WHEN SATIRE ISN’T:
World In Shock As Murderous Terrorist State Ignores Warning From Impotent Old Man https://t.co/qRTEhkHL8b pic.twitter.com/43csk8EVOX
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) April 13, 2024
Author Archive: Glenn Reynolds
April 14, 2024
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Woke Stanford ‘math equity’ professor under scrutiny for alleged ‘reckless disregard of accuracy’ in research.
ROGER KIMBALL: The Battle Begins: Trump’s Trial Tests American Justice.
SUNDAY MORNING OPEN THREAD: How’s this experiment going?
JIGGERY-POKERY: Rebranding DEI: How Colleges Are Getting Around State Bans.
JAMES LILEKS: Art That’s Just for Me: What will the rise of artificial intelligence do to visual media?
In 10 years, there will be movies about every single person who boarded the Titanic. In the style of Robert Altman. In the style of Martin Scorsese. In the style of Steven Spielberg. There will be 100,000 fan-fic Star Wars movies as bad as the TV shows, all starring the person who dictated the scenario. There will be a subculture of people who exhaust the creative world of “Twin Peaks” with endless vignettes, and one or two will get it exactly right. In the end, we will watch our own movies more than others, and the theatrical experience will have gone from the great shared silver screen in the communal dark, to niche streaming, to watching our own particular curiosities and desires played on our own glowing rectangles. Millions of hours of movies, made for an audience of one.
I think it will take more than a decade to get AI powerful enough to make Star Wars movies as bad as the TV shows. To paraphrase Isaac Asimov, such dreck smacks of genius: A lesser mind would be incapable of it.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND APPLICATIONS: “If existential risk follows from technological innovation alone (as with the atomic bomb), then we should be paying attention to what the leading-edge engineers are achieving—the records that are falling in the sport of AI. But if existential risk will only come from how the technology gets applied, then we need to pay attention to what application developers and consumers are up to, and their process of adapting new technology is slower.”
TAMARA KEEL: Gun-Totin’ Trends.
April 13, 2024
SMART DIPLOMACY! (CONT’D):
In trying to have it both ways Biden got nothing. Now a wider war is inevitable. Blinken's policy is in shambles. The failure was from the top. We need a new strategy. The old one is dead.
— wretchardthecat (@wretchardthecat) April 14, 2024
"Though this be method, yet there is madness in't."https://t.co/nsvYRmzWWx
— wretchardthecat (@wretchardthecat) April 14, 2024
HE’S RIGHT, YOU KNOW:
There is no country that is consistently attacked by their enemies + then told to use restraint when defending themselves (despite superior military) more than Israel. I want peace for all innocents in Middle East. I also fully support Israel's right to exist + defend itself.
— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) April 14, 2024
OPEN THREAD: Party like it’s Saturday night.
THE NEW SPACE RACE: China moving at ‘breathtaking speed’ in final frontier, Space Force says.
CRAZY CAT LADIES TAKE NOTE: Mysterious Link Between Cats And Schizophrenia Is Real, Study Finds.
THEY’LL PROBABLY TARGET U.S. CITIES SOON, AND WE HAVE BASICALLY NO DEFENSES AGAINST THIS SORT OF THING:
It's not that Iran was bad. Iranians are not stupid and most any target, including Western cities, hit by that massive drone/missile strike package would be in flames. It's just that the defense was probably the best in the world.
— wretchardthecat (@wretchardthecat) April 13, 2024
OLD AND SUDDENLY RELEVANT: How the Obama Administration Let Hezbollah Off the Hook.
THEY’RE ALWAYS IN THE LAST PLACE YOU LOOK: Elemental Surprise: Physicists Discover a New Quantum State.
SMART DIPLOMACY:
Donald Trump had Iran broke.
Joe Biden gave the Iran Regime hundreds of billions of dollars in sanctions relief, credit and cash.
Iran is now attacking Israel with Joe Biden’s money.
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) April 13, 2024
I’m getting angrier every hour with the Biden Administration.
They’ve ushered in multiple wars. They did this!
They must not just be defeated in November – they must be shown a humiliating defeat so that no Democrat ever supports radical Left policies.
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) April 13, 2024
He’s right, you know.
UPDATE (From Ed):
This is why you don't say such idiotic things.
They come back to haunt you. https://t.co/5fHoiAdwN3
— Pradheep J. Shanker, M.D. (@neoavatara) April 13, 2024
RUNNING COVER FOR THE REGIME: Associated Press Tries to Explain Why Noncitizen Voting is No Big Deal.
I’VE SEEN THE LOCKDOWNS AND THE DAMAGE DONE: Older Americans are still feeling the effects of pandemic isolation.
EVERYONE IS RETREATING FROM THE ELECTRIC-VEHICLE MARKET: Aston Martin actually won’t be going all-electric.
WELL, GOOD: Chlamydia vaccine shows promise in early trial.
THE NEW FACE OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY:
WILD: Unhinged Pro-Palestine protestor Riddhi Patel threatens to M*RDER Bakersfield Mayor Karen Goh (R) in a psychotic rant during a city council meeting.
Patel is being charged with 16 felonies and is being held on a $1 million bail. pic.twitter.com/09PeBCWoNz
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) April 12, 2024
21ST CENTURY RELATIONSHIPS: The Teen Choking Fad.
I was initially startled in early 2020 when, during a post-talk Q. and A. at an independent high school, a 16-year-old girl asked, “How come boys all want to choke you?” In a different class, a 15-year-old boy wanted to know, “Why do girls all want to be choked?” They do? Not long after, a college sophomore (and longtime interview subject) contacted me after her roommate came home in tears because a hookup partner, without warning, had put both hands on her throat and squeezed.
I started to ask more and the stories piled up. Another sophomore confided that she enjoyed being choked by her boyfriend, though it was important for a partner to be “properly educated” — pressing on the sides of the neck, for example, rather than the trachea. (Note: There is no safe way to strangle someone.) A male freshman said “girls expected” to be choked and, even though he didn’t want to do it, refusing would make him seem like a “simp.” And a senior in high school was angry that her friends called her “vanilla” when she complained that her boyfriend had choked her.
I feel sorry for Gen Z. Choking has been around forever, of course, though when I was in college running across a woman who liked to be choked was unusual and vaguely concerning. But now it’s a fad, and people are doing it to fit in and seem daring. Sort of like the Trans stuff.