"The 14th Amendment is an amendment to the United States Constitution that appears after the 13th Amendment and before the 15th Amendment. Brought to you by Carl's Jr."
Waiting for the hot takes on Bolt Upright's Deceived Opinion...😳
Meanwhile, a half-ass thought experiment: how much worse would this nightmare be than what we have now? Yeah, yeah, I get the joke; even amused.
But, you know, being reminded daily how the national Democrats have failed for decades, locking us into this awful state, I dunno. And it's like the news is worse day after day. Like, what's going to happen today that's worse than yesterday? That Thompson's killer isn't just an unhinged Musk shipping RWNJ, but also a Bernie bro?
I'm just probably having another episode of dotard crabbiness...
There is nothing new under the sun. Soon-Shiong is simply reviving the Ministry of Truth as Orwell spins in his grave.
Loved the painted bookcase behind Trump. That's the appropriate step down the Idiocracy ladder, not even only the spines of fake books, but just a stage prop.
Like the lying, so much of the chintzy-ness of Trump and those in his orbit represents both a demonstration of their lack of class AND functions as a flex.
"Emperor Trump adroitly danced 'round the magnificently-appointed office features, like a ballet master at his peak of terpsichorean talents! "Like a panther!" screamed his chief of staff as he moved smoothly thru the door..."
So glad I dumped the LA Times. My favorite editors resigned after the no endorsement of Kamala Harris debacle. Hope they have found new employment. Some people can’t be bought and sold.
Even the LA Times looks different. I mean, I got the dollar-a-month* digitalized version for awhile, then quit when that deal ended (mostly because the digital version was and maybe still is a klugey screen-repellent cheap version of a pdf). Now they want me back for the cheapo version again which, nah, 'cause I still get Sammy Roth's climate newsletter via email (the web-based version having been blocked recently)...
*I originally typed 'dollar-a-moth' and thought "this is where our hairbrained socialist wackos have led us – in the coming end times we'll be docked a dollar whether we eat the moth or not.
A few months ago, I was at work (at night), and started hearing a weird, random "bumping" sound. I went over towards one of the windows, and saw one of the feral cats repeatedly launching itself about six feet up the window in an effort to catch a moth. I never saw her catch one, but the effort was impressive.
The Artificial Intelligence Bias-O-Meter is going to require probably a decade worth of reprogramming an fine-tuning since reality has a well-known liberal bias.
If it's like United Healthcare's AI Denial Engine("shall figure out how to deny coverage at all human cost") it's primarily, nay, Prime Directive is "Cover for Donnie, cover up the idiocies and cruelty, and cover Him with praise".
Roy's version is insufficiently mechanical.
Have I mentioned that the slew of online publishers of porn prose and fiction are getting increased complaints that too much now going into circulation seems to be AI written and sucks? Not in a good way.
Like the newspaper: most of the content decays rapidly. People produce it like any other sort of expression: that it's often an aid to masturbation feed the market for novelty.
I know it's difficult for many to believe, but some of it is actually literature: and consider the absurdity of saying "I think we have enough literature."
No less a seminal thinker than Tom Lerher suggests it's all porn if you look at it right. And shittily written porn is only erotic to the lowest common denominator. Well written porn is good sometimes despite the sexy content...
I realize now that you were not flogging the Bass-O-Meter that alla the late-night commercials be shovin' at me (and as far as it goes, I gotta say if I was ever inclined to partake, the Bass-O-Meter is the one I would get, just so's I could say "yeah, that Bass-O-Meter keeps me fed!")
I appreciate a preview of this tech genius's "less bias version," and note the return of celebrity reporter Salena Zito. But it's hard to get past wondering what are the real details of the 14th Amendment ukase. I'd expect exceptions like Russian birth tourism to be codified. Or will things just work according to the OK - Not OK color card?
Soon-schlong is loading his LLM AI with every back issue of National Review, Jonah Goldberg’s entire output (written, not gastrointestinal), Father Coughlin scripts and translations of Goebbels and Pinochet speeches. Following the Fifth Law of Thermodynamics - garbage in, garbage out - Soon-schlong’s new LA Times will be must reading among the illiterati of MAGA world.
