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May 30, 2023

Daily Tech News 30 May 2023

—Pixy Misa

Top Story

  • AI makes shit up. (PowerLine)
    Crawford H. "Chet" Taylor served as the 14th governor of South Dakota, from 1949 to 1951. Taylor was born on July 23, 1915, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and he grew up in nearby Flandreau. Taylor attended the University of South Dakota, where he earned a law degree.
    Of course, this is ChatGPT "hallucinating" again. Chet Taylor not only was never elected governor of South Dakota, no such person ever existed.

    While Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang is announcing incomprehensibly expensive AI supercomputers at Computex, the actual results of generative AI - in the field of language and information, where all the interest and the big money is right now - are frankly, shit.

    Things are looking much better when it comes to AI-generated art, because there the look of the thing is what matters. Is that a period-accurate representation of 2nd century Rome in the background behind the topless gladiatrix? Nobody cares, so long as it looks good.

    Well, one person cares. We'll get to him.

    And Chet Taylor looks good too. He's just not real. And since ChatGPT can't sustain a hallucination long enough to form a coherent short story, just for a couple of paragraphs, it's utterly valueless.

    Nvidia still has a valuation greater than AMD and Intel combined, but at least one corner of that market cap is built on sand.

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Posted by Pixy Misa at 04:15 AM Comments


King Harv Imperial Coffee

Overnight Thread: Memorial Day – 5/29/2023

—Buck Throckmorton

Memorial Day - National Cemetary.JPG

Although my family has been spared the anguish of losing a loved one in war, my childhood best friend (“Buddy”) had an uncle killed in Vietnam in 1967. More specifically, Buddy’s mother lost her kid brother, Jack, in Vietnam. She was my “emergency backup mother” while I was growing up, and is still a part of my life.

Buddy was too young to remember Jack or his death, but Uncle Jack’s pictures were on the wall, and he was held in reverence in that family.

As the 1970s became the 1980s, Jack seemed to now be a person from another era, rarely discussed except on Memorial Day, and far removed from the life of his surviving sister and her family.

But in the early 1990s, by which time Buddy and I were young adults, our families decided to have a multi-family, multi-generational vacation at a beach house on the Gulf Coast.

Joining us from out of state were Buddy’s grandparents…Jack’s parents.

It was in that beach house that I came to fully understood their pain and loss. 25 years after losing his only son, Grandfather still talked about Jack constantly. He told us about Jack’s character, his heart, and his patriotism. He told us what a great father Jack would have been, and how he wished that Buddy had cousins from Uncle Jack here at the beach with us.

When Buddy, my dad, and I headed out fishing one day, Grandfather told us that Jack would have loved to join us.

At grace before supper each night, Grandfather thanked God for the years Jack was in their lives, and prayed that He would hold Jack in his loving embrace until the family eventually reunited in Heaven.

Grandfather talked about the war and the circumstance of Jack’s death, striving to find the words to assure himself that Jack’s death was not in vain.

Grandmother cried several times during the vacation, still heartbroken about losing her son 25 years prior.

Their pain only ended when they left this earthly realm. I pray that they are now reunited with Jack. Buddy’s mother still grieves the brother she lost 56 years ago.

We are so blessed that there are men like Jack who selflessly gave their lives for our country. May God give comfort to their survivors, and provide us guidance to make such heartbreaking deaths less common.

*****

Here is Jimmy Fortune joining Daily & Vincent in More Than A Name On The Wall

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Posted by Buck Throckmorton at 10:00 PM Comments


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Samurai City Cafe

—Ace

samuraicafe2.jpg
By Makoo films.
Other pictures from this series here.

Table tennis played on the ground? Badminton is cooler than I thought it would be.

Looks like some of the snow stuck last night.

Cat cam.

Dog finally catches tail -- and he's not letting go, ever.

This dog is me when I mistakenly think I'm home alone, except I would get caught doing something besides howling.

Here's another dog who's embarrassed to have been caught in a compromising position. What is he doing at the end?

ICYMI: Dogs just want to be included. In whatever you're doing.

When it comes to looking out for each other, skunks don't stink.

Cat: I don't know if you're paying attention but we just got our asses kicked, man! Game over, man! Game over!

Golden retriever puppy attempts to sneak up on his older brother, when his older brother is looking directly at him. He fails his stealth check but he's still pretty cute.

Ryan Long of the Boyscast hired the ad agency behind Bud Light's and Target's recent triumphs. I think he might be forced to apologize for this.

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Posted by Ace at 07:28 PM Comments

Repost: A Very Special Guest Post from Tom Friedman

—Ace

A Conversation With a Cabbie and What It Tells Us About The Next Several Minutes of My Life

tomfriedman.png
by Tom Friedman
Special Guest Columnist for Ace of Spades HQ

I was talking to my cabbie in Cairo, making idle chit-chat as we threaded our way through a colorful and boisterous bazaar, what the locals call a souk, when I pointed out how the world is becoming more interconnected every second.

Then, he stabbed me.

As the blade slipped between my ribs, it occurred to me the rubber of the knife's handle was made in Brazil, and the steel crafted in Japan. Much like the gaudy wares on display at the souk outside the red-flecked windows, my backseat butchering was a glorious melange of the intersection of ideas at the great crossroads of the world.

As my cabbie continued to stab at my torso, I pondered that this moment was made possible by what I call "the pollenization of possibility."

Consider: It required the melding of three cultures, Brazilian, Japanese, and Egyptian, to produce the perforation in my Minnesota-made kidney. It was as if the grand viziers of thought and the great moguls of trade had conspired for years to come together into the red-tipped point of my itinerant assassin's dagger.

