Afghanistan?" Biden told reporters in 2023 when asked whether mistakes were made during the withdrawal. "I said al Qaeda would not be there. I said it wouldn't be there. I said we'd get help from the Taliban. What's happening now? What's going on? Read your press. I was right."
It has been revealed that 81 suspects on the terror watchlist have been apprehended while trying to illegally cross into the United States since October 2023. Data from Customs and Border Protection has shown that with six months left in Fiscal Year 2024, encounters with those whose names appear in the Terrorist Screening Dataset are set to come close to, if not surpass, the 172 reported the previous fiscal year.Another illegal alien has committed an unthinkable crime.
Former Biden press secretary Jen Psaki and fellow MSNBC talking heads Joy Reid and Rachel Maddow chuckled in March upon learning from a Super Tuesday exit poll that Virginia voters were concerned about the costly, deadly, and destabilizing influx of millions of illegal aliens into the nation. The exit poll found that immigration was the top concern among 38% of Republican voters. When asked what should be done about the illegal aliens in the U.S., 61% of Republican respondents in Virginia said to send them packing to wherever they came from. For the well-paid Biden boosters, this was evidently a laughing matter. "Well, Virginia does have a border with West Virginia. Very contested area," quipped Maddow.Video of Psaki and Maddow giggling at the link. Snicker some more, snotty bitches:
The reality of the Biden administration's failure to secure the border has, however, once again adversely impacted the very Americans whose concerns the MSNBC panelists thought laughable. The Campbell County Sheriff's Office arrested an illegal alien Wednesday and charged him with the rape of a minor. The sheriff's office indicated that Hiuder Pedro Javier Sacul-Caal, previously arrested in Virginia for drunk driving, is in the country illegally and has been deported at least once in the past, reported WSET-TV.
Lawyers representing an undocumented migrant who was allegedly intoxicated and killed a Washington state trooper are encouraging immigration authorities not to deport the suspect. Raul Benitez Santana has reportedly been detained in Snohomish County Jail since he was charged for vehicular homicide and vehicular assault stemming from a March 2 incident. The 33-year-old immigrant from Mexico was allegedly drunk and high on cannabis when he purportedly drove 112 miles per hour on the shoulder of a local interstate, crashing into and killing 27-year-old patrol trooper Chris Gadd as he was sitting in his parked vehicle. Santana's blood-alcohol level was reportedly just above the state's legal limit at 0.083, according to the Everett Herald. Last Wednesday, Judge Richard Okrent reduced the defendant's bail from $1 million to $100,000--a decision praised by Santana's attorneys but criticized by Gadd's widow and prosecutors. ... Santana's attorneys, Emily Hancock and Tiffany Mecca, reportedly asked Okrent to release their client from jail altogether, claiming he poses no threat to others in society due to no felonies being on his record. He does have misdemeanors for driving with a suspended license.A lot of murderers have a clean record. You know, before they murder someone.
The Washington Post is looking for a "narrative accountability editor" for "mission-driven journalism." If you can't tell what they're talking about, that means they're obscuring the real meaning, and the real meaning is bad.
This job requires someone with a track record of producing sophisticated narrative pieces and the ability to identify and pursue sharp investigative and accountability targets.In other words: We're looking for a self-declared "disinformation expert" to do hit-pieces claiming Republicans are lying.
The ideal candidate has a demonstrated ability to guide and shape compelling stories that use immersive reporting, keenly observed moments and exceptional writing to illuminate systemic failures and hold powerful people, institutions and interests to account.All powerful people and institutions, or just the ones you've declared war on?
Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 06:25 PM | Comments (258) | Trackbacks (Suck)
The White House Has Issued Nine "Corrections" to Biden's Lying and Fabulism During His NAACP Screed
Biden was in his usual form at the joint press conference with the president of Kenya.
These are just the mistakes and slurred words that they want to "correct" in a transcript.
They're leaving intact all of his false and racist claims. They're not correcting his lies- those were intentional. But as far as Biden's errors: They'll admit nine of them.In a recent address to the NAACP, President Biden's remarks were filled with gaffes, leading the White House to issue nine corrections to the official transcript.Obamacare is saving you "$800,000 per year." Oh my. How did his dying brain not reject this as implausible? Why did his demented brain think that this was somehow a plausible fiction? He just babbles like a very wrinkly infant.
