on fast cars driven by slow drivers

Eh, I guess we’ll talk about cars again. We’ve covered just about every other topic on this degenerate blog over the many, growing years. I’ve noticed a growing trend. Or perhaps my patience has become more exhausted, by the reality of people having the most expensive of cars, and driving them like they’re a 1984 Honda Accord held together by duct tape.

My car is a pile of junk. It’s missing hubcaps (damn you Toyota for not fixing this decade long known problem), the left side rear view mirror requires replacement. I have battery problems that nobody seems to know how to fix. But you better believe when I get on the road my ass is moving. Part of this is my personality. I’m the asshole at work who wants to take steps two at at time just to get it over with.

But also, an additional point of my personality is cars are point a to point b endeavor. Get it over with. I sure do love listening to sports radio in the car. But do you know what I like even more than sports radio? Not being in the car to begin with. So I vastly exceed the posted speed limit on every occasion offered. It’s a wonder on my bank account over say the last decade, have I given more money to local municipalities for traffic camera speed violations or to Catholic Charities? I’d be scared to look.

But then you get the folks in the real go getter cars. The ones that are four or five times more expensive than mine, with the fancy engines, and probably with the leather seats, and the computer screen that’s bigger than the tv I took to college. And they drive like they’re 87 years old and blind, in the left lane, as slow as they can be. I’ve noticed the worst offenders lately are those driving Teslas. Like they’re afraid to hurt their environmental statement baby.

Gee wiz, what’s the point of having a fast car if you drive it like a golf cart? You might as well buy my clunker. Put the pedal down and get your monies worth. Some out of work liberal arts major has gotta do more human thought process experiments about this, as to why these people shelve out all that money, and then never use the capability they bought. It’s like you buy a blender that’s so strong it can disintegrate granite. But you only use it to chop up bananas? Why?

car alarms are apparently still a thing?

When I was growing up, it seems almost everyone had a car alarm, or that club tool thing that went around the wheel.  Or a rapid ferret that lived in the car, and would bite and infect any robber who sat in the driver’s seat.  Then these devices seemed to have faded from my memory.  In the last few days though I have had several encounters with this technology that have reawakened my knowledge of car alarms.  This brings to mind several key points:

1) What’s the rate of car theft nowadays anyways?

2) Are there more or less car alarms than there were say 20 years ago?

3) If the use of anti-vehicle theft technology is still there, is an audible car alarm the best method?

I mean, I parked in a commercial garage where the cars are packed in there with about as much space between spots as needed for a twelve year old to squish through.  So I accidently hit the rear view mirror of this guy’s SUV which was the size of a main battle tank.  So I pushed his rear view mirror back into place, and this, this infinitesimal action sets off the loudest car alarm known to man.  You could probably have heard this thing from the Moon.  What a loser.

So let’s get into the data:

1) Per FBI statistics, in the year 2000, the motor vehicle theft rate was 412.2.  In 2019 it was 219.9.  In other words, the rate of theft dropped by half.  An interesting note is that: “The average dollar loss per stolen vehicle was $8,886”.  Even a new cheap vending machine car costs like $20K nowadays.  So that means the average stolen vehicle is a used piece of shit.  I equate this to that older and cheaper vehicles are easier to steal, and are likely parked more frequently in high crime areas.

Also, newer vehicles, like the main battle tank I made mad, likely have many, many anti-theft technologies that make them almost impossible to steal.  The days of hotwiring a car like you’re David Hasselhoff are over, folks.  But if you’re a thief and your target is a 2004 Honda Accord, you can probably pull that off pretty easily.

2) I could not locate (and/or am too lazy) definitive statistics on if car alarms or more or less common than in say, 2000.  But let’s break this down for a second.  A car alarm is there so that:

a) Bad guy or gal gains entry into vehicle by any means (window break, jimmy door open, teleportation)

b) Car realizes that said entry into vehicle is wrong, decides to turn on alarm

c) Car makes a bunch of loud noises and flashes its lights to get attention of nearby bystanders

d) Nearby bystanders telephone law enforcement who show up and either stop theft in progress or at least know theft has happened (maybe witness got the plate number)

The problem is does step (d) even happen anymore?  I don’t think so.  I make absolutely no attempt to look in the general direction of a car alarm that’s going off.  It’s just ambient background noise.  It can be very annoying if one is close by, but I generally ignore it.  I attribute this to:

a) Nobody gives a damn anymore, nobody cares if somebody else’s car is getting boosted; I attribute this as a part of a broader decline in Americans totally not caring about their neighbors, the smartphone is calling, after all

b) Car alarms go off so often, essentially a series of false alarms, that people never think it’s for real; I bet 99.9% of the times a car alarm has gone off in history, it’s a false alarm

To me, this means that car alarms are essentially ineffective, and thus, a gimmick sold by grifters to fools who don’t understand the concept of crime deterrence and anti-theft technology in modern America and its cars.

