[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

QuickTidal, on 13 April 2023 - 12:41 PM, said:

This is the moxy I wish ALL reporters who deal with these fuckos had. Like this is another instance of Jon Stewart absolutely skewering every single element of this guys argument top to bottom and leaves him with nothing.

If every reporter in the media challenged these assholes like this, instead of soft-shoeing around them to retain "access" or "decorum"....then your country would be a different place.

Incidentally, the part of the video in which Stewart insinuates that ice cream is generally 'bad' for obesity might be wrong:

Quote

[...] ice cream’s glycemic index, a measure of how rapidly a food boosts blood sugar, is lower than that of brown rice. “There’s this perception that ice cream is unhealthy, but it’s got fat, it’s got protein, it’s got vitamins. It’s better for you than bread,”

According to the article, studies over the last few decades have consistently found that ice cream has a substantial protective effect against diabetes---comparable to or better than that of yoghurt, even after extensively accounting for reverse causality (that people who are at risk of diabetes might stop eating ice cream regularly). And if reverse causality were the cause then similarly sized effects would show up for other junk foods---but they don't.

Quote

it just wasn’t the kind of result that goes down well in the “closed-minded” world of elite nutrition. “They don’t want to see it. [...] that’s related to how much the field of nutritional epidemiology in the modern era is steeped in dogma.”

[...] Then there is what might charitably be termed the “real-world evidence.” [...] YouTuber [...] launched [...] “a diet that would make the American Dietetic Association shit bricks”: 2,000 calories a day of ice cream plus 500 calories of protein supplements plus booze. After 100 days on the ice-cream diet, he’d lost 32 pounds and had better blood work than before he’d started pounding Irish-whiskey milkshakes.

Could Ice Cream Possibly Be Good for You? - The Atlantic

Back on topic:

Quote

A new MAGA ad has gone after Ron DeSantis by recreating his truly disturbing method of eating chocolate pudding [this means something very specific in the US, essentially gloop] with his fingers [in meetings as governor, 'always like a starving animal who has never eaten before… getting shit everywhere'].

MAGA Attack Ad Rips Into Ron DeSantis’ Gross Pudding Habits (thedailybeast.com)

Video [trigger warning: graphic content]:

https://cdn.jwplayer...eviews/ywxw1q4L

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

In what has taken on the trappings of a grudge match, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida punched Disney anew [...] DeSantis also suggested a variety of potential punitive actions against Disney — the state’s largest private employer and corporate taxpayer — including reappraising the value of Walt Disney World for property tax levies and developing land near the entrances to the resort.

“Maybe create a state park, maybe try to do more amusement parks — someone even said, like, maybe you need another state prison,”

DeSantis, in Latest Volley Against Disney, Suggests Punitive Steps - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

... and make it easy for the inmates to escape? A prison for child rapists maybe? Then he'd have more people to execute... win-win!

[Primateus]

So, Fox and Dominion settled for some 787 million dollars.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Primateus, on 19 April 2023 - 09:07 AM, said:

So, Fox and Dominion settled for some 787 million dollars.

Quote

Fox acknowledged the court's rulings finding "certain claims about Dominion to be false." However, the network will not have to admit on air that it spread election lies

Settlement reached in Fox vs Dominion lawsuit (cnn.com)

But

Quote

fear not: There may soon be another chance to see Fox defend itself in court. [...] “Dominion’s litigation exposed some of the misconduct and damage caused by Fox’s disinformation campaign. Smartmatic will expose the rest.”

[...] Based in London, Smartmatic is another voting-tech company [...] seeking a whopping $2.7 billion in damages from Fox, $1 billion more than Dominion. [... Lou] Dobbs’ program was yanked off the air shortly after the suit was filed.

[...] judge has already allowed the case to move forward, citing in a 61-page ruling Fox’s “reckless disregard for the truth.”

[...] the lawsuit is somewhat swaggering itself, opening with, “The Earth is round. Two plus two equals four. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the 2020 election

Smartmatic v. Fox News: The Dominion settlement may have nothing on the next blockbuster case. (slate.com)

So there's still some hope for the future....

