Tentative, qualified, un-schadenfreude.

Well, since you asked, yes, I am pleased to see that notable two-time popular vote runner up Donald Trump is being indicted for uh, wait, hang on, uh, right, the hush money he paid to an adult film star with whom he had an affair. He claims it was to keep her from spreading false allegations, but I mean, literally no one in the world believes that. No one. 

Everyone is innocent until proven guilty, but innocent people don't typically
find themselves others for their silence. Also, he's totally guilty. Like, c'mon.

A bigger crime in the way Jupiter is bigger
than Saturn, but they're both goddamn huge.

I would have preferred he was being charged with trying to pressure Georgia election officials to do him a solid and pretend he won, because that seems like a bigger crime. Or maybe one of the many, many women who have accused him of sexual assault would get to see him, you know, face consequences. But whatever, sure, fine, let's do the hush money thing. At this point I'll take what we can get. What I'm less thrilled about is the number of people who aren't thrilled. Outraged even that prosecutors would have the temerity to prosecute him.

Does he...does he not remember when
Trump's angry mob wanted to hang him?
Like, actually hang him at the Capitol?

Here's what Mike Pence had to say:

"Well, I think the unprecedented indictment of a former president of the United States on a campaign finance issue is an outrage. And it appears to millions of Americans to be little more than a political prosecution..."

-a guy who should be numb 

to outrage by this point

God I wish these people were
smart enough to appreciate irony.

According to NPR, 56% of Americans feel that investigating the former...president? God, it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth to remember that he was actually--never mind. They feel that investigating the former president is fair. And it is. But 41% don't. They think it's a politically motivated witch hunt which is firstly unfair to witches, and secondly what? Really? He committed tons of crimes. Tons. Like, the dude tried to do a coup. Like, an actual coup, right in front of us. D'état, no less. And everything he did was politically motivated.

Both. It's both. They're affectionally 
hate-filled, with a dash of rabid-foam,
bat-shit, off-their-rockers lunacy.

Remember that time he tried to withhold Federal aide from California during the 2019 wildfires because he didn't like that Governor Newsom called him out for his terrible environmental policies? Or the administration's entire handling of the pandemic? Or the time he--you know what? I'm preaching to the choir here, I'll stop. The point is that I'd be a lot happier if there weren't so many people out there willing to look past all the terrible shit he did out of what? Affection? Blind hatred of the Left?

Anyway, yes, like I said, I'm pleased. Thrilled perhaps. But I'm also realistic. And cynical. Because if the track record of the criminal justice system is any indication, a straight, white, wealthy, cis-dude is not likely to face any actual consequences for his actions. In fact, he'll probably get to run for President again. And an alarming number of people will vote for him. Not enough to elect him, but that's never stopped him before.

Consequences? Pfft, he's a white guy who tried to end democracy in America, 
not a Black mother who lied on a form to get her kid into a decent school.

Tonight on 60 Minutes...

Well this dark timeline just keeps getting darker, doesn't it? Phone scammers, widely regarded as the world's third worst people right after billionaires and Republican governors, are now using voice-cloning technology to rip people off.

Pictured: Sarah Huckabee Sanders singing a bill that prevents trans people
from using the correct bathrooms in school. Why? I don't know, I guess because
she doesn't understand what gender dysphoria is and can't be bothered to learn.

"If you commit a crime in one of my
fulfillment centers you can."

-some billionaire

What even is any of this? More AI nonsense is what it is. Using a sample of a loved one's voice, nefarious people--uh, to be clear, phone scammers, not billionaires or Republican governors in this case--can use AI software to imitate them and then trick you into sending them money with some kind of fake emergency. Well, not you, you're way too savvy, but someone. After all, if grandma calls and says you need to send her Amazon gift cards to post bail, you'd do it, right? Even though you've never heard of a municipality that lets you post bail in gift cards?

"You need to send ten grand in rare, graded 
Pokémon Cards, or they'll take the house!"

-probably a scammer

Of course you would, even though the gift card thing should be an obvious tip off. According to the FTC warning about this, rather than cash, the fraudsters will ask you to wire money or send gift cards or crypto or something, you know, for crime reasons and-wait, is crypto just used for crime purposes? Like, what else is it even for? Anyway, no amount of voice-cloning software makes a sudden plea for crypto currency sound legit, but evidently they're banking on a combination of the voice and the emergency to fool people. "Don't trust the voice." The FTC ominously warns and that's just bleak. 