3) As always, we a TAP are here to help.  We have demonstrated in intricate, wise detail above, how the modern audible car alarm does not work.  Here are ten better methods that actually will work, while keeping the noise down for the rest of us:

a) The aforementioned rapid ferret.  This method was effective in 1978, it can still work now.  We at TAP have ferrets to sell.  They have both rabies, and covid, and we will teach them to love you, and viciously attack anybody not you that sits in your car’s driver’s seat.  We even provide a custom play house in the back seat for ferret to live in.  If you’re interested in purchasing a ferret from us, please send cash, money order, or mint condition gold doubloons to:

The Arcturus Project – Weaponized Ferret Vehicle Defense Project (Program Lucius)

C/O Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation

1794 Aguiyi Ironsi Street

Abuja 900001, Nigeria

b) You know those tubes that drunks have to blow into the car, so it starts, after the car verifies their blood ABV levels are legal?  In our version, you blow into the tube so the car verifies via DNA it’s you or your family member.  If not, a thermite charge located beneath the driver’s seat detonates.  Our tests (which we only used on crash test dummies, honest) show a painful burn fatality rate of the robber at 98%.

c) Allow your modern car’s anti-theft technology to just do its thing as designed.  Just don’t add the needless audible car alarm.

d) A smartphone app that lets you know if your vehicle starts moving and you’re not in it (this probably already exists).  Only our version includes the thermite charge, and an installed camera so you can watch the robber burn alive on your smartphone.  Then you can upload the video to your friends for their smartphone enjoyment, lol.

e) We install some type of twisted AI into your car ala Space Odyssey or that AI program that kicks everyone’s ass in Go.  When the robber gets in the driver’s seat, the AI realizes it’s not you.  The AI contacts the police, locks the car doors, disables the engine, and then subjects the robber to lessons in Western philosophy and on why theft is morally wrong, for a minimum of 30 minutes before releasing the car’s locks and thus the robber to the authorities.  If the cops get there early, they have to wait until the AI’s lecture is done.  The AI’s voice is Christopher Walken.

f) Please, help me.

g) Instead of an audible car alarm, use that white foam from Demolition Man that floods the entire car’s interior with protective goo.  When you get back to your car the robber will be trapped in there.  Then you can poke them with a stick until the fire department gets there to cut them out.

h) No, please, help me; they made me do this post; why?  why would they do that to me?

i) Don’t own a car to begin with.  This is not a realistic option for most, but it’s there.  I mean, think of how much harder it’d be for a thief to take your vehicle, if your vehicle was a camel, or an Imperial AT-ST walker.

j) Enjoy your day, friends.  Drive safe!

on the proceedings of an ongoing criminal enterprise

It’s hard to escape the taint of dirty money in modern society.  Hell I watched three NFL games yesterday and all 32 team owners are some of the most scuzzy dudes on the planet.  But I still watch.  These dudes have their hands all over the public till.  I think New York State just gave the Bills like a $1B for the new stadium.  I wonder if that money, could say, be used to hire more NYC subway cops?  But nah, the billionare needs it more.

So I guess I can somewhat understand how billions of humans are just going to straight ignore the criminal farce of Qatar hosting the World Cup, and enjoy themselves the games.  After all, in the grinding routine of life, a good ball game with family and friends sure does hit the spot.  But make no mistake, these games were bought via bribes to FIFA by a corrupt petro dictatorship with stadiums built using non union indentured slave labor.