You can see this everywhere in the world, in "American" cars with parts made in Japan and largely assembled in Mexico, or in the latest "killer" app, conceived in Silicon Valley but coded in Seoul.

The pace of cross-pollenization and adaptation is unstoppable and ever-increasing, much like the crazed murder-tempo of my assailant's unexpected blood-frenzy.

I hold up my hands in defense, like those "left behind" in the New Economy, trying to protect themselves from the incoming sharp edge of disruptive change. Though, in my case, I was actually trying to protect myself from the incoming the sharp edge of stabbing.

But, just as ideas from far-away cultures penetrate our society, the blade cuts into me like a viral meme, or perhaps a catchy Bollywood song.

But one of those songs that plunges deeply into the meat of your palm and severs the nerves to your fingers.

I cry out to passers-by for help, but just like those left behind by globalization, they are heedless of the changes happening all around them.

Finally, I catch their attention. Then they begin stabbing me too.

As the crowd gathers around me with knives and antiquated farm implements, some scratch-made, some from the nuevas factorias of Veracruz, it strikes to me that I am witnessing what I call the "sudden inevitable."

In my book The Sudden Inevitable, I trace how events that overtake us have percolated in the collective unconscious for decades, even centuries.

This guy just cut off my foot with a shovel.

Ideas are pregnant in the ether before any human speaks them aloud, much like the idea of stabbing me to death has long percolated (I suspect) in the collective mind of my closest confreres.

And thus, as I lie wet and wriggling upon the ground, this conclave of multicultural avatars pulling off my pants and leaving me naked to the waist for God knows what reason, I think about the quickening pulse of international concourse, and how it matches my own quickening pulse, as my heartbeat becomes fast, weak, and thready due to rapid exsanguination. Something of the world has been lost, and it will not be returning any time soon.

Rather like my foot, which I see now has been placed upon a table in the souk and is now being offered for sale at the price of one pound, sixty piastres. I'm rather proud that the foot of a simple man from the farms of Minnesota should command such a lofty price in this place, this chattering beehive of a bazaar where the locals come to haggle over bolts of cotton and baskets of taro, and where Westerners come to be butchered and stripped down for their organs.

And their foot.

I cannot speak any longer. My microrecorder (made in the Netherlands) is almost full. Oh bugger, they just took that too

Posted by Ace at 06:22 PM Comments

The Rise of the One Party State

—Ace

A couple of weeks ago, I linked Jacob Seigel's magisterial essay on the "disinformation" pretext to empower the Ruling Class to rule in defiance of the desires of the people.


XI. The New One-Party State

In February 2021, a long article in Time magazine by journalist Molly Ball celebrated the "Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election." Biden's victory, wrote Ball, was the result of a "conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes" that drew together "a vast, cross-partisan campaign to protect the election" in an "extraordinary shadow effort." Among the many accomplishments of the heroic conspirators, Ball notes, they "successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation and used data-driven strategies to fight viral smears." It is an incredible article, like an entry from the crime blotter that somehow got slipped into the society pages, a paean to the saviors of democracy that describes in detail how they dismembered it.

Not so long ago, talk of a "deep state" was enough to mark a person as a dangerous conspiracy theorist to be summarily flagged for monitoring and censorship. But language and attitudes evolve, and today the term has been cheekily reappropriated by supporters of the deep state. For instance, a new book, American Resistance, by neoliberal national security analyst David Rothkopf, is subtitled The Inside Story of How the Deep State Saved the Nation.

The deep state refers to the power wielded by unelected government functionaries and their paragovernmental adjuncts who have administrative power to override the official, legal procedures of a government. But a ruling class describes a social group whose members are bound together by something deeper than institutional position: their shared values and instincts. While the term is often used loosely and sometimes as a pejorative rather than a descriptive label, in fact the American ruling class can be simply and straightforwardly defined.

Two criteria define membership in the ruling class. First, as Michael Lind has written, it is made up of people who belong to a "homogeneous national oligarchy, with the same accent, manners, values, and educational backgrounds from Boston to Austin and San Francisco to New York and Atlanta." America has always had regional elites; what is unique about the present is the consolidation of a single, national ruling class.

Second, to be a member of the ruling class is to believe that only other members of your class can be allowed to lead the country. That is to say, members of the ruling class refuse to submit to the authority of anyone outside the group, whom they disqualify from eligibility by casting them as in some way illegitimate.


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Posted by Ace at 04:55 PM Comments

Doc_0: You Can't Libertarian Your Way Out of Tyranny

—Ace

John Hayward @Doc_0

Libertarians and small-government conservatives may not like it, but the cold truth is that reforming a titanic mega-government is impossible without amassing and using State power. You have to play the game, and play to win. Your adversaries most certainly do.

You have to play the game at every level, too. It's important to organize at the local level and win state and county races, but that doesn't count for much in the long run if the gigantic central government is wholly run by aggressive totalitarian statists.

Totalitarian ideologies prosper by exploiting the natural desire of dissidents to be left alone. They don't like win-at-all-costs politics. They fear corruption. They aren't looking to impose their views on others by force. They're focused on family and individual achievement.

But totalitarians LOVE all of those things. They absolutely do want to impose their views on others by force, and they do whatever it takes to amass the government and corporate power to do so. They laugh as the desire to be left alone gives them isolated targets to pick off.

When the totalitarian Left was out of power, it spent decades mocking the notion of teaching positive "values" in school or transmitting them through culture. Those who value liberty and individualism, who want to be left alone, were easily bullied into silence by these lectures.