We're supposed to hang up and call them back to make sure they're for real. And suddenly we find ourselves in some hack sci-fi scenario where we have to get a shapeshifter or a robot duplicate of someone we care about to prove that they are who they say they are by answering some personal question that only they would know. All because some asshat wants to run a phone scam instead of getting a real job. Which is shitty. But hey, at least it's not as bad as signing bathroom bills in Arkansas. 

I'm going to call bullshit on this stock photo that comes up when you search
"phone scammer." I mean, that desk is way too clean, and where are the empty
cans of Monster energy drink? And could they not find a tracksuit for him?

At the mercy of the infinite monkeys!

Did you know that video games have writers? Well they do. As in people who write things like story and dialogue, not code. They need those too, but I want to talk about this software thing that writes dialogue for video games. 

"Wait, video games have writers?"

-suddenly everyone who's never

 picked up a game controller before

In real life, people who regard others
as NPCs are called sociopaths.

Ubisoft, the French publisher of games like Far Cry, the Rabids series, and like three hundred kind of similar Assassins Creeds--Assassins' Creed?--is planning to use an AI program called Ghostwriter to create in-game dialogue for NPC's. Which, allow me to nerdspalin: Ubisoft makes a lot of open world games, and open worlds are often populated by non-player characters; randos who wander around yammering on and going about their business in order to make the game's world feel more realistic.

Remember? Jim Carey plays a guy who
discovers that everything revolves around him. 
Which also kind of sounds sociopathic...

Filling out a game's setting with enough distinct background characters with unique dialogue that the player doesn't feel like they're in a Potemkin village or some kind of Truman show situation where everything is for their benefit rather than a living, breathing world, has got to be a lot of work. And a tool that writes that dialogue for the developers would be a big help. Cool, right? Well, not so fast. The prog--huh? You weren't jumping to that conclusion? You also spotted the fact that using software to create dialogue necessarily replaces a human writer?

"Whoa, hang on, no we don't all agree."

-some robot

Right, it's settled then. We can all agree that robots taking writing jobs away from actual human beings is an issue. Ubisoft, however, insists that Ghostwriter doesn't replace writers, but rather frees them up to spend more time on the key dialogue. That is, dialogue that advances the story, rather than just the colors the world. Ok, but it seems like they could hire other writers to do the grunt work of NPC speech while using the more experienced writers for the important stuff. So, I mean, someone's job is being done by the AI, right?

Above: Some Target employees seen here
posing with the machine that replaced them.

Ben Swanson, the creator of Ghostwriter, assures us that the AI is writing first drafts of the dialogue, not what will be heard in the game. So a human writer still has to "select and polish" the text. And that's great, but sounds to me a little like the self checkout line at a store. They still need a cashier to watch like six self checkout stations or whatever, and while it's great that they still have a job, somebody or several somebody's are out of theirs.

It's turning game writing into something
akin to a teacher correcting kids' English
papers; an even more thankless job.

It can also make more and duller work for the writers who still have their jobs.

"As a writer having to edit AI-generated scripts/dialogue sounds far more time consuming than just writing my own temp lines. I would prefer AAA studios use whatever budget it costs to make tools like this to instead hire more writers."

-Alanah Pearce, a writer for Playstation,

on how sometimes helping isn't helping

I suppose it was inevitable that someone somewhere would eventually come up with a way to use AI to brute force the infinite monkeys at infinite type writers theorem. Sure, for now it's NPC dialogue, but it's only a matter of time before the technology improves and can generate whatever content we might ask of it, and without human assistance. But are we comfortable with that? Are we comfortable with self checkout? And does it even matter what we are and are not comfortable with at this point, or have the infinite monkeys already won?

Pictured: a grim portent of our own obsolescence at the hands of our creations.

That time I got double blue shelled...

Did you know that you can get COVID twice? Well, ok, of course you did, lots of people got it twice. It's been around for years now, and some people have had it three or even four times. But did you know that you can get it twice in six weeks?

"Yes, everyone knows that."

