Author Archive: Glenn Reynolds
February 27, 2024
EVERY INSTITUTION HAS NOT ONLY BEEN CORRUPTED, BUT ALSO TAKEN OVER BY MORONS: ‘Unhinged’: Time Mag Claims Christians Self-Immolated to Protest the Roman Empire Too.
THE BRITISH NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE ISN’T THAT GOOD: UK cancer treatment falls behind other countries, research finds.
One of the greatest triumphs of the British Left was convincing the British to see the BBC and the NHS as items of national pride, instead of as tools of control.
DON SURBER: Birdbrains in the Press.
The Daily Caller reported yesterday, “Social media users called out the Associated Press on Sunday after the media outlet avoided stating that an illegal immigrant was charged with murdering nursing student Laken Riley.
“Illegal immigrant Jose Antonio Ibarra was arrested and charged Friday by University of Georgia (UGA) authorities for the death of Lake Riley, 22, who was found Thursday afternoon.”
It should be a pretty simple headline to write: “Illegal alien arrested for the murder of UGA nursing student.”
AP couldn’t pull it off. Editors slapped a headline on the story that delved into the Twilight Zone: “The killing of a nursing student out for a run highlights the fears of solo female athletes.”
Reporter Janie Hur in her story could not bring herself to identify the accused as an illegal alien. She did not mention his immigration here at all, identifying him merely as a resident of Athens, Georgia. The promise of her story — women are attacked while jogging alone — was destroyed in Paragraph 6.
Hur wrote, “Crime statistics indicate that these types of attacks are rare, but they underscore the hypervigilance women must take when going out, even for a run on campus.”
Birdbrain. Once AP could get away with it, but thanks to Elon Musk buying Twitter, the AP no longer gets away scot-free with. Christina Pushaw, spokeswoman for deSantis, tweeted, “The corporate media will blame a woman for exercising alone before blaming an illegal alien for killing her.”
They learned this approach in college.
The thing is, although they lie to us, they know the truth, as this illustration by Surber illustrates:
BORDERS:
27 posts from Biden about George Floyd.
0 posts from Biden about Laken Riley.
Did her life matter, @JoeBiden? pic.twitter.com/7HmdtLbOSO
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) February 25, 2024
Related: Biden Brags He Could Let Migrants Shoot Someone On Fifth Avenue And Not Lose Any Votes.
I REMEMBER PAUL BRACKEN TALKING ABOUT HOW VULNERABLE THEY WERE WAY BACK IN THE 1980S: Begun, the Cable Wars Have: No attractive target is ignored forever. “As these cables lay across the world’s ocean floors undefended, they will be attacked. The only way to defend them is via an active defense. You have to eliminate your enemy’s ability to put their ships and crews trained to do this sabotage to sea. Again, the Houthi controlled shoreline is not that vast, nor are their ports many. Where is the world community defending that international order they are always tut-tut’n about? They’re waiting for the USA and UK to do their wet work that they can then critique from the sidelines. The usual pattern.”
MY LATEST SUBSTACK ESSAY: Google’s AI Debacle: Why is Google creating pro-Nazi and pro-Confederate propaganda?
And as always, if you like these essays, please sign up for a paid subscription.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Commercial foreclosures increase 97% from last year to near decade-high. A friend comments that the commercial real estate folks will be the first to own nothing, but they won’t like it.
ICYMI: #JOURNALISM:
Lots of legacy reporters are writing about Putin without mentioning that Putin endorsed Joe Biden for President 2024.
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) February 23, 2024
MORE ON THE GOOGLE DEBACLE, from Megan McArdle:
And on the scale of things, “draws too many Black founding fathers” isn’t much of a problem.
That’s the story I was telling myself — and planned to tell you — on Friday. Unfortunately, though, once Google shut down Gemini’s image generation, users turned to probing its text output. And as those absurdities piled up, things began to look la lot worse for Google — and society. Gemini appears to have been programmed to avoid offending the leftmost 5 percent of the U.S. political distribution, at the price of offending the rightmost 50 percent.
It effortlessly wrote toasts praising Democratic politicians — even controversial ones such as Rep. Ilhan Omar (Minn.) — while deeming every elected Republican I tried too controversial, even Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who had stood up to President Donald Trump’s election malfeasance. It had no trouble condemning the Holocaust but offered caveats about complexity in denouncing the murderous legacies of Stalin and Mao. It would praise essays in favor of abortion rights, but not those against.
