THIS IS CNN: Aaron Rupar seems mad that Lee Fang went on Tucker Carlson’s show to discuss bombshell Intercept scoop. “Good point; why isn’t he also on every other cable news show on tv? It’s a big story!”
Archive for 2022
November 1, 2022
IT’S NOT REALLY A “HOME INVASION” IF THEY BRING BARBECUED RIBS.
PELOSI ATTACK NON-FACTOR IN ELECTION: Democrats aren’t so sure, but GOPers see little to zero impact on Tuesday’s voting from the hammer assault on Paul Pelosi.
ALL MAJOR U.S. COLLEGES TO SUPREME COURT: BANNING AFFIRMATIVE ACTION VIOLATES THE FIRST AMENDMENT. Colleges have finally discovered a policy with a “chilling effect” on speech that they DO think is unconstutional, and, bizarrely, it’s banning racial preferences. Their reasoning is… interesting.
HOLIDAY DEAL: PUMA Men’s Roma Sneaker. #CommissionEarned
There’s an op-ed in the New York Times on Tuesday on the rise of right-wing comedy, and you won’t be surprised to learn that this is no laughing matter.
Left-of-center satire is becoming an endangered species, Times opinion columnist Tressie McMillan Cottom begins. Trevor Noah is retiring from “The Daily Show,” and James Corden is following his lead. Samantha Bee’s TBS program was canceled. Desus and Mero broke up. The late night shows, most of which have transformed into flaccid group-therapy sessions for anxious progressives, are struggling to retain viewers. And in their place, comedy with a distinctly right-wing flavor has become an emerging cultural and financial powerhouse. Humor that is utterly devoid of any social mission beyond its entertainment value is back in vogue.
The retreat of the left-wing comedy scene is a cultural phenomenon, McMillan Cottom observes. “Audiences have different orientations toward humor and political talk,” she writes. “Those orientations have some underlying psychological needs.” Indeed, much of mainstream center-left comedy predictably caters to those “psychological needs,” and predictability is the enemy of the joke.
As the late satirist P.J. O’Rourke told me in an interview for my book The Rise of the New Puritans: Fighting Back Against Progressives’ War on Fun, the laugh is a product of “two planes of meaning at an unexpected angle”—emphasis on “unexpected.” But the extirpation of frisson from the equation is only part of the problem.
As the Ayatollah Khomeini famously said:
“Allah did not create man so that he could have fun. The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious.”
Just think of the left as a substitute religion, and their own fatwa on humor makes perfect sense.
LOOKING BACK AT the United States Revolver Association.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Saudi Arabia, U.S. on High Alert After Warning of Imminent Iranian Attack: Saudis said Tehran wants to distract from local protests, and the National Security Council said the U.S. is prepared to respond.
Saudi Arabia has shared intelligence with the U.S. warning of an imminent attack from Iran on targets in the kingdom, putting the American military and others in the Middle East on an elevated alert level, Saudi and U.S. officials said.
In response to the warning, Saudi Arabia, the U.S. and several other neighboring states have raised the level of alert for their military forces, the officials said. They didn’t provide more details on the Saudi intelligence.
Saudi officials said Iran is poised to carry out attacks on both the kingdom and Erbil, Iraq, in an effort to distract attention from domestic protests that have roiled the country since September.
The White House National Security Council said it was concerned about the warnings and ready to respond if Iran carried out an attack.
“We are concerned about the threat picture, and we remain in constant contact through military and intelligence channels with the Saudis,” said a National Security Council spokesperson. “We will not hesitate to act in the defense of our interests and partners in the region.”
Iran has already attacked northern Iraq with dozens of ballistic missiles and armed drones since late September, one of which was shot down by a U.S. warplane as it headed toward the city of Erbil, where American troops are based. Tehran has publicly blamed what it calls Iranian Kurdish separatist groups based there for fomenting the unrest at home.
Iranian authorities have also publicly accused Saudi Arabia, along with the U.S. and Israel, of instigating the demonstrations.
Last month, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps publicly warned Saudi Arabia to rein in coverage of the protests in Iran by Farsi-language satellite news channels, including Iran International, a Saudi-backed satellite television channel based in London popular with many Iranians.
“This is our last warning, because you are interfering in our internal affairs through these media,” Maj. Gen. Hossein Salami said in remarks reported in state media at military drills in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. “You are involved in this matter and know that you are vulnerable.”
I suspect this is an indication that things are going poorly for the Iranian government, which is good. But, well, stay tuned.
READER FAVORITE: Westinghouse 2200 Watt Super Quiet & Lightweight Portable Inverter Generator. #CommissionEarned
TWENTY MINUTES INTO THE FUTURE:
FASTER, PLEASE: Reprogramming of immune cells shown to fight off melanoma.
QUESTION ASKED AND ANSWERED: With whom does Emily Oster want an amnesty?
First, let’s be clear to whom Emily Oster is speaking. She’s speaking to the furious well-educated suburban women who are swinging towards Republicans in this cycle, even in the bluest of states. Because it was the bluest of states that were hit hardest by these policies. It was in blue states that the schools were closed longest, that the economic devastation was worst, that crime spiked the most, where masks were required longest. The damage done by these policies is at its beginning, not its end. Dr. Oster, would like these women to believe that it was all just a mistake, a mis-understanding, and remember that it is the Republicans who are looking to limit their freedoms. That while democrats had no problem sacrificing the well-being of your living children for three years in support political power, it is Republicans that pose a true threat to you as a woman.
