BREAKING: Former Top FTX Executives Plead Guilty To Federal Charges In Fraud Case.

“I’m announcing that the Southern District of New York has filed charges against Caroline Ellison, the former CEO of Alameda Research, and Gary Wong, a co-founder of FTX, in connection with their roles in the frauds that contributed to FTX’s collapse,” the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York said on Wednesday night. “Both Miss Ellison and Mr. Wong have pled guilty to those charges, and they are both cooperating with the Southern District of New York.”

Related: FTX Paid for Blockfolio Deal Mostly in FTT Token It Invented. “FTX paid roughly $84 million in 2020 to take a majority stake in Blockfolio, in what was then among the largest crypto acquisitions. About 94% was paid in FTT tokens, a cryptocurrency that FTX created, according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg. Details of the Blockfolio acquisition, which haven’t been previously reported, offer a glimpse of former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried’s appetite for whimsical financial engineering, and an early hunger to amass customers through large-scale deals. Bankman-Fried doubled down on that ethos this year, going on a buyout binge for firms including Voyager and BlockFi, although those deals were thwarted when FTX imploded in November.”

I’M SORRY DAVE, I’M AFRAID I CAN’T ALLOW YOU TO ORDER THAT BIG MAC: No more ‘attitude at the counter:’ McDonald’s new fully-automated restaurant which is completely run by machines leaves internet divided — but do you think it’s a good idea?

McDonald’s has opened up a fully-automated restaurant in Texas, which is completely run by machines so you don’t have to speak to anyone, and it has left people on the internet divided.

The brand-new eatery, located just outside Fort Worth, uses advanced technology so that customers can order their food and receive their meal without having to interact with any humans, and while some people are excited about the idea, others find it a little creepy.

A TikToker who goes by the username @foodiemunster online recently visited the restaurant and documented the entire thing on the video-sharing app, and it launched a major debate among viewers.

The video featured a McDonald’s with no employees behind the counter. Near the entrance, stood large touch screens for people to place their orders on.

This is the endgame of #fightforfifteen:

(Via Newsalert.)

YOU’RE GONNA NEED A MUCH BIGGER BLOG: The five most absurd things slipped into Congress’s latest budget.

CRAZY TRAIN: Mike Lindell: I’m Going to Prove That the Elections In Miami/Dade County Were Rigged… By Ron DeSantis. “This is why there will never — N E V E R — be any real wins on voting integrity. Because any time we want to talk about cleaning up voter rolls so that dead people’s names aren’t on them, nor are names of people on them five or six times for their five or six previous addresses, mandatory voter ID, mail-in ballots only on request and with signature verification and a copy of a photo ID, or any of a dozen practical, vital, this-must-happen-now reforms, we have jokers like this screaming about The Kraken.”

FBI RELEASES PATHETIC MOVE-ALONG-NOTHING-TO-SEE-HERE RESPONSE TO #TWITTERFILES IN ATTEMPT TO COVER-UP THEIR COVER-UP. “Here’s the text:”

The correspondence between the FBI and Twitter show nothing more than examples of our traditional, longstanding and ongoing federal government and private sector engagements, which involve numerous companies over multiple sectors and industries. As evidenced in the correspondence, the FBI provides critical information to the private sector in an effort to allow them to protect themselves and their customers. The men and women of the FBI work every day to protect the American public. It is unfortunate that conspiracy theorists and others are feeding the American public misinformation with the sole purpose of attempting to discredit the agency.

Earlier: Are FBI And CIA Agents ‘Sheep Dipped’ At Twitter And Other Tech Companies?

OLD AND BUSTED: Blended Scotch.

The New Hotness? Trans Scotch! J&B Whisky Goes Trans.

Of course, everyone has their favorite drink, and if you prefer something else, it is not my place to judge. And this is the 21st Century and no one is permitted to judge anything or anyone. Anyway, if you are stocking up for your Christmas party and are thinking of adding a bottle of J&B Whisky to your holiday offerings, you may want to watch the new commercial from J&B Spain:

Yes, sir, or madam, J&B Whisky is now trans. They probably wanted to add “Taste the Rainbow” to the campaign, but you know, copyright issues and …stuff. As it turns out, the grandpa in the commercial was studying the art of makeup so he could apply it to his trans grandson. Wisdom passing from one generation to another. And a Merry Christmas was had by all. I don’t know about you, but my grandpa taught me to ride a skateboard and liked to watch Hogan’s Heroes on the kitchen TV while drinking a PBR. I take my grandson to the local Highland Games and I bought him his first set of army men and gave him a sword for his birthday. In each instance, I don’t recall a trip to the makeup counter. I think I would have remembered that.

Look, if I’m forced to drink a woke blended scotch, I’m sticking with Johnnie Walker Black Lives Matter.