Gaffe Highlights: Biden mistakenly referred to his vice presidency during the COVID-19 pandemic and made several misstatements, including confusing "pandemic" with "recession." Transcript Corrections: The corrected transcript tried to clarify Biden's words, such as changing "NAAC" to "NAACP" and correcting figures like "$800,000 per year" savings under the ACA to a more plausible number. Recent Trend: This incident continues a pattern of public speaking errors by Biden, noted more frequently as he ramps up public appearances.
He cannot say most consonant clusters, like those found in "insurrectionists." So he slurs words like that into "ishereshunists" or, of course, "erectionists."
During a speech to the NAACP in Michigan, President Joe Biden made multiple verbal slips, prompting the White House to correct the official transcript of the event nine times. Among the most notable mistakes, Biden said he was vice president during the COVID-19 pandemic, a significant chronological error since his vice presidency ended in January 2017, nearly three years before the pandemic began. The White House corrections clarified that Biden meant the "recession" when referring to his time as vice president under Barack Obama, specifically the Great Recession which was a critical issue during the early years of his vice presidency. Other corrections included gross exaggerations like families saving "$800,000 per year" from the Affordable Care Act, and misstatements about his actions against corporate landlords and his mispronunciation of "inspiring" and "insurrectionists."
... Despite these blunders, the White House has emphasized the substantive intentions behind Biden's words. Acting Deputy Press Secretary Sam Michel highlighted the administration's focus on reducing prescription drug costs, investing in Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and protecting Medicare and Social Security as the core messages of Biden's speech.Ignore the actual speech in Biden's speech. Look instead to the words written for him to slur by other people. The White House has "corrected" the transcripts of Biden's slurred words 148 times in 2024 -- so far.
White House communications staff has had to correct President Joe Biden's public remarks at least 148 times since the beginning of 2024, a review of official White House transcripts shows. The White House releases an official transcript anytime the president gives a speech or takes questions. Communications staff frequently correct, add to or alter Biden's official remarks in order to either bring them into compliance with official White House policy or, in some cases, reality, a Daily Caller analysis showed. In several cases, official statements had to be changed to convey the exact opposite of what Biden actually said. Through 118 statements, speeches and chats with reporters spanning from Jan. 1 to April 24, the White House has officially updated its transcript with corrections to what the president said out loud at least 148 times. Some of the modifications include corrections to names, dates and titles of organizations. Others change verbs and modify the meaning of the president's statement entirely. Words that the president didn't say, but should've, according to the White House staff, have also been added to the transcripts. "It was then, through no -- through my American Rescue Plan -- which every American [Republican] voted against, I might add -- we made the largest investment in public safety ever," the White House transcript of Biden's March State of the Union address read.There are a lot of times the White House "corrected" the record without acknowledging it was changing the historical record.
"I've always believed we've [they've] got it all wrong. America is rising. And we have the best economy in the world, which we do," the White House transcript of Biden's April 17 remarks on his new initiatives to protect U.S. steel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, read. "We must be honest: The threat to democracy must be defended [defeated]," another State of the Union excerpt reads. In at least one case, the White House put out a transcript that falsely portrayed what Biden said out loud. At an event last week, Biden seemingly read the word "pause" off of his teleprompter, but the original White House transcript of the president's remarks did not include the word "pause" -- it said "(inaudible)." An updated version of the transcript now includes the president's "pause" as well as the "(inaudible)." "Folks, imagine what we could do next," Biden said, touting his economic policies throughout his administration. "Four more years ... Pause," he continued before the crowd began to take the cue and chant. ... In other instances, Biden relayed false information or data which the White House transcript later corrected. "We vaccinated the vast bulk of America. We got through that pandemic with less than 200 million -- with less than 2 million people being vaccinated when I came to office. Today, 720 [270] million Americans have gotten COVID vaccine," the White House transcript reads from a Jan. 30 campaign reception. (America's total population is about 333 million, according to the United States Census Bureau.) ... The Daily Caller compared the number of changes in Biden's transcripts to a sampling of public remarks from former President Donald Trump. The Biden White House corrected the president's State of the Union transcript 13 times. The Trump White House didn't modify the former president's State of the Union address transcript at all. For Biden's remarks at the national prayer breakfast, the White House corrected the transcript eight times. The Trump White House adjusted the transcript once when the former president missed one word in a quote. ... Biden's 2024 Earth Day remarks were modified eight times by the White House in their final transcript. Trump's transcript was not corrected at all.