Send them all back to Haitianistan. But seriously, here a couple possibilities to look for.
At what point will Trump turn up wearing a military uniform? Something like the Soviets used to wear with an oversized hat and exaggerated epaulettes.
We need to start posing the hypothetical now on social media: Is it wrong for someone who has never served in the military to put on uniform and impersonate a military officer?
Will Musk and the other oligarchs seek to replace Trump with J.D. Vance, the way Russian oligarchs replaced a drunken Yeltsin with Putin? Could they pull a 25th Amendment coup?
Stay tuned dear readers for more intriguing possibilities for the up-and-coming dear leader!
This sounds like it could be a Fun Friday prompt. What's your favorite bit of incidental dialogue in a movie? Although I'd be stricter and say it can't involve any main characters or even any named characters and must serve no purpose in terms of exposition or advancing the plot.
WAITER: Six more Pike's Pales
BARTENDER: We're all outta Pikes Pale. How 'bout something else?
WAITER [in the most jaded possible voice] But they don't want something else, they want the Ale that Won for Yale, rah, rah.
Nice, but the game might be heavily weighted toward Mr. Incidental Dialogue Sturges.
Unnamed character, but an actor name goes with "in the most jaded possible voice." No accident that Sturges wrote incidental lines for Al Bridge to bring on the full disdain.
Finding memorable interactions between characters that obscure would be really hard, especially in movies with small casts like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
When Trump was on MTP and said he wanted to do away with birthright citizenship, Kristin Welker asked "Will you do that by executive order"?
Not even "CAN you do that?" but "WILL you do that?"
Of course she couldn't say, "It's in the Constitution, dummy", but now even the slightest factual pushback is disallowed? We're now supposed to believe that Trump is Superman, and no laws - not even the laws of physics - apply to him and so the only question is to ask - respectfully, of course - HOW he's going to break the law this time?
Microsoft Outlook has an autocomplete feature which you can't turn off (not that I'm complaining, I type "Thanks for checking in about this" and "Please let me know if you have any questions" probably a dozen times a day.)
Anyway, starting just about a week ago, whenever I type my first name at the end of an email, it autocompletes to "Stephanie."
I remember Jovan Musk, a men's cologne from the '70s; it rivaled Hai Karate in popularity among young men who thought you had to put a gallon of it on yourself to smell it.
(Now you mention it "Jovan Musk" can be "the cologne for men who have too much money so they spend it on fascism")
We will likely have competing meters—rather, my _wish_ is that we are allowed such—and some of them might even be worthwhile, that is to say will be in substantial agreement with _me_.
Given the times, I can only wish that my two new fingers will be middle ones—which I believe was the case for Hannibal Lecter in the first two books, I never bothered with the other books or the films or television series.
Hey, has anyone linked the modern tastes for sympathetic villain/heroes, e.g. Michael Corleone, Tony Soprano, Don Draper, Walter White, Cersei Lannister, and for all I know Elphaba…to our choosing felonious filth to lead us? I've long wanted to reclaim 'The Death of Shame' from the Right, wanting to move it away from a fixation on sex and toward one about oppressing the workers and peasants, so why not Moral Clarity?
You're giving AI way too much credit for its ability to produce transcendent prose.
Or even consistent syntax.
"The 14th Amendment is an amendment to the United States Constitution that appears after the 13th Amendment and before the 15th Amendment. Brought to you by Carl's Jr."
Certainly not translucent prose. . .
Can I get an Oof?
Waiting for the hot takes on Bolt Upright's Deceived Opinion...😳
Meanwhile, a half-ass thought experiment: how much worse would this nightmare be than what we have now? Yeah, yeah, I get the joke; even amused.
But, you know, being reminded daily how the national Democrats have failed for decades, locking us into this awful state, I dunno. And it's like the news is worse day after day. Like, what's going to happen today that's worse than yesterday? That Thompson's killer isn't just an unhinged Musk shipping RWNJ, but also a Bernie bro?
I'm just probably having another episode of dotard crabbiness...
Probly...
