2024-02-29
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Driving The Worst Car In America
General Motors’ 1978 Oldsmobile Diesel was such a failure, it single-handedly birthed the Lemon Law.
Horseshit
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Roadkill to Become Fair Game in Virginia
Under Virginia’s current law, for example, “any person driving a motor vehicle who collides with a deer or bear may, upon compliance with the provisions of this section, keep the deer or bear for his own use as if the animal had been killed by that person during hunting season for the animal.” Va. Code § 29.1-539. “Compliance” means that the driver must immediately report the accident, whereupon an officer “shall view the deer or bear” to ensure that it was an accident. If the officer is satisfied, he or she may award the deer or bear to said driver. If HB 1025 passes, it would expand the list of claimable dead animals to include turkeys and elk, and would expand the list of claimants to include not just the driver but anyone who might come along and discover the corpse. Specifically, any person “who discovers a deer, bear, turkey or elk that has been killed in a collision with a motor vehicle” could make the claim in the same way as above. And under new subsection C, if the driver or discoverer “does not claim such animal,” an officer “may award such animal to any other person who wishes to claim it pursuant to this section.”
In many parts of the state, when a moose is hit by a car or is dispatched, the moose is provided free of charge to charity lists in different areas of the state. You are required to follow salvage and reporting requirements as part of this program. Qualified salvage teams will consist of 2 or more persons 18 years of age or older residing in the geographic area for which you are applying.
The animal you are called to recover is the “luck of the draw”. Please salvage all that you can. Do not call and ask to be placed at the top of the list because you feel there was not enough meat.
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Cops Called to 'Willy Wonka Experience' as Crying Children Realize AI Ads Lied
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A tech billionaire is quietly buying up land in Hawaii. No one knows why
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there was a "Pay it Forward Train" going on and my order was already paid for. I was then posed the fateful question, "Would you like to pay for the person behind you?" In a dazed state I inquired how much the next order was; after all I was only planning to spend less than $2. It was $45! Now I can be a bit of curmudgeon, but the idea of paying $45 to receive a coffee should be absurd to anyone. Worse, I couldn't even pay for my own order since the ticket was already closed. A true tragedy. Sure, the person in front had charitably paid for me, but that wasn't kindness. It was chaos that left me deciding between paying $45 for a coffee or being the jerk who ended the train.
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Choosing to Have Kids During the End Times — Stuff George Writes
My best friend believes that humanity has a 60% probability of becoming extinct in the next 15 years. He’s one of the smartest people I know and is an extremely well-adjusted and high-functioning person. He scoffs at conspiracy theories, doesn’t wear tin foil hats, and has an abiding love of statistics. His belief is terrifying because it derives not from fevered information bubble YouTube binges, but from years of methodical research and predictions. But I don’t need his bleak predictions to feel like the world is ending. I’m apocalyptic enough on my own for that. And now that I have 3 young children, I’m more worried for them than I am for myself. What kind of world did I bring them into? Is it wrong to have kids when you are aware of all the risks? Am I to blame if my children suffer through a world-ending event?
Electric / Self Driving cars
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Can't decide to file this under "EV", "AI", or finally break down and create a subheading under "Religion" for the Apple stories: Apple has not said that it has cancelled its long-running electric / autonomous vehicle program that the company never admitted existed in the first place.
Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering
Musk
Trump / War against the Right / Jan6
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Baker said he still does not know what the charges against him are, noting to Blaze News that the powers that be won't tell his attorney about the charges because they believe Baker will post them on social media.
Like Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, and Alex Gutentag, Baker also touched upon the curious case of the January 6 pipe bomber and the alleged targeting of the Republican National Committee, wherein new evidence suggests that the RNC was not the target. The FBI might have misrepresented the location of the supposed explosive device, which a then-FBI contractor discovered.
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3rd Pipe Bomb Camera Deliberately Turned Away From DNC Headquarters On J6 | ZeroHedge
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Obama’s CIA Asked Foreign Intel Agencies To Spy on Trump Campaign | RealClearPolitics
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In Blow To Special Counsel Smith, SCOTUS Agrees To Hear Trump Immunity Appeal | ZeroHedge
Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp
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New research into long Covid could be used to treat other chronic fatigue issues
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Where Did Covid Come From? (Archive)
In the four years since the SARS-CoV-2 virus was unleashed on the world, data have steadily accumulated supporting the hypothesis that it emerged from a laboratory. The latest information, released last month, makes a formidable case that the virus is the product of laboratory synthesis, not of nature.