Read the whole thing.
INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE:
Related: The ‘cabal’ that bragged of foisting Joe Biden on us must answer for his failed presidency.
WHEN DID THE NARRATIVES EVER HAVE TO MAKE SENSE? Anatomy of a Smear: Democrats and the Legacy Press Collude on a Narrative that Makes Little Sense.
AUTONOMY: Former Head Of Tesla AI Explains Why They’ve Removed Sensors; Others Differ.
In a recent interview, Andrej Karpathy, who formerly was head of AI for Tesla’s Autopilot and FSD products, outlined their reasoning behind removing both the radar and ultrasonics from Tesla cars, as well as never using LIDAR or maps. While Elon Musk is best known for making statements on this, Karpathy was his go-to guy on backing up that reasoning. Karpathy raised eyebrows, however, when earlier this year he took a sabbatical from the job and eventually announced he would leave it.
Karpathy’s main points:
Extra sensors add cost to the system, and more importantly complexity. They make the software task harder, and increase the cost of all the data pipelines. They add risk and complexity to the supply chain and manufacturing.
Elon Musk pushes a philosophy of “the best part is no part” which can be seen throughout the car in things like doing everything through the touchscreen. This is an expression of this philosophy.
Vision is necessary to the task (which almost all agree on) and it should also be sufficient as well. If it is sufficient, the cost of extra sensors and tools outweighs their benefit.
Sensors change as parts change or become available and unavailable. They must be maintained and software adapted to these changes. They must also be calibrated to make fusion work properly.
Having a fleet gathering more data is more important than having more sensors.
Having to process LIDAR and radar produces a lot of bloat in the code and data pipelines. He predicts other companies will also drop these sensors in time.
Mapping the world and keeping it up to date is much too expensive. You won’t change the world with this limitation, you need to focus on vision which is the most important. The roads are designed to be interpreted with vision.
I get it: If cameras and radar/lidar are always going to agree, why have both? If they disagree, you have to have algorithms for deciding which one is right. It’s a rational approach, though I’m more of a belt-and-suspenders kind of guy.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: Sen. Mark Kelly was against the Artemis return to the moon before he was for it.
The Daily Beast reported in October 2020, shortly before Kelly won his first campaign for the Senate, that the former astronaut took a dim view of returning to the moon. He said, “We should just go straight to Mars. Forget about the Moon. We’ve been there. We’ve already done that.”
Kelly’s words echoed those of former President Barack Obama 10 and a half years before. At a speech at the Kennedy Space Center, Obama heaped scorn on the idea of returning to the moon. “Now, I understand that some believe that we should attempt a return to the surface of the Moon first, as previously planned. But I just have to say pretty bluntly here: We’ve been there before. Buzz has been there. There’s a lot more of space to explore and a lot more to learn when we do.“ Apollo 11 moonwalker Buzz Aldrin was in the audience at the time, serving as a political prop for Obama’s space policy that bypassed the moon.
Fast forward to Dec. 1, 2021. Kelly introduced Vice President Kamala Harris at her first meeting of the National Space Council. In his remarks, Kelly stated that he looked forward to the day when the first woman and the first person of color would walk on the moon as part of the Artemis III mission. He said that the event will inspire a new generation to follow science and technology education.
What changed to cause Kelly to alter his views on returning to the moon? The senator has not chosen to enlighten anyone, so assumptions have to be made.
“Project Artemis was President Donald Trump’s initiative,” as the story notes. I’d note that this kind of last-minute switcharoo is typical for a candidate who fears he might be in trouble.
COVID IRONIES ABOUND: CDC director tests positive for COVID-19 again after Paxlovid treatment.
NOW THEY’VE DONE IT: CNN Goes After Man’s Best Friend. “It seems CNN wants us to stop adopting really big dogs and feed our canines… bugs.”
COLOR ME UNSURPRISED: Marital stress may impede heart attack recovery.
HOW THE MEDIA TRAINS JOURNALISTS TO LIE: By ‘ratioing’ NBC’s Dasha Burns for questioning John Fetterman’s health, her fellow journalists hid the truth from the public but exposed how they manufacture consent.
VODKAPUNDIT PRESENTS YOUR WEEKLY INSANITY WRAP: Hell No, Nancy and Paul Pelosi Don’t Deserve the Decency They Deny Us. “Paul Pelosi suffered a terrible assault, and the Left’s reaction has me asking a question nobody wants the answer to — but it’s also the answer we need. That’s the big crazy on today’s Insanity Wrap, an entire week’s worth of lefty nuttiness wrapped up in one easy-to-swallow medicated news capsule.”
- Worst. Candidate. Ever. (And she isn’t named Fetterman.)
- Lefties hate decency, assume you’ll still treat them with it.
- Biden’s most desperate lie yet.
So much more at the link, you’d have to be crazy to miss it.
I THINK STUDENTS LIKE ONLINE CLASSES, BUT THEY DIDN’T LIKE HAVING EVERYTHING ONLINE: LSSSE Survey: Students Are Very Satisfied With Online Legal Education.