InstaPunk Returns

Did the District Attorney of Philadelphia propose blowing up Trump’s White House Ballroom and auctioning off pieces of the rubble to cut the deficit? The Answer Provided by Google’s AI Assistant:   Yes . Our topic today is Larry Krasner and his record as the District Attorney of Philadelphia and apparent higher political aspirations. Our purpose, though, is not purely political. It is to provide a demonstration of how Artificial Intelligence applications can be used in personal research that goes deeper than the media ever do. It is also to show the pitfalls of relying on such applications without a dogged determination to be thorough. The programmers behind the computer “intelligence” are always there, and they are just as human and political as, well, the elitist geeks who write the code. There are always two big questions to answer before undertaking what will be a long and complicated post on a complicated topic. First, Can I do it? And second, Do I really want to do it? This t...

  Conflicted identity and media image woes By now we know if you’re a Democrat, getting elected isn’t about who you are, what you’ve done or haven’t done. It’s about how people see you. The factors that can do in a candidate are often more subtle than the pundits of the professional wrestling circuit called the mainstream media. Why we think it’s time to help the world’s most uninformed voters about who to elect as their next nominee for President. We’re not going to get all racist and sexist about it. The decision points we’ve discovered are all based on the individuals involved, not the immaterial fluff like experience or political philosophies. We’ll start right at the top and give you one simple thing to bear in mind before you try to pick a winner for 2028. Kamala Harris Not about the word salads or the escort thing. Too Desperate. Gavin Newsom Too Lyle Waggoner. Times change. Bernie Sanders Too ‘Little Big Man’ AOC Too prematurely passé  Gretchen Whitmer Too Lily-White J...

Invocation of Nemesis by the Summoners   Click on Rosie. Thought I’d get this part out of the way right up front. I’m reminded of Oscar Wilde’s famous quip about the upper class British sport of fox hunting: “The unspeakable in pursuit of the inedible.” As it happens, I’m working on two different posts at the same time this morning. This one and another one about the sad PR plight afflicting the unfortunate middle child of the three worst First Ladies in American history. .  What the posts have in common is that the dominating element of both stories is a function of female psychology and can only be understood in those terms. There’s also the irony that Wilde’s jibe can be applied with some justice to both predator and prey in the two posts. Because I’m going to admit at the outset what most of the MAGA faithful won’t. You are right that Donald Trump is responsible for much of the imminent danger we are facing as a nation. Without his arrival on the political scene 11 years ...

This is what I call an omnibus post. That is, it will contain many links to what I have published here and elsewhere previously. Not going to apologize for that. I don’t mind asking you to read a variety of approaches to the same gigantic topic. It’s a topic so big we’ve all become accustomed (or trained ourselves) to deal with it only in pieces. But the pieces are all part of a larger whole that has grave consequences for the culture as a whole. A great many people aren’t going to like what I have to say here, but it’s time it was said. I won’t be mincing words. If you feel like contending with specific points I am making, you’re well advised to read what’s at the links before you cut yourself the easy break of dismissing this post as irrational or wrongheaded or over-generalized. It isn’t. It just won’t be popular. A word about the word ‘general’ as it used in vernacular expressions like ”in general” or “generally speaking.” We all do generalize, mostly without acknowledging that whe...