vxbush 3/19/2025 5:51:32 AM

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I'm honestly starting to think that Chuck Schumer has no idea what he sounds like. He's lived in an echo chamber so long, he has no idea what comes out of his mouth. He went to the View (which right there tells you so much about what he thinks "mainstream TV show" is) and stated,  “We are united in going after Trump and showing the American people that he is making the middle class pay for the taxes on the rich.” Whaaaaa??? Is this trickle-up taxing? Has he even considered that regular people can go look up Trump's tax proposals and find tools that will help them estimate what their new taxes would be? 

Then he had the gall to say this: “And you know what their [Americans'] attitude is? ‘I made my money all by myself, how dare your government take my money from me? I don’t want to pay taxes.’ Or ‘I built my company with my bare hands, how dare your government tell me how I should treat my customers, the land and water that I own or my employees?’ They hate government, government’s a barrier to people, a barrier to stop them from doing things, they want to destroy it, we are not letting them do it and we’re united.”

Wow. 

The article is useful as well for going back to 1837 to look at what John Calhoun said then to see how Democrats spoke of slavery then--and see how this thought process of entitlement continues today.

vxbush 3/19/2025 5:59:45 AM

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Do you remember the "Feeding our Future" organization in Minnesota who claimed they were going to supply foods to kids during COVID who wouldn't otherwise get meals from schools? Back in 2022, 70 members were charged with several counts of fraud involving millions of dollars. 

During a trial in 2024, they tried to bribe a jury member for $120,000. 

Now the top people in this scheme are at trial, and it's getting interesting. One little thing tucked away in this article is that the state of Minnesota tried to cut this organization off, and they filed a motion in federal court, who told the state to keep paying them anyway.

Dozens of people have pled guilty, millions have been lost, and still 28 more are waiting for trial. 

And... the Democrats think people don't like DOGE. 

vxbush 3/19/2025 6:01:57 AM

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CCP fingers everywhere....

Senate Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) caucus chair Joni Ernst wants the Department of Defense to ax contracts with a very sketchy company.

New York-based S&L Aerospace Metals LLC, according to a letter Ernst shared with The Daily Caller News Foundation (DCNF), received no less than $60 million in taxpayer funds via defense contracts and subcontracts. S&L was to produce parts for the DOD for fighter jets, attack helicopters, small arms, and also guided missile launchers. 

But it turns out that the CEO and owner of this company, Jerry Wang, is an active Chinese Communist Party member in multiple CCP influence and Intel organizations. 

How much do you want to bet that security information on the projects he worked on landed in China? 

vxbush 3/19/2025 6:04:54 AM

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vxbush 3/19/2025 6:08:29 AM

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vxbush 3/19/2025 6:13:18 AM

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Who's ready to go to the National Archives and read through all the unreacted JFK files? They aren't all posted yet, and there are around 80,000 pages of material according to that article. Per the Archives, the records collection about the assassination has more than 6 million pages in it. 

Will there be any big shockers? Will it be a dud? The theory is that records pertaining to "national security" were held back. If something is still a national security concern 60 years later, I have to wonder about the sclerotic process of updating our security profile in light of all the technological advanced over that time. 

vxbush 3/19/2025 6:14:24 AM

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vxbush 3/19/2025 6:17:44 AM

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How crazy are some of these leftists? This crazy.....destroy all society. 

vxbush 3/19/2025 6:19:13 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 8:

This account is connected to the anti-Israel protests at Columbia. 

vxbush 3/19/2025 6:23:28 AM

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This article is mostly about JD Vance's wife and what she did during a dinner, but I'm more interested in what the tech CEO said back in 2017 about AI: 

Vance detailed a dinner event he and his wife Usha had in 2017 with a powerful group of Silicon Valley business leaders where they talked about the societal concerns of replacing workers with artificial intelligence.

One of the wealthy CEOs, Vance recalled, told him that he was not worried about putting people out of work, asserting that they would find a new sense of purpose through 'digital fully immersive gaming.'

[...]

'My wife texted me under the table and said, "We have to get the hell out of here, these people are f-ing crazy,"' he continued.

These people clearly don't have any clue how things come to exist. And they also clearly don't get that people need purpose in life. While many people find great purpose in playing games (because they can get a check from YouTube), many people won't. 

Occasional Reader 3/19/2025 6:44:59 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 9:

No surprise there.  Terrorism supporters supporting more terrorism.

JCM 3/19/2025 7:03:53 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 1:

"You didn't build that!" all over again, I saw the clips and Schumky is arrogant and angry.