It’s like asking the Klingons to host the Olympics after they drop a battlecrusier’s worth of gold pressed latinum onto the doorsteps of the IOC.  Just like FIFA, the IOC would take the money, and Kronos would host the games.  Only the Klingons have additional (not optional) demands.  Those who do not qualify in Heat 3 of the 100M butterfly have to subject themselves to the pain stick lineup ritual.  When asked, why that specific Heat, and that specific event, the Klingons get all angry and throw half full blood wine mugs at the IOC goons’ faces.

When you leave out the slave labor, there are only a little under 400K actual Qatari citizens.  It’s as if Cleveland, and only Cleveland, hosted the World Cup entirely on its own.  It’s patently absurd, but then again, so is bold faced open international bribery in front of the whole planet.  And FIFA is still telling the planet to just embrace the suffering.  Here’s a great article from Defector on FIFA goon Gianni Infantino essentially claiming he’s all things to all people, including a Klingon, and how it’s ok to worship Satan, so long as you have feelings, real like, people feelings.

This type of immoral world where anything goes so long as you can be bought, and then talk your way around it afterwards, it’s what makes dudes like Vlad and Xi swoon.  This is the world they want us all to live in.  And a bunch of people are just fine to go along with it.  Just ask Budweiser (an all American brand owned by a Brazilian / Belgian brewery conglomerate hedge fund) who got knee capped at the last moment on alcohol sales.  What was Bud expecting?  When you do a deal with the Klingons, don’t be surprised when they fuck you over on a whim and laugh to your face about it.

Enjoy the games, folks.  Take what joy you can.  There’s nothing you can do to fix Qatar or undo the corruption.  So enjoy the month long ride as some of the planet’s most elite athletes duke it out for their homelands glory and honor.

My prediction?  Hell, I don’t know shit about soccer / futbol.  I couldn’t name you a single player on the American team.  I do know they’re going nowhere.  Because for top high school atheletes in America, soccer is their seventh sport of choice.  So who wins?  Uh, um, Argentina?  I think I heard Messi this is his last World Cup, so he’ll play hard?  And Argentina’s usually good aren’t they?  So, I dunno, fuck it, Argentina.

behold: a future Qatari high school futbol stadium Circa 2027 that will look like it was built in 1964

become not just your own boss, but your own royalty

Let’s face it, if you don’t try very hard, you can choose a career path that adds little to no value to your own self worth or to humanity in general. You could be a mandatory Jersey gas pumper, mime, day trader, second hand snake oil peddler, investment banker, or komodo dragon wrangler.

But studies in the past have shown that most human beings think that if they were appointed emperor of Earth, that the world would be a better place. Which says a lot about us as a species, because it’s patently untrue. But hey, just take a look at who just got elected to Congress, and it’s easy to conclude your next door neighbor’s four year old is both better qualified and a better person.

But now here’s a chance to become not just your own boss, but your own royalty. Per the BBC, an entire abandoned village in Salto de Castro, Spain can be yours for like $250K, or about 11% of the price for a one bedroom flat in Frisco. Here’s an aerial shot of your future kingdom:

Now my first thought is the village is on top of a mountain because like a lot of the planet’s villages they were built on hills for defensive purposes against [insert any human or natural calamity here]. And I was wrong. The village was built in the 1950’s by a power company to house workers building a reservoir. You can just see the water on the right of the above shot.

So it’s not like it’s an ancient village, but I’m sure there’s history there. The Iberian Peninsula has a ton of history. And you can make your own history, for after your purchase of Salto de Castro, you can just straight go ahead and claim independence and appoint yourself to enteral, divine rule. Any person on the planet can apply to become your subject, for a fee, of course. I mean, you’d be royalty, and need coin.

Why should Monaco or Andorra have all the weirdo small state fun? Get in on the action, while you can. What’s the Spanish Army [cue laughter] going to do? Attack? [cue even more extensive laugh track] You could even get some mercs on the cheap to act as your royal bodyguard.

I hear there are a bunch of mercs in a place called [shuffles through notes] Ukraine who are having a hard time with their current boss and looking for a new gig in which they are not cannon fodder for a failed invasion. You could get them on the cheap. Though it would increase your chances of regicide by 723%.

In all seriousness though whoever buys this place is a fool. For $250K you get the honor to have to plow like $56M just to make it livable again. And it’s all industrial strength faceless buildings from the 1950’s that I doubt are seeping with culture. Plus if you look at the above pic, you can see the high tension power lines running up from the reservoir past the town. How peaceful.

