Normally I open with a highlight from the past week, but this week, I’m doing something slightly different – I’m opening with something that happened a few months ago, and relates to something big that happened this past week.
It’s deeply Scary, not just for educators, but for all of us, and concerns a ramping up of socially acceptable disinformation.
If you thought many were disconnected from reality, well buckle up, because this is what is now coming. Stick with me here, I’m posting the following entire thread …
The key point is the obvious one – critical thinking is being erased from our society. That makes it much easier to feed us lies.
Why mention the above now?
Basically because something big happened this past week that brings it into the spotlight. On Wed Nov 11, IOS 18.2 for iPhones went public, and with it comes a tight integration with ChatGPT. While only relevant to those with the newest iPads and iPhones, it is now here, and as people replace older devices with the latest, they will now be hooked into this ecosystem.
When it comes to technology such as ChatGPT, then the old adage of “Garbage In Garbage Out” stands oh so very true. If you train the LLM using BS, then it will indeed give you BS.
ChatGPT is of course mostly accurate, hence most people using it get lulled into a false sense of security, … but … for high-stakes information, such as medical, legal, or technical stuff, then it can, to use the technical term, “hallucinate”. That’s basically a polite way of saying that it will make up total bullshit and then feed that to you as factual.
Like most technology, it’s a useful tool, but using it sensibly does require users to up their digital literacy game.
AI is popping up everywhere now, even Google search has it.
If you expect a kid or young adult to pull up google, put a question in, and then understand that the first result now presented (when you are signed in) isn’t from the search engine, but is via their AI, and that could be misinformation, then you’ve got a world of disappointment coming your way.
Side Note: Google tip – if you suffix your google question with -ai then you just get the regular search results without the AI stuff.
Bottom line: With the rollout of IOS 18.2 many more have now taken up residence within the hall of mirrors.
OK, let’s move on from this into the regular whacky stuff and see what crazy items have popped up during the past week.
The Cult of Trump
Grovelling before and worshiping the orange messiah is going to be a daily ritual for some over the next four years. Here is a prime example from the past week.
Todd Starnes says that “President-elect Trump is one of the most compassionate leaders in modern American history”: “He strongly opposes breaking up the families of illegal aliens. So, in a spirit of unity, he’s going to send all of them back to their home countries. It’s a bold, commonsense solution.”
- Ah yes, the “compassion” involved in not breaking up families involves uprooting entire families who have been established here for years and expelling them.
- Meanwhile, when he deports millions of people, I’ll be very curious to see what happens to all their outstanding mortgages, credit card bills, and any other outstanding loans. Also, who will now do the jobs that they have been doing?
What is also clear is that his corruption is very blatant and out in the open. A government of the oligarchs, by the oligarchs, for the oligarchs …
- “Environmental Approvals” = You can poison the air and/or water, and no questions will be asked as long as you bribe Trump for the privilege. It’s all about the money and basically fuck the environment
- It will be a tsunami of entitled greediness enabled by the people who voted for him and the ones who couldn’t bother to show up. Rather obviously this will end poorly for all.
Christian Nationalists
Whenever Christian nationalists come up with some new “evidence” to “prove” America’s Christian founding, it inevitably turns out to be bogus. No, John Witherspoon did not convince Thomas Jefferson to change to Declaration in order to spread the gospel.
- Quote via RWW here: … “one of the defining characteristics of Christian nationalists is their willingness to misrepresent history, as time after time they spread blatant falsehoods in defense of their right-wing ideology.“
- The fact that they make up lies says so much about who they really are. When they lie like this, then why oh why should anybody ever listing to anything they have to say about anything.
- Fact Check: Witherspoon was not among the delegates assigned to the committee tasked with drafting the Declaration and much of the Declaration’s opening phrasing was largely based on Virginia’s Declaration of Rights, which was written before Thomas Jefferson was tasked with drafting the language for the Declaration. (More details debunking the latest Christian Nationalist BS is here)
- His use of the term “Christian Nation” is misleading. For example, the UK is officially a “Christian Nation” – House of Lords has 26 bishops, and the official head of state is also head of the official state church, the Church of England (all deeply weird stuff), yet the majority are not religious, and Diwali displays in the public square are common. What Doug is actually referring to is a “Christian Theocracy”, a religious Taliban like dictatorship, that is what he craves after.