But the instant the totalitarian Left gained power, it began constructing gigantic government and corporate machines to transmit ITS values. Culture became the endless, dreary woke scolding we're accustomed to now. Private employees are force-marched into indoctrination sessions.

Clearly the Left never believed for an instant that values cannot be transmitted, or that the State should not "impose morals" on citizens. It only needed to bully ordinary people into silence for a decade or so, until it gained total control over government and capital.

Totalitarianism is a game you cannot elect not to play. You can't hide from it. You cannot impress totalitarians by showing them how YOU refuse to compromise your libertarian principles. There are no cease-fires, no safe areas, no holy ground where swords cannot be drawn.

The deeper problem is that you cannot reform a titanic, aggressive, totalitarian State by simply winning elections now and then. Lord knows everyone should see that clearly by now. You have to develop the political infrastructure necessary to exploit electoral victory.

That's the part of the game libertarians naturally shy away from, but if you win elections without a deep bench of dedicated, energetic, skilled professionals ready to sweep into the bureaucracy and implement your programs, you'll be easily thwarted by the permanent State.

The Left has such armies constantly ready to roll, with reinforcements on standby. It has institutions, both private and funded by taxpayer dollars, that exist primarily to keep left-wing officials and bureaucrats paid and ready for the next Democrat administration.

Of course sincere small-government conservatives recoil from such endeavors. They don't want to siphon off tax dollars to finance ideological armies and crusades. They don't dream of conquering the federal bureaucracy. That's the kind of thing they oppose on principle.

Most people with libertarian leanings are very leery of anything that smacks of "imposing values" on others. It's why they fell so easily into the "fiscally conservative but socially liberal" trap the Left built for them, while Lefty ran wild building his indoctrination machine.

But as we've learned painfully over the course of the post-Reagan era, if you don't fight to defend and transmit your values, the totalitarians will enshrine and forcibly transmit THEIRS. The only two options in a "culture war" against totalitarians are fight and surrender.

That means you have to develop institutions that can protect and transmit your values - and you have to build aggressive institutions that can win, and ruthlessly USE, central political power. If you don't take and hold ground, you will be conquered, simple as that.

We're far past the point where the march to totalitarian - and, increasingly, authoritarian - centralized power and national ruin can be won by playing defense. We need leaders who will pick important fights, win them, and exploit their victories with gusto.

And we need generals with bureaucratic armies lined up behind them, not just a few charismatic vote-getters or skilled rhetoricians. Not people who can win arguments, but people who can win battles - and who know how to use those victories.

The Left realized long ago that whining about tactics is transitory. With titanic amounts of money and power at stake, what matters is the victory. That money can be spent to change people's lives, to hire more bureaucrats, to build ideological machinery that lasts for decades.

Look at any corrupt cesspool on Earth, and you'll see honest people backing completely away from politics because they're disgusted, they fear they would themselves become corrupted if they participate, and they think defeating the entrenched power cartel is impossible.

Can you grapple with a monster without becoming a monster? Yes, with faith and discipline - but in any event, you MUST. If you don't get into the game, you will lose. You must control the State to make it smaller. Ride the Leviathan, or you will be devoured by it. /end

Kyle Shideler noticed that The Regime has a funny ol' habit of framing people for the crimes they themselves are committing:

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Posted by Ace at 03:30 PM Comments

Ireland Is On the Cusp of Criminalizing Speech

—Ace

Over transgenderism. Of course.

We'll lose all of our rights so that 0.1% of the population can feel "validated" and "seen."

Oh -- and speech will be criminalized to protect immigrants, too.


LIMERICK, Ireland -- Ireland is on the verge of passing the most aggressive hate crime law in the European Union, which includes the first legal protections in the EU for transgender individuals. Government officials say the bill offers necessary protections at a time when immigration is on the rise and traditional ideas about sex and gender are being challenged.

>b>Critics counter that the bill's vague language could be used to enforce the increasingly progressive Irish government's increasingly woke agenda and forcibly muzzle critics of unpopular government policies.

The legislation, the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Act, underscores a divide between Ireland's leaders and many of its people. The bill is making its way through Parliament, winning approval last month in the Dáil Éireann, Ireland's lower chamber, by a vote of 110-14.

But Irish citizens, in a 2019 consultation phase, overwhelmingly expressed a worry that the proposal was an unnecessary expansion of the country's existing hate crimes law. Seventy-three percent of respondents took issue with the bill's potential for encroachment on free speech and questioned what qualifies as "hate speech," particularly asking who crafts that definition. Less than 25% of those polled approved of the legislation.

...


The ongoing controversy opens a window into how quickly Ireland, which only legalized abortion in 2018, is moving from its long religious traditions at a time when leaders in other European countries and the United States are seeking to create laws that punish not just deeds but thoughts.

Over the past 30 years or so, the Irish nation has become increasingly progressive. In 2015, the Emerald Isle legalized gay marriage, just two years after the progressive vanguard of France did the same. That same year, Ireland was ranked among the top 10 most LGBT-friendly nations in the world, and the present taoiseach (Ireland's word for prime minister) Leo Varadkar is openly gay. The proposed law would expand the 1989 law's purview by adding gender, sex, descent and disability to the list of protected categories, which already includes race, color, nationality, religion (including "the absence of a religious conviction or belief"), national or ethnic origin, descent, gender, sex characteristics, sexual orientation, or disability.