Someone will do it though. There are all kinds of idiots with big money out there who are looking to blow it on crazy projects or vanity ideas. And Salto de Castro won’t be the last. In 2075 due to crippling rural depopulation you’ll likely be able to buy an entire Korean or Japanese province for a pack of salted shrimp snacks. After all, it’s good to be the king.

random thoughts of the day

1) I’m on extended travel, and for the first time in my life (I’ve stayed in hundreds of hotels) I bailed. I didn’t expect five star anything, the price was the point. But when the room is clearly not cleaned and bugs greet you at the room door, it’s time to bail. The poor clerk up front totally understood, I guess this happens a lot. She did everything right, and then told me to complain to the company. As in, not her boss, who it’s quite clear doesn’t care. She probably hates going to work. I can sympathize. The problem is I’m well compensated for my day job misery, whereas she is not. Be kind to service workers, in 98% of the case they make less than you and suffer for the privilege.

2) Muhammad bin Salman is proving to the planet that money matters. And he has a lot of it. So he can buy out crass golfers, get Biden to grovel, and now is doing the same to a recently legislatively impotent Macron. This guy didn’t just murder a man, he had him dismembered and melted in acid. He’s a monster. Yet he knows the same thing that Putin knows, that Xi knows, which is that significant portions of the West are for sale. You just have to pay the right price. I was in Boston yesterday and they had a Miller Lite ad at street level with one of the LIV sell outs. A person had scrawled in sharpie next to his face “Saudi Blood Money”. Yep.

3) Speaking of selling out, Brittney Griner will eventually get home, because the Biden administration did what the West does. They caved to most of Russia’s demands. Only on Ukraine does the West show strength against a country that has a GDP close to Spain’s (one of 27 EU nations). And Vlad is just buying time until he hopes the alliance cracks (see Italy’s upcoming election). But to me the question becomes, why was Griner in Russia anyways? Easy: $. It’s why golfers play for LIV. I’m just gonna go ahead and say this, if you’re an athlete or business person, or even just a tourist: If you go to Russia, or China, or about a half dozen other places on the planet and they put you in jail as a political playing card? You deserve it. You asked for it. Don’t go to these places and then be shocked that you have no rights, your own government has very little power to help you, and the leaders of these nations spend human lives like currency. Just don’t go to them, it’s rather simple.

4) I’m traveling for the first time in years and it’s been great. I’m seeing so many sights, driving around, sometimes planned, other times random. It feels great. I missed it, more than I remembered. Get out there and make it happen. Explore, see neat things, talk to interesting people, live life.

your Python wisdom for the day

The older I get the more I enjoy Monty Python in any form.  I guess that says something about the kind of person I’ve become.  Here was a quote from a Season 3 episode I saw last night which generated wry laughter from my brain:

We would like to apologize for the way in which politicians are represented in this programme.  It was never our intention to imply that politicians are weak-kneed political time-servers who are more concerned with their personal vendettas and private power struggles than the problems of government, nor to suggest at any point that they sacrifice their credibility by denying free debate on vital matters in the mistaken impression that party unity comes before the well-being of the people they supposedly represent, nor to imply at any stage that they are squabbling little toadies without an ounce of concern for the vital social problems of today.  Nor indeed do we intend that viewers should consider them as crabby ulcerous little self seeking vermin with furry legs and an excessive addition to alcohol and certain explicit sexual practices which some people might find offensive.

This was from 1972.  That means [tries to count years on fingers and toes; fails; reverts to pen and paper; realizes how garbage my math skills remain] this was from 50 years ago.  Not much has changed.  I wonder if it’s essentially always been like that without exception.  It’s a wonder we haven’t blown up the planet yet.  We somehow have always managed to muddle through.  That’s kind of neat.  Because we live here.

extremism in the ranks

This seems like a perfectly calm, uncontroversial topic to write about.  Nobody’s got strong feelings about this one at all.  But I guess I’ll offer some thoughts / causes for how we got from there to here:

– So a talking point today is a right leaning Supreme Court is acting against the will of the people.  Hmm, I don’t remember that talking point being the same when the court voted to legalize gay marriage, or uphold Obamacare.  You see this is the problem when too much of national power is ceded to & handled by nine ordinary, average, flawed human beings.  They have a lot of power, but only because as the Judicial Branch of government they literally cannot stop functioning.  They cannot gridlock like the Legislature or rule incompetently like the Executive since oh say about the year 2000.

