LEAK, SCHMEAK: NASA Gives Go Ahead for Manned Starliner Launch.
Archive for 2024
May 27, 2024
STILL A FEW BUGS IN THE SYSTEM: Google’s “AI Overview” can give false, misleading, and dangerous answers.
MAYBE THE DOGS JUST DON’T LIKE THE INFLATIONARY, MULTIPLE WARS DOGFOOD: Democratic strategist James Carville blasts own party — again: ‘Messaging is full of s–t.’
PUBLIC HEALTH “EXPERTS” HAVE DAMAGED THE BRAND OF VACCINES FOR SOME TIME: As states loosen childhood vaccine requirements, public health experts’ worries grow.
YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK: Buttigieg defends Biden’s EV strategy after question on how only 8 federal charging stations have been built.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg defended the Biden administration’s push to build half a million electric vehicle (EV) charging stations along U.S. highways by 2030 after being questioned about how just eight have been built since President Biden signed the legislation two years ago.
Buttigieg appeared Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation” where he tried to ease doubts about reaching Biden’s goal of 500,000 chargers by the end of the decade when asked why it wasn’t happening more quickly.
“Now, in order to do a charger, it’s more than just plugging a small device into the ground,” the secretary said. “There’s utility work, and this is also really a new category of federal investment. But we’ve been working with each of the 50 states.”
“Seven or eight, though?” host Margaret Brennan said with a laugh.
“Again, by 2030, 500,000 chargers,” Buttigieg said. “And the very first handful of chargers are now already being physically built.”
Buttigieg knows how royally he’s screwed up at his job when he’s being dunked on by someone at CBS. Or as friends at Twitchy note: The Look on Pete Buttigieg’s Face When CBS Journo Dares Disagree With Him About EVs is Glorious. “We admit it, we were shocked to see someone at CBS hold Buttigieg or any Democrat accountable.”
WATCH: CBS’s Margaret Brennan laughs in Pete Buttigieg’s face when he is unable to explain why only 7 or 8 electric vehicle charging stations have been built despite the Biden admin spending $7.5 BILLION to build chargers. pic.twitter.com/BmFK17Dk5O
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) May 26, 2024
And she wasn’t done: ‘He’s Not Wrong:’ Margaret Brennan Presses Buttigieg On Trump’s Stance Over Electric Vehicles Purchased.
Evergreen:
Related QED: If you can’t blame racist roads, blame global warming: Buttigieg Blames Increase in Extreme Turbulence on Climate Change Because…Why Not?
President AOC will eventually solve both issues by banning “farting cows and airplanes,” of course.
MATT MARGOLIS: Why a Hung Jury Is Likely in the Trump Case.
IT’S NOT NEW SCIENCE: People have observed animals self-medicate with plants for millennia.
CHANGE: The death of the dollar store. “Once a 99 Cents Only store starts selling stuff for a few bucks, its competitive advantage has started to disappear.”
Also: “Others, like Dollar General, say they continue to grow, even if it’s been a rocky road. Dollar General recently opened its 20,000th store and plans to open even more this year.”
There must be an interesting story behind why Dollar General is thriving while the others are failing but KTLA chose not to tell it.
ANALYSIS: TRUE. Government-run science does not, unfortunately, float majestically in the shimmering ether, far above mendacity and bullshit. “Try working with NASA, the EPA, the NIH, or any other government science agency to understand why.”
IT DIDN’T TAKE LONG FOR GERMANY TO REVERT TO FORM:
● How it started: Brandenburg Gate in Berlin lights up with Israeli flag in solidarity.
—The Times of Israel, October 7th.
● How it’s going: Germany Says It Would Execute ICC Arrest Warrant Against Netanyahu.
—The Epoch Times, Thursday.
MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Remember.
BBC led with “Donald Trump was booed repeatedly during an appearance at the Libertarian Party’s national convention on Saturday as he asked members for their support,” because that was the news.
The Biden campaign tweeted, “A seething and unpopular Trump lashes out and belittles the audience as they boo him.”
There’s your left-wing media spin.
Angela Elise McArdle, chairwoman of the Libertarian National Committee, tweeted back, “You didn’t even show up. You have zero credibility.”
There’s your story.
Biden can’t talk to a kindergarten class without embarrassment. And everyone knows it.
