Tuesday Stuff

Thom Hartmann speculates as to why Combover Caligula is after Venezuela...to be honest, I think it’s just for the damn oil, but it’s still an interesting theory that Vlad The Butcher wants #47 to attack that South American country because that revives the whole “pre-emptive war” thing against a nation that hasn’t attacked us (like the “Moscow Munchkin” did with Crimea and Ukraine, as Thom tells us; some scary parallels here)... 3:24 to 4:33 is an ad...interesting perspective from caller “George” about alliances Venezuela has with Russia; Putin would just LOVE to see us bogged down in another forever war, which would garner sympathy for “the Russian bear” since they would be perceived to be getting picked on by the world’s most powerful military – just my theory I’ll admit (and once more, there is this)...



...and David Pakman lets us know that everything is falling apart under Don The Con, including SNAP benefits for 42 million people...and as always, every accusation is a confession from this bunch, this time about “extortion”...and I honestly don’t know how Bronzer Beelzbub can sue his own DOJ for $230 million, but I realize any notions of legality don’t pop into this demented fourth-grade brain (and I’d actually forgotten about the $200 million from Kristi “Unsafe At Any Speed” Noem on her private jets)...and speaking of SNAP benefits, I’ll try to have more to say about this...



...and Robert Reich tells us about all the ways that the biggest names in the supermarket biz are ripping us off with pricing scams for supposedly “on sale” merchandise (“minimal competition opens the door to maximum price gouging” indeed)...



...and this clip from More Perfect Union takes a bit of a deep dive into AI leading to antisocial behavior (my paraphrasing), having to do with an over-reliance on AI chatbots (reporter is Karen Hao)...LA music producer James Cumberland is profiled; apparently, he used an AI chatbot to learn how to make a music video and went down the proverbial rabbit hole, tied to the threats of sycophancy and “emergence”...this is also tied to more and more data centers being built to create more and more sophisticated AI apps to harvest more and more data, and I hope you see the same slippery slope here that I do...as far as I’m concerned, this is also a consequence of our lives becoming more fragmented and isolated and dependent on technology (not a very original “hot take” I realize)...Sam Altman of Open AI is featured, discussing ChatGPT...I just don’t know enough about this yet to determine whether or not Altman’s steps to address the issues raised here are good enough; I hope they are of course...and as usual, Brave Sir Josh Hawley makes good-sounding noises on an issue for headlines, but the proper follow through never sems to materialize (somewhat NSFW/H)...



...and Jordan Klepper of The Daily Show takes a look at Fix Noise token personality Lawrence Jones...I have to admit being more than a little fed up with people proclaiming, “Well, I’m a conservative/libertarian/whatever, so that means that my opinions are my own”...oh puh-leeze! Rupert Murdoch tells you to jump and you ask “how high?” just like everyone else in The Roger Ailes BS Factory...also, I think we’re fortunate that Jones knows nothing about criminal matters (here) or foreign policy (here)...



...and tomorrow marks the 54th anniversary of the death of Duane Allman in a motorcycle accident.