The Daily Caller's analysis does not include times that the White House altered transcripts without indicating there was a change. During Biden's State of the Union address, the president attempted to say the name of 22-year-old Laken Riley, who was allegedly killed by an illegal immigrant in Georgia while on a run. Biden, however, called the slain 22-year-old "Lincoln." The White House transcript writes that Biden said "Lanken" and corrects it to "Laken."
Biden was in his usual form at the joint press conference with the president of Kenya.
Daniel Okay
@DanielOkayDC Interesting tidbit: Biden at a press conference today sternly replied that a reporter could only ask him one question -- not two as a reporter had asked. This drew laughter from the room as it ostensibly was a joke. However, Biden was serious and tried to dodge the question.
After begrudgingly acknowledging the second q Biden said, "You guys never keep the deal." (2/3) While it's well known to many reporters and onlookers that press conference questions are selected by the WH... This IS a tacit, public confirmation that there are active agreements between reporters and the White House when asking Biden questions.
Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 05:30 PM | Comments (191) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Is This Something?
Finally: The critical reappraisal of Streets of Fire begins.
Patrick Willems says it's not the greatest movie ever, but it is the greatest movie for about 20 minutes, which sounds about right. If you don't agree that the final fight is the greatest six minutes in the history of art and culture and humanity, you have a hammer-shaped hole in your soul. Here's something you may find interesting: Quentin Tarantino's review and analysis of Dirty Harry. Instapundit likes to say "everyone is a conservative about that which he knows well" (or "cares about"). Tarantino definitely knows and cares about movies. I don't know his politics, but he will not let leftwing orthodoxy intrude into films or film criticism. He rejects the notion that Dirty Harry is "fascist." He does allow that it's reactionary -- a reaction to the mayhem of the late sixties. He points out the opening bank robbery scene features black gunmen not because the liberal director Don Siegel is racist, but because there were headline-grabbing bank robberies by the Black Panthers going on in the time. This is a film, Tarantino says, that was made to appeal to Nixon voters who did not approve of the chaos that the left encouraged. He doesn't really signal that he's conservative. He's just not going to play along with the Jake Tapper agenda of claiming everything which isn't pleasing to the Botox Liberal TV Set is "fascist." There's a new Dune series on HBO, Dune: Prophecy. It's about the beginnings of the Bene Geserit and is set 10,000 years before Paul Atreides went to Arrakis. Eh. Jessica Alba-- Action Hero. In, ahem, Trigger Warning. WHY WOULD YOU CALL IT THAT IT'S LIKE YOU WANT TO POISON THE AUDIENCE AGAINST YOUR OWN MOVIE Eh, Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon are in a movie about two families fighting over a marriage venue. Ferrell hasn't been funny in years but Witherspoon is doing okay producing her own movies. Maybe this is okay. If it's not, I don't care. My investment in any of them is zero. Another movie about a monster apocalypse where the monster operates by weird rules. Like A Quiet Place and Bird Box.Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 04:09 PM | Comments (437) | Trackbacks (Suck)
It Begins: Taxpayer-Funded Government Schools in Seattle Are Now Offering Hormone Blockers
Spencer Lindquist at Daily Wire:
EXCLUSIVE: Health Centers At Seattle Public Schools Offer 'Gender-Affirming' Hormone Therapy To Children The Seattle-based provider is at the forefront of what some call the "school-to-clinic pipeline"
A healthcare organization that operates clinics inside Seattle public schools says it can now offer "gender-affirming" hormone treatment to children, emails from a health center program manager reveal. Emails obtained by The Daily Wire reveal that Neighborcare Health, a healthcare organization that runs clinics in middle and elementary schools in the Seattle Public Schools district, announced in January 2023 that hormone treatments were now included in the "gender-affirming care" it could offer. "The Neighborcare Health team wanted to share an exciting new update to our School-based Health Center services," the email from a Program Manager for Neighborcare Health, which was obtained by Parents Defending Education through a public records request, reads. "Our program will begin offering comprehensive, evidence-based, gender-affirming care services to our students and families who need them." The change meant that the group could now give hormone treatments to children, it explained. "While our School-based Health Centers have long offered a continuum of gender-affirming care services including supportive student counseling, promotion of social identity, and health education, this step will allow us to begin offering families access to important medical interventions including hormone treatments," it states. The offerings mark one of the boldest efforts to create what Manhattan Institute Fellow Leor Sapir has dubbed the "school-to-clinic pipeline" whereby young school children are encouraged to undergo irreversible medical interventions that seek to change their sex. ... The company defended its decision to offer cross-sex hormone therapy to children in a comment to The Daily Wire, claiming that it was a form of "life-saving care."
Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 03:10 PM | Comments (319) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Portland Voters Boot Soros-Backed DA Out of Office
If even Portland can see that the Soros Zones are pits of death and despair...
Is it possible that the state of Oregon is getting off the progressive heroin it's been on for thirty years? No, it's not. However, they do seem to be realizing that the cult of progressivism is a hateful, lunatic death cult.
On Tuesday night, voters in Multnomah County, Oregon fired one-term George Soros-backed incumbent District Attorney Mike Schmidt. Fox 12 called the race at approximately 9:30 pm local time with Schmidt's opponent Nathan Vasquez leading 58 percent to 42 percent. In a non-partisan primary, if a candidate garners over 50 percent of the vote, they are declared the winner of the election but don't take office until January 2025.' ... Vasquez's campaign focused on Schmidt's soft-on-crime policies that have led to the deterioration of downtown Portland which has become overrun with homelessness and drugs. Since he won in 2020, Schmidt has been criticized by the union that represents prosecutors which ended up endorsing Vasquez. Downtown business groups also backed Vasquez.
Susheela Jayapal, the sister of far-left Squad member Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) was trounced in the Democratic primary in Oregon's 3rd Congressional District to replace Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), who is retiring after serving for almost 30 years.
.. Jayapal had been backed by national figures of the progressive movement including her sister, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Barbara Lee (D-CA) Dexter received mostly local endorsements including former Oregon Governors John Kitzhaber (D) and Ted Kulongoski (D), Oregon Senate President Rob Wagner (D), and Oregon Speaker of the House Julie Fahey (D).
Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 02:10 PM | Comments (291) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Perfect: The GOP Is About to Overrule the Supreme Court and Make Discrimination Against White and Asian People Legal Again Through a Backdoor Deal on Behalf of Their Corporate Donors
Update: Don't Go to Doctor from UCLA Medical School
Whom the gods destroy, they first make stupid. Another seal of the Education Apocalypse is opened.
Update: Don't Go to Doctor from UCLA Medical School
Congress -- including Republicans, of course -- is gearing up to overturn the Supreme Court ruling that struck down affirmative action in college admissions (and by implication, in hiring in all jobs), in the mode it's most comfortable with: in a sneaky backdoor way with plausible deniability, so that the liberals posing as Republicans can say "we're really fighting affirmative action quotas by re-authorizing them."
Why would Republicans screw over their voters like this? For the usual reason -- they're selling us out to please their liberal corporate donors.
More than two-thirds of Americans think the Supreme Court was right to hold Harvard's race-based admissions policy unlawful. But the minority who disagree have no doubt about their own moral authority, and there's every reason to believe that they intend to undo the Court's decision at the earliest opportunity. Which could be as soon as this year. In fact, undoing the Harvard admissions decision is the least of it. Republicans and Democrats in Congress have embraced a precooked "privacy" bill that will impose race and gender quotas not just on academic admissions but on practically every private and public decision that matters to ordinary Americans. The provision could be adopted without scrutiny in a matter of weeks; that's because it is packaged as part of a bipartisan bill setting federal privacy standards--something that has been out of reach in Washington for decades.
