Lurker > Antifar

So something interesting about that collapse in Philly was that there wasn't really a major traffic problem in the weeks before it was fixed: https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7bb99/i-95-philadelphia-carmageddon-never-happened-data-shows

bfslick50 posted...

In fact, any red state that doesnt primary for Trump are the ones Biden should work at flipping

How many of these states do you think there will be?

https://tinyurl.com/ad2vkf5b

A newly-filed federal lawsuit by five Black women asks for damages for alleged rapes and humiliation they suffered at the hands of police officers- including retired detective Roger Golubski.
The filing argues Golubski and others were, dirty cops who used the power of their badges to exploit Black women.
It argues many of the attacks happened while officers were wearing badges and carried guns.
The lawsuit argues women were intimidated and could not report crimes because the problem was so pervasive. It likens the situation to a government-sanctioned protection racket.
Report me to who, the police? I am the police, is what one accuser recalled Golubski telling her after he raped her.
he filing argues Unified Government had widespread systematic failures when it came to training, supervising and disciplining its employees.
The lawsuit individually names former police chiefs Thomas Dailey, James Swafford and Ronald Miller.
It also names detective defendants: Roger Golubski, Terry Zeigler, Michael Kill, Clayton Bye and Dennis Ware.
The filing refers to the federal charges Golubski currently faces related to rape, kidnapping and sex trafficking.
Golubski has denied the allegations.
KCTV5 reached out to Unified Government and the KCK Police Department for comment but have not had a response.

I liked Command

Every fictional president, king, etc.

Drivers are the most dangerous part of most American cities

I don't believe it matters. Public officials do not get credit for their private sentiments

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/day-laborers-hired-by-tarzana-murder-suspect-to-move-body-parts-human-remains-encino/3266061/

A group of day laborers said they were hired to help move trash bags containing body parts out of a Tarzana home at the center of a murder investigation.

In an exclusive interview with NBC4 on Friday, the workers told a chilling story of being hired Tuesday afternoon by Samuel Haskell, the man jailed on suspicion of murder.

The workers said they were paid $500 to haul away three large trash bags from inside the garage at Haskells home on Coldstream Terrace in Tarzana, about 25 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles. He told the workers the bags were full of rocks. But once they picked up the bags, they said it felt like there was meat inside.

When we picked up the bags, we could tell they weren't rocks, one of the workers said in Spanish. He did not want to be identified.

The men described the bags as soft and soggy, each weighing about 50 pounds.

They said something didnt feel right, so they stopped their truck a block away to look inside the bags.

I started seeing body parts, a belly button, the worker said. I was astonished. Of course, I felt bad. We had been tricked.

They drove back to Haskells home, left the bags on the driveway and returned the money.

The worker said they told Haskell they didnt want to be involved, and Haskell tried to pass the body parts off as Halloween props.

The men said they drove immediately to the police, but were turned away from two law enforcement stations when they tried to report what they saw. First, from the California Highway Patrol station on De Soto, where the men said they were directed to the Los Angeles Police Department. Then from the LAPD Topanga Station, they were told to leave and call 911 from the courtyard.

The men said they feared for their lives.

"God was watching over us," the worker said.

Haskell, 35, was arrested at a mall in Topanga on Wednesday after the dismembered torso of a woman was found in what police said was one of those bags. NBC4 was first to report that it was discovered by someone rummaging through a trash bin in an Encino parking lot.

Another factor about Florida's shift: a lot of right-wing bullshit has been aimed squarely at Spanish-speakers in South Florida
https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/05/politics/florida-election-lies-spanish-language/index.html
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/14/florida-latinos-disinformation-413923

Audio-Technical is a quality brand in a not too dissimilar price range

Wealth and success do not make a person smarter or more moral. In some cases, it has the precise opposite effect.

This is a hell of an interview
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-extreme-ambitions-of-west-bank-settlers

I wore a pair for a couple years, I think the Crusher. Perfectly cromulent, they were the kind that just sit on your ears rather than go over them completely, so not much for noise cancelation or anything like that.

Rocky

Other movies in that series are more fun than the original, but the first movie is clearly the best as a movie.

Do you think maybe it was a bad idea to start with the notion that this movie has to be out at a certain date and only then consider what the movie should be?

Bump

divot1338 posted...

Only Netanyahu could turn being attacked by terrorists into a PR debacle.

This is George W Bush erasure

rideshort posted...

So what exactly did he do to Warrant this investigation? What corruption?

His campaign seems to have received illegal funding from Turkish governmental officials.