The bill treats not just public presentation or dissemination of material deemed hateful, but also private preparation or even storing of material deemed hateful, such as memes on your phone or books on your shelf. Individuals convicted on such charges face fines of up to €5,000 (about $5,400) and anywhere from six months to two years in prison. Furthermore, as McEntee noted, a conviction "will allow for the 'hate criminal' label to follow an offender in court, in garda [police] vetting, and so on... "

Paul Murphy, a member of the left-wing People Before Profit-Solidarity coalition, even warned the bill will legislate "the creation of a thought crime." Conservative chairman of the Irish Freedom Party Michael Leahy told RealClearInvestigations that the bill "represents the most far-reaching and invasive attack against civil and religious liberty enacted in any Western democracy since the Second World War."

Incredible. From "European Tiger" to communist gulag sh1thole in ten years.

Posted by Ace at 02:00 PM Comments

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chair of the Joint Chiefs General Milley Both Lie to Congress, Claiming the Military Doesn't Support Drag Queen Story Hours

—Ace

This is perjury. There are drag shows announced on the regular at military bases.

This story is from March 29th. I'm not sure what brought it to the attention of David Strom on Wednesday, but I'm glad he highlighted it.

Both Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and General Milley, Chair of the Joints Chiefs of Staff, insist that the Department of Defense neither funds nor supports drag queen story hours on military bases.

That was and remains a lie. When presented with the evidence in a Congressional hearing Austin repeated the lie, even when confronted by incontrovertible evidence that he was spreading falsehoods.

He lied. Then he lied again. And again.

I have no idea if he was under oath, but it shouldn't matter. Lying to Congress and the American people is unacceptable, except when a Democrat is in the White House. Then it is apparently mandatory.

It doesn't matter. Whether they were under oath or not, lying to Congress is obstruction of Congress, and obstruction of Congress is the same process crime with the exact same penalty as perjury.

It is bad enough that the military is promoting "all-ages" drag shows, to begin with; it seems a bit at odds with what we would come to expect and perhaps is not conducive to the good order and discipline we expect from the military brass. I would have thought that such things would happen when the troops were on leave, not on base.

But promoting these shows to the children of the troops? I would have to assume that at least one or two of them might object, which suggests that perhaps the brass should stay out of the business of dealing in drag shows.

Usually the strip clubs are off base. At least it is that way in the movies.

The strip clubs continue to be off the base -- heterosexual sexual material remains taboo. It's only gay sexual material, particularly that intended to be enjoyed by children, which has had all taboos lifted.

More at Breitbart.

Below, Gaetz first asks why Austin is not attempting to re-hire the 8,000 military people he fired because of their refusal to take the fauccination.

He then segueways into the "important things" the DoD is doing, like hosting Drag Queen Story Hours.

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Posted by Ace at 12:30 PM Comments

THE MORNING RANT: AB Distributor Abandons Bud Light to Promote Alternative Light Beer; Other Musings on Being a Franchisee/Distributor for a Woke Corporation

—Buck Throckmorton

Bud Light Distributor.JPG


You’ve read all the reports about the catastrophic drop in Bud Light sales since Anheuser Busch (AB InBev) slandered its loyal customers as being the wrong type of people, and then decided to make a celebrity cross-dresser the face of the product.

A major re-branding, or an all-new replacement light beer, is likely the resolution that AB will have to pursue.

A story from Tennessee shows just how damaged the Bud Light brand is. For decades, one of the stages at Chattanooga’s downtown summer music festival has been “The Bud Light Stage,” sponsored by the local AB distributor.

No longer.

Chattanooga Riverbend Festival’s Bud Light Stage now called Ultra Stage [5/16/2023]

Change has been the name of the game for the Riverbend Festival in recent years, and the changes keep coming as the Bud Light Stage has been renamed the Ultra Stage.

Michelob Ultra is another light beer produced by AB. The change in the name of the stage’s sponsor was made at the request of the local AB distributor.

The rebranding of the “Bud Light Stage” to the “Ultra Stage” reflects more than just how toxic the Bud Light brand is. AB distributors need to sell beer, and any money spent promoting Bud Light is going to be wasted. While AB as a whole is being hit hard, its other brands are not as radioactive as Bud Light.

Selling Bud Light nowadays is like selling Ford Pintos in the late ‘70s, when that car’s reputation was permanently marred as being prone to gas tank explosions. Fair or not, Pintos became a joke, which was very difficult for the dealers trying to sell them. The arrival of the Ford Escort in 1980 was a re-birth for Ford and for its dealers.

Until AB comes out with a Bud Light replacement, it makes perfect sense for AB distributors to abandon any marketing efforts for Bud Light and instead use those dollars to steer disaffected customers to other AB products (or to competing products that they also distribute.)

*****

Fortunately for most Anheuser Busch distributors, they carry a wide array of products, so the death of just one label need not be a bankrupting event.

But it’s sad that those most invested in AB’s products aren’t the executives and marketers who are actively destroying the company in support of cultural communism. Distributors’ actual survival depends on AB remaining a major player in the beer industry. Destructive managers at AB will just get golden parachutes and move along.

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Posted by Buck Throckmorton at 11:00 AM Comments

Mid-Morning Art Thread

—CBD

Wyeth Memorial Day1.jpg

Memorial Day
Andrew Wyeth

Posted by CBD at 09:35 AM Comments

The Morning Report — 5/29/23

—J.J. Sefton

BidenMcCarthySinking.jpg

Good morning, kids. So congratulations, I guess, to Kevin McCarthy for the big "win" in the debt ceiling standoff. Evidently Joey Sponge-Brain Shits-Pants caved and there will be spending cuts in exchange for adding another $1.5 trillion to the national debt. About the only thing that you can give credit for is that it's a political/propaganda win for McCarthy since the Dems were hell bent to dig in their jackboots on this to prevent the "crash of the economy" if we defaulted.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news for these raving loons but the economy is on the high speed rail line to destruction and there's nothing that can stop it. If only that rail line were like the real thing and a boondoggle that never gets built. And as for spending cuts, I'll be the first to admit that I haven't the sitzfleisch to go through that mountain of paper/pixels to see if any real cuts are there, as opposed to merely cuts in the rate at which spending and borrowing increases. There are never any real cuts. Ever. Hence, being how many tens of trillions in the hole.