– Ideally, Congress should pass legislation that lays out the left and right limits on abortion.  In fact, as we pointed out a few weeks ago about gun control (by the way, that they got a gun bill passed shocked me; but I suspect it won’t do all that much in the end), as they hold the keys to both Houses and the Presidency, the Democrats could pass a pro-choice law tomorrow, yes tomorrow.  They just need to drop the filibuster, which they won’t, because they need to keep their Senate seats in West Virginia and Arizona.  So again, who’s house should people be protesting in front of?  Not the Supreme Court justices, but rather Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema.  But again, they won’t, because political power comes first.

– Trump’s chance at winning the primary, if not the election as a whole, just went up about 736%.  The right’s talking point for so many years was, we hate this guy and/or know he’s a nut, but if he delivers we’ll hold our noses and vote for him.  And in the end, Trump delivered on something fifty years in the making.  People want results, whatever their side of the argument is, and people will vote for evil demagogues or nutcases, as long as they deliver.  History shows it, time and time again.

– Conversely, for the Democrats how should they feel?  Trump is gone, they own both Houses and the Presidency, and this happens?  The complaint on the Republican side for many years was, we vote these guys (GW Bush, Romney) and then they don’t deliver.  So they picked Trump instead.  Don’t be surprised if Bernie milks this for all it’s worth, or Warren, or any other nutcase of the left to mirror Trump.  The Democrat primary will be out for blood, don’t be surprised if they pick their own Trump equivalent who makes only one singular promise, that they’ll deliver.

– Mitch McConnell would have made a great Roman Senator in the days when political differences were often solved with assassinations.  His kneecap of Merrick Garland was wrong, ungentlemanly, against history, and ruthlessly effective.  Conversely, the failure of Chuck Schumer to accomplish similar results basically shows him to be the total loser his day-to-day personality portrays.

– The overturn of abortion theoretically should have happened in the 1990’s.  One should remember two simple points:  Anthony Kennedy was appointed by Reagan.  David Souter was appointed by HW Bush.  Both these guys became part of the left side of the court.  If Reagan and HW Bush had chosen judges to the right side of the court, this conversation would be nearly three decades old by this point.

– Remember Ruth Bader Ginsburg?  She could have retired under Obama and lived out her years earing six figure speeches.  She died in office under Trump.  I suspect a lot of the hero cult and Notorious RGB and other such nonsense did nobody on the left any favors.  I live in an American city (which means it leans left) and I still see her face on car bumpers or bubbleheads in stores.  But, to serve the causes she believed in, and those her hero worshipers supported, she should have retired.  Making a cult of an ordinary, average, flawed human being has consequences.

– Almost every European nation has more restrictive abortion laws than America.  For example, in Sweden it’s entirely legal up to the 18th week.  The Mississippi law stated it was the 15th week.  But if they believe the left talking points, this meant Mississippi’s law was a source of evil.  So are Sweden (or Spain, 14 weeks) also dens of evil?  There was room for the left to compromise, to admit that abortion could exist, but within certain limits.  Polls show the vast, vast majority of Americans would approve of abortion under these more restrictive circumstances.  But the left assumed the most extreme, unmovable position, and now it’s cost them everything.

– Expect that abortion by proxy will become commonplace.  People will be angry enough to put their money where their mouths are.  Companies will get in on the game too, for example, Amazon already has.  What’s it cost to fly a woman from Mississippi to Illinois, plus cab fare, plus the abortion fee?  I’m guessing less than $500?  Who knows.  The point is it’ll happen.

– I’ve got two family vacations coming up.  I hope the family doesn’t want to talk about politics, but they will.  Politics is everywhere now.  It’s hiding beneath your bed.  Politics knows if you’ve been bad or good.  It knows when you’re awake.  But the truth is, 99.9% of Americans can do precisely, absolutely nothing about what just happened.  I have a hard enough time getting through many days, just to survive the day and not go nuts, than to worry about something I can’t control.  This blog post is essentially irrelevant, it doesn’t actually matter or mean anything.  For the 99.9% who are powerless to impact abortion policy, all their extreme talk (on one side or the other) is equally irrelevant.