CruelBuffalo posted...

Wasnt he elected with ranked choice voting in? lol how does nyc fuck that up

Democratic voters

"We need to disregard worker protections because China might do something with the moon" is not, to me, a compelling argument

https://www.404media.co/advertisers-dont-want-sites-like-jezebel-to-exist/

In his email to staff about the decision to shut down Jezebel and lay off its staff G/O Media CEO Jim Spanfeller said that our business model and the audiences we serve across our network did not align with Jezebels.

Lauren Tousignant, Jezebels interim editor in chief, told 404 Media that Jezebel was told brand safety, the fact that advertisers dont want to be next to the type of content Jezebel was publishing, was one of the biggest factors that led G/O to stop publishing the site and lay off its staff. Tousignant said that a couple of weeks ago, the ads sales team asked if it could remove Jezebels taglineSex. Celebrity. Politics. With Teethfrom the site.

They took it off because they're like, let's see if this makes a huge difference, Tousignant said. So yeah, it was very much the problem here that no one will advertise on Jezebel because we cover sex and abortion. I know taking the tagline off was to see if the algorithm advertising would change. After it was removed one of the editorial directors was like, I'm seeing an ad for J Crew for the first time ever, maybe this will be good.

G/O Media has a long history of destroying or otherwise undermining the work of beloved media outlets that have done incredibly important work. Spanfeller blames, as is seemingly required in every CEO layoff notice, economic headwinds and macroeconomic news. Spanfeller and Great Hill Partners have, surely, mismanaged Jezebel in ways both big and small, and Spanfeller and G/O havent given anyone a reason to take their words at face value, but the subtext here is that Jezebels content was hard to sufficiently monetize.

This should not be the case considering that millions of people read it and chose, specifically, to visit Jezebel every month. But this is unfortunately how the internet works now, and has for a long time: News terrifies brands big and small, to the point where brand safety and brand suitability have become gigantic industries that have brought even giants like Facebook and Google to heel.

In theory, the free market should reward publications that are doing important work. The more people care about a given issue the more theyll read news stories about it, which should give publications covering it traffic and ad dollars. In reality, the advertising industry has singled out the issues the audience cares about most, like reproductive rights, as unsuitable to sell ads against, even though a ton of people want to read about them. This helps explain the precarity of publications like Jezebel, despite it being more vital to its audience than ever.

Brands, the marketing giants they hire, and the technology companies that enforce brand safety are overwhelmingly conservative about advertising against news content, in a way that has been devastating to ad-supported news sites. The economic headwinds for the news industry that media execs love to talk about is in reality the complete and utter collapse of the advertising market for news under the sheer cowardice of many brands and marketing firms.

Whats happened is this perfect storm of marketers becoming increasingly wary of getting caught up in the culture wars and being punished for it, even though theres virtually no evidence that advertising against news leads to that, Lou Paskalis, chief strategy officer of Adfontes Media, which helps advertisers measure bias among media outlets, told 404 Media. And so, at the very time when news has become more important to keep the electorate informed, marketers have pulled back from their responsibility.

This means that many brands and the marketing agencies that work for them are scared not just of the important topics that Jezebel covered, but are also scared of having their ads next to news articles about the war in Gaza, coverage of Free Palestine protests, coverage of terrorism, extremism, and white nationalism, articles about sex and porn, and so on.

Its lamentable but not surprising that Jezebel shut down because they covered provocative topics, topics that the electorate needed to be informed about and topics that people care about and that attract interest, he added. But advertisers are abdicating their responsibility to support news out of an unfounded fear that they might harm themselves.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the largest companies in the world are colluding to put their thumb on the scales of what types of news is monetized, and which types of news is monetized at lower rates or not not monetized at all. The World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) is listed by the World Economic Forum as one of its projects and includes every major marketing agency, as well as brands like Nike, Merck, Nestle, Proctor and Gamble, TikTok, Disney, Walmart, Adidas, BP, Shell, Goldman Sachs, Electronic Arts, McDonalds, and more. It represents 90 percent of all advertising dollars spent in the entire world$900 billion in spend per year.

In August WFA wrote in a blog post that the risks are rising for big brands because of todays geo-politics, marked by polarization and its accompanying 24/7 newsreel.

In the wake of the conservative backlash against Bud Light, Nike, Target, and others, we have witnessed unprecedented desire on the part of WFA members to share insights and concerns in private on how to manage risk and reputation, they wrote. After all, it only takes one marketer sending a personalized can of beer to a transgender TikToker for all hell to break loose.