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

It's common to see conservative writers compare today's political and cultural situation to that of the late Roman Republic. It was a time of transition between a small, vigorous republic to a large, decadent empire. Rome was effectively an oligarchy, with wealthy patricians ruling over the mass of plebeians and slaves. For most Romans, taxes were oppressive, social mobility was nonexistent[...] Populist movements were periodically put down, as Rome steadily inched toward autocracy.

With so many constitutional norms being violated today by unaccountable oligarchs to suppress populist movements, it's easy to see the parallels. [...] just as there were leaders such as Tiberius Gracchus and Julius Caesar championing the cause of the people and suffering the enmity of the elites, today, Donald Trump does the same and suffers similar scorn.

[...] I'd like to propose a different historical analogy that is both more apt and more hopeful. After reading historian Raymond Ibrahim's new book, Defenders of the West: The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam, I believe today's situation more closely mirrors that of 15th-century Romania.

[...] If one can see past the violence, there are important similarities between Vlad Dracula's situation and America today. Much like the Ottoman Turks dominated their day's politics and culture, leftist globalist elites dominate the politics and culture of today. Much like how the voivodes and boyars caved to the demands of the sultan, almost every large institution today complies with the agenda of these elites. And much like the Romanian nobility demonized the populist Dracula at the behest of the sultan, today's institutions demonize the populist Trump at the behest of the leftist elites.

This analogy sheds light on what makes Trump so unpopular: He is a threat to the current system of leftist intimidation and elite privilege.

Learning From Vlad the Impaler - The American Conservative

lol ffs....

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Trump is so Batman he's Dracula!

[Tiste Simeon]

Yep. When I think of the Ottoman Empire, I definitely think of woke lefties. These guys are so far removed from reality it's terrifying.

[Cause]

His trump a popularity if he has. 30% approval rating?

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

counter to a refrain that has taken hold on the left [...] conservatives are not coming for birth control next. They're coming for birth control now.

Some corners of the right are already in full-blown attack mode. Pulse Life Advocates, one of the [...] anti-abortion groups that is advocating against the over-the-counter contraception bill, states on its website that "contraception kills babies."

[...] About two-thirds of U.S. women of childbearing age use some form of contraception [...]

Republicans weren't willing to write the right to contraception into law: Republican Sen. Joni Ernst blocked the bill before it could come to a vote in the Senate. [...]

Currently, the right to contraception in the U.S. rests on Griswold v. Connecticut, a [...] Supreme Court decision [...] based, as Roe was, on the right to privacy. [...] Clarence Thomas wrote that the court "should reconsider" several precedents that concern the right to privacy—including the legality of gay intimacy, the right to gay marriage, and Griswold. And a growing number of Republicans are willing to state that Griswold was wrongly decided, including Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn and former Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters.

But the Supreme Court won't even have to overturn Griswold for conservatives to curtail access to birth control. Across the country, they are executing a game plan that rests on three strategies: Conflate contraception with abortion, claim that birth control is dangerous to women's health, and let right-wing judges do their thing.

[...] bad science is a feature, not a bug, of the right-wing approach to reproductive health care. [...]

[...] another strategy conservatives are embracing in their mounting efforts to restrict contraceptives: fearmongering about their safety [...]

[...] spreading false claims that taking the pill can lead to infertility and that the copper IUD can cause copper poisoning.

[...] But public buy-in is a nice-to-have, not a need-to-have, for the anti-abortion right, thanks to its power in the courts. [...]

With contraception, legislators will start the same way they did with abortion: Banning certain types of care, passing parental consent laws, and stripping public funding so that patients on Medicaid lose access to the most effective contraceptives. And why shouldn't they? It's worked for them before.

Birth control is next in line for anti-abortion Republicans. (slate.com)

I'd like to think that if they actually go through with this they'll get destroyed at the polls... but I'm not so sure. Especially if they do it through the courts and congressional inaction. 'Sorry, can't do anything about it, it's just what the Holy Constitution says, as interpreted by men of such impeccable virtue they were chosen by Trump Himself to judge the world....'

