Lots of good words this week.
Comedian Atsuko Okatsuka posts contract for Riyadh Comedy Festival: Remember when selling out was bad?
UK’s Labour Party Abandoned Trans People. Here’s What American Dems Can Learn.: Throwing classes of people under the bus merely makes your party look week.
Open Social — overreacted: Interesting piece, even if I think it is a touch too optimistic.
When the right broke, according to the right: Conservatives have bee telling on themselves.
Feds march into Downtown Chicago; top border agent says people are arrested based partly on ‘how they look’ - Chicago Sun-Times: Racism is now the official policy of the US government.
Fit for Purpose? How Today’s Commercial Digital Platforms Subvert Key Goals of Public Education | National Education Policy Center: I used to think that Edtech was promising, but so much of it jsut completely ignored students and teachers.
How McKinsey and Climate Change Wrecked Insurance | The New Republic: McKinsey told insurance firms ot routinely deny claims, regardless of merit. How has this been allowed?
How to Lie with (Political) Statistics - Boston Review: Chasing polls guarantees defeat.
Don’t be resulting - by Ben Recht - arg min: Similarly, data is not a substitute for thought.
Woman hospitalized with pain and vomiting—diet soda cured her - Ars Technica: My Diet Coke habit is now completely justified.
Opinion | The Right Didn’t Catch Cancel Culture From the Left - The New York Times: It is amazing that the movement of two red scares and the Lavender scare could ever have pretended to be in favor of free speech.
How the AI Bubble Ate Y Combinator: One sign of a bubble is the thing at its center driving out all other investment.
Is Trump’s TV Lying to Him? - The Atlantic: Alexandra Petri deserves a Pulitzer.
Golf legend Tom Watson ‘ashamed’ of American fan hostility at Ryder Cup - The Athletic: Nice to see that there are still some adults around.
Google is blocking AI searches for Trump and dementia | The Verge: Our elites are all in on authoritarianism.
For the Smallest Men in the World - by Charlotte Clymer: Best discussion of Hegseth’s and Trump’s embarrassing speech to the generals.
Man Goes Missing After AI Chatbot Obsession: AI firms should not be allowed to get away with this level of negligence.
Pope Leo Makes Mistake of Emulating Christ: The Pope angers some right wingers by modeling Christian behavior.
The Scoop: Bots and AI propelled Cracker Barrel backlash - PR Daily: Oh, goody. Not bots make the media dance. Lovely.
Scratch ‘n Sniff Publishing: This is both awesome and awful.
AI causes reduction in users’ brain activity – MIT: More evidence that imitative AI is a flawed, dangerous product.
They Live Below Sea Level in NYC. Now, the City Could Buy Out ‘The Hole’ | THE CITY — NYC News: We need more of this to survive climate change.
Scientists convert a kidney from blood type A to universal type O and implant it in a brain-dead recipient | Live Science: Science is so cool.