- Side Note: The RWW posting of this on X as awash with mostly religious fanatics under it cheering for Doug, and the exact same posting in BlueSky has some sensible reason-centric commentary. That contrast says so much.
- Sample BlueSky Non-religious comment: “Like the Romans, I tolerate any religion, unlike the Romans, I don’t adopt any. Why does a god who preaches tolerance not tolerate other’s beliefs? Anyways, if I can tolerate different people’s beliefs, why should I be bound by rules made by some entity that I don’t believe in?“
- Sample BlueSky Religious comment: “The problem is that Christ doesn’t want public spaces. From what I read of him and from what I know of him, he wants space in your heart. Only man looks on that outward appearance. Or did you forget your Bible?“
Christian nationalist Jesse Leon Rogers claims that Christians have a “cultural mandate” to “subdue and rule.”
- Meanwhile, the rest of us have a well-established constitutionally enshrined duty to tell them in no uncertain term to … (yea, you know the rest).
And here is this week’s offering for the guy with the very very very small … church. Christian nationalist pastor Joel Webbon calls Vivek Ramaswamy “Hadji” and then gripes that J.D Vance is “married to a female Hadji.”
- Hindu is now synonymous with Islam?
Whacky Appointments
Doing the right thing was never an option for Republicans …
- If any of you reading this are shocked by a Republican doing the thing *she was always going to do*, you have a very long four years ahead of you.
- Quote: “she has built a reputation for being a principled leader on matters of sexual assault and the military“ … er, no, seriously just no. Like many others, she gave up her principles for Trump. Having principles requires courage, Ernst has none.
- We will have a senile old man and a raging alcoholic in charge of the nuclear codes, what could possibly go wrong? … FFS
Probably should not expect Mike Huckabee to be a particularly objective ambassador to Israel: “Why do they hate them so much? Well, they hate them because they hate God … This is a demonic uprising against God and his people.”
- With two distinctly different factions of deeply religious fanatics, Islamic and Jewish, steeped in centuries of hatred driven by religious propaganda, the Trump “solution” is to send an Ambassador who is also a deeply religious fanatic from a third faction who is rooting for the Apocalypse, and openly supports the Jewish genocide – It tends to strike me that he has a bit of a conflict of interest here. Also, as a quick Reminder: Many Muslims in the US voted for this.
Whacky appointments really will also have consequences, and some we can already see coming …
- The even bigger challenge further on is that once you do this stuff, it is really really hard to reverse the damage done.
- To be wholly clear – This is a service, not a company. It’s not supposed to turn a profit. Constitution Section 8, Clause 7 … “To establish Post Offices and post Roads;”.
Yes, It’s that Time of Year again
The religious are of course free to put up any religious display they wish outside their church. In addition they often also insist it just must also be on State property as well. That then presents a choice. Either the state say “Nope, this is neutral territory“, or the state permits all beliefs to play. As usual, they always pick the “Let’s be contentious” option, and so the games begin.
- Here is a link to that Boston Globe article. Quote: “Champlin was critical of The Satanic Temple’s display, calling the figure deliberately disturbing” … to which I can only ask the obvious question … and the other one is not because?
- I also rather like this quote from the Boston Globe Article: … “Orpheus Gaur, codirector of the Satanic Representation Campaign, said during the unveiling ceremony on Saturday that the display’s representation of Baphomet stands as a symbol of defiance against tyranny, with a hopeful message that compassion transcends religious boundaries. “It is a challenge to those who would impose a single religious view in spaces meant to represent all people,” Gaur said. “By standing here today, we affirm that freedom of religion includes the freedom to reject the supernatural and to choose a path that others may not understand.”
The False Profit$
Why is God using “prophet” Robin Bullock to issue a warning to former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?
- The puzzle here is that he hasn’t been in power since 2013. Robin’s all seeing and all knowing God does not appear to know that.
- Well guess what, scientists now have cured multiple patients.
- What is actually impressive about Mr Barton is that he manages to be wrong, not just about history, but about everything.
Weirdest of the Weird
Rick Joyner claims that it is unconstitutional for the federal government to respond to natural disasters.
- His “Logic” revolves around the 10th Amendment, and he uses this to argue that it is up to states and the people, and that the Federal Government should not be involved. He is not a constitutional lawyer, and like many self-appointed “experts” he really does not understand the 10th, even though the details and history are well documented. (Link is to “Constitution Annotated”, the Librarian of Congress analysis and interpretation of the United States Constitution based on a comprehensive review of Supreme Court case law)
- Least you wonder where he is coming from here, he is another of those whacky dominionists who believe that only Christians should run everything.
