Wednesday’s Forum
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12 responses to “Wednesday’s Forum”
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Arcade games satirizing Iran war appear at DC War Memorial
A waterway sign that reads “Open. Closed. Open.” A helicopter bearing the name “Kid Rock Force One.” Oil barrels that collectively spell out “LUBE.”
Such are the art features wrapping three recently installed arcade games — also available to play online — at the District of Columbia War Memorial in the nation’s capital, the latest protest by the anonymous group Secret Handshake, which previously made headlines in September after installing a statue on the National Mall depicting President Donald Trump holding hands and skipping with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
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“The game features furious tweet battles against Iranian schoolgirls, low-flow shower heads, and other threats to American freedom like DEI and The Pope,” the group said in a statement to the local CBS affiliate. “And just to save you time, the only way you can lose is by trying to hold Melania’s hand. But it’s The Middle East, so you also can’t win either.”
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“But why stop at clips when you could go full throttle Introducing Operation Epic Furious: Strait to Hell, a high-octane, flag-waving, boots-on-the-ground simulator where freedom isn’t debated, it’s deployed. No briefings, no hesitation; just pure pixelated patriotism. Strap in and play hard, because this game may never end.”
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Photos were shared across social media Tuesday of National Guard members deployed to Washington, D.C., checking out the games at the memorial, which is adjacent to the National Mall. -
@Scott: Now I’m wondering if everyone gets that its satire?
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@Jay L. Gischer: Satire? Who can tell these days?
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From Heather Cox Richardson’s substack yesterday, on the infamous Taco phone:
The phone never shipped, and on April 6, Trump(sic) Mobile updated its terms to say the $100 deposit was not actually a deposit for a pre-order, but rather “a conditional opportunity if Trump(sic) Mobile later elects, in its sole discretion, to offer the Device for sale.” It went on to say the deposit “does not lock in pricing, promotions, service plans, taxes, fees, shipping costs, or other commercial terms” and that “[e]stimated ship dates, launch timelines, or anticipated production schedule are non-binding estimates only.”
How is this not fraud, changing the terms of a transaction after money has been paid.
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On the North Korea thread I spoke of the vile bigotry of the Texas Republican Party. Republicans from Gov Abbott on down have been ranting and raving about Sharia Law. Virulent anti-muslim rhetoric. This just covers up the latent (and not so latent) anti-Semitism. Anti-Pope? Check. New Mormon temple? Can’t have that. Then there’s this:
Texas Republicans spent years courting Indian voters. Then came talk of the “Indian takeover.”
Burt Thakur is a U.S. citizen, a Navy veteran and a Trump supporter. Last year, he was elected to be a strong conservative voice on the City Council in the booming Dallas suburb of Frisco.
Lately, that job has required Thakur, who was born in New Delhi, to sit on the dais at Frisco City Hall and listen as a steady stream of people hurl racist invective at him and the entire Indian community. The speakers, many of whom don’t live in Frisco, rail against invaders, anchor babies, H-1B visa fraud and the “Indian takeover” of a city where nearly one in five residents are Indian.
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Over the last few months, Frisco has become the unwilling backdrop for a larger conflict between Republicans’ nascent relationship with Indian American voters, and the party’s rising nativist strain, which rejects anyone not born here, including naturalized citizens. The same faction that’s been targeting Muslims over the specter of Sharia law has turned its hostility toward Texas’ growing Indian community, accusing them of exploiting the H-1B visa program to steal American jobs and undercut wages.It goes on but this bigotry is everywhere in Texas. From the usual suspects to high ranking elected officials.
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Members of President Donald Trump’s inner circle are secretly fed up with the aide who is enabling his unhinged late-night Truth Social rampages.
Most nights, the president fires off dozens of posts attacking his political enemies, amplifying conspiracy theories, spreading AI-slop videos and images, and boosting offensive content from obscure MAGA accounts on X and his own Truth Social platform.
But despite the odd hours, Trump isn’t doing it all alone, according to a new report in the Wall Street Journal.
His executive assistant Natalie Harp is the driving force behind some of his most incendiary content, including a racist video that depicted Barack and Michelle Obama as apes, and an AI-generated image of Trump as Jesus Christ, both of which Trump later took down.