And as for a political "win" for McCarthy, I'd question that as well, as Miranda Devine does:

Kevin McCarthy trumpeted a debt-ceiling deal Sunday, but increasing debt another $4 trillion with minimal concessions is nothing to boast about. 

To be fair, the House speaker has a razor slim majority and Republicans don’t control the Senate, where Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and his sidekick Lindsey Graham have announced that the only thing they care about is Ukraine. 

But McCarthy’s one dealbreaker should have been his promise to defund President Biden’s massive $80 billion to turbocharge an already weaponized IRS. 

This was the totemic centerpiece of his pitch to become speaker.

It was the most memorable promise of the Republicans’ midterm campaign to win back the House. 

It struck a chord with voters, wary of funding a new “army” of armed IRS agents to harass middle-class families and small business owners and abuse their powers to target political dissidents, Soviet-style. 

“Our very first bill will repeal the funding for 87,000 new IRS agents,” McCarthy vowed.  “You see, we believe government should be to help you, not go after you.”  Sure enough, the House voted 221-210 to repeal the extra IRS funding. “Promises made,” the newly minted speaker said Jan. 9, banging the gavel on the first bill of the Republican-controlled House. 

What about promises kept? In the debt-ceiling deal outlined Sunday and due to be inked later this week, McCarthy has allowed the lion’s share of that extra IRS funding to remain unmolested: preserving $78.1 billion of the $80 billion.  As rebel GOP Rep Dan Bishop put it: “So there will be 85,260 more IRS agents rather than 87,000 to eat you alive. Big win.” 

Overpromising and underdelivering is what turns voters off the GOP. 

You don’t mount a powerful six-month fear campaign about 87,000 new, armed IRS agents ready to break down people’s doors, and then meekly capitulate at the first sign of resistance. Even if those fears were exaggerated, your credibility rests on delivering a lot more than 2% of what you promised. In any case the fears about a weaponized IRS targeting Biden’s opponents are very real. If anything, the IRS is worse today than it was during the Obama administration, when Lois Lerner presided over the targeted harassment of Tea Party groups and other conservatives. Not a single IRS employee was held accountable for the scandal. Lerner retired on a full pension without even a slap on the wrist. 

This is the same IRS which went after journalist Matt Taibbi last December, three weeks after he started reporting on the so-called “Twitter Files,” which revealed that censorship on the social-media platform had been coordinated by federal government agencies such as the FBI and CIA. On March 9, when Taibbi was testifying in Congress about, ironically enough, the weaponization of the federal government, IRS agents showed up unannounced at his New Jersey home.  The IRS file on Taibbi was opened the day he posted his ninth and most explosive Twitter file, detailing how agencies including the Pentagon and the State Department had colluded with Twitter to stifle dissent. It was Christmas Eve, a Saturday, which shows what an unusual priority it was for an agency that normally goes to sleep for two weeks over Christmas and whose standard work week is Monday through Friday.

Under questioning from Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, the IRS has claimed it had concerns about “identity fraud” with Taibbi’s 2018 and 2021 tax returns, and that he was sent two letters before the home visit. Yet Taibbi says he and his accountant never received any letters. Even more “unnerving” as Taibbi puts it, was the fact that an IRS case agent had compiled a dossier on him which included personal information such as his voter registration records and whether he had a concealed-weapons permit or a hunting or fishing license. Unlike Hunter Biden, Taibbi didn’t owe the IRS any taxes and in fact was due a refund. . .

. . . This is the IRS that is still getting almost $80 billion of taxpayer money to double down on its malfeasance in the countdown to the 2024 election — with the benign approval of the House Republicans who promised to stop it. 

Buckle up.

Indeed. And, as per usual, the actual or for-the-most-part somewhat consistent conservatives are not sanguine about this deal, while the RINOs blast them for not shutting up and going along.

While the details of the agreement are still being ironed out, and congressional leaders still have to convince their Members to vote for it, some on the top Republicans in Washington, D.C., are not happy with the agreement.

“There are members of the GOP claiming Democrats got nothing from the ‘deal.’ Oh really? 1) An uncapped debt ceiling with an expiration date – worth approximately $4 trillion…? 2) basically no cuts – a freeze at bloated 2023 spending level?” Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), a House Freedom Caucus member, tweeted. “ZERO claw back of the $1.2 Trillion ‘inflation reduction act’ crony giveaways to elite leftists for grid-destroying unreliable energy…? 4) 98% of the IRS expansion left fully in place…? 5) no work requirements for Medicaid? – & only age adjustments for TANF/SNAP…?”

“No REINS act statutory requirement for congress to approve huge regulations – just an ‘administrative’ paygo that the administration will get to enforce? 7) No border security!! – & a deal allowing them to avoid policy riders in the fall… 8) more…” he added.

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) responded, “With Republicans like these, who needs Democrats?”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) echoed Lee’s tweet, writing: “Fake conservatives agree to fake spending cuts. Deal will increase mandatory spending ~5%, increase military spending ~3%, and maintain current non-military discretionary spending at post-COVID levels. No real cuts to see here. Conservatives have been sold out once again!”

“He’s right. There’s not ‘one thing’ for Dems. There are $4 trillion things—a blank check—for Democrats,” Cruz responded. “Plus 87,000 things: new IRS agents to harass Americans. All in exchange for eliminating virtually ALL of the House’s spending cuts.”

Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) added, “This pretty much says it all. Democrats got everything they wanted with this bill and don’t have to defend their reckless spending prior to the 2024 election. It’s a win for them.”

Yup. Winning. Regardless of who is at the top of the GOP, it's still the same old story as it's been since Ike was president. The Republican Party in the main does not have a problem at all with an ever-expanding bureaucracy and big, central all-powerful government. The only differentiator that they would tell you (that is if they were being honest in the first place about my statement) is that they're better managers than the Democrats. Whether it's Ike, Nixon, Ford, Reagan, the Shrubs or even Trump, the size and scope of the bureaucracy has never ever been starved of the lifeblood it needs to metastasize into what it has become. The money.

I'm no economist, but had there been no deal reached and we indeed did default, would the sky have fallen in on our heads? I don't think so. In any case, assuming there was some degree of pain and disruption to our daily lives, my contention is that it would be eminently better than what we are suffering under now and for sure what is to come under the continued non-stop functioning of the beast that is our tormenter, the all-powerful State in DC and its tentacles in far too many statehouses.

It's all kabuki-bukkake theater anyway. There will be no intentional stopping and reversing of course of this under any circumstances, even if the GOP wins 100 Senate seats, the 530-odd House seats and the White House come 2024.

This nation, whatever you want to call it, is no longer run by the governmental system laid out in 1789. Hasn't been for decades. Christopher Wray essentially telling Rep James Comer to go fuck himself by refusing to hand over smoking gun documents regarding the Biden Crime Family is just one example of dozens we all could cite off the top of our heads. He, Wray, is the embodiment of what is essentially an authoritarian regime that runs the show, somewhat akin to a monarchy insofar as its generational elitist, globalist bloodline.

Nice to know that the 400,000+ who were snuffed out between '41-'45 gave their lives only to see the kissing cousin of what they were fighting now alive and well in DC.

"This is an unusual Memorial Day. Today we remember, with a debt of gratitude we can never repay, those who have made the ultimate sacrifice to keep us free from external enemies. As we do so, internal enemies are working steadily to erode and ultimately destroy the very freedoms for which so many gave their lives, and to render their sacrifices meaningless.

Today is May 29. It is not only Memorial Day; it is also the 570th anniversary of an event that is largely forgotten today, but was one of the most momentous occasions in all of human history: the conquest of Constantinople and final destruction of the Roman Empire. . . In many ways . . .we are still living in the Roman Empire; its cultural influence has never dissipated. The lessons we can learn from it are so many and various as to defy easy synopsis. But one of the most telling of those lessons for our situation today is that for most of its long lifetime, the Roman Empire was generally thought to be invincible on the battlefield, so far superior to other military forces that the Romans at times even prevailed against stronger forces on the power of their reputation alone. Not only Romans, but many non-Romans at times assumed this.

Roman politicians likewise thought that the empire could never be defeated, and behaved accordingly, unhesitatingly engaging in savage infighting without regard for how this fighting would weaken the empire before its external enemies. The empire was forever. It would never end . . .

. . . On this Memorial Day, we are likewise still threatened by those Islamic jihadis, although most Americans have forgotten about their existence and think that they are a spent force. We are also threatened by a mass migration that weakens our national character and unity. And just as was so often the case in the Roman empire, the most immediate threat comes from within, from those who are so intent on securing their power, and so short-sighted, that they are destroying the very basis of that power. As we remember the fallen today, we must realize that the existential threat we face today cannot and will not be defeated by military force.

The soldiers now are ordinary citizens. The warriors who win the next victory for human dignity and freedom will be people who had the courage to stand against the officially mandated madness and say, “No more.” We have been brought to a point where it is no longer enough to be grateful to God that some people gave their lives to defend and protect our civilization. It is now incumbent upon us to arise and be willing to do the same, not with bullets and bombs, but with the force of reason and the unyielding refusal to surrender and submitWe live in an age when absurdity and madness are not only in the ascendancy, but are insistently forced upon us by an increasingly authoritarian ruling traitor class. In this age, staying sane is a revolutionary act. On this Memorial Day, dare to be part of that revolution.

We'll have a Memorial Day thread just after the Morning Rant.

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Posted by J.J. Sefton at 07:34 AM Comments

Daily Tech News 29 May 2023

—Pixy Misa

Top Story


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Posted by Pixy Misa at 04:00 AM Comments

Overnight Open Thread [05/28/2023]

—CBD

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Posted by CBD at 10:00 PM Comments

Gun Thread: Memorial Day Weekend Edition!

—Weasel

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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!

Please take a moment to remember those who have given their lives in military service to the United States and show your gratitude by living your days as someone worthy of their sacrifice.

Holy Shitballs! How in the ever-loving Hell did it get to be the end of May? Know what that means? I say, do you know what that means? Why it means June is next, and with June comes the NoVAMoMe on the 9th and 10th. That's right, the social and cultural event of the season, the 2023 NoVAMoMe is now less than two weeks away! If you haven't registered, do not despair. There is still time to sign-up and spend a day with your friends. Specifics on how to get more information can be found below, and there is always a helpful email link on the main page left sidebar. Remember, the deadline to register and make payment is midnight May 31st so do not delay. We have to guarantee the number of attendees, so after that date, there are no additions or refunds. Please note mug sales closed on May 20th, so while you may be mug-less, you can still attend. Register today!

Psssst! Something else you will note on the main page; the dates for the 2023 TXMoMe have been added. More on this fabulous and frankly life-changing event coming soon.