RIP: NFL legend Franco Harris, known for Immaculate Reception, dead at 72.

UPDATE: The Immaculate Reception: What the Hell Just Happened? (Video.)

AMERICA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD: Hate Speech Against African Americans Up 10,000% On Twitter.

DAVID MARCUS: Where’s our progressive hero now? Migrant shelters are overflowing and a border crisis is about to explode — but AOC and her Democratic cohorts are AWOL.

Of course. It’s a crisis by design:

● Jared Bernstein, member of Biden’s Council of Economic Advisors: “One thing we learned in the 1990s was that a surefire way to reconnect the fortunes of working people at all skill levels, immigrant and native-born alike, to the growing economy is to let the job market tighten up. A tight job market pressures employers to boost wage offers to get and keep the workers they need. One equally surefire way to sort-circuit this useful dynamic is to turn on the immigrant spigot every time some group’s wages go up.”

● Former Trump administration senior adviser Stephen Miller: Biden’s Immigration Plan Would “Erase America’s Nationhood.”

● “Labour wanted mass immigration to make UK more multicultural, says former adviser. Labour threw open Britain’s borders to mass immigration to help socially engineer a ‘truly multicultural’ country, a former Government adviser has revealed.”

Fortunately though, ABC News knows who to blame: Martha Raddatz Blames Border Crisis On Republicans Warning That Border Is Wide Open.

DON’T UNDERESTIMATE JOE’S ABILITY TO F*** THINGS UP: Report: Joe Biden Realized His Mistake With Kamala Harris Very Early On.

THANKS, WE WILL! Jon Meacham: Mock Me, But Biden Has Handled Ukraine Crisis With ‘Immense Skill.’ “Note also that in introducing Meacham at the top of the show, Mika failed to mention Meacham’s role as an occasional Biden speechwriter. She described him only as a ‘presidential historian.’ Shouldn’t that be disclosed when he’s lauding Biden’s ‘immense skill?’”

IN THE MAIL: Tales From the Fermi Resolution: Vol. 1: Shadow of the Tower (Tom Vargas Mysteries), by Moe Lane.

BREAKING: House Committee Votes to Release Trump’s Tax Returns.

YET ANOTHER “BLESSING OF LIBERTY:” David French: Yes, The Dispatch Takes Money To Help Leftists Keep The Internet Conservatism-Free.

AMERICA’S FAVORITE ENGINEER TAKES HIS FINAL REVENGE ON PACKAGE THIEVES WITH GLITTERBOMB 5.0 (VIDEO):

ROGER KIMBALL: The Deep State vs Donald Trump saga is not over.

The great comedy was that the entire charade was the work of state actors that, in various capacities, had actually fabricated the whole story. Hillary Clinton’s team had the idea, paid for the bogus “research,” while willing stooges in the media and intelligence services eagerly embraced the narrative.

As the investigations went on and one dirty actor after the next was exposed, jettisoned, then rewarded with a position at some left-wing media outlet, we thought we were slowly peeling back the onion and that, eventually, we would get to ground zero, the truth about the greatest assault on what Nancy Pelosi taught us to denominate “our democracy” in history.

But no, there was never going to be a ground zero. The point was not to “achieve closure.” It certainly wasn’t to uncover the truth. The point was the process, and the end of the process was, first of all, to destroy Trump and, beyond that, to reassert the Wizard-of-Oz-like prerogatives of the Deep State.

The January 6 Committee, illegally constituted as it was, was a continuation of that work by other means — more or less in the sense that Carl von Clausewitz had in mind when he said that war was “nichts als die Fortsetzung des politischen Verkehrs mit der Einmischung anderer Mittel.” Ever since Donald Trump glided down the escalator in Trump Tower to announce his bid for the presidency, the leviathan has been out to get him.

Biden has called January 6th, the “worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War,” which would be big news to residents of Pearl Harbor, Oklahoma City, and lower Manhattan.

ALWAYS THE LAST TO KNOW: CNN boss Chris Licht slams ‘stunning’ left-wing ‘vitriol’ aimed at him.

CNN boss Chris Licht slammed liberals for criticizing his move to make CNN less partisan, saying it only makes him more confident about his decisions.

“The uninformed vitriol, especially from the left, has been stunning,” Licht, who took over the cable network in May, told The New York Times. “Which proves my point: So much of what passes for news is name-calling, half-truths and desperation.”

Licht was tasked with bringing CNN back to its hard-news roots, to tamp down on anti-Trump, left-leaning punditry, and to cut costs.

He told the Times he thinks of people in the political center as “normal” — but insists appealing to “normal” people doesn’t mean the content should be boring.