And it looks as though the bill breaks the deadlock by giving Republicans some of the federal preemption their business allies want while it gives Democrats and left-wing advocacy groups a provision that will quietly overrule the Supreme Court's Harvard decision and impose identity-based quotas on a wide swath of American life. This tradeoff first showed up in a 2023 bill that Democratic and Republican members of the House commerce committee approved by an overwhelming 53-2 vote. That bill, however, never won the support of Sen. Cantwell (D-WA), who chairs the Senate commerce committee. This time around, a lightly revised version of the bill has been endorsed by both Sen. Cantwell and her House counterpart, Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA). The bill has a new name, the American Privacy Rights Act of 2024 (APRA), but it retains the earlier bill's core provision, which uses a "disparate impact" test to impose race, gender, and other quotas on practically every institutional decision of importance to Americans.Disparate impact -- the doctrine that says you're racist even if you've done nothing racist nor ever had a racist thought. If you hire based on merit, and that results in a "disparate impact" with minorities getting fewer jobs, then hiring based on merit is racist and illegal. And Republicans are behind this! I am at my absolute end.
Read the whole thing. I cannot believe this. And yet, of course it's true. You know what's going on, right? Liberal corporate donors have gotten used to the racial quota system and their DEI officers are screaming about the possible end to racial quotas. So the big corporations are telling Republicans that they want some legal authority to continue discriminatory practices, now that the Supreme Court has outlawed the practice. They don't want to be sued by all the white and Asian people they're turning away on racial grounds. So they contact the people who slavishly serve them, and tell them, "Fuck over your own voters again, vote in favor of discriminating against us, so that we don't have to face internal strife from our DEI brigades and we can keep doing business as usual." And the GOP, of course, doesn't need to have its arm twisted much to fuck over Republican voters. It's what they do. It's all they do. Meanwhile: College students can't read, partly due to "education reforms" based on the idea that any standards in education cause "disparate impact" on blacks and therefore must be eradicated.
"Disparate impact" has a long and controversial history in employment law; it's controversial because it condemns as discriminatory practices that disproportionately affect racial, ethnic, gender, and other protected groups. Savvy employers soon learn that the easiest way to avoid disparate impact liability is to eliminate the disparity -- that is, to hire a work force that is balanced by race and ethnicity. As the Supreme Court pointed out long ago, this is a recipe for discrimination; disparate impact liability can "leave the employer little choice . . . but to engage in a subjective quota system of employment selection." Wards Cove Packing Co. v. Atonio, 490 U.S. 642, 652-53 (1989), quoting Albemarle Paper Co. v. Moody, 422 U.S. 405, 448 (1975) (Blackmun, J., concurring). ...
Not surprisingly, quota advocates don't want to fight such a war in the light of day. That's presumably why APRA obscures the mechanism by which it imposes quotas. Here's how it works. APRA's quota provision, section 13 of APRA, says that any entity that "knowingly develops" an algorithm for its business must evaluate that algorithm "to reduce the risk of" harm. And it defines algorithmic "harm" to include causing a "disparate impact" on the basis of "race, color, religion, national origin, sex, or disability" (plus, weirdly, "political party registration status"). APRA Sec. 13(c)(1)(B)(vi)(IV)&(V). At bottom, it's as simple as that. If you use an algorithm for any important decision about people--to hire, promote, advertise, or otherwise allocate goods and services--you must ensure that you've reduced the risk of disparate impact. The closer one looks, however, the worse it gets.
Whom the gods destroy, they first make stupid. Another seal of the Education Apocalypse is opened.
"Critics say." Critics say that lowering standards lowers standards. Those crazies! Update: the wages of DEI is death (for patients).
