The writing is on the wall

I’ve been seeing so much AI generated content of late, any real life human doing real life work is a blessing.

Me, fucking around: Absolutely no downside

There are some notable side effects, but do not discount the power of cocaine.

🤣

If they want to beat the charges, they need to announce their own AI trained on the data several billion in Series A investment funding.

The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House

Dude…It’s a hypothetical

Okay, you got me. I don’t need a condom to have hypothetical sex.

Given the high number of school shootings and political shootings and general stocastic violence in the states, it’s more surprising that this doesn’t happen as frequently.

Kirk getting got in the middle of Gun Nut Apologia was certainly a cherry on top, though.

It won’t work. But it would be extremely funny if he’s able to wiggle out of this due to the sheer tidal wave of incompetence at all levels of government.

Didn’t Weiss round up all the people with scruples and fire them already? Or was she just firing people at random and hoping the ones with scruples would catch strays?

I care quite a bit. But, like, in the same way I care about Charlie Kirk’s neck wound.

Why you want their to be only two genders, mate? You want to be around more men, issit?

If you look at the wikipedia page on defensive gun use, you see that since it’s not centrally tracked and many go unreported

The definition of “defensive use” ranges from “discharged weapon at assailant” to “announced possession of weapon at scary noise”. So much of it relies on taking police reports at face value, no questions asked.

But the real issue IMHO, which is unfortunately not tracked AFAIK, is how many gun crimes are committed with legal guns. IE, legally purchased/owned guns by a non-prohibited gun owner. That IMHO is some data that would really help settle the issue.

I haven’t seen anything to suggest legality of ownership translates to defensiveness of use.

And none of this addresses the central problem of gun ownership - suicide. You are the person most likely to be killed by your own gun.

it’s better than the rest of TX that I can find. I’m open to suggestions.

Texas Tribune is still good, even if they’ve been on the downswing due to budget cuts. Houston Landing might have been good, but it flamed out when they couldn’t find enough advertisers or build a subscription base fast enough. I enjoyed City Cast Houston from time to time, but they’re gone now.

sigh

I forgot Propublica

They’re definitely good.

YMMV for a lot of these. The Guardian is notoriously transphobic. The AP and Reuters are a grab bag of real news coverage and naked propaganda pieces. Big City Papers are inevitably mouthpieces of the local reactionary billionaire, leaning heavily on the “If It Bleeds It Leads” rule of thumb.

My own local paper - the Houston Chronicle - is lousy with native advertising and reactionary hot takes.

Not the worst paper in the world, but this town used to have no less than six major periodicals of record. They were all strangled by media consolidation. And the last paper standing is barely more than a coupon book for the real estate industry, with a conservative newsletter spliced in.

I really want a world where we can safely set up characters for moments of failure, evil, etc, without large crowds either feeling offended, feigning offense, or worse, taking it as validation of their bigotry.

It’s a real Heads-I-Win / Tails-You-Lose game, because the White Male Anti-Hero gets the exact opposite treatment. If you make a Sopranos or a Wolf of Wall Street or a Fight Club, the very obviously corrupt and villainous lead character somehow ends up being this celebrity icon for reactionaries.

The same people complaining that John Boyega and Daisy Ridley ruined Star Wars will come out cheering for Adam Driver while claiming Imperialism is cool now.

Anything that makes a story exciting or different - the ups and downs of the story arc, characters with personal flaws or quirks, foreign settings and distinct cultures, non-English languages, non-CisHet romances - become at once implicit indictments of the out groups and charming complements toward the in-groups.

And a lot of that just boils down to the critics themselves. Far-right media amplifying its megaphone year after year, until we’re deaf from their screamed opinions. There’s no right answer for a film maker or story writer when the designated state-sanctioned censors and corporate flaks are all patriarchal white nationalists.

He’s definitely the silver lining around the turd cloud.