-everyone

I know I'm ascribing a lot to a bunch of
proteins that are arguably no even alive,
but give me a break...I'm stuffy.

Well you can. I did. I do. Have it. Again I mean. I caught it back at the beginning of February and for a few days it was brutal--wait--sorry, that's probably COVID privilege talking. Is that a thing? Whatever, the point is I didn't die. I mean, obviously I didn't die form it, and truth be told, I've had worse flus. But I probably don't have to tell you it sucked. It was by no means the mild cold I was expecting after all the vaccinations and boosters, but the virus, as viruses are want to do, evolves and adapts and is relentless and just waiting for you to let your guard down. 

Just say it, you know you want to.

Viruses are like the Borg, but phlegm-based. And before a couple of months ago, I thought I'd lucked out. The case numbers were down and continuing to go down, people, even paranoid, overly-cautious people like myself were easing off the masks, and it seemed like it was finally going away. But then, just as the finish line was in sight, boom, blue shell.* And emboldened by having made it through one round, I thought I could relax, secure in my three to six month resistance an infection is supposed to give one. But you know what they say about resistance.

So then boom, blue shelled again. It's not nearly as bad as the first time, but have you ever been blue shelled twice in one race in Mario Kart? It's not a good feeling. I know it's just dumb luck, and that there's always a mathematical change of catching one at the last second, still though, you can't help but feel like it had it in for you. COVID I mean, not the blue shell. But that too. Look, it's just a metaphor, alright? Like I said, I'm stuffy.

Pictured: basically me about to get blue shelled.

*it's the spiky blue turtle shell in Mario Kart that seeks out whomever is ahead and blows them up. What, you don't play Mario Kart?

The pro life people everybody...

A state, but one I think we increasingly
regret letting back in the Union.

I think it's super that nine South Carolina lawmakers have pulled their support from a bill that would call for executing women who have abortions, I really am but--huh? Oh yes, it's a thing. South Carolina lawmakers are trying to pass a law that would make having an abortion a crime punishable by death. The bill would--what's that? Uh, yes, death. Like, they'd execute you for a medical procedure that was legal everywhere like a year ago. Anyway, the South Carolina lawmakers sponsored the--yes, that South Carolina. The one that is one of the United States...in Anno domini twenty twenty-three.

The proposal was put forward by Republicans Representative Robert Harris, and the twenty-four lawmaker who were co-sponsoring it are all Republicans as well. Because of course they are. The same people that have been beating us all over the head for decades about how pro life they are want to execute women.

"We're pro some lives. Zygotes mostly."

-Rob Harris, bucking the trend

by being a white dude with an

opinion about abortion

Say, you don't suppose Representative
David Vaughn is full of shit do you?

Anyway, What I was saying is that nine of the twenty-four co-sponsors have jumped ship. One of them, David Vaughn, actually claimed that he co-sponsored it in error. In error. Like, is he just signing on to bills willy-nilly or was he just innocently waving a pen around and the text of the bill fluttered in through an open window? I don't know about you, and I realize I'm not in the South Carolina State House, but I have accidentally supported exactly zero pieces of legislation in my life.

South Carolina: we brought back firing squads!
The state tourism bureau's ill-advised new slogan.

According to the article, the national attention the bill garnered is the reason some of them got cold feet. Sure, they love executing people down there, but being the state that executes people for something that most Americans agree should be a constitutional right, makes them look, you know, like a bunch of ignorant, backwards, goons. But that presupposes a sense of shame on their part, and I'm not sure anyone with a sense of shame would propose such a bill in the first place.

So like I said, I'm happy that nine of them are suddenly uncomfortable with making women's choices about healthcare a capital offense. I am. I just find it unbelievable that they'd even bring it up in the first place.

Huh? Oh that. To be clear, that was a Capitol offense.
Totally different. Republicans are fine with that one.

Lunchables: now slightly less terrible for kids!

Look, I don't have kids so in many ways I don't care what they have for lunch. Sandwiches, M&M's, a pack of Kool 100's. It's all the same to me. But I do have opinions about Lunchables being given to kids by schools for some reason. 

It's probably for the best that I don't have kids...

"Pack the kids lunch? No, I thought you did.
I was busy waiting for wealth to trickle down.