There is nothing new under the sun. Soon-Shiong is simply reviving the Ministry of Truth as Orwell spins in his grave.
Loved the painted bookcase behind Trump. That's the appropriate step down the Idiocracy ladder, not even only the spines of fake books, but just a stage prop.
Yeah, the bookcase is cherce, and bouncing off whilst stumbling offstage is chercer.
Like the lying, so much of the chintzy-ness of Trump and those in his orbit represents both a demonstration of their lack of class AND functions as a flex.
"Emperor Trump adroitly danced 'round the magnificently-appointed office features, like a ballet master at his peak of terpsichorean talents! "Like a panther!" screamed his chief of staff as he moved smoothly thru the door..."
https://youtu.be/ZOenlU1qATY?si=ZsDqRnR0-e8zrjUe&t=34
I envisioned it painted on canvas and vaguely rippling in the breeze behind him.
Suggests a familiarity with both books and art not in evidence.
More like one of the many stage backgrounds in the Marx Brothers’ A Night at the Opera.
"A battleship - in Il Trovatore!"
Personally, I like "fruit cart" as a background for Trump.
Fair, as long as it gets knocked over Good And Hard in the wacky chase scene.
The Second Trump Administration, soundtrack by Yackety Sax.
So glad I dumped the LA Times. My favorite editors resigned after the no endorsement of Kamala Harris debacle. Hope they have found new employment. Some people can’t be bought and sold.
So.... you're saying this might have already happened a while back...
Roy, you spelled 'invasionistas' incorrectly, but t'ain't yer fault – the Reinastown Revisionista doesn't know how either.
It's all a matter of perspective, right?
Things look really different to right wing assholes.
Even the LA Times looks different. I mean, I got the dollar-a-month* digitalized version for awhile, then quit when that deal ended (mostly because the digital version was and maybe still is a klugey screen-repellent cheap version of a pdf). Now they want me back for the cheapo version again which, nah, 'cause I still get Sammy Roth's climate newsletter via email (the web-based version having been blocked recently)...
*I originally typed 'dollar-a-moth' and thought "this is where our hairbrained socialist wackos have led us – in the coming end times we'll be docked a dollar whether we eat the moth or not.
Save the Moths!
My Giant Dog swears moths are delicious.
He thinks June bugs are pretty awesome too.
A few months ago, I was at work (at night), and started hearing a weird, random "bumping" sound. I went over towards one of the windows, and saw one of the feral cats repeatedly launching itself about six feet up the window in an effort to catch a moth. I never saw her catch one, but the effort was impressive.
Man, those moths must be DELICIOUS.
I'm not sure I'd rely on a cat's sense of "taste" to make any judgements on what to eat.
The Artificial Intelligence Bias-O-Meter is going to require probably a decade worth of reprogramming an fine-tuning since reality has a well-known liberal bias.
If it's like United Healthcare's AI Denial Engine("shall figure out how to deny coverage at all human cost") it's primarily, nay, Prime Directive is "Cover for Donnie, cover up the idiocies and cruelty, and cover Him with praise".
Roy's version is insufficiently mechanical.
Have I mentioned that the slew of online publishers of porn prose and fiction are getting increased complaints that too much now going into circulation seems to be AI written and sucks? Not in a good way.
Let us all bow our heads and mourn the end of the good way of sucking.
I know the creative muse must not be denied, but is it possible that we already have enough porn?
Like the newspaper: most of the content decays rapidly. People produce it like any other sort of expression: that it's often an aid to masturbation feed the market for novelty.
I know it's difficult for many to believe, but some of it is actually literature: and consider the absurdity of saying "I think we have enough literature."
No less a seminal thinker than Tom Lerher suggests it's all porn if you look at it right. And shittily written porn is only erotic to the lowest common denominator. Well written porn is good sometimes despite the sexy content...
The use of the phrase "seminal thinker" in a discussion of porn - heheheh...
Sometimes I'm afraid my best efforts are wasted...
Is that possible?
Apparently not.
I believe it is: and might be willing to give actual examples (from Nifty.org or Literotica, or Gay Demon ) if prompted.