This startling fact will probably take some time to sink into the national consciousness, given the mainstream media’s sustained inability to report the issue objectively. Editors have failed to think beyond the extreme politicization that requires liberals to oppose the lab-leak hypothesis. Science journalists are too beholden to their sources to suspect that virologists would lie to them about the extent of their profession’s responsibility for a catastrophic pandemic.
Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation
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White supremacy is so normalized people don’t see it, British scholar warns – Baptist News Global
few white Christians flinched at the claim that Jesus called European and American Christians to travel the globe to oppress brown- and Black-skinned people, he said, explaining that a Christianity suffused with white supremacy enabled plantation owners in the American South to see no contradiction between their faith and owning other human beings. “They saw people who are other as inferior and that it was OK to kill or enslave them for their own good.” Those attitudes clearly continue to exist and in the U.S. are evident in the rise of Trumpism, the British scholar said. “Here’s the thing about white supremacy: its evil genius is to convince poor people that rich, white folk really care about them, and their enemy is not those who have created a system that will exploit them, but the immigrants and other minorities who are taking the little they have.”
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The Political Effects of Neoliberalism - LPE Project
Specifically, when it comes to distributional policies, we find that less-educated individuals prefer “predistribution” policies. The divide by education on these policies—with the less educated much more strongly in favor than the more educated—is large and for the most part unchanged during the past 80 years. By contrast, support for redistribution policies exhibits no similar education gap, and, in fact, we often find greater support for such policies among more educated voters.
In summary, we argue that the Democratic Party’s economic policy shifts have played a significant role in the partisan realignment that has occurred in the United States over the past few decades. Indeed, we find that roughly half of the party’s realignment toward better-educated voters can be attributed to voters’ perceptions of the party’ economic policies. One important upshot of this work—and perhaps one reason it is been underappreciated to date—is that voters draw important distinctions between policies that might appear similar in terms of their effects on economic inequality. While law and economics scholars, such as Kaplow and Shavell, have argued that law and policy should be conducted with the aim of maximizing aggregate efficiency, with egalitarian concerns relegated to the tax and transfer system, parties that take this message to heart should not be surprised if they lose less-educated, working-class voters.
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Less Utilitarian Than Thou - by Scott Alexander
The normal popular politics actions are mostly about manipulating a narrative, promoting an ideology or suppressing dissent. This all feels so normal to people (who might themselves want to promote an ideology, or who are at least used to other people wanting to) that it isn’t scary, and it doesn’t feel like the dreaded “doing an evil thing for the greater good”. It’s not especially moral, or especially calculated, so people let it pass - even though, if you forced them to consider the question explicitly, they would say that saving lives is a more compelling goal than manipulating a narrative is.
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
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Amazon denies AI was used to recreate original actors' voices as lawsuit filed
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News outlets are collapsing as advertisers flock to social media platforms
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Google hit with $2.3B lawsuit by Axel Springer, other media groups
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Up to 30% of Apple Vision Pro Returns Because Users Don't Get It, Analyst Says
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Ex-MSNBC Mehdi Hasan Launching His Own Media Company to Fill Progressive ‘Gap in the Market.’
TechSuck / Geek Bait
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
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Google Mired in Controversy Over Gemini AI Chatbot Push - WSJ
Google Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai said in an email to staff late Tuesday that it was unacceptable that some of Gemini’s outputs had offended users and shown bias.
one can debate whether AI models ought to draw Nazis at all. One can also debate whether AI models ought to facilitate ahistorical requests (like by drawing Black founding fathers) when users expressly ask them to — personally I think that’s fine for Founding Fathers, but probably not for Nazis. But what you definitely don’t want is for your AI model to apply such a jaundiced, not-ready-for-prime-time caricature of woke political philosophy that it thinks: “You know I bet you’ll like even better than Nazis? Racially diverse Nazis!”. The phrase “firing offense” is overused, but if you were one of the persons at Google charged with making sure that this sort of thing didn’t happen, you probably ought to be updating your LinkedIn profile.
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Hypothetical AI election disinformation risks vs. real AI harms
Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO
Crypto con games
Economicon / Business / Finance
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US heading to 1970s-style stagflation, JPMorgan Chase strategists warn.
