Year: 2023

ChatGPT and its many competitors are now flooding the market. Prognosticators, bloviators and professors are wagging their tongues at top speed full-time. This headline appeared in the NYTimes two days ago, “Elon Musk and Others Call for Pause on A.I., Citing ‘Profound Risks to Society’“. Leaving aside the ironies of —>> read more –>>

March 30, 2023 FINALLY!! Trump INDICATED !! I agree that “THE USA IS NOW A THIRD WORLD NATION, A NATION IN SERIOUS DECLINE.” Just not because we’ve finally indicted Trump for a few of his manifold crimes. How’bout the death toll during the pandemic? 17% of the world’s deaths due —>> read more –>>

Another few minutes with a comedian. This time it’s Jon Stewart. Prison Is America’s Real Cancel Culture | The Problem with Jon Stewart Here is a screen grab: Drop over to the Prison Policy Initiative for an in-depth look at the state of incarceration in America. Especially troubling are the —>> read more –>>

We’ve argued here numerous times that the state of the US healthcare system is an outrage. We spend almost double per capita what every other developed country spends, except Switzerland, which comes in at 70% of our per capita spending. An NPR report this morning (3.29.2023) (‘Live free and die?’ —>> read more –>>

In the last couple of years articles have begun to appear with titles like: When Private Equity Becomes Your Landlord Where Have All the Houses Gone: Private Equity, Single-Family Rentals, and America’s Neighborhoods Meet the Latest Housing-Crisis Scapegoat Wall Street has purchased hundreds of thousands of single-family homes since the —>> read more –>>

The recent ruckus about the likelihood that the Chinese government might access data from American TikTok accounts is perhaps well-placed. They might also use their access to TikTok to spread propaganda and other malicious information. Certainly, the simple solution suggested by TiKTOk of storing all US user data on servers —>> read more –>>

China spends more on importing computer chips – $260 billion in 2017 – than it does importing oil. President Biden’s recent bans on the export of American-made chips to China as well as a ban on companies throughout the world using American technology to export to China intends to make —>> read more –>>

Recently I listened to the first episode of the podcast City of the Rails. About 30 minutes in, the author Danelle Morton interviews the historian Richard White about what actually happened when railroads were built across the North American continent in the 1860′ and ’70s. (opens the podcast at the interview) —>> read more –>>

I can’t seem to forgo comedians. Sometimes a laugh brings brief relief. Stumbled on this typical brief rant (3 minutes) from Lewis Black. A bit of context. This is shortly after the election of Obama. He had run against John McCain in 2008. These are the politicians he is referring —>> read more –>>