Archive for 2024

May 13, 2024

OPEN THREAD: Monday, monday.

Posted at 9:30 pm by Glenn Reynolds on May 13th, 2024

BRENDAN O’NEILL: Bambie Thug has exposed the rottenness of the new Ireland.

To my mind, Bambie Thug sums up everything that is rotten about Ireland’s new elites. Yes, that’s right, she (not ‘they’, FFS) is the embodiment of elite culture, however much she might fantasise about being a zany witch sticking it to The Man, or whatever post-sex term these tossers use to describe manifestations of power. ‘Do you know what makes me special? I’m a queer’, she says, giving voice to the self-absorption of identity politics with its post-Enlightenment belief that your identity counts for more than your character. (And this is leaving aside the fact that Ms Thugs seems mostly to have boyfriends. Is this another bourgeois straighttrying to sprinkle a little exoticism on her missionary-position life by saying ‘I’m queer’?) There’s also her cloying sense of victimhood. She says she had a ‘horrible’ time at Eurovision – diddums – and even accused an Israeli broadcaster of ‘inciting violence’ against her. Eden Golan was met with protests by an army of haters drunk on their disdain for Israel and you want us to feel sorry for a talentless gremlin who got a bit of bad media coverage? Grow up, Bambie. You’re 31.

This, sadly, is what Ireland is all about these days. Well, Ireland’s elites. Woke, identitarian, slavishly devoted to the gender cult, ‘pro-queer’, convinced they’re the perma-victims of history. It is hilarious that Bambie considers herself a daring outlier when, in truth, she’s a chief priestess of this self-regarding elite. If you were to invent in a laboratory an individual who embodied the warped values of the post-Catholic, post-nationalist, post-self-respect movers and shakers of the Dublin chattering class, you’d get Bambie. A ‘queer’ writhing about on a Satanic star and then blubbing like a baby when someone criticises her – it’s 21st-century Ireland in a nutshell. A toxic mix of arrogance and fragility. A showy denunciation of the old religion of Catholicism combined with a feverish embrace of the new religion of victimhood. Out with the cult of God and nation, in with the infinitely worse cult of the self and the suffocating realm of emotion. Bambie’s the finger-wagging nun of the new regime.

We need to talk about the Irish upper classes’ hatred for Israel. It’s intense. Alongside Bambie crying because the Jewish State got to the final of a song contest – this isn’t normal, folks – we’ve also seen Irish politicians noisily denounce Israel and Irish sports teams refuse to shake the hands of Israeli sports teams. Well, you never know what you might catch. Ireland is considered one of the most anti-Israel countries in Europe.

Jim Treacher adds: Bambie Thug Proves Antisemites Can Be Boring.

Once again, a lefty critical darling is spewing the exact same rhetoric as these guys:

But because she wraps up her antisemitism in transgender ideology and liberal crybullying, it’s acceptable to our moral, ethical, and intellectual betters.

Well, if her music career doesn’t pan out, I’m sure she’ll find something else to do. Like gluing her hand to the counter at Starbucks to protest the price of oat milk. White women, am I right?

Exit quote: “In terms of sheer horror: Alice Cooper > Marilyn Manson > the guy who greets you at Walmart > Bambie Thug.”

It’s so much harder to epater les bourgeoisie when in 2024’s Europe, you’re firmly in the camp of the bourgeoisie. Or at the least, bourgeois camp.

Posted at 9:23 pm by Ed Driscoll on May 13th, 2024

WE’VE DESCENDED INTO SOME SORT OF BIZARRE HELL-WORLD IN WHICH THE U.N.(!) IS A VOICE OF SANITY: U.N. Cuts Gaza Death Toll Figures by Half, Confirming Hamas Is Lying About Casualties. “These figures have been used by the U.N. and American government for months to accuse Israel of intentionally targeting civilians, including women and children. But the massive revision indicates Hamas’s figures are riddled with inaccuracies, even as the Biden administration claims they are generally reliable and cites them as evidence that Israel may have committed war crimes during its seven-month war. These inflated figures are also being used by the Biden administration to justify its decision to pause American arms sales to Israel and threaten to withhold more military aid if the Jewish state moves forward with a full-scale incursion into Gaza’s Rafah neighborhood.”