Yesterday went sideways in rather too interesting ways.
"Had"
Fixed it for you*
*The fix is in!
Let’s hire the people who formerly maintained the Tom Brady Crud-ometer at Defector dot com.
LIBERAL ON INTERNET SAYS WE SHOULD ALL EAT INSECTS
I realize now that you were not flogging the Bass-O-Meter that alla the late-night commercials be shovin' at me (and as far as it goes, I gotta say if I was ever inclined to partake, the Bass-O-Meter is the one I would get, just so's I could say "yeah, that Bass-O-Meter keeps me fed!")
The Bass-O-Meter is really catching on!
Hooked me, anyway...
Isn't Bootsy Collins the Bass-O-Meter?
https://axeheaven.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/bootsy-collins-thumb-480x685.jpg
As may be Trumpy Trout
But the internet is filled to the top with Nazis
Bottom, Shirley.
filling to the bottom is not very many
Well you'll never see them at the top of anything.
I appreciate a preview of this tech genius's "less bias version," and note the return of celebrity reporter Salena Zito. But it's hard to get past wondering what are the real details of the 14th Amendment ukase. I'd expect exceptions like Russian birth tourism to be codified. Or will things just work according to the OK - Not OK color card?
"We've outsourced immigration enforcement to Sherwin-Williams."
Call me Al. Al Abaster.
Soon-schlong is loading his LLM AI with every back issue of National Review, Jonah Goldberg’s entire output (written, not gastrointestinal), Father Coughlin scripts and translations of Goebbels and Pinochet speeches. Following the Fifth Law of Thermodynamics - garbage in, garbage out - Soon-schlong’s new LA Times will be must reading among the illiterati of MAGA world.
Much like the paper for Deltas in Brave New World, written exclusively in words of one syllable.
"Finally! A newspaper that shows those pointy-heads at the Weekly World News how it's done!"
This makes me pig-biting mad
Send them all back to Haitianistan. But seriously, here a couple possibilities to look for.
At what point will Trump turn up wearing a military uniform? Something like the Soviets used to wear with an oversized hat and exaggerated epaulettes.
We need to start posing the hypothetical now on social media: Is it wrong for someone who has never served in the military to put on uniform and impersonate a military officer?
Will Musk and the other oligarchs seek to replace Trump with J.D. Vance, the way Russian oligarchs replaced a drunken Yeltsin with Putin? Could they pull a 25th Amendment coup?
Stay tuned dear readers for more intriguing possibilities for the up-and-coming dear leader!
Which Trump associate will be the first to fall out a hotel window?
Big field of contestants, but nobody gets hurt as they all know never to venture above the ground floor.
I'm guessing Hegseth, but probably just because he was drunk.
Well he won't get rejected by the Senate. Trump sent enough MAGA Demons after Ernst that she now supports Hegseth
HAIL ANTS
TAIL HANS
[hops into cab, throws a twenty at the driver] STEP ON IT
MARKHAM: You know, sometimes a bad memory is like what they call an ill wind — it can blow somebody luck.
CLERK: I always say everybody’s right.
This sounds like it could be a Fun Friday prompt. What's your favorite bit of incidental dialogue in a movie? Although I'd be stricter and say it can't involve any main characters or even any named characters and must serve no purpose in terms of exposition or advancing the plot.
WAITER: Six more Pike's Pales
BARTENDER: We're all outta Pikes Pale. How 'bout something else?
WAITER [in the most jaded possible voice] But they don't want something else, they want the Ale that Won for Yale, rah, rah.
BARTENDER: Well, tell 'em to go to... Harvard
You do a lotta acid, Miller, back in the hippie days?
That one I don't know. Sounds dangerously modern, 1970's even.
I'm pretty certain, btw, that it's "You EAT a lot of acid, Miller, back in the hippie days?"
It could get a bit dicey if he decides to use the giant squid!
I need to watch more movies.
That is not a bad idea.
Technically couldn't bartender and waiter be names?
The BEST names.
It’s another episode of Stock Character Theater!
Nice, but the game might be heavily weighted toward Mr. Incidental Dialogue Sturges.