“One of the biggest misconceptions about my vision is that I want to be vanilla, that I want to be centrist. That is bulls—,” Licht told the Financial Times in November. “You have to be compelling. You have to have edge.”

Given that it’s CNN, I’d love to know his definition of “centrist.”

UPDATE: So when does Licht actually begin to tone police his network? Jake Tapper Says ‘Kevin McCarthy and His Gang of Flying Monkeys’ Are Why Senate Republicans Support Giant Spending Bill.

POLL: Nearly Half Say Biden Has Made US Worse.

Just about half — 47% — of likely voters say President Joe Biden has made the country worse during his term, according to a new Rasmussen Reports poll.

What exactly are the other 53% smoking?

DAMN NEAR KILLED HIM: Kids’ ward evacuated after pensioner shows up at A&E with World War One bomb up his a*se.

An elderly gentleman who arrived at an Accident and Emergency centre in Toulon, France, sparked a bomb alert after doctors realise the had a First World War artillery shell lodged in his anus.

One member of hospital staff told French news site VAR-Matin that the explosive object was something of a first.

“An apple, a mango or even a can of shaving foam,” they said, “we are used to finding unusual objects inserted where they shouldn’t be. But a shell? Never!”

Once managers at the Sainte-Musse hospital realised what they were dealing with, they organised a partial evacuation of the nearby departments – in particular the children’s ward.

Hospital management confirmed that there had been “an emergency that occurred from 9pm to 11:30pm on Saturday evening that required the intervention of bomb disposal personnel, the evacuation of adult and pediatric emergencies as well as the diversion of incoming emergencies.”

You know you’re not supposed to do that, right?

STANFORD RED-LINES THE WOKE-OMETER: Stanford Hates America: University Seeks To Eliminate The Term ‘American’ Claiming It’s ‘Harmful.’

The whole initiative is asinine, but one word, in particular, stands out among the rest.

According to Stanford University, the word ‘American’ is harmful.

Stanford would rather the term ‘U.S. Citizen’ be used because American typically refers to “people from the United States only, thereby insinuating the U.S. is the most important country in the Americas.”

In other words, Stanford, a university located in the United States, does not believe the United States is the most important country in the Americas.

Stanford not being in the camp of the United States being the best country in the world is no shock at all, but publicly stating the U.S. isn’t even the most important country in the Americas takes things to an entirely different level of wokeness that’s hard to comprehend.

But extremely common in the Bay Area, and in DC; recall Obama’s infamous 2009 statement that “I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.”

VIRGINIA POSTREL: Routine Writing Is About to Be Free.

I know two kinds of people: those who have been obsessively playing with and discussing ChatGPT and those who have at best a hazy notion that it exists. I’m in the obsessive group, as you already know if you read the Tennyson experiment I posted earlier.

For those in the hazy group, ChatGPT is a system that uses massive amounts of text to create a predictive model that enables it to mimic human writing. The shorthand is that it’s an AI chatbot, or autofill on steroids. You type in a request and it spits out an answer. This CNET column provides a solid backgrounder:

For example, you can ask it encyclopedia questions like, “Explaining Newton’s laws of motion.” You can tell it, “Write me a poem,” and when it does, say, “Now make it more exciting.” You ask it to write a computer program that’ll show you all the different ways you can arrange the letters of a word.

Here’s the catch: ChatGPT doesn’t exactly know anything. It’s an AI that’s trained to recognize patterns in vast swaths of text harvested from the internet, then further trained with human assistance to deliver more useful, better dialog. The answers you get may sound plausible and even authoritative, but they might well be entirely wrong, as OpenAI warns.

Even in its current, relatively primitive form ChatGPT portends both huge productivity increases and major disruptions in any enterprise in which writing matters. Instead of writing boilerplate corporate memos, managers will soon assign them to bots. The run-of-the-mill college grads who get paid to flood my mailbox with press releases and promotional emails should start thinking about careers as nail techs or phlebotomists—something in the physical world. Insight and beauty are still rare, but serviceable prose isn’t.

Well, this is the 21st century you know, to coin an Insta-phrase.

OBSCURED BY CLOUD-BASED STREAMING SERVICES: Pink Floyd Quietly Put 18 Unreleased ‘Dark Side’-Era Concerts on Streaming Services.

In what’s becoming an annual tradition, Pink Floyd quietly uploaded 18 Dark Side of the Moon-era concerts onto streaming services recently, as well as a collection of “alternative tracks” from their legendary 1973 LP.

In Dec. 2021, Pink Floyd similarly dumped a dozen unreleased concerts, spanning from 1970 to 1972, on streaming services without any fanfare; artists like Pink Floyd and Bob Dylan have employed this tactic in the past in order to extend the rights of the recordings.

