Rottcodd

As I just noted on another response, mostly it was that I came up with a delicious turn of phrase and couldn't not post it. And yes, while broadly I think that Google deserves every bit of shit that's thrown their way and more - that they could vanish from the face of the Earth tomorrow and the internet could only benefit - this particular incident really isn't a good example.

I have to admit that I was so pleased with that turn of phrase when it came to me that I went ahead and posted it in spite of the fact that this specific incident doesn't appear to be a good example.

It's really sort of amazing how few years it took to go from "Do no evil" to "Don't even bother pretending not to."

It's cynically amusing that we've reached a point in US history that Supreme Court justices with no integrity don't even bother trying to hide the fact that they have no integrity.

I think that's actually part of the vetting process when a new nominee is chosen. Most of the public focus is on ideology, but that's likely just the first phase of it for the people reviewing possible candidates. It's likely that after they get a pool of candidates who are ideologically acceptable, they actually look for a particular combination of arrogance and an utter lack of integrity, so they can, it is hoped, end up with somebody who will not only be corrupt and dishonest but defiantly and determinedly corrupt and dishonest - somebody who can just be set on whatever path they've been bribed to follow and then set free, and their own egos will take over and keep them on that path.

I propose that the thing that's already looming on the horizon not be called an AI "bubble," but an AI "pimple," not least because it's going to be so satisfying when it pops.

It's safe to assume that one could graph the atrocities committed by the Israeli military, duplicate it, shift it a day or two down the timeline, and one would get the graph of news articles censored by the Israeli military.

When Tom Cotton says "little Gazas," what he means is "little communities of people I reflexively hate and want to see die, and you should hate them and want to see them die too."

Undoubtedly.

And that in no way contradicts, or even really addresses, my point, which is not about overall expenses, but about the distribution of them - the portion that goes to employee wages vs. the portion that goes to executive compensation packages.

They thought by raising wages, owners would cut into their own bottom lines.

I don't think anyone actually thought that.

They're simply making the point that the problem is not the wages paid to the employees, as you imply, but the obscene salaries paid to executives and franchisees.

That the American execurives and franchisees are not going to take the necessary steps to correct that problem pretty much goes without saying, but that doesn't in any way change the fact that that is the problem

TikTok doesn't engage in speech at all. TikTok is s platform on which people engage in speech. Those people include Americans.

So TikTok being legally considered a person or not, having rights or not and so on is irrelevant, since TikTok's nominal rights aren't being violated in the first place. The rights of the Anerican people are the ones that would be violated - they are the ones whose freedom of speech would be restricted.

IANAL but I presume that's the argument they're using - that when they say that it's a violation of the first amendment, what they mean is not that it violates their supposed freedom of speech, but that it violates our inalienable freedom of speech (as it in fact, and obviously, does).

So... aren't these wannabe twitter competitors going about the whole thing bass-ackwards?

I saw a broadly similar article the other day about some sort of shakeup in the Mastodon board of directors.

It's as if they think the way do do an internet startup is to first appoint a board of directors and hire a raft of executives, then... um... you know... um... do some business... kinda... stuff....

Work toward an eventual full withdrawal from NATO and an overt and full political and military alliance with Russia.

I'm not joking.