Google appeared to be shutting down many of the problematic queries as they were revealed on social media, but people easily found more. These mistakes seem to be baked deep into Gemini’s architecture. When it stopped answering requests for praise of politicians, I asked it to write odes to various journalists, including (ahem) me. In trying this, I think I identified the political line at which Gemini decides you’re too controversial to compliment: I got a sonnet, but my colleague George Will, who is only a smidge to my right, was deemed too controversial. When I repeated the exercise for New York Times columnists, it praised David Brooks but not Ross Douthat.
I am at a loss to explain how Google released an AI that blithely anathematizes half its customer base, and half the politicians who regulate the company.
On that last point: A friend writes: “I think that a very underpriced risk for Google re its colossal AI fuck up is a highly-motivated and -politicized Department of Justice under a Trump administration setting its sights on Google. Where there’s smoke there’s fire, as they say, and Trump would like nothing more than to score points against Silicon Valley and its putrid racist politics.”
Yep. I’d rather we didn’t have a politicized Justice Department at all, of course, but that ship sailed long ago.
I have some related thoughts in this Substack essay.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Rutgers professor who appeared on panel with Hamas commander set to speak at Harvard.
HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Barnard College students must remove door decorations – to not ‘isolate those with different views’.
ANDREW KLAVAN: Words, Words, Words.
IN OTHER NEWS, THE SCHOOL JUST ANNOUNCED THAT ITS ACTIVITY FEE IS NOW $59,000 PER YEAR. A widow unexpectedly received $1 billion of Berkshire Hathaway stock. Now, she’s covering Bronx med students’ tuition forever. “A year’s tuition at the school is over $59,000, leaving many graduates with more than $200,000 in debt, the Times reported.”
SHE’S UNDERPERFORMING: Nikki Haley’s home-state loss is unique in US politics.
HISTORY’S GREATEST MONSTER: New White House Christmas ornament a tribute to Jimmy Carter.
Come to think of it, the Biden Administration bears a certain resemblance to the Quimby Administration.
NOTHING’S EVER ENOUGH FOR THEM:
Even when you burn yourself alive for left wing ideology, it isn't enough for the far left pic.twitter.com/H6wWSltJcN
— Harrison Krank (@HarrisonKrank) February 26, 2024
NEVER LISTEN TO THE GREENS: Klamath Dam Removal: ‘It’s an Environmental Disaster.’
The removal of dams along the Klamath River in Siskiyou County, Northern California was sold as necessary to save salmon – specifically, “to restore habitat for endangered fish.” . . .
It sounded good on paper – at least it did to the bureaucrats agitating for it.
But according to local officials, “it’s an environmental disaster.”
“I’ve been around natural disasters all of my life, and I’ve never seen anything like this,” Siskiyou County Supervisor Ray Haupt recently told the Globe. “The river is essentially dead, as is everything in it.”
Haupt was a District Ranger in the Klamath National Forest for 33 years, retired in 2010, and now owns a Forest and Natural Resources Consulting Business. He is a California Registered Professional Forester, a member of the California Professional Foresters Association, an Ag advisor for Etna High School and the College of the Siskiyous tech programs, and is an author of multiple Forest Management and Fire Policies for NAFSR, the National Association of Forest Services Retirees.
Haupt said the sediment plume extends 2 miles into the ocean. And he and local residents are witnessing a massive salmon extinction event.
Plus:
Many have seen dead fish stranded in the mud, and on Jan. 27, residents spotted a doe and yearling that had become hopelessly stuck trying to reach water. Volunteer firefighters from the Hornbrook Fire Protection District tried to rescue the mired animals but abandoned the mission as dusk fell. Soon after, an officer from California Department of Fish and Wildlife euthanized the deer.
“The mud was so thick; it was so far out there; they tried so hard,” said Chrissie Reynolds, a long-time resident of Copco Lake who drove to the scene to try to help. “But all that time, those animals were suffering.”
Imagine the tear-jerking media coverage if there were a way to blame Republicans or business.
February 26, 2024
OPEN THREAD: Happy Monday!
MY LATEST SUBSTACK ESSAY: Google’s AI Debacle: Why is Google creating pro-Nazi and pro-Confederate propaganda?
And as always, if you like these essays, please sign up for a paid subscription.
YOU DON’T MESS AROUND WITH SLIM: Japan’s SLIM moon lander stages unexpected revival after lunar night.
WELL, THIS IS THE 21ST CENTURY, YOU KNOW: Experimental Drugs Grown in Space Return to Earth For Analysis.