AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Iran Confirms They Are Interviewing Several New Turban-Wearing Bearded Genocidal Psychopaths To Replace Deceased President.

UNEXPECTEDLY! The Torricelli Option Is On the Table: Leftwing Bloomberg Begins Polling Trump v. Kamala Harris, Anticipating a Biden Departure.

As Michael Graham sagely cautioned in 2004 (the year Torricelli was swapped out and replaced by a fossilized Frank Lautenberg on the NJ ballot), “Don’t assume you know who’s on the Democratic ticket until Election Day.”

Related: “Jill Biden and his other advisers come up with ways to obscure signs of senescence — from shorter news conferences to almost zero print interviews to TV interviews mainly with fawning MSNBC anchors…. [T]he Biden crew clearly has no plan for how to deal with the president’s age except to shield him and hide him and browbeat reporters who point out that his mental state… is a genuine issue.”

As Glenn noted in February, “But it is, and they can’t hide it anymore. It was an issue in 2020 too, but they could hide it.”

Flashback: The ‘cabal’ that bragged of foisting Joe Biden on us must answer for his failed presidency.

THE 21^st CENTURY ISN’T TURNING OUT AS I HAD HOPED: It Would Be Easier to Stop Worrying about AI If Its Apostles Weren’t So Creepy.

First of all, I want to salute [Scarlett] Johansson for saying no to Sam Altman and Open AI. I am certain that, given how flush with cash they are, they offered her more money for the use of her voice than most actresses will make in an entire career. She said no despite how buzzy and glamorous an emergent technology AI is among movers and shakers. This would have been the easiest paycheck to earn in the world: Sit down in a booth and let someone sample your voice for a few days.

Why did she decline? (Leave aside for a moment just how sleazy it was that Open AI tried to use Johansson’s voice, or its style, even after being rejected — for those suspicious of Silicon Valley business ethics, this was fine vindication.) This brings us to what most unnerves me about Silicon Valley’s proselytization for AI: Its most vociferous apostles seem for all the world to be driven by psychologically bizarre, socially damaged desires. In Johansson’s statement, she says she declined the offer to recreate her character from Her “after much consideration and for personal reasons.” That strikes me as a polite way of saying, “Did you actually watch this film? Did you understand the point of this film?”

For Her is not a love story — it is a cautionary tale. Set in the near future (really just an excuse to dress everyone in awkward ties), it stars Joaquin Phoenix as a lonely and embittered soon-to-be divorcé. As part of his unfulfilling job, he gets a “virtual assistant” with his newest operating-system upgrade: “Samantha,” a learning AI voiced by Johansson that exhibits such naïvely ingenuous lovability as an algorithm new to the world that the alienated and unhappy Phoenix begins to fall in love with it. And, seemingly, “she” with him as well.

It is a marvelous and memorable film — Spike Jonze’s best work by far as both director and writer, with a truly humane, beating heart at its core — so I will not spoil the plot for you from there. But, as those who have seen it know, the film is designed to make you uncomfortable with AI, not more welcoming of it — for AI is incapable of loving you, or even truly befriending you, at least not in the way that people crave and require. Her makes a direct appeal to its viewers to take their heads out of the clouds (and, by analogy, drop the smartphone from their hands) and re-engage with the human reality of the world around them, rather than getting lost in a world of artificial intelligence and pleasures both ultimately illusory and inevitably heartbreaking.

So how the hell could Sam Altman have gotten all of this so wrong? Go back to the “Torment Nexus” joke I opened with. What kind of an utterly dense brick of a person could watch Her and think, “Yeah, I definitely want my AI to remind me of the algorithmic plague that seduced society away from everything except their earbuds before cruelly ghosting planet Earth.” One presumes Open AI has already moved on to option No. 2: getting Hugo Weaving to reprise his role as “Agent Smith” from The Matrix.

To be fair, Weaving portrayed Agent Smith 11 years ago in ad for GE to promote their hospital networking technology. As I wrote in a post back then headlined, “No, That’s Not Creepy At All,” “GE takes the notion of human capital seriously.”

IT’S AN EASY GUESS: Guess Which State Is Exploring Replacing Gas Taxes With Surveillance.