Unnamed character, but an actor name goes with "in the most jaded possible voice." No accident that Sturges wrote incidental lines for Al Bridge to bring on the full disdain.
"It's called a paraphrase" - Driver of Motor Home
Re Al Bridge: I think that's the longest Wikipedia filmography I've ever seen.
Finding memorable interactions between characters that obscure would be really hard, especially in movies with small casts like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Castaway wanna word...
The part of the Wolf was played by...
"Orange Whip? Orange Whip? Orange Whip? Three Orange Whips."
When Trump was on MTP and said he wanted to do away with birthright citizenship, Kristin Welker asked "Will you do that by executive order"?
Not even "CAN you do that?" but "WILL you do that?"
Of course she couldn't say, "It's in the Constitution, dummy", but now even the slightest factual pushback is disallowed? We're now supposed to believe that Trump is Superman, and no laws - not even the laws of physics - apply to him and so the only question is to ask - respectfully, of course - HOW he's going to break the law this time?
Acting like he can do anything he wants is just a fancy version of Complying in Advance.
Giggling their way to autocracy
"Will you be following the law today, sir?"
Soitenly! Hand me my law-followin' map!
Funny story about the awesome power of AI:
Microsoft Outlook has an autocomplete feature which you can't turn off (not that I'm complaining, I type "Thanks for checking in about this" and "Please let me know if you have any questions" probably a dozen times a day.)
Anyway, starting just about a week ago, whenever I type my first name at the end of an email, it autocompletes to "Stephanie."
Let your local commissar know it's misgendering you, so it can be shipped off to Libtard Reeducation Camp.
The AI can never fail – it can only BE failed, by random mathematicians and the like (all of whom will soon be re-educated as necessary.*
*those two 2's won't five themselves, ya know!
Steve or Stephanie? is the Glenn or Glenda? of 2025.
And aptly enough, that makes AI the Ed Wood of 2025!
The good news: AI is now so advanced that it can direct a movie
The bad news: It's an Ed Wood movie.
"Home...? I HALF no home."
I think it's telling you something about yourself that you have yet to realize
Who am I to argue with AI? Stephanie it is!
Re newspapers: I mean, I'm so old I remember when this was called CueCat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CueCat
So, he keeps trying to fail upward. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Hutton_Pulitzer Fingers crossed, not yet enough for the head grifter to appoint him to a post.
"Known mononymously as Jovan"
Looks like a word I would make up...
A new one on me. It covers most cast credits of 1930s French movies.
And damn if that wiki ain't the read of the day! I mean, after REBID, of course...
When you're too grifty even for other election-conspiracy grifters, you are grifty indeed.
I remember Jovan Musk, a men's cologne from the '70s; it rivaled Hai Karate in popularity among young men who thought you had to put a gallon of it on yourself to smell it.
(Now you mention it "Jovan Musk" can be "the cologne for men who have too much money so they spend it on fascism")
"[...] young men who thought you had to put a gallon of it on [...]"
We still have that today, as it seems many young men think the Axe they buy is a single use container.
"Despite investments of $185 million from Radio Shack.."
":CueCat with a leading colon"
Pass. Hard pass.
Cat and colon? We're halfway to a violin!
If you have the guts
I have the guts, but I lack the pluck.
We will likely have competing meters—rather, my _wish_ is that we are allowed such—and some of them might even be worthwhile, that is to say will be in substantial agreement with _me_.
Given the times, I can only wish that my two new fingers will be middle ones—which I believe was the case for Hannibal Lecter in the first two books, I never bothered with the other books or the films or television series.
Hey, has anyone linked the modern tastes for sympathetic villain/heroes, e.g. Michael Corleone, Tony Soprano, Don Draper, Walter White, Cersei Lannister, and for all I know Elphaba…to our choosing felonious filth to lead us? I've long wanted to reclaim 'The Death of Shame' from the Right, wanting to move it away from a fixation on sex and toward one about oppressing the workers and peasants, so why not Moral Clarity?
"BIAS METER SEZ VERY BIAS"
Found my new favorite all-purpose phrase.