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

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Posted by Weasel at 07:00 PM Comments

Food Thread: Grilling, A Quiz, And Some Weird Sweet Stuff: Business As Usual!

—CBD

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It's no secret that I love grilling...and beef. Put them together and I am a happy camper. Except I don't camp! My idea of enjoying the wilderness is to hike into it in the morning, out of it in the afternoon, go directly to a shower, and then to a nice dinner, complete with cocktails and air conditioning.

But good food doesn't require perfect kitchens and tools, as the photo above shows quite well. That's chicken wire over a camp fire, and I'll bet the steak was just fine!

I've cooked in an indoor fireplace during a ten day blackout, and I absolutely loved the result. Sometimes perfect is the enemy of good, and in cooking, that certainly applies more often than not. After all, no matter how awful the result, you get to try again in just a few hours!

How many of you have just made do? One pan, one fork, two spoons and some salt. And you made a meal! Probably one you remember more than the thousands of just-another-Tuesday meals you have made!

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Posted by CBD at 04:00 PM Comments

First-World Problems...

—CBD

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A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, a large steam boiler was replaced by a smaller and more efficient one. The plumbing company neglected to repair the concrete floor, and left a shallow cut-out instead of patching it with a few pounds of concrete.

Fast forward to today, and your obsessive-compulsive correspondent is sick and fvcking tired of seeing the functionally trivial but unsightly and irritating flaw in the floor. The concrete floor in the boiler room. Where nobody but he goes.

I wonder if they sell bags of concrete that small? Or should I just order a full truck-load?

Posted by CBD at 02:00 PM Comments

The Vast Entitlement And Even Vaster Uselessness of a 30-Something Twit Must Overshadow A Looming Teamsters Strike Against UPS

—CBD

The Teamsters Union is making noises that they are going to strike against United Parcel Service (UPS). Well, they always do that before contract negotiations, although the Teamster leadership seems to be more aggressive than usual, so they might go through with it.

Unfortunately for them, there is a significant competitor of UPS that was an afterthought in 1997 (the last time the Teamsters went on strike against UPS), and that is Amazon. So a strike that eliminates...even for a week or two...one of Amazon's main transportation channels will push huge amounts of volume into their own transportation system, and UPS may not recover some of that volume.

But the dislocation of hundreds of thousands of workers and the significant delays that a strike will cause for manufacturing, distribution and retail across America pales in comparison to the unimaginable catastrophe of Jessica Ray not being able to get her favorite toilet paper delivered to her door!

UPS strike looms in a world grown reliant on everything delivered everywhere all the time

Living in New York City, working full time and without a car, Jessica Ray and her husband have come to rely on deliveries of food and just about everything else for their home. It has meant more free time on weekends with their young son, rather than standing in line for toilet paper or dragging heavy bags of dog food back to their apartment.

"I don't even know where to buy dog food," said Jessica Ray of the specialty food she buys for the family's aging dog.


Standing in line with other people? Filthy uncouth people without the rarefied esthetics of poor Jessica? The horror! And carrying her own groceries? Is that even legal to force her to do that?

"We finally reached a point where we finally feel pretty good about it," Ray said. "We can take a Saturday afternoon and do a fun family activity and not feel the burden of making everything work for the day-to-day functioning of our household."
Oh..Thank God! She feels good about "it!" The immense weight of maintaining a household...of three people and a dog...has finally become manageable! Will wonders never cease! Dear old Jessica must be a titan of energy, planning, fitness and resourcefulness to be able to juggle all of that...with the assistance of delivery services, her doorman, her husband, and obviously a nice salary...just look at the size of her apartment!

This entitled, oblivious, spoiled little bitch has the temerity to whine about a very nice middle class life in a big city, in which she has the financial resources to pay other people to do a lot of the stuff that normal people do on their own without any thought that it was difficult or stressful or worthy of notice.

"It has the potential to be significantly impactful," Ray said. "My husband and I have invested a lot in figuring out how to remove the burden of just making sure we always have toilet paper."
Get off your fat, lazy ass and take a walk to the corner grocery store and buy a family pack of toilet paper. And while you are there pick up some food for dinner...and cook it yourself. Oh...and some cleaning products. Anyone care to bet whether she has domestic help?

The decades-long shift from a manufacturing-based economy to one that has a much greater percentage of service-based industry has conspired to lull people into what can only be a false sense of security...that someone else is going to take care of "it," whatever "it" may be.

But that attitude naturally devolves into the arrogance of superiority based on literally nothing at all. Jessica Ray sees herself as deserving of the service provided by more capable people, for no other reason than she has the financial resources to pay for those services, yet she sees that as a confirmation of some social hierarchy. She is a Houyhnhnm, and those hopefully anonymous drones who provide for everything in her life are the Yahoos.

As much as I despair of a breakdown in society, people like Jessica, and their obvious inability to manage even minor dislocations in their worlds, make the prospect of societal collapse rather amusing, if it takes a big bite out of her fat, entitled ass. Maybe her next job in the dystopian landscape of America 2.0 will be as a fluffer in a sex show, or if she doesn't lose some of that weight, maybe her lot in life will be as dinner for some roving band of ex-toilet-paper delivery folks!

Posted by CBD at 12:00 PM Comments

Sunday Morning Book Thread - 05-28-2023 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

—Open Blogger

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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, especially if 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, PLEASE PUT ON SOME PANTS, and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?

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Posted by Open Blogger at 09:00 AM Comments

EMT 5/28/23

—krakatoa

Happy Sunday. Have a great Memorial day.