Quote

America Fails the Civilization Test

[...] the U.S. [is] the rich death trap of the modern world. [...] The typical American spends almost 50 percent more each year than the typical Brit, and a trucker in Oklahoma earns more than a doctor in Portugal.

[...] For most countries, higher incomes translate automatically into longer lives. [...] new analysis shows that the typical American is 100 percent more likely to die than the typical Western European at almost every age from birth until retirement.

[...] By the time an American turns 18, the U.S. death ratio surges to 2.8. By 29, the U.S. death ratio rockets to its peak of 4.22, meaning that the typical American is more than four times more likely to die than the average resident in our basket of high-income nations.

[...] The average American [...] in his mid-to-late 30s, is roughly six times more likely to die in the next year than his counterpart in Switzerland.

People everywhere suffer from mental-health problems, rage, and fear. But Americans have more guns to channel those all-too-human emotions [...] One could tell a similar story about drug overdoses and car deaths. In all of these cases, America suffers not from a monopoly on despair and aggression, but from an oversupply of instruments of death. [...]

[...] Americans' health (and access to health care) seems to be the most important factor. America's prevalence of cardiovascular and metabolic disease is so high that it accounts for more of our early mortality than guns, drugs, and cars combined.

[...] Americans are unusually sedentary. We take at least 30 percent fewer steps a day [every day! ...]

[...] The problem with the Freedom and Individualism Theory of Everything is that, in many cases, America's problem isn't freedom-worship, but actually something quite like its opposite: overregulation. [...] Are Americans unusually sedentary because they love freedom so very much? [...] the more likely explanation is that restrictive housing policies have made it too hard for middle- and low-income families to live near downtown business districts, which forces many of them to drive more than they would like, thus reducing everyday walking and exercise.

America is caught in a lurch between oversight and overkill, sometimes promoting individual freedom, with luridly fatal consequences, and sometimes blocking policies and products, with subtly fatal consequences. That's not straightforward, and it's damn hard to solve. But mortality rates are the final test of civilization. Who said that test should be easy?

America Fails the Civilization Test - The Atlantic

IDK about that 'forces many of them to drive' explanation---do people also not have time to pace? It's one of the best aids to thinking---for many people at least.... Or to go up and down stairs? Based on my limited observations there's plenty of time people could be pacing but aren't. Usually I'm the only one (and I've only had the police sicced on me for it once, thankfully). Then again if everyone were doing it there could be (human) traffic issues... but instead of pacing, they could other simple exercises, like squats, armless jumping jacks (or hopping up and down), dancing in place, etc. (all of which could be done while simultaneously using one's smartphone).

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 21 April 2023 - 04:45 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

[...] something strange has happened. The always-errant specter of right-wing populism has lost a clear reason for being. The US economy is performing at something close to full employment, with robust, ongoing job growth unpleasantly surprising the austerian financial elite [...] Inflation is cooling even as Powell continues, needlessly, to hike interest rates to dampen it further. Even immigration, Trump's pet demagogic crusade, seems unlikely to stir much passion in the GOP base, since [...] Biden is regrettably deporting people at a Trumpian rate, instituting an asylum ban, and weighing his own version of Trump's grotesque family detention policy.

[...] A curious feature of the politics of pseudo-­populism is that it's often untethered from conditions of economic distress—again in contrast to historical Populism. The authoritarian agenda of Ron DeSantis has taken hold amid an economic boom in Florida

The Zombie Populism of Today's GOP (thenation.com)

And yet:

Quote

"A record 69 percent of the public holds negative views about the economy both now and in the future, the highest percentage in the survey's 17-year history."

[... "] … it's always important to bear in mind that G.D.P., at best, tells us how much a society can afford. It doesn't tell us whether the money is well spent; high G.D.P. need not translate into a good quality of life. Individuals can be rich but miserable; so can countries. ["]

[...] America is using its economic growth badly.

[...] it's a mistake to imagine that the economy is somehow distinct from living standards. The unequal American economy continues to churn out an impressive array of goods and services while also failing to deliver rapidly improving living standards. And polls suggest that most people aren't fooled.

Red America offers less expensive housing partly because its zoning laws are less onerous. To over-generalize only somewhat, blue America believes in NIMBYism ("not in my backyard"), while red America is more comfortable with YIMBYism. [...]