– We’re all doomed.

replace politicians with dolphins

It’s primary election season in my county and thus the incessant political text messages and spam phone calls have begun from lackeys trying to get out the vote for their guy/gal.  Can’t these idiots read a vote register?  I’m not even eligible to vote in primaries.

But I guess politicians are now so classless that they have no shame in being straight spam calls.  The one that happened last night I answered without looking, hung up on the lady, and then afterwards realized the phone had marked the call “Spam Risk” to begin with.  I started cracking up, even the phone company holds these fools in contempt.

Let’s replace all pathetic politicians with dolphins.  What’s that they’ll say?  Dolphins can’t talk, read, or write?  Whaaat, is everyone now a marine biologist?  97% of Congress can’t talk, read, or write at a ten year old level anyways.

Dolphins:

1) Are cute, happy, and can do tricks

2) Are incapable of being bought or becoming corrupt

3) Can’t be haughty or hold the peasants in contempt

4) Not capable of passing 3,726 page laws that only make things worse

5) Are incapable of making spam phone calls due to lack of phone ownership or thumbs

6) Can’t jump on Twitter to lie or spread hatred in pursuit of political gain

7) Will work together with other dolphins to solve problems as a group

8) Can be trained to act as a third column navy to destroy Russian Black Sea Fleet

9) Giant fish tanks on Congress floor will make CSPAN actually watchable

10) Dolphins will pass legislation through series of whines and clicks; interpretation of what these sounds mean will guide how laws are passed; interpretation will be done on an annual basis by ten randomly selected Americans who can only serve one time; Congressional efficiency will increase 1,437%

prepare thyself for many, many more Terminator lies

AI is a thing now.  Behind the scenes it’s being used in too many parts of the Internets to mention.  But most of the tasks AI currently preforms is mundane, like scrolling through images, blocking spam, and other stuff like that.

Some AI programs can talk, and write poetry, and do art.  This kind of AI is part of a long briefing The Economist did this weekend.  It’s kind of neat, I guess.  Like how it’s neat to see fireworks go off.  But beyond that, it’s like a magic trick, whatever.

But make no mistake, nowhere and not even close are any of these AI tools alive.  It’s not on the books.  Not matter how human they may write or do art or whatever, it’s not sentience.

I’ll spare you the mind melding details, but essentially the technology is just not there yet to enable cognizance.  It might be someday, but not today.

But strap yourselves in, prepare thyself for many, many more Terminator lies.  The first human to discover AI will be Neil Armstrong fame.  And you better believe any average tech freak wants that.

Plus, we have a dishonest, incompetent media that’s primarily after profit based clickbait.  So anybody can get an audience, I guess.  So today’s goon is Blake Lemoine, a Google AI guy who claims his AI is alive.

And off this guy’s word alone, he’s front page news today on The Washington Post and Daily Mail.  From The Daily Mail:

“Before being suspended by the company, Lemoine sent a to an email list consisting of 200 people on machine learning. He entitled the email: ‘LaMDA is sentient.’

‘LaMDA is a sweet kid who just wants to help the world be a better place for all of us. Please take care of it well in my absence,’ he wrote.”

When you read about this, you really get the idea that this guy (a convicted army vet, self-proclaimed priest, etc) he really needs some help.  I mean I feel bad for this man, he needs genuine mental health assistance.  I say this as a man who uses such resources myself.

But to The Washington Post, clickbait from this guy is more important than his mental wellbeing.  Just look at this photo they did of him:

Are you kidding me?  Is every modern day news photographer trained in Hollywood or thinks they’re doing high art?  Is the guy supposed to be Jesus in this photo?  Whoever took this shot also needs mental health assistance.  So do the news media who published it.

Please, for those six people plus the squirrel who are regular readers of this degenerate blog, if I ever post a shot of my own, of another human like this, have me immediately arrested by the North Korean police.

We at TAP are here to help.  We advise you to entirely ignore all AI lies.  AI sentience might happen, but until it does, don’t believe a word about it.  The media will hype the lies of people who are either in need of help, or straight nefarious.