-Parents in the 80's

In a gross "because business" move, Kraft, the manufacturers of the Kraft Pasteurized Prepared Cheese Product I recently used as an analogy for the political Right's naked hypocrisy when it comes to personal freedom, will now be allowed to sell their Lunchables in schools. Lunchables are, if you're unfamiliar, small, plastic boxes with slices of cheese, cold cuts, and crackers. They were first launched in 1989 and gave Reganaut parents a way to save five minutes in the morning. And now schools can get in on compromising kids' nutrition.

Pictured: a disappointing styrofoam
tray of contradictions.

I'm not saying school lunches were ever great. Back when I was in grade school, in the early sixteenth century, tater tots, dry pucks of hambuger, or taco salad--which, incidentally was neither taco nor salad--were really all that was on offer. Lunchables, by comparison, seem both inadequate in portion size and nutritionally suspect. Students will have a choice between a Turkey, cheddar, and cracker version and and assemble your own pizza. And by pizza I mean sauce on a cracker with shredded mozzarella. And pizza sauce is almost a vegetable, right?

Brand awareness being a vital part
of a child's nutritional needs.

The Lunchables to be foisted on students this fall are not the bog standard super market ones, but rather new, "Now Built for Schools" versions with reduced sodium and sugar so as to meet National Schooll Lunch Program requirements. Marketing materials directed at school districts tout the benefits of the new Lunchables including how they now meet the NSLP standards (which I mean, holy shit, what were they giving kids before?) and how Lunchables have 93% brand awareness.

Again, no dog in this hunt beyond the idea that starving children's brains at a young age by giving them nutritionally void bento boxes out of expediency sounds pretty cruel and neglectful. And worse is that they're doing it out acquiescence to corporate interests who've been lobbying the government for decades for access to the school lunch market.

Say what you will about gruel, but at least no one
was quizzing Dickensian orphans on brand recognition.

Pasteurized Prepared Freedom Product

Could we all, I don't know, stop worrying about how conservatives will react to things? I ask because for one, we pretty much know how they'll react. And two, the things they loose their mind over are usually either scientific facts they don't like, or people doing things or being things they don't approve of.

Pictured: conservatives reacting to things.

As an old white guy you'd think conservatives
would listen to what Attenborough has to say.

Vague, I know, but what set me down this path today is this article about the BBC not airing an episode of a David Attenborough nature documentary because Tories will--huh? I guess they're like British Republicans? Well, not republicans, as in people who think they should get rid of the monarchy. In fact, I think there's not a ton of overlap there. Tories are the British equivalent of America's political right. I'm not clear if their right has gone quite as rabid foam crazy as ours but they do have some things in common, one of those being they hate the environment.

Sorry, that's unfair. Conservatives don't hate the environment. After all, you can exploit the environment for money. They just don't understand why we the rest of us would like to preserve some semblance of an inhabitable planet for future generations. 

"Future generations aren't me, so why should I care?"

-Kevin McCarthy (actual quote)

Ironically, this Tory would likely run
afoul of drag bans in 21st century America.

Anyway, the episode deals with the loss of wild environments and the consequences of ecological destruction and the BBC doesn't want to upset the Tories. So they're saying that the episode was never intended for broadcast. Because networks routinely produce things with no intention of airing them, I guess. It will be available on their iPlayer Service so it's not like you can't watch it, but it still seems like a kind of dumb excuse and part of a disturbing acquiescence to right-wing freak outs. But I'm not British, I'm about to make this about drag bans. You know, the wrongheaded, homophobic, transphobic, queer-phobic, bans on certain kinds of drag performances. Legislation sold to ignorant people by conservatives who make their personal discomfort other people's problems. 

Above: basically Republicans.
Oh look, you can win an outdoor grill.

Which might sound super contrary to the Republican Party's stated love of, and support for, freedom. But, in the same way that Kraft Singles have to legally be marketed as a "cheese product" rather than actual cheese, they should probably espouse a kind of "freedom product" since their's is a very narrow definition of freedom of expression. That is, they are free to express themselves and you are not. Unless your expression aligns with their shitty worldview. But that's whatever. They're going to do and say what they're going to do. We're not going to change their minds by explaining to them how wrong they are or how their dumb bans hurt people. Unless it's happening to them personally, they don't care.