Many college students don't read very well, their professors say. And they don't think they should have to work very hard. "Some struggle with reading endurance and weak vocabulary," writes Beth McMurtrie in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Others aren't willing to struggle. Furthermore, "a significant number of those who do the work seem unable to analyze complex or lengthy texts," say professors at colleges ranging from Wellesley to Cal State LA. Students don't seem to "have the context to understand certain arguments or points of view." In 15 years of teaching, Theresa MacPhail has adapted to the declining number of students willing and able to complete reading assignments. "She began assigning fewer readings, then fewer still," reasoning that less is more, she told McMurtrie. "She would focus on the readings that mattered most and were interesting to them." MacPhail is an associate professor in science and technology studies at Stevens Institute of Technology, a selective university. But more and more of her students "still weren't doing the reading, and when they were, more and more struggled to understand it." They complained about having to write a research paper. It was too hard. ... Few students or parents worry about college readiness or academic well-being, surveys show. Grade inflation has persuaded them they're prepared for college work. Look at those A's! "I have a lot of students who think they've already mastered the art [of writing], and other students who've never been required to really try," says Gutierrez. He blames minimal writing requirements in high school and "good grades for mediocre work" for the decline in literacy. His students think writing 750 words is too much. The pandemic spread grading reforms, such as "equitable grading practices," that let students turn in work late, retake tests and receive points for assignments they didn't do. "Critics argue that such an approach can backfire, because, if done poorly, it conveys to students that deadlines, homework, and effort don't matter," writes McMurtrie. A Fordham critique argued that the practices "lower academic standards and are likely to do long-term damage to the educational equity their advocates purport to advance."
Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 01:00 PM | Comments (384) | Trackbacks (Suck)
CIA Blocked Investigation Into Kevin Morris, the "Sugar Brother" Who's Bankrolling Hunter Biden's Milion Dollar Defense
Who is REALLY funding Funboy's defense?
The CIA appeared to instruct the Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) for Delaware, Lesley Wolf, to block an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) team's investigation into Hunter Biden from using his benefactor, Kevin Morris, as a witness, IRS whistleblower Gary Shapley said in an affidavit the House Ways and Means Committee released Wednesday. Shapley, as a lead investigator for the IRS Criminal Division, was heading a probe into Biden in August 2021 when Wolf informed him that she and DOJ Tax Attorney Jack Morgan had been summoned to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Wolf, Morgan and the CIA discussed Hunter Biden's associate and benefactor, Kevin Morris, Shapley said in the affidavit. Shapley and his team were considering using Morris as a witness for their case against Biden, but Wolf apparently shut the possibility down. "AUSA Wolf stated that they were provided a classified briefing in relation to Mr. Morris and as a result we could no longer pursue him as a witness," Shapley stated. Morris has been a generous donor to Biden, buying 11 of his paintings and loaning him at least $5 million for tax debts and to cover personal expenses, Republican Kentucky Rep. James Comer revealed in a January press release.Shapley asked her to give him a classified briefing about what she had been told that caused her to terminate the investigation. She refused. She did seem delighted to have been invited into one of the Deep State's palaces:
...Was the "Sugar Brother" a CIA asset, one of the many people it pays, illegally, to advance Deep State interests in the US rather than in a foreign country? Maybe. But here's an even likelier scenario: Biden just asked his CIA allies, like John Brennan for starters, to lie to the prosecutor to make the Sugar Brother investigation go away. To save the crackhead. To rig an American election.
"AUSA Wolf proudly referenced a CIA mug and stated that she purchased some CIA 'swag' at the gift shop while she was there," Shapley shared.
Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 12:00 PM | Comments (289) | Trackbacks (Suck)
The Morning Rant: Minimalist Edition
Posted by: CBD at 11:00 AM | Comments (297) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Mid-Morning Art Thread
John White Alexander
John White Alexander
Posted by: CBD at 09:21 AM | Comments (344) | Trackbacks (Suck)
The Morning Report: 5/23/2024
[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter]
- House GOP claims Hunter Biden lied under oath multiple times during congressional deposition
What is really pathetic is that it is entirely unsurprising, and America has become inured to a rambling, nasty, senile old fool as the leader of our country.
- White House issues a whopping nine corrections to Biden's NAACP speech transcript
Perhaps she has read the tea leaves and has figured out that Trump is the leader of the Republican party, and crapping on him is not a recipe for political success.