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/spacex-musk-safety/

...
It was hardly the last serious accident at SpaceX. Since LeBlancs death in June 2014, which hasnt been previously reported, Musks rocket company has disregarded worker-safety regulations and standard practices at its inherently dangerous rocket and satellite facilities nationwide, with workers paying a heavy price, a Reuters investigation found. Through interviews and government records, the news organization documented at least 600 injuries of SpaceX workers since 2014.

Many were serious or disabling. The records included reports of more than 100 workers suffering cuts or lacerations, 29 with broken bones or dislocations, 17 whose hands or fingers were crushed, and nine with head injuries, including one skull fracture, four concussions and one traumatic brain injury. The cases also included five burns, five electrocutions, eight accidents that led to amputations, 12 injuries involving multiple unspecified body parts, and seven workers with eye injuries. Others were relatively minor, including more than 170 reports of strains or sprains.

Current and former employees said such injuries reflect a chaotic workplace where often under-trained and overtired staff routinely skipped basic safety procedures as they raced to meet Musks aggressive deadlines for space missions. SpaceX, founded by Musk more than two decades ago, takes the stance that workers are responsible for protecting themselves, according to more than a dozen current and former employees, including a former senior executive.

Musk himself at times appeared cavalier about safety on visits to SpaceX sites: Four employees said he sometimes played with a novelty flamethrower and discouraged workers from wearing safety yellow because he dislikes bright colors.

The lax safety culture, more than a dozen current and former employees said, stems in part from Musks disdain for perceived bureaucracy and a belief inside SpaceX that its leading an urgent quest to create a refuge in space from a dying Earth.

Elons concept that SpaceX is on this mission to go to Mars as fast as possible and save humanity permeates every part of the company, said Tom Moline, a former SpaceX senior avionics engineer who was among a group of employees fired after raising workplace complaints. The company justifies casting aside anything that could stand in the way of accomplishing that goal, including worker safety.

Looking into it

Morning bump

"Politics has an impact on people's lives" vs. "no it doesn't"

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/the-phone-doesn-t-stop-overwhelming-demands-for-a-cease-fire-catch-democrats-off-guard/ar-AA1jG1wN

An end to the bloodshed in the Israeli-Hamas conflict seemed more remote than ever on Thursday when President Joe Biden answered a question about the chances of a cease-fire by saying: None. No possibility.

But as Biden refuses to use his leverage over the U.S.s Israeli allies, voters and constituents across the country are overwhelming members of his party with demands to stop the violence, which has claimed more than 11,000 lives in the past month.

Staffers from more than two dozen Democratic offices say they are receiving an unprecedented number of calls and emails demanding for members to support a cease-fire an onslaught for which their caucus was wholly unprepared.

Following the Oct. 7 terror attacks on Israel by Hamas militants, up to three weeks passed and the death toll from Israels retaliatory strikes reached the thousands before many offices even formulated an official response. Let it go to voicemail was the prevailing guidance in several offices, one staffer said.

The yawning mismatch between voters and members sentiments on this issue strikes many staffers as outrageous.

This building is not listening, said one Democratic aide. Ive never seen such a disconnect between where voters and constituents are and where Congress is, and thats saying something because theres always a disconnect.

The deluge of calls is producing mixed results. Some members have called for a humanitarian pause as a direct result of the pressure, several staffers said. The Biden administration, which is also feeling the pressure, announced Thursday that Israel had agreed to limited daily pauses in the fighting to allow civilians to leave, with few further details available.

Its cold comfort, but even if members are not speaking up for a cease-fire, the calls and the letters are making a difference, said one staffer. Theyre changing the calculations of how far some members are willing to go to support Israel.

But many more members remain unmoved.

Only 18 House Democrats have signed the cease-fire resolution introduced by Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.). Another handful have calledfor a cease-fireindependently.

On Monday, roughly 50 Democrats issued a less-defined call for a humanitarian pause of limited space and time but that demand was burieddeep in a letter aimed at condemning the use of the phrase from the river to the sea. Twenty-two House Democrats joined Republicans in censuring Rep. Rashia Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian American member of Congress, for using the phrase. And the House and Senate are laboring to pass roughly $14 billion in additional military aid to Israel in the coming weeks.

This is the most Ive ever seen people unified behind an issue and actively calling, one staff member said.
Their office is one of many where staffers say calls for a cease-fire outnumber support for aid to Israel many times over. This is very unprecedented, the staffer said. The phone doesnt stop ringing at any point in the day.
All the staff who spoke for this story requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation. Most work for Democrats, which tracks with a recent Data for Progress poll finding that 80% of Democratic voters support a cease-fire.