So, I don't know what to do, but it seems like the one thing we can absolutely not do is give in to them. If a documentary about how screwed the planet is is going to upset these people, then the BBC should air it five times a day. If they're spouting horseshit about the dangers of drag story hour, then take your kids to one every week. But whatever we do, we cannot change our lives to avoid upsetting the delicate sensibilities of people who strap on assault rifles to go to Starbucks. 

Because then they do shit like this and tell us it was a tour group.

The Big Empty Tent Party

Although they actually filmed in 
California, the correct state.

I don't hate Florida. I mean, I kind of hate Florida, but Florida's a place. It's neutral. It's muggy, the mosquitos are famously unbearable, and it's prone to hurricanes, but parts of it are ok, right? And The Golden Girls lived there, and I realize that a lot of good and decent people call it home, even if a fair number of them make terrible, ill-informed decisions when it comes to choosing elected officials. Decisions that may someday soon lead to the end of democracy in America. But I don't hate Florida. 

Sure, I may have suggested on more than one occasion that we simply sell it back to Spain and use the proceeds to make the morning after bill free. And the knowledge that Ron DeSantis's fascist little fiefdom will someday soon be underwater gives me no small amount of schadenfreude. 

Actually a lot of the country will soon be underwater and
that's terrible. The fact the Florida Governor's mansion will
be is just a silver lining of an otherwise grim future.

"We're just trying to protect kids from the real
threats: drag shows and learning about slavery."

-DeSantis, Republisplaing

And I know we throw that word fascist around a lot now and that often times it's not warranted and can even be insulting to people who've survived actual fascists, but Governor DeSantis and Republicans in Florida do seem to be, you know, wallowing in this gross authoritarianism. And if they're not full-on fascist by the political sciences' definition, they're at the very least playing all the fascist hits: trying to control what's taught in schools, trying to restrict criticism against them, and most unsettlingly, the scapegoating of vulnerable communities.

Above: some rubes.

The Republican Party, evidently out of ideas when it comes to governing, has instead built their entire platform on identity politics. Specifically straight, cis-gender, white, Christian, male, conservative, gun-owners identities. And everyone who doesn't fit that is woke or are groomers, or are whatever other scare words Fox News is using as a wedge to convince shall we say, low-information voters? No, rubes. To convince rubes that their way of life is under attack. 

What? When they stop banning Drag shows
and abortion, I'll stop calling them flyover states.

And it's making places where the GOP is in charge, like Florida, Texas, or Tennessee feel less like America and more like bleak dystopian hellholes. I'm not saying I was planning to move or even visit these places. Thanks to the miracle of modern air travel, I can glide majestically over the former Confederate States without having to gas up at a Kum & Go. But it shouldn't, you know, be this way, and the only hope I can cling to is the idea that this kind of identity politics can only go so far for so long. Eventually something's going to give, right? 

Like, increasingly fewer people tick all the boxes and eventually the GOP is just going to whittle down its definition of who counts as an American and who doesn't to such a narrow point that all they'll be left is a big, mostly empty tent with Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott, and Marjorie Taylor Greene competing in a rap battle to prove who can have the shittiest towards trans people. And yes, I realize the outcome is a foregone conclusion.

"The winner and still champion, Marjorie Taylor Greene!"

-Matt Gaetz, Republican 

Thunder Dome Referee  

That time I went on and on about Worf's ears:

Are we just not going to talk about them? Worf's ears I mean. Here, look:

What? I think about these things.

Pictured: an orc? I guess?

Don't worry, I'm not going to spoil anything for the new season of Star Trek: Picard that wasn't already spoiled in the advertising beyond the fact that we see Worf and he has ears. I mean, obviously actor Micheal Dorn has ears, and I always assumed that the character he plays has ears. And we've seen other Klingons over the years with ears, from the problematic incarnations seen on the 1960's show to the redesigned ones we're all used to now. Although the ones on Star Trek: Discovery didn't have ears. Well, ok, they had ears, but not an outer ear and pinna--I think it's called--which is what I'm getting at. There was not in-universe reason given for why they looked so weird and everyone kind of hates the redesign, so who knows if we'll ever see them again, but the point is Worf's ears.