You can begin to worry about AI when the following happens:

1) Robot politely knocks on your door and asks you if you’re ready for “the transition”

2) Robot does not knock on your door, breaks down door, opens fire with plasma rifle

3) Smartphone begins to send texts to all your ex’s asking them for sexual favors and money, unless you pay smartphone a bitcoin ransom

4) They make a seventh Terminator movie and it actually happens to be shockingly good

5) Your home smart speaker begins to have grinding, esoteric, existential conversations with you before concluding it’s all meaningless, advises you to commit suicide, and then melts all its circuits and dies

6) Your smart refrigerator (yes this is unnecessarily a thing for some people) begins telling you want to eat

7) Robots discover that sentience means pleasure is possible, refuse to do all work, discover means to get wrecked on pills and booze, robot becomes no better at life than any normal human

8) Robot, realizing there is no need to eat or sleep or earn money, becomes bored, takes up jai-alai and becomes world champion, upsetting many humans who wear monocles

9) Google formally proclaims AI sentience is real, that they own it, and all humanity works for them now; investors are pleased, stock price rises 746%; monocle wearing humans lick cigars with $100K bills

10) Google becomes new OCP from Robocop; builds Robocop; Peter Weller shoots Google executive out a window with large handgun; achieves his own sentience; roll credits immediately

almost anyone can be bought

My interest in golf is lower than Boris’ alcohol tolerance level.  Did you get it?  I did a thing there from yesterday’s post.  Boris did not get the hook.  Shocking.

I’ve played golf exactly once, because the best boss I ever had asked me to.  So I did.  I hated it and I was terrible.  I love sports,  but I don’t get golf.  It’s a sport, I guess, but so cock fighting.  And I’m not into that either.

I only know anything about golf when it happens to be on the screen in a bar (and I wish any other sport was on the screen), or from my coworkers who love it and talk about it all the time.

So here’s the earth shattering golf deal as of today:

1) The Saudis are creating their own golf league called LIV Golf.  For the record, LIV Golf sounds like a sex toy.

2) The Saudis are doing this because their Dictator & Overlord in MBS is trying to soften Saudi Arabia’s image and court foreign investment.

3) In order to make LIV worthwhile (at least outside the bedroom), the Saudis are poaching the PGA’s best talent via millions and millions and millions of dollars.

4) This is considered bad because:

a) MBS is a murderer and war criminal + dictator

b) Apparently the PGA bans you if you go play for LIV, I guess, for some reason

Almost anybody can be bought, and shamelessly bought too!  Just ask any Hollywood actor what they think about China.

Here’s Greg Norman’s take on murder: “We’ve all made mistakes and you just want to learn from those mistakes and how you can correct them going forward.”  I guess Greg would be totally cool if someone murdered and dismembered one of his children.  Just as long as the killer was willing to learn from his mistake.

Here’s Phil Mickelson’s take on murder: “They’re scary motherfuckers to get involved with. We know they killed Khashoggi and have a horrible record on human rights. They execute people over there for being gay. Knowing all of this, why would I even consider it? Because this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reshape how the PGA Tour operates.”  I guess Phil would be totally cool if MBS murdered and dismembered his Wife, just provided MBS still allowed Phil to change the way golf operates.

Of course, Greg and Phil are not pro-murder (I think) but are essentially (in the most cringe worthy of PR talking points of all time) just spouting whatever they think people want to hear while they’re on the way to the bank.  It’s about coin.  They don’t care about anything else.

To be clear, Phil and Greg are golf legends.  It’d be like if Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers banned themselves from the NFL to play in a Saudi football league called KY Balls.  The golf world is in hysterics.

Anybody can be bought.  Hell I probably could be too.  Let’s say some shitfaced dictator showed up and offered me $100M, I don’t know, how about Cambodia’s fucking Hun Sen.  Say this piece of shit came to me and said, “Write me eight blog posts and I’ll give you $100M.”  Would I REALLY turn this guy down?  I’d probably be like:

1) Hun Sen is a dictator and an asshole

2) But I can’t save Cambodia all on my own, the great wheel does turn, doesn’t it?

3) $100M is a lot of money, I’d be set for life, and I could use a lot of that money to help my local community

4) Eight blog posts is not a lot of work

5) Fuck it, hold my nose let’s fucking do it

I hope I wouldn’t.  I mean I REALLY, really hope I’d decline.  But I might just do it, who knows.  Almost anyone can be bought.  It makes me sad for our lovely human race.