[...] The same laissez-faire, anti-regulation, low-tax instincts that make housing relatively affordable in [red states] also contribute to high American inequality and stagnant quality of life — because some regulations are more conducive to human flourishing than others. The U.S. simultaneously has too much government and too little.

That combination helps explain why our economy looks so good by some measures and so bad by others.

How Strong Is the Economy? - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

... so (most of) the very policies pursued by the right-wing pseudo-populists are turning GDP boom into widespread economic discontent (except among their ultrawealthy supporters of course)... though certain Trump policies have been a bit more like Orban-style quasi-populist pay-outs to iirc, they're more than counterbalanced by tax cuts for the weatlhy etc (misdirection---pay attention to the shiny coins being tossed to you, not the oceans of bullion being sucked away behind the curtain...).

Quote

[Liberal] legal scholar Nicholas Bagley argues [...] liberal "procedural fetish" makes it difficult for government to accomplish anything bold


[...] liberals have tied the government down to procedure under the view that you make government legitimate by tying it down to procedure, rather than by making sure it can actually achieve what it sets out to do.


[...] liberals understand that when conservatives try to bury the government in paperwork and process, that they are trying to handicap it. But what liberals don't see is that when they do the same thing, even if they do it with different intentions, it has the same — or at least can have — the same result.

Nick is a liberal law professor. [...] One of his arguments here — and we talk about it — is that liberalism actually has a lawyer problem — that one of its difficulties is that it is too dominated by the legal profession and the way the legal profession thinks.

Opinion | How Liberals — Yes, Liberals — Are Hobbling Government - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

... and it could particularly hobble neural networks (and quantum neural networks etc.), given the seemingly intractable 'black box' oracle interpretability issue....

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Whoa:

Quote

Tucker Carlson Is Gone From Fox News
DING DONG


[...]

Carlson’s final Fox News broadcast ended last week with him eating pizza on-set, confidently declaring, “We’ll be back!” Alas, his show is not coming back.

Tucker Carlson Is Gone From Fox News (thedailybeast.com)

lol...

Quote

[...] Carlson’s departure comes less than a week after the Fox settled with Dominion Voting Systems [...] Carlson was scheduled to be one of Dominion’s top witnesses in the trial, largely over his contradictory behind-the-scenes remarks about Team Trump’s baseless claims of voter fraud.

Could they have decided that 'the cost of doing business' of that sort has become too high?... Probably not, but IDK....

[Cause]

Sadly his podcast will keep him rich.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Cause, on 24 April 2023 - 04:25 PM, said:

Sadly his podcast will keep him rich.

Unless he gets sued for a billion dollars (successfully)?...

Wonder if he could manage to get to Russia... they'd keep him 'rich'. Russian state TV loves him.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 24 April 2023 - 05:43 PM

[worry]

He was born rich (heir of the Swanson fortune). Word is he was not fired as a condition of the Dominion lawsuit but for what Fox learned during discovery that could be damaging to Fox going forward.

I personally don’t imagine it’s skeletons in the closet so much as he’s exactly the type of dude who’d overtly discuss how smart the grift is off air, and it’s what makes them vulnerable to lawsuits like Dominion’s. I feel like the “it’s just entertainment, not real news” defense he’s used before doesn’t work here — like he’s the type of guy who documents the ‘actual malice’ part.

[QuickTidal]

Azath Vitr (D, on 24 April 2023 - 05:41 PM, said:

Cause, on 24 April 2023 - 04:25 PM, said:

Sadly his podcast will keep him rich.

Unless he gets sued for a billion dollars (successfully)?...

Wonder if he could manage to get to Russia... they'd keep him 'rich'. Russian state TV loves him.

You gotta remember he comes from money. His Bohemian absentee mother - Who I STRONGLY believe is the cause of ALL of this shit; she gave Tucker a complex like no other by basically abandoning him at like 6 and instead of therapy we've had to watch him use the Right Wing media machine to work out his mommy issues - who ran from a family of massive wealth to be an artist/hippie and married some random local media personality only to run after two kids...