I get that people what to understand the motive, but NBC going to this as the “explanation” has just got to be one of the weirdest takes on it. It now means that journalists and police are in a dead heat as to who can be the fucking stupidest about this …
- Breaking: Further investigations have uncovered that he had played a game called “tag” as a child, where one player would act as the killer who would hunt down their prey.
- I heard that he also trained with a board game for murderers named Clue. That’s clearly what pushed him over the edge. Damn Miss Scarlet and her revolver.
- When it comes to understanding cause and effect, the same NBC journalist will be doing an expose next week on how wet streets cause rain to happen.
- I mean seriously now, if everybody who has played Among Us turns into a CEO assassin then I can see why they are worried – that would be over 500 million assassins out there all around the globe.
- Anybody remember the good old days when you would have to bring your grandfather to watch as you played Dungeons & Dragons so that he could begin to realise that all you did was roll dice and make fart jokes, and were not actually summoning Satan?
After being charged with battery, Nick Fuentes vows to “beat the case”: “If I go to jail, I’m just gonna write a book. It’s gonna be called ‘Mein Kampf.'”
- Seriously now, is anybody actually surprised by the footsteps he sees himself following.
- It is also deeply weird that a Latino is all about white power.
- Well let’s see now … we have on one side a religious weirdo who dismisses it all on the basis of exactly zero evidence, and on the other side we have literally millions of scientists scattered all around the planet leaning on decades of solid observational data that confirms it all … well damn it, what a tricky choice, this is such a hard decision to make.
Dave Daubenmire claims that the “Luciferian-controlled media went all-in for the destruction of Donald Trump” as “they looked the other way as the 2020 election was stolen, then locked-up anyone who questioned it, even going as far as to shut down the American way of life through a created-plandemic to assure that Obama and his demonic hoard remained in control.”
- Clearly reality is a completely undiscovered country for Dave.
Let’s not forget that this has also been happening …
They really are not the brightest
I guess nobody ever really expected Nancy Mace to be smart …
BlueSky
One more reason to make the leap to BlueSky … which has so far managed to avoid enshittification …
Eric Lipton from the NYT pops up in Bluesky to say “Hello you idiot cretins, I have come from the newspaper to tell you this is all going swimmingly” … or to be a tad more precise, this is what he said …
- A guy who has been on Bluesky for 12 days and follows 283 people is tapping into that “vast” experience to conclude it is an echo chamber.
- Meanwhile, regarding that CNN poll he cites, the word ‘Most’ is doing a lot of (deceitful) heavy lifting.
- The problem Mr Lipton faces with Bluesky is that when you make stupid claims then people will dig out the real facts and rub them in your face … like this response below … and thus establish where the real echo chamber resides …
The point is this – What was said by Mr Lipton is technically correct, but the framing is shite, and that’s the problem. Silly Example: Beware of tomatoes because very single American who ate tomatoes between the years 1793 and 1820 is now dead.
12 Year Anniversary
On 14th Dec 2012 the Sandy Hook shooting happened.
Its simpler than ABC
Resistance is not futile, but ABC thought it was so they rolled over …
- Good job, ABC. Way to boost the false narrative that the person who’s probably gotten more passes from media than anyone in American history is actually the most persecuted.
- Fact Check: George Stephanopoulos only repeated what a judge said and Trump is a public figure, so the case was completely meritless.
- Just to be clear – this is NOT a settlement, it’s a bribe disguised as a settlement. ABC knew that when, not if but WHEN, they won, Trump would shut them out from interviews of all administration officials and WH briefings.
Political Cartoons from the past week
As always, there are many excellent cartoons. Here are a few samples. Each comes with a link to the cartoonist putting the cartoon out via BlueSky. If you are on Bluesky then you can use the link to follow them.
Finally…
So yes, we do indeed have lots to look forward to …
- Yes, stupidity really is incoming – for those that missed it, the above is not a joke, it is quite real “RFK Jr key adviser petitioned regulators to revoke approval of polio vaccine“
Republicans not only want to force women to give birth against their will, but also to do so to enable their babies to soon die of polio …
Let’s be very clear about this. There is no debate, vaccine work very very well and have utterly transformed humanity. I covered it within a recent posting.
It is literally gross stupidity and crass ignorance to consider rolling it back …