THE OLD GRAY LADY IN DISTRESS: “To be clear, I am referring to the New York Times.” “When Jodi Kantor of the New York Times published her story about the Alitos’ flag flap from 2021, I wondered why it took more than three years for the story to surface. Turns out a reputable journalist, Bob Barnes of the Washington Post, investigated the issue at the time, and realized there was no story there. And Barnes was right. . . . Why did the Post have enough sense sit on the story in 2021, but the Times ran it in 2024? I think the Times had a serious lapse in judgment. Indeed, there was wall-to-wall coverage about a non-story. Here Kantor was so, so eager to make a story happen that she stitched together random tweets and social media posts about the upside down flag, in order to disregard the most likely and natural meaning of Mrs. Alito’s acts. To this day, I’ve not seen a single conservative who had any idea that the upside down flag had anything to do with ‘Stop the Steal.’ Even Ann Coulter had no clue!”
Plus: “There is no story here. There never was a story here. How much time have we all wasted on this non-story.”
The point isn’t whether there’s a story here, the point is to convince low information voters that there’s so much smoke there must be a fire somewhere, when it’s really just the Democratic Party’s disinformation apparatus — that is to say, the New York Times — operating a smudge-pot. This is all in service of delegitimizing the Supreme Court so that Democratic policy initiatives won’t be constrained by the Constitution.
STACY MCCAIN: Why Memory Matters.
READER FAVORITE: Cruise Ship Essentials, Flat Extension Cord with Multiple Outlets. #CommissionEarned
NBC NEWS IS STILL PUSHING THE “PUTIN’S STOOGE” BIG LIE: Are Russia and North Korea planning an ‘October surprise’ that aids Trump?
The shameful report includes this line: “U.S. intelligence officials accused Russia of interfering in the 2016 election to help elect Trump. The Biden administration had tense relations with Russia, which collapsed after it invaded Ukraine in 2022.”
At no point do reporters Courtney Kube and Carol E. Lee note that the accusation was thoroughly discredited.
I HAD BEEN ASSURED THAT INFLATION WAS ILLUSORY, TRANSITORY, A HIGH-CLASS PROBLEM, AND BASICALLY OVER ALREADY: Memorial Day cookouts are hit by sticker shock as inflation makes family holiday more expensive than ever.
Previously: President Gaslight Assures You That Your Rising Food Prices Are Down.
IT’S A PURGE. NOW WE NEED A COUNTER-PURGE. Cornell’s use of DEI statements indicates weeding out of overqualified, older, white STEM professor applicants, group alleges.
The weeding of “overqualified” candidates appears to be well underway.
HMM: Special Ops Soldier Shoots Illegal Chechen Photographing His Kid, Then it Gets Weird. “Reports say two Chechen men who spoke only broken English were on the property in two locations. A scuffle broke out between the colonel and Ramzan Daraev, 35, of Chicago. The Army officer fired at and killed Daraev at close range. The other Chechen was located in a vehicle elsewhere on the property. He was interviewed and, somewhat astonishingly, released by law enforcement. The FBI was called (uh-oh) and offered linguistic help.”
UPDATE (FROM GLENN): Much more here.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: My Decision to Leave Academia: Their reality is so different from the rest of the world’s, and it has been for a long time.
AI ISN’T VERY SMART: Google’s ‘AI Overview’ can give false, misleading, and dangerous answers.
After looking through dozens of examples of Google AI Overview mistakes (and replicating many ourselves for the galleries below), we’ve noticed a few broad categories of errors that seemed to show up again and again. Consider this a crash course in some of the current weak points of Google’s AI Overviews and a look at areas of concern for the company to improve as the system continues to roll out.
Some of the funniest example of Google’s AI Overview failing come, ironically enough, when the system doesn’t realize a source online was trying to be funny. An AI answer that suggested using “1/8 cup of non-toxic glue” to stop cheese from sliding off pizza can be traced back to someone who was obviously trying to troll an ongoing thread. A response recommending “blinker fluid” for a turn signal that doesn’t make noise can similarly be traced back to a troll on the Good Sam advice forums, which Google’s AI Overview apparently trusts as a reliable source.
In regular Google searches, these jokey posts from random Internet users probably wouldn’t be among the first answers someone saw when clicking through a list of web links. But with AI Overviews, those trolls were integrated into the authoritative-sounding data summary presented right at the top of the results page.
I’ve found that the ad-free, subscription-only Kagi search engine is worth every penny.
LIMITED TIME DEAL: Dickies Men’s Original 874 Work Pants. #CommissionEarned
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Memorial Day Seems More Important With Each Passing Year.