His mom's net worth when she died was like 90 Million, and though she fought to try to disinherit him and his brother, the appellate court awarded them their shares in like 2019....so what's half of 90milion? That's what he's got in the bank.

He could choose to never do anything for money again and live just fine forever....but I expect that's too much to hope for...that fucker likes the right wing spotlight too much.

[Cause]

I think he is worth close to half a billion. He earns like 30 or 40 million a year as a host for fox. He was the highest rated show in tv for a long time.

Maybe he can/will be sued personally but sadly I think the damage is done, he got paid and the hardest hit he will suffer is this blow to his ego. That might last a month.

[QuickTidal]

Cause, on 24 April 2023 - 07:07 PM, said:

I think he is worth close to half a billion. He earns like 30 or 40 million a year as a host for fox. He was the highest rated show in tv for a long time.

Maybe he can/will be sued personally but sadly I think the damage is done, he got paid and the hardest hit he will suffer is this blow to his ego. That might last a month.

He will join a long ass line of Republican grifters who pulled the "Fuck you I got mine" and bail out into a life of luxury with little to no consequences.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Quote

Russian state outlet RT reaches out to Tucker Carlson

[...] Russia Today, the state-run television network that broadcasts in the U.S. and around the world as "RT," [...]

"Hey @TuckerCarlson, you can always question more with @RT_com," the network tweeted from its English language account.

Russian state outlet RT reaches out to Tucker Carlson

Quote

Top Kremlin propagandist tells Tucker Carlson he should run for president and 'You are always welcome in Russia and Moscow'

Quote

Carlson will not go away, but recent history suggests that he'll have a hard time maintaining his current profile. Before Carlson, there was Bill O'Reilly, who was the leading conservative figure of his era and equally reviled by progressives. When O'Reilly was finally forced out of Fox [...] over sexual-misconduct claims, many critics hoped it would improve the state of the country and the press. Instead, it cleared the way for Carlson. [...]

This pattern has repeated itself over the years. After O'Reilly, [...] Hannity became Fox's marquee name. His influence was such that he was sometimes referred to as Trump's real chief of staff. But Hannity was unable to sustain his success, and [...] he was eventually eclipsed by Carlson.

[...] To remain on top at Fox, hosts have to be ready to continually ratchet up their rhetoric, because the network's business model depends on continual audience outrage. But audiences eventually become inured and require new and more extreme input. Providing that is a challenging and soul-leaching job—and someone will be delighted to have it.

Tucker Carlson's Successor Will Be Worse

... so long as they do it in a way that evades future (successful) lawsuits? IDK if being more circumspect when not on air would be enough (or what precautions Fox may try to take to prevent future revelations from happening... encrypted texts which auto-destruct?).

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

fwiw:

Quote

Report Suggests Tucker Carlson Was Fired Over Prayer Talk [...]

Carlson called abortion "child sacrifice," cast American politics as a battle between "good and evil" and suggested the solution was taking "10 minutes a day to say a prayer about it."

[...] "that stuff freaks Rupert out."

"He doesn't like all the spiritual talk," [...]

Earlier this month, Murdoch [called off his engagement ...] because of [her] outspoken evangelical views and her thoughts on Carlson, who she reportedly believed was a "messenger from God."

Report Suggests Tucker Carlson Was Fired Over Prayer Talk: 'Freaks Rupert Out' | HuffPost Latest News

Amusing, but I'm almost certain that wasn't the main reason. I'm tempted to think the source is trying to make Murdoch seem more sympathetic, but then again most people in the US are religious, and those Carlson quotes are a far cry from the craziest alt-right religious stuff, so probably not.

Imagining Rupert Murdoch trying to explain his fiancee: 'no we just say that shit to fool the ignorant masses, it's like Santa Claus and the monster under the bed (or the Christmas cat)'....

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 26 April 2023 - 03:20 PM

[Tsundoku]

Well well well ...

Disney sues Florida Governor Ron DeSantis
Walt Disney has made the unprecedented move of suing the man who may go up against Donald Trump as the Republican nominee for president.

https://www.news.com...71579d724ad4b4d