Dilemmas like whether or not to let those
weird swingers euthanize Wesley for
messing up their flower bed.

I, with some amount of embarrassment, consider myself to be an expert when it comes to Star Trek. Some people go to med school or learn second and even third languages. Me? I've spent several doctorates worth of time watching, re-watching, reading about, and just generally nerding out about a bunch of TV shows about post-scarcity secular humanists flying around space and beaming down to planets kind of like Earth except for one societal difference that poses a dilemma which Captain Picard or whoever has to solve with brains rather than phasers. And what do I have to show for it? 

Pictured: Worf.
Not pictured: Worf's ears.

Just the certainty that in the thirty five years Dorn has played Worf across seven seasons of TNG, four on DS9, and four TNG movies, we have never--not once--seen his ears. I've even tried an internet search in case my memory's not as good as I think it is, and I can't find a single picture before the new series where you can see them. They've always been covered by his hair. We've seen the actor's ears when he played a 1950's baseball player in a dream sequence and in Star Trek VI he played Worf's grandfather, also called Worf, but never when he played the Son of Mogh.

And now, decades later, Micheal Dorn is back in the forehead, only this time his long, snowy white locks are pulled back to reveal a pair of ordinary human ears. I'm not complaining mind you, like I said, I always figured he had ears. But now that we can see them I can't seem to look at anything else.

Above: A seen from a recent episode in which Worf
and his ears rescue Raffi from a tough spot.

The Redacted of Us

Well, I'm outraged and I not only don't watch The Last of Us, but I don't even live in Saudi Arabia. What am I outraged about? Why this nonsense about a network re-editing the show.

In fact, we've been the opposite of Saudi Arabia lately.

Vampires on the other hand are
sexy and far more plausible. 

Wait, maybe don't click on that if you care about spoilers. Again, I don't watch the show, but I'm familiar with the video games upon which it's based and I already knew the spoilery thing and-hang on, I should explain. While I don't watch the show or play the games, it's nothing against either one, it's just that I find zombie fiction gross, preposterous, and depressing. That said, as a video game fan, I have, through cultural adjacency, absorbed enough nerdery to know about Ellie and Riley.

You've almost got to enjoy the irony of something
being too hot for the Middle East. Almost...

Brace yourself, or bail out now, because this is spoiler. A minor spoiler that you're probably already aware of and one that shouldn't interfere with your enjoyment of the series, but you know, still a spoiler. Still there? Super, Ellie and Riley are totally gay for each other. And in the latest episode of the TV series they've gotten to the part of the story where they kiss. Or do they? Yes, of course they do, but in certain regions, a certain network edited out the kiss. That network is called OSN+ and if covers the Middle East and North Africa and according to the article linked above they love to cut gay stuff. And that's whatever. 

Not knowing something has never been a
bar to having an option about it on the internet.

And by whatever I mean bullshit. But if they want to pander to whatever the Middle East's version of Red States are that's their business. Except it's also business. Specifically an American business. Two in fact which are, even more specifically, Warner Bros. and HBO. Where I'm going with this is that the series has been a huge success for OSN+. Like, a 15% increase in viewership. And I don't know anything about streaming network business...uh, things...but that sounds like a lot. It is a lot. And they owe it to this specific show. Specifically. 

I want to know so I can threaten not to
watch the show I already don't watch.

This specific show about zombies and gay stuff. And that's pretty, I don't know, offensive? Yeah, that's the word. It's offensive that they're happy to run the show and make a ton of money off of it, but equally happy to cut out whatever they personally don't like to avoid upsetting conservatives. So what I want to know is how do the streaming rights work? Like, did Warner Bros. or HBO sign off on these changes? And are they just cool with that?

I kind of feel like they can say to OSN+ either stream the series as intended or don't stream it at all. And again, I have no personal stake in this. I'm just throwing out unsolicited opinions about how HBO or whoever should run their business. But I'm not wrong. If they're making money off queer content in some regions while bending to homophobic, conservative pressure in others, that sucks and we should let them know how it sucks.

Because not to get all slippery slope about it, but if HBO/Warner Bros. is allowed to
get away with de-queering content for certain regions, sooner or later Ron DeSantis
is going to start demanding Florida versions to appease the MAGA hat crowd.