- Nikki Haley endorses Trump for president
Harrison Butker said nothing remotely controversial unless you are a rabid feminist, and woke lunatic without any ability to comprehend obvious truths.
- Andy Reid, Who Loves Cheeseburgers, Thinks Harrison Butker Controversy Is A Nothing Burger
It's not a failure for Biden and the votes he is pursuing in Michigan and Minnesota. In fact, I wonder whether some of that Hamas money ends up paying operatives in Dearbornistan and Little Mogadishu?
- Pentagon Tacitly Admits Biden's Gaza Pier Stunt Is A Total Failure
I'm shocked! Who would have guessed that Zelensky was a conniving graft artist whose interest in democracy and freedom was a subterfuge?
- Zelensky's Prolonged Presidency Proves Americans Were Sold A Lie On Ukraine
Wow...this one is an even easier boycott! Hydrox cookies are fine, and I'm sure there are dozens of generics available.
- Is Oreo About to Be the Next Bud Light?
Luckily, the useful idiots of the 4th Estate are profoundly stupid and can't even do basic math. But this one is an "own goal" of epic proportions!
- Socialist Website Criticizes Walmart Over "Starvation Wages" -- But Walmart Often Pays More Than They Do
The ICC is sh*t. It always was, and always will be. It is a tool for bien pensant Euro-trash to pretend to dunk on America, Israel, and the occasional Western country that stumbles into aggressively conducting a military operation. But they have no teeth!
- Moral Cretins at the ICC
And finally, one more data point that proves our culture is broken.
- Mom Goes Ballistic When Her Kid Doesn't Win Award At School Event
Unless there are criminal penalties available to the House, this is much ado about nothing. Until Congress votes itself a SWAT team and a jail, I'll ignore them.
[Crossposted at CutJibNewsletter]
Posted by: CBD at 05:57 AM | Comments (534) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Daily Tech News 23 May 2024
Top Story
- You can now install the next big update of Windows 11 early so you can find all the bugs and lose all your data. (The Verge)
I remember a time when I would download beta releases and try them out.
...
No, actually, I don't.
- Microsoft Edge will begin blocking screenshots at work. (PC World)
So you can't take screenshots when you want to, but Windows will take screenshots when you don't want it to. Got it.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:32 AM | Comments (83) | Trackbacks (Suck)
May 22, 2024
Wednesday Overnight Open Thread (5/22/24)
*****
The Quotes of The Day
Quote I “The court will enjoin the sale as requested because, one, the real estate is considered unique under Tennessee law," "And in being unique, the loss of the real estate would be considered irreparable harm." chancellor Joe Dae Jenkins
Quote II “I have every confidence that it’s going to get done,” “No one should worry, they’re going to be able to vote for the president or the former president, whoever they want to vote for. “You know, this is not going to be a situation where the president’s name is not on the ballot. Republican Gov. Mike DeWine
Quote III “One out of every 10 federal student loan borrowers approved for debt relief means one out of every 10 borrowers now has financial breathing room and a burden lifted, Education Secretary Miguel CardonaThe previous quote leads into the perfect story below the fold.
Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 09:57 PM | Comments (499) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Bear Essentials Cafe
Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada
by @cadeterryadventure_
Kind of like a big alley.
Bears routinely cool off in a family's pool. Polar bear drive-through. Grizzly bear just sits next to a guy. The world's smallest bear. Big fat bear "Hank the Tank" partially cleared by DNA evidence of breaking into people's homes to steal their food. Bear climbs into an enclosure to try to eat a pig, but finds out that pigs are tough customers. More of the dog who WILL NOT BE IGNORED!!! He does not discriminate based on gender; all will be bothered and harassed. England has its share of eccentrics. This is insane. Future Republican voter. Current Republican voter. Wait, what am I saying, it's a cat, obviously it gets recorded as a Democrat vote or six. Riding a huge wave. Cat is a surrogate mom to ducklings.
Valley of Fire State Park, Nevada
by @cadeterryadventure_
Kind of like a big alley.