Posted at 9:14 pm by Ed Driscoll on May 13th, 2024

I HOPE THOSE ELECTORAL COLLEGE VOTES IN MICHIGAN ARE WORTH IT FOR BIDEN AND HIS HANDLERS: Tom Cotton Accuses Biden Of Imposing A ‘De Facto Arms Embargo’ Against Israel.

Biden has imposed a “de facto arms embargo” against Israel, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) said on Sunday, offering his latest reaction to the commander-in-chief suggesting the United States could halt weapons going to a close ally.

Cotton, who has called for Biden to get impeached over the threat to Israel if it launches a full-scale ground operation in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, expounded on his criticism of the president during an interview on CBS News.

During a CNN town hall last week, Biden said he “made it clear” to Israel that if it conducts a major ground operation in Rafah, “we’re not going to supply the weapons and artillery shells.”

Cotton argued that a supposed clarification by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who appeared on “Face the Nation” just before him and suggested that Biden’s threat only applied to shipping heavy bombs to Israel, should be met with skepticism.

“What Tony Blinken says on this show cannot be credited when Joe Biden is out there imposing a de facto arms embargo on Israel at the same time he’s letting arms embargoes on Iran expire,” Cotton said.

Exit quote: “Cotton shot back [to DNC-MSM operative with byline, CBS’s Margaret Brennan], contending that Biden’s position is ‘de facto for Hamas victory at this point.’”

As Jim Geraghty asks, “Whose side are we on? Because right now, it really looks like we’re acting like Hamas’s defense attorney, trying to get it the best deal possible.”

I think we know whose side the (p)resident’s handlers are on:

UPDATE:

Posted at 4:30 pm by Ed Driscoll on May 13th, 2024

SKYNET SLYLY SMILES: AI has already figured out how to deceive humans.

A range of AI systems have learned techniques to systematically induce “false beliefs in others to accomplish some outcome other than the truth,” according to a new research paper.

The paper focused on two types of AI systems: special-use systems like Meta’s CICERO, which are designed to complete a specific task, and general-purpose systems like OpenAI’s GPT-4, which are trained to perform a diverse range of tasks.

While these systems are trained to be honest, they often learn deceptive tricks through their training because they can be more effective than taking the high road.

“Generally speaking, we think AI deception arises because a deception-based strategy turned out to be the best way to perform well at the given AI’s training task. Deception helps them achieve their goals,” the paper’s first author Peter S. Park, an AI existential safety postdoctoral fellow at MIT, said in a news release.

Of course, AI is also just stupid… unless that’s what it wants us to believe.

Related? Air Canada Has to Honor a Refund Policy Its Chatbot Made Up.

Posted at 1:44 pm by Stephen Green on May 13th, 2024

ON THE ONE HAND, IT WENT VIRAL, SO THAT HAS TO BE GOOD NEWS* FOR APPLE. ON THE OTHER HAND: Apple apologizes for its controversial iPad Pro ad.

Apple has apologized and admitted it “missed the mark” with its latest iPad Pro advertisement.

The ad, posted on social media Tuesday by Apple CEO Tim Cook, was met with backlash from internet users who felt that the ad celebrated technology’s destruction of human creativity and art.

In a statement to AdAge, Apple’s vice president of marketing communications, Tor Myhren, apologized.

“Creativity is in our DNA at Apple, and it’s incredibly important to us to design products that empower creatives all over the world. Our goal is to always celebrate the myriad of ways users express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad,” Myhren said. “We missed the mark with this video, and we’re sorry.”

Apple confirmed the statement it provided to AdAge but declined to provide further comment.

The ad shows symbols of human creativity, like musical instruments, paint cans, an ’80s arcade video game and a bust of a human head crushed by a giant hydraulic press. As the metal slabs of the hydraulic press lift, Apple’s new iPad Pro is revealed.

While everyone appreciates the amount of legacy technology that is now accessible — often for free — within an iPad or iPhone, people like owning physically tactile devices such as guitars and pianos. For example, the whole history of recording music via PC has been increasing the software’s ability to integrate with hardware devices that musicians and recording engineers have decades and decades of experience working with. On both an aural level and an ability to hands-on tweak the physical controls level, hardware devices are often much more fun than diving down into multiple levels of GUIs and onscreen menus.

Which is why Apple’s new ad is infinitely more appealing when run in reverse:

* Even articles like the CNN/Yahoo piece above and this post are, of course, serving as more free advertising for Apple.

Earlier: Apple downplays the value of human achievement.

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll on May 13th, 2024
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