The partys hapless response has left staffers horrified and deeply demoralized. Many whose daily job is to speak with constituents said senior staff are handing out talking points that minimize the carnage in Gaza, or that seem designed to confuse callers about where the representative stands.

All his statements are so vague and full of inaccessible jargon that we dont know what his true stance is, one staffer said of the lawmaker they work for.

In one congresswomans office, staff said theyre being told to claim she supports a humanitarian pause, even though she has never said so in public. Another office is sending out automated responses that state the death toll in Gaza is 3,000. That estimate is more than three weeks out of date and thousands shy of the real figures. On Monday, Gazas health ministryestimated that Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 10,000 people, 4,000 of them children.

Another staffer said it did not occur to her superiors that some constituents would have personal ties to Gaza, which she realized when a caller said the bombardment had just killed most of his friends family.

bfslick50 posted...

She votes [party] every single time. She just likes to call herself an independent

This is most independents in the US

https://www.businessinsider.com/marc-andreessen-horowitz-ai-copyright-2023-11

Andreessen Horowitz is warning that billions of dollars in AI investments could be worth a lot less if companies developing the technology are forced to pay for the copyrighted data that makes it work.

The VC firm said AI investments are so huge that any new rules around the content used to train models "will significantly disrupt" the investment community's plans and expectations around the technology, according to comments submitted to the US Copyright Office.

"The bottom line is this," the firm, known as a16z, wrote. "Imposing the cost of actual or potential copyright liability on the creators of AI models will either kill or significantly hamper their development."

The USCO is considering new rules on AI that specifically address the tech industry's free use of owned and copyrighted content to train large language models.

A16z argued that the "only practical way" LLMs can be trained is via huge amounts of copyrighted content and data, including, "something approaching the entire corpus of the written word" and "an enormous cross-section of all of the publicly available information ever published on the internet."

The VC firm has invested in scores of AI companies and startups based on its "expectation" that all this copyrighted content was and will remain available as training data through "fair use," with no payment required.

"Those expectations have been a critical factor in the enormous investment of private capital into US-based AI companies," a16z said. "Undermining those expectations will jeopardize future investment, along with U.S. economic competitiveness and national security."

The firm praised the current US copyright system for striking the right balance between "protection expression" and supporting "non-exploitive" uses of copyrighted material.

"By the same token, the best way to lose the United States' current leadership in the burgeoning AI industryalong with economic competitiveness and national security benefits that leadership bringsis by rushing to pass legislation that undermines the long-standing and principled approach to copyright law that has made this country both a creative and technological leader," it wrote.

Instead of spending time on making new laws that would explicitly address AI, the VC firm said the USCO should "embrace it wholeheartedly."

"We cannot afford to be outpaced in areas like cybersecurity, intelligence operations, and modern warfare, all of which are being transformed by this frontier technology," a16z added.

Marc Andreessen, co-founder of the firm, is no stranger to dramatic pronouncements. In a lengthy "techno-optimist" manifesto published last month, the billionaire said any slow down in AI development is effectively "murder," because of the technology's potential medical benefits.

The core issue for a16z, however, is not national supremacy or security, but money, according to its comments to the USCO, which were made public recently.

The firm said payment for all of the copyrighted material already used in LLMs would cost the companies that built them "tens or hundreds of billions of dollars a year in royalty payments."

"You can't expect us to pay for what we already stole" - tech billionaires

Fights in Tight Spaces

Strong disagree

FlyEaglesFly24 posted...

For some strange reason on the board the statements Israel has the right to defend itself and I dont care what happens to Palestinians mean the same thing.

Because people can see in real time how Israel interprets that right to self defense.

Probably my favorite Mario boss battle ever

With who? The "real Republicans" you're talking about are a half dozen columnists who live in the beltway. The 4% who voted for Marco Rubio in 2016. That's the constituency for their agenda.

Also the woman who did chat site porn is in a close race as well.

Bump

Hard to illustrate the class war better than this

You spent two and a half months waiting for this account to be able to post

Something needs to be done about Europe

https://bsky.app/profile/nycsouthpaw.bsky.social/post/3kdmuzdo25i25
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/2/22b64173.jpg

Do votes matter? do they reflect one's priorities in any way?

We know who they vote for

One small problem with the idea of not voting in order to teach Democrats a lesson is that they are so bad at learning. The lesson they took from Hillary's defeat is that they should nominate even more of a centrist in 2020.