JCM 3/19/2025 7:08:54 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 7:

Absolutely it should be. Accidental shootings will go down.

I can remember gun clubs supported by JROTC and kids bring rifles to school.

If you run homicide data through a Pareto analysis the majority of homicides are gang related, and that data point rolls back fatherless in the home. 

JCM 3/19/2025 7:10:39 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 8:

Wow! They just figured that out? I've know that was their intent for the longest time.

Occasional Reader 3/19/2025 7:16:45 AM

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Another terror attack against a Tesla dealership:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/teslas-set-fire-molotov-cocktails-shot-las-vegas-attack-rcna196942

JCM 3/19/2025 7:42:51 AM

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Reply to Occasional Reader in 15:

Yesterday, if you don't buy a Tesla you are evil and hate the planet.

Today, if you own a Tesla you are evil and hate democracy.

Occasional Reader 3/19/2025 8:09:43 AM

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Reply to JCM in 16:

There’s certainly irony in the (likely) fact that most of the Tesla owners currently living in fear of being attacked by Leftist thugs for driving their cars are Leftists themselves.

vxbush 3/19/2025 9:19:45 AM

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In #17 Occasional Reader said: There’s certainly irony in the (likely) fact that most of the Tesla owners currently living in fear of being attacked by Leftist thugs for driving their cars are Leftists themselves.

But have they stopped to think about how this just flipped on a dime and is a complete repudiation of the previous position? No? Then they haven't truly awakened from their woke position.

vxbush 3/19/2025 9:26:31 AM

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vxbush 3/19/2025 9:36:01 AM

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Is Mahmoud Khalil a British Spook? He Worked at British Embassy in Beirut – Had Security Clearance – Attended Columbia University’s SIPA School – Linked to CIA

vxbush 3/19/2025 10:03:34 AM

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JCM 3/19/2025 10:40:23 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 21:

I guess Jackson Pollack can't be have copyrights? The creator is gravity?

/s

Couldn't AI be consider a "tool" if the instructions are given by a person? If the AI spontaneously created art I can see the argument.

vxbush 3/19/2025 11:10:18 AM

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In #22 JCM said: Couldn't AI be consider a "tool" if the instructions are given by a person? If the AI spontaneously created art I can see the argument.

But in that case, wouldn't the programmers of the AI actually be the ones to receive copyright? 

JCM 3/19/2025 11:22:28 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 23:

Share?

Interesting discussion. I tend toward a creator owning their work regardless of the tool.

However AI is an interesting case.

Another example. Photography, the image exists in the world. The camera captures that existing image. Photos are copyrighted.

What if you have AI filter that photo?

All that requires human activity. 

Take work product. If I invent something on company time, using company resource, that invention "belongs" to the company. I am compensated via my contract with salary and bonus for patents.

To my way of thinking the AI belongs to a company, AI solely generated product with no human is "work product" and belongs to the company.

There I solved it and will let the court know they are wrong!

vxbush 3/19/2025 11:49:00 AM

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In #24 JCM said: What if you have AI filter that photo?

Photoshop does this now. Should Photoshop own a portion of the copyright for every image edited using that tool?

JCM 3/19/2025 12:14:55 PM

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Reply to vxbush in 25:

Let me buy Adobe stock before you do that?

Did you see the backlash when Adobe change their use agreement so they could use customers images royalty free?

buzzsawmonkey 3/19/2025 1:02:20 PM

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In #24 JCM said: Another example. Photography, the image exists in the world. The camera captures that existing image. Photos are copyrighted.

There were a number of cases on this very issue back in the 19th century, when photography was really taking off.  Initially, the capturing of mere reality by means of a machine was not considered copyrightable---until the 1884 case of Burrow-Giles Lithography v. Sarony, where the court, looking at a picture of Oscar Wilde, recognized that while the camera machine may have been used to "fix" the image,  the many decisions of posing, lighting, etc., did make the image copyrightable.

As a related matter, sometime within the last 10 or 15 years there was a case where an ape or baboon got into an explorer/safari camp and snapped a selfie with a camera it had found. There was subsequently a legal controversy about whether the image was copyrightable and, if so, by whom; my recollection is that it was ruled uncopyrightable because there was no human handling the camera.

JCM 3/19/2025 1:18:11 PM

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Reply to buzzsawmonkey in 27:

IIRC there was some animal rights folks tried to get a side case going to get the baboon recognized as a "person".

buzzsawmonkey 3/19/2025 3:41:27 PM

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Reply to JCM in 28:

I think I saw something about that; IIRC the attempt was not successful.