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How the Economy Changed: There's No Bargains Left Anywhere
Back in the day, even stupidly expensive cities like San Francisco had working-class districts with cheap rent and cheap eats. One reason the hippie movement arose in San Francisco was the availability of cheap places to rent in what many would dismiss as rundown slums or ghettos. There were plenty of working-class hole-in-the-wall restaurants and cafes that served cheap plates of spaghetti, turkey legs and other affordable fare. The working-class districts in cities have long been gentrified, or more recently, abandoned to homeless encampments. Gentrification eliminates cheap rents, as the soaring valuations of real estate leads the new owners to charge high rents in order to pay their lofty mortgages.
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Wendy's will experiment with dynamic surge pricing for food in 2025
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Natural Gas Demand Will Surge 50% in Next Decade, Woodside CEO Says
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Klanra CEO Boasts His AI Can Do Work of 700 People After Laying Off 700 People
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
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Donald Trump wins Michigan GOP primary, defeating Nikki Haley.
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In win for Paxton, court declares $1.7 trillion federal omnibus was passed unconstitutionally.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Tuesday secured a major victory in his challenge to the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending package passed in 2022, with a court declaring that the bill was approved unconstitutionally.
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Wyden Reveals Phone Data Used to Target Abortion Misinformation
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McConnell will step down as the Senate Republican leader in November
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Americans to Get $5k to Shop Under New Bill
The Made in the USA Tax Credit Act, as it's known, seeks to revitalize American manufacturing by providing up to $2,500 in tax credits to individuals and $5,000 for couples purchasing goods that meet the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) Made in the USA standards, which require that a product must be "all or virtually all" made in the U.S., according to the FTC's website. Exclusively targeting products from small businesses defined by the Small Business Administration as having fewer than 500 employees, the bill excludes luxury items, tobacco, firearms and vehicles, aiming to make American goods more affordable while fostering job creation and worker dignity.
- Gov't money to buy "Made in America" things; except for those things we still make.
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Marianne Williamson returns to presidential race, saying Biden is vulnerable against Trump
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Uncle Sam tells nosy nations to keep their hands off Americans' personal data
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Biden Admin Firearms Export Pause Puts Allies in Danger, Hurts American Business.
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Here's how much a YouTube newspaper would weigh, Justice Alito
External Security / Militaria / Diplomania
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How The Pentagon Learned to Use Targeted Ads to Find Its T argets
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US Army Is Slashing Thousands of Jobs in Major Revamp to Prepare for Future Wars.
The cuts will mainly be in already-empty posts — not actual soldiers — including in jobs related to counterinsurgency that swelled during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars but are not needed as much today. About 3,000 of the cuts would come from Army special operations forces. At the same time, however, the plan will add about 7,500 troops in other critical missions, including air-defense and counter-drone units and five new task forces around the world with enhanced cyber, intelligence and long-range strike capabilities.
World
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ASIO boss reveals politician betrayed Australia to foreign spies
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The Conservative Money Machine
If ever there was a PM with the vim for a memorable table swing-by, it is Boris Johnson. He has been taking good care of himself lately. A holiday on Mustique, staying at a lovely villa arranged by one of tonight’s guests, the boss of Carphone Warehouse. And this past fortnight he’s been at Chevening, the grace-and-favour getaway in Kent. A well-earned rest, now he’s Got Brexit Done. Sure, he’s missed a few meetings of the Cobra security committee discussing this coronavirus thing. But other urgent matters must be attended to. There’s his second wife to divorce, and the pregnancy of his future third to announce. He’s dashed back to London for the fundraising bash.
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Former terrorist lived in Berlin for 20 years, posted pictures on Facebook
Russia Bad / Ukraine War
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NATO’s Debate Over Whether To Conventionally Intervene In Ukraine Shows Its Desperation
Whatever ends up happening, the takeaway from Monday’s meeting in Paris and the details that were revealed about their discussions is that NATO is planning for a possible Russian breakthrough across the LOC later this year but isn’t yet sure how to react if that happens.
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Russia's Space Agency Forced to Sell Off Assets as Sanctions Take Toll
China
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China Announces Name of Spacecraft Landing Crew on Moon.
t’s a highly ambitious plan, but given the country’s progress — including becoming the first to land a spacecraft on the far side of the Moon in 2019 — it may just have a shot at pulling off its goal of returning astronauts to the lunar surface by 2030.