Bears routinely cool off in a family's pool. Polar bear drive-through. Grizzly bear just sits next to a guy. The world's smallest bear. Big fat bear "Hank the Tank" partially cleared by DNA evidence of breaking into people's homes to steal their food. Bear climbs into an enclosure to try to eat a pig, but finds out that pigs are tough customers. More of the dog who WILL NOT BE IGNORED!!! He does not discriminate based on gender; all will be bothered and harassed. England has its share of eccentrics. This is insane. Future Republican voter. Current Republican voter. Wait, what am I saying, it's a cat, obviously it gets recorded as a Democrat vote or six. Riding a huge wave. Cat is a surrogate mom to ducklings.
Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 07:44 PM | Comments (288) | Trackbacks (Suck)
Quick Hits
Biden's lead over Trump in New York has fallen from 23 points in the (fake) 2020 elections to a nine point lead now.
Biden's lead over Trump in New York has fallen from 23 points in the (fake) 2020 elections to a nine point lead now.
InteractivePollsObama found something to congratulate Biden on -- Biden's record number of Didn't Earn It race-based judicial nominations.
@IAPolls2022 New York GE: @SienaResearch
Biden: 47% (+9)
Trump: 38%
Other: 3%
Barack ObamaAOC admits the entire scheme by boasting that they "put a legal ankle bracelet on Trump to stop him from campaigning."
@BarackObama .@POTUS just confirmed his 200th judge -- not an easy accomplishment with a narrow majority in the Senate. And more than half are women and people of color.
Judges have the power to roll back progress or keep us moving forward; to protect our basic liberties or take them away. It's another reminder of what's at stake in this election, and why it's so important to vote.
Also, please shave your mustache. The "landing strip" is not sexy when it's under a woman's nose. Trump will be stomping around in AOC's territory Thursday evening. Local Bronx residents are looking forward to the rally. CNN's ratings are now at the lowest level since the f'ing first Gulf War.
Viva Frei
@thevivafrei "...the legal version of an ankle bracelet..." @AOC is so astonishingly stupid, she probably does not appreciate the ramifications of what she just admitted out loud. Congratulations, Alexandria. You just admitted to strategic and deliberate election interference.
LOL, 83,000?!
CNN primetime ratings hit three-decade low as Mark Thompson searches for a strategy: 'He's thrown in towel regarding cable' By Social Links for Alexandra Steigrad CNN suffered its worst ratings among primetime viewers in the most coveted demographic by advertisers -- dealing a gut punch to embattled new boss Mark Thompson. The cable channel, which touts itself as "the most trusted name in news," drew just 83,000 viewers aged 25 to 54 during the week of May 13-19 from 8 to 11 p.m. -- its lowest-rated week since 1991, according to Nielsen.
There was a rumor some months ago that these high-pay, low-ratings boat anchors would have to take a haircut on their salaries if they didn't want to be fired. But of course CNN doesn't have the balls to do that.
By contrast, Fox News garnered more than the twice the audience in the key demo, with 186,000 viewers, according to Nielsen. Left-leaning MSNBC was a distant second with 111,000, the data showed.
"Thompson better get his act together before he completely destroys CNN," a top TV news producer told The Post. "It seems like he's thrown in the towel regarding cable." CNN's three-hour primetime block during the week features the network's highest paid anchor, Anderson's Cooper, with his show "AC360" at 8 p.m....
Coincidentally, they share a hairdresser. I don't mean the same guy cuts their hair, I mean they both share him.
Its total viewership for the week was also paltry with 494,000, compared with 2 million for Fox News -- which shares common ownership with News Corp, the publisher of The Post. MSNBC pulled in 1.1 million, according to Nielsen. "CNN's new name is Cancelled Network Now," a media insider quipped. "Young people are as interested in Anderson Cooper as they are in Liza Minnelli."
...
Another media insider said Wednesday: "I know it's cliché to say but Thompson is rearranging the deck chairs on The Titanic. He has no new ideas yet. But maybe his old media playbook will work. " Last month, Thompson said the network faces an "existential crisis," as it deals with cord cutting and the shrinking cable TV business.
Posted by: Disinformation Expert Ace at 06:33 PM | Comments (218) | Trackbacks (Suck)
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