Posted by krakatoa at 07:00 AM Comments






Now Available!
The Deplorable Gourmet
A Horde-sourced Cookbook
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Top Headlines
Eugene Sledge, speaks about "The Costs of War." The author of With the Old Breed on Pelelieu and Okinawa gave this talk in 1994 and it is well worth your time. Meant to include it in the Memorial Day thread but forgot. [J.J. Sefton]
LOL:
Clayton Kershaw
@ClaytonKersh22

Excited to announce the relaunch of Christian Faith and Family Day at Dodger Stadium on July 30th. More details to come-- but we are grateful for the opportunity to talk about Jesus and determined to make it bigger and better than it was before COVID. Hope to see you on July 30th!

LOL, "relaunch." So the Dodgers didn't host this for years and years and now suddenly realize they forgot to invite Christians to their games. Gee, what could have prompted this sudden realization?
Notice they're not hosting Christians... during "PRIDE" Month. Oh no, not that.
Liz Wheeler
@Liz_Wheeler

How dare you try to pander to Christians because you need us as consumers while at the same time you HONOR an anti-Christian hate group that blasphemes Jesus with "Jesus and Mary striptease" and "dildo dipped in drugs blessings" & "semen" filled chalices? You are grotesque.

Mollie
@MZHemingway

Are you going to reuse the cross from the blasphemous pole dance performed by the anti-Catholic hate group you guys are honoring in June?

No "Hero" award, I notice. It's clarifying to know that the Dodgers hold Christians in lower regard than Satanic perverts.
On the cooldown from my run I passed a guy carrying a case of beer... Yuenling Light. And I don't live in Pennsylvania.
Update on the Bigot Suburbs of NYC:
Several New York counties have already declared states of emergency in an attempt to block the mayor’s efforts.
Rockland, Orange, and Onondaga counties have all filed in court to reverse the bussing efforts, saying that the hotels where the illegal immigrants are staying in are in violation of local ordinances.
Posted by: Ferd Berfall

Shut up and take your cultural enrichment, bigots.
WOKE DISNEY CUT OUT THE ENTIRE LOVE STORY IN "THE LITTLE MERMAID" BECAUSE IT'S ANTI-FEMINIST TO SHOW A WOMAN WHO WANTS A (HETEROSEXUAL) RELATIONSHIP
A mermaid needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle!
The feminists are extremely dogmatic on this: A man can never be shown teaching a woman anything, because women have nothing to learn from men. That's why the dead Carrie Fisher taught Ray in the last Star Wars movie, instead of the alive-and-very-available Mark Hamill. And they are absolutely insistent that women should never want a relationship with a (spit) man. If she wants another woman, that's good and "diverse," but no woman can ever be shown to be attracted to a man. That would be un-empowering. They're not against all relationships -- just the heterosexual kinds.
It's incredible. Male-female love is just now absolutely taboo at Disney. But they'll keep cramming movies with their Not-So-Secret-Gay Agenda!
They are determined to headf*** every child who is negligently taken to see their movies.
J.D. Vance
@JDVance1

Target could have decided to stay out of the culture wars, instead it decided to wage war on a large share of its customer base. I no longer shop at Target, and it seems many families are doing the same.

Woke Corporations: You will be made to care.
from redridinghood
Charlie Kirk
@charliekirk11

Did you know: Target is financial supporter and self-described "proud partner" of GLSEN, a radical far-left group that pushes school districts to keep gender transitions SECRET from parents.

GLSEN advocates for radical gender ideology to be injected into every subject, including math.

This is from the GLSEN Arizona website: https://tinyurl.com/3eh3z7b4

from redridinghood
Heckler & Koch has decided they don't want your business, too
Boycott H&K until they fire this snide twitter-addicted bitch, who rushed to sign up H&K to the defense of Coors'/Miller Light's woke feminist marketing
Thanks to "i used to have a different nic"
Gross. I'm not a Jack drinker, but hopefully some Jack drinkers decide to try something new. I recommend Knob Creek Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey. It's nothing like Jack, I just like it.
Posted by: Joe Mannix (Not a cop!)
"Nobody imagined it would go on this long," Schuhmacher said. He continued: "It seems random -- it struck a nerve. I've never seen anything to compare it to, in all of the [consumer packaged goods] industry. It's a real shock."

When you take away the people's normal avenues to express dissent, e.g. the media and the justice system, the anger will be vented elsewhere. Get used to it.

Posted by: Archimedes
NBC News
@NBCNews

Target, Bud Light, the Dodgers and Disney have all been backed into a corner over their support of the LGBTQ community. The strategy has conservative activists celebrating.

Via Anonysaurus wrecks
Actor portraying black elf in Amazon's disastrous Tolkein non-fan fic Rings of Power claims he was the subject of "online bullying and racism," and has been in therapy for three years trying to overcome this brutalization
Bounding Into Comments notes that he has not pointed out a single racist tweet but asking a Victim of a Hate Crime for proof of a Hate Crime is itself a Hate Crime, bigot.
Forgotten 80s Mystery Click
My oh my, that lady can fly!
The best song on the Heavy Metal soundtrack. Fight me. I know it's not actually Heavy Metal but then none of the songs on the Heavy Metal soundtrack were heavy metal. I guess Sammy Hagar came the closest, but he's not actually heavy metal either. Nazareth was also in the ballpark, I guess. Blue Oyster Cult did one but it was more prog-rock than metal.
Sorry, man: bear with asymmetrical balls reminds me Black Sabbath is on the album. Okay, one metal song on the Heavy Metal album.
Superb article by Melanie Phillips... Jew-hatred struts the stage in Berlin: "The obscene spectacle staged by Roger Waters exposes the moral vacuum in Holocaust memorialising." [CBD]
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