Harp, who is in her mid-30s, brings the president stacks of printed-out drafts of social media posts—many of them recycling content from other accounts—for Trump to approve, sources told the Journal.
She then logs onto the president’s account and posts batches of Trump-approved messages. The president also posts some messages himself, and at a minimum he personally approves everything that goes on his account, according to the Journal.
The process has frustrated some White House officials because Harp doesn’t share her proposed posts with the chief of staff’s office, communications aides, or national-security officials, sources told the Journal.
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From the transcript from 5:57
You wrote a really illuminating Substack series about the Trump family’s tentacles reaching into the defense industrial establishment grabbing contracts in some cases basically no-bid contracts that exceed that are out of all proportion with their experience with their track record. For those who haven’t read that Substack series first of all I recommend it to
everyone but give us a primer on just how embedded the Trump sons in particular are in the drone industry and in the war profiteering around this adventure in Iran, this misadventure in Iran.
Yeah, bottom line, people need to look up 1789 Capital and American Ventures. Those are two big investment funds run by the Trump boys, Donald and Eric. They’re also related to Founders, which is Peter Thiel. The Trump family and others like Stephen Miller are invested in Anderrill and Palantir at massive levels, right?
So now you have to start looking at, you know, Anderrill’s $20 billion contract they got in March. But you’re also looking at the fact that the Trump family also now owns multiple drone companies or invested in multiple drone companies and critical minerals. They’re buying up the whole drone supply chain.
So right now you’re looking at almost $800 million in direct contracts that the Trump boys have actually bragged about. A $620 million loan from the Office of Strategic Capital. They’re reinvesting back into their own companies with American taxpayer money. And not only that, right, you’re looking at the new Kazakhstan deal, my friend. $1.6 billion, right?
Two new shell companies I found. that they created with to actually invest in this and be a part of this contract vehicle. The fact that what’s incredible about this one, which is amazing. Oh, by the way, even if we go back to Eric Trump, right, and Xtend, which is an Israeli drone company,
he invested that 11 days before the war started. You know, there are some coincidences, but nothing like that, right? Yeah. But you’re looking at this. They invested in the Kazakhstan company after the U.S. government granted them a contract. Kazakhstan. and then ask for another $400 million over the next 48, last 48 hours. You know how much?It’s $2 billion. The self-dealing, the generational wealth that the Trump family has already gleaned from the American taxpayer, we can’t claw back. You know, everybody’s like, oh, Denver, you know, and the right people getting office. Are we serious? I mean, we’re looking at a Senate that’s probably going to be deadlocked.
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Couple of Youtube exposés.
Popular Youtube channels owned by private equity About 21 minutes.
Pawn Stars is fake! (did anyone not know this?*) About 26 minutes.
*There’s a reason why in the Emmys this category of show is called “unscripted.”
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I’ve quipped now and then that LLMs (aka generative AI) was this bad before it got enshittified.
IMO, the enshittification has begun. At least the push to get people to pay for LLMs. I’ve been amusing myself getting various LLMs todo images of me in various outfits I could never afford. It’s fun. Depending on the LLM, and I guess time of day and other inscrutable variables, it will tell me to suscribe to get more image generation, or to wait anywhere from a few hours to a whole day.
I’ve also been using them to help determine specs for a new laptop*. I’ll ask one, then see some of the sources, then ask another one, then check its sources, etc. Again, some will set a limit to how many “messages” I can send through the bot for an answer. Subscribe or wait.
Me, I can shrug this off (see the asterisk for this particular case). And apparently I already have a subscription to Copilot via the MS Office, so there are no limits there. What i wonder is what students do who need the LLM to cheat in their homework. You hear about hundreds of prompts for one paper. I assume they break down and pay.
*Completely unnecessary, since I realized, later, my work laptop runs exactly as I need for home. So what I should get is something matching or exceeding those specs. Simple!
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@Kathy: The private equity video is not available any more. I know of one channel I follow very faithfully that just got bought by private equity – Derek Muller’s Veritasium.
I hope it’s for the best. It has been ok so far, but I am worried.
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Weird. I tried the link and it wasn’t available. then I tried to run it from the Youtuber’s channel, and it ran.
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