Yeah, they learned that capitulation isn’t profitable when they fired Jimmy Kimmel and everyone canceled their Disney+ subscription. From then on, they decided to stand up for free speech until their dying breath (or until the cost/benefit shifts and the harassment from the FCC costs them more than the blowback from collaborating with the regime).

I don’t think any of them were staged, but this seems much more likely than the others. The fact that this was the only Correspondence Dinner he attended, the generally muted reactions from most of the administration…it seems like them allowing this shootee to get as far as he did seems very possible. The fact that they seemed so pleased with themselves afterwards at least says that they see this as a big opportunity.

I think that’s a pretty big misread though. Outside of MAGA diehards and pearl clutching media elites, the reactions I’ve been seeing online vary from, “it’s fake,” to, “who gives a shit?” They’re not going to be able to capitalize on this the same way they did in 2024.

“When I agreed to work for a well known techno-facist to develop exactly the kind of surveillance tool a facist state would kill for, I had no idea this would descend into fascism!”

Really struggling to understand why they thought, “giant spying program indiscriminately gathering data on everyone in the wold,” was ever a good thing.

Here the original sketch.

Who knew that taking funding for scientific research away from government institutes and universities and giving it to ketamine-addicted con men would have negative consequences.

That’s a dumb way to frame this. “My interest in resolving my crippling debt dropped 95% when I set my house on fire!” Well, creating and imminent crisis doesn’t make your other problems go away.

Scientists: One desperate plan we are considering to combat climate change is a series of gigantic mirrors to deflect sunlight away from the planet.

These assholes: OK, but what if, like, the opposite of that?

I don’t use A.I. because I’ve had nothing but negative interactions with A.I. Customer service bots that fail to give adequate responses, unhelpful and incorrect search result summaries, and, “art,” that looks like shit hasn’t made me want to sign up for ChatGPT or Gemini. For most people, this isn’t a moral stance, it’s just that the product isn’t worth paying for. Stop framing people that don’t use A.I. as luddites with an ax to grind just because tech bros spent billions on a product that isn’t good yet.

What she actually said, for anyone who cares:

Marjorie Taylor Greene’s amendment does nothing to cut off offensive aid to Israel nor end the flow of US munitions being used in Gaza. Of course I voted against it. What it does do is cut off defensive Iron Dome capacities while allowing the actual bombs killing Palestinians to continue.

I have long stated that I do not believe that adding to the death count of innocent victims to this war is constructive to its end. That is a simple and clear difference of opinion that has long been established.

I remain focused on cutting the flow of US munitions that are being used to perpetuate the genocide in Gaza.

For the record, I think this is a shitty explanation. The Iron Dome permits Israel to commit it’s genocide with impunity and act as a belligerent in the region. I get the attempt to differentiate between defensive support and offensive support, but cutting of arms for the Iron Dome would be the fastest way to curb Israeli aggression. But this statement in no way, “clarifies that she supports genocide.”

Not sure, though, how this ploy would work out for our fine fellows in South America and Canada, the ones currently belabored with being the closest neighbours…

Fuck Mexico, I guess.

Relatable.

There’s a Lovecraft story about this exact thing. It doesn’t end well.

Same.

Not really. QAnon was only on 4Chan for the first year, then it migrated to 8Chan. But the tl;dr is it was probably started as a joke, taken over by bad-faith trolls, and has been under the control of Ron Watkins and his creepy son for a significant amount of time. QAnon Anonymous (now named QAA) is a great Podcast that’s been tracking the Q movement and other right-wing extremists for years.

It didn’t even need to take someone’s job. A summary of an article or paper with hallucinated information isn’t replacing anyone, but it’s definitely making search results worse.

Maybe if a service isn’t ready to be used by the public you shouldn’t put it in every product you make.

Maybe that’s because every time a new AI feature rolls out, the product it’s improving gets substantially worse.

I’m very curious to see how all this whining plays with his fan boys. Doesn’t seem very based or chad or whatever the fucking incel children are saying these days.

This is just a long-winded, inverted version of the aphorism about liberals’ paradoxical view of progressives; they’re a small, niche group, and the Democrats shouldn’t try to appease them because they’ll just alienate mainstream voters by courting this insignificant block of voters. However, progressives are somehow also a large, powerful cabal that can be blamed for every major Democratic loss.