In 2013, a rep for Sony explained Dylan’s release of uncirculated music by telling Rolling Stone, “The copyright law in Europe was recently extended from 50 to 70 years for everything recorded in 1963 and beyond. With everything before that, there’s a new ‘Use It or Lose It’ provision. It basically said, ‘If you haven’t used the recordings in the first 50 years, you aren’t going to get any more.’”

The 18 concerts — none of which have been released in any official capacity — span from Jan. 23, 1972 to Dec. 9, 1972, with Pink Floyd workshopping, fine-tuning and then perfecting The Dark Side of the Moon in its entirety at every show ahead of its March 1973 release. Pink Floyd’s entire four-night stand at London’s Rainbow Theatre from Feb. 17 to 20, 1972 is also available for streaming.

More details here: Pink Floyd Quietly Releases 18 ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ Era Concerts Onto Streaming Services.

The concerts are a bit tricky to find on streaming services and probably will not be available for long; last year’s batch were removed after a few weeks but can still be found on YouTube. On Spotify, look under “albums,” then “compilations,” click “show all” and scroll way down (assuming you don’t feel like searching for titles like “Pink Floyd Live at the Palais des Sports de L’Ile de la Jatte, Saint Ouen, France, 01 Dec 1972”).

Although this realm is most definitely not a place for casual fans, it’s fascinating to hear “Dark Side of the Moon” played in its entirely for totally unfamiliar audiences before it became Dark Side of the F**king Moon, and imagining being among the first people on earth to have their minds blown by it.

Pink Floyd uploaded some of the tracks from the live concerts at YouTube — but doesn’t appear to embed them in their main YouTube homepage, but searching under the titles in the first Rolling Stone link will bring them up.

RIP: Terry Hall of The Specials dies aged 63.

TWITTER FILES PART SEVEN: The Guns Begin to Smoke.

This starts to bring it all together.

This isn’t smoking gun proof yet.

But this begins to show us where to find the smoking guns.

And it tells us that yes, the FBI deliberately ran a coordinated disinformation campaign against the people of the United States of America, and a coup against the lawful government of the United States of America that the people had elected.

And now that it’s coming out: The Cathedral Turns Torquemada On Elon Musk.

TWO JOHN CLEESES IN ONE! John Cleese on How Wokeness Smothers Creativity:

In a career that has spanned seven decades—and included such classic shows and movies as Monty Python’s Flying Circus, Fawlty Towers, Life of Brian, and A Fish Called Wanda—the comedian John Cleese has relentlessly satirized politics and religion while stretching the boundaries of decorum and good taste.

Now 83, Cleese—who studied law at the University of Cambridge—has set his sights on political correctness, which he says is the enemy not only of humor but of creative thinking in all areas of human activity. “There are people sitting there who are deliberately waiting for the thrill of being offended,” he says, emphasizing the importance of paying attention to context, without which irony and sarcasm can’t be properly understood.

One of those people “deliberately waiting for the thrill of being offended?” Someone named John Cleese! John Cleese suggests best answer to Jeremy Clarkson’s problematic opinion is to ‘regulate the press.’

First, a bit of background. Jeremy Clarkson of “Top Gear” hosting fame has cultivated a reputation for himself as something of an outspoken guy who couldn’t care less about what people — particularly those who are of the left-leaning persuasion — think about him. He doesn’t care for wokeism, and if you have a problem with that, he doesn’t care about your feelings.

Anyway, Clarkson recently found himself in hot water over an opinion piece he’d written about Meghan Markle, who, along with her husband Prince Harry, is currently on a whirlwind tour pimping the Netflix documentary series about them. Anyone being honest with themselves knows that Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are an absolutely insufferable couple and would serve the world far better by fading into the background or at the very least just relinquishing their microphones. They’re just effing annoying, basically. And, in Clarkson’s opinion, Markle has effectively emasculated Prince Harry.

* * * * * * * *

Here are the words that seem to be causing the most outrage:

At night, I’m unable to sleep as I lie there, grinding my teeth and dreaming of the day when [Markle] is made to parade naked through the streets of every town in Britain while the crowds chant, “Shame!” and throw lumps of excrement at her.

You may or may not have watched “Game of Thrones,” but chances are pretty good that you’ve at least seen memes of the scene Clarkson is referring to. Apparently some people weren’t able to make the connection[.]

* * * * * * * *

Well, for what it’s worth, Clarkson has since tweeted an apology:

But something tells us that’s not going to cut it for all the people who were upset with Clarkson. It sure doesn’t sound like it’s gonna cut it for John Cleese, who clearly believes that much more than an apology is needed to right this particular wrong:

In recent years, John Cleese has begun to sound more and more like Theodore Dalrymple. Today, the elderly socialist reverted to type, and sounds like Xi Jinping.