Flashback: Don’t Track Me, Bro!

JIM TREACHER: Ireland Is a Cesspool of Antisemitism.

I’m allowed to say the following because I’m Irish. We get to say it about each other. Except this time, the N-word is “Nazi.”

Ireland, Norway, and Spain are now recognizing a country that does not exist and never has.

So: Hamas butchers and rapes a bunch of innocent people, diligently documents it all on livestream video, and now the world is supposed to hand them a state? Please take that idea and stuff it up your bottom with a broom handle till your tonsils ache.

It’s official: Antisemitism is mainstream, and nobody cares because none of these guys are wearing MAGA hats.

The left and the right both have a big antisemitism problem. They’ve both got a bunch of weirdos who hate Jews and are always finding reasons to blame them for everything. The difference is that the right shuns and belittles their loathsome antisemites, while the left sends theirs out in a suit and tie to address the entire world.

It ain’t just Ireland, of course. Biden is currently coddling the Jew-haters in his own party because he desperately needs their votes.

And yet he’s still moaning about Charlottesville in 2017. “Oh, can you believe those Nazis? Look how much they hate the Jews!”

Which is true. What’s also true is that you never saw any of those idiots again.

Seriously, who even are those dumb hillbillies? What are they doing now? It’s been seven years. Who are they influencing? Why should I care?

In sharp contrast, the Corbynization of the Democratic Party goes all the way to the (p)resident’s handlers: Of Course: Biden Was Plotting With Iran Against Israel.

WHAT THE PRO-PALESTINIAN PROTESTS ARE REALLY ABOUT: In the third and final installment of his essential-reading series on Saul Alinsky and the current wave of Radical Left-led pro-Palestinian protests, Richard Pollock explains why “it’s not about Israel, it’s about political power, Stupid.” Here. In America. Instead of the Constitution.

KEEP DIGGING! WaPo Has a Plan to Get Out of the Hole It’s in, and It Involves More Digging. “What happens when a company’s brand is Orange Man Bad at a time when voters are deciding maybe Orange Man wasn’t so bad after all? If you’re the Washington Post, it means losing half of your readership in just four years — and a whopping $77 million just last year.”

THEY DO A LOT OF STEALING: OpenAI pulls ChatGPT voice that’s totally ‘not an imitation of Scarlett Johansson.’

SHE SAID THE QUIET PART OUT LOUD: AOC Admits Lawfare Is An ‘Ankle Bracelet’ Keeping Trump From Campaign Trail.

PAYBACK’S A… YOU KNOW: ‘Under Color of Law’: The Colorful Way Trump Could Prosecute His Tormenters.

READER FAVORITE: 15×52 HD Binoculars for Adults High Powered with Upgraded Phone Adapter. #CommissionEarned

HE DOESN’T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT AMERICAN LIVES OR INTERESTS: More Proof Biden Was Warned About Disastrous Afghanistan Withdrawal. “During recent testimony before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Retired General Austin Scott Miller, who had been in charge of our Afghanistan forces at the time, told Congress that he had specifically warned the President what would happen if the pullout was conducted as it was being planned. He was ignored and the results speak for themselves.”

WOEING: The first crew launch of Boeing’s Starliner capsule is on hold indefinitely: “NASA will share more details once we have a clearer path forward.”

DON’T COME TO MEGYN’S SHOW UNPREPARED: Megyn Kelly Brutally Fact Checks Bill Maher’s Left Wing Talking Points to His Face.

SCIENCE, UNSETTLED: Regular fish oil supplement use might increase first-time heart disease and stroke risk.

OLD AND COLD: No one is transing kids.

The new hotness: Health Centers At Seattle Public Schools Offer ‘Gender-Affirming’ Hormone Therapy To Children.

WELL: Pedestrians may be twice as likely to be hit by electric/hybrid cars as petrol/diesel ones.

GOODER AND HARDER: California Program Set to Pay Drivers for the Privilege of Even More Taxes in the Near Future.

THE CONSPIRACY THEORISTS ARE DOING PRETTY WELL THIS DECADE: Fluoridated drinking water during pregnancy may raise h