CapitalistImperialistPig

There are two accusations against the comedian/senator: first that he forcibly kissed the woman against her will, and second, that he groped her while she was sleeping and was photographed doing it. The trouble with the first accusation is that his accuser admits that she agreed to be in a skit in which he tried to kiss her, and further, that she agreed, however reluctantly, to rehearse the kiss. This is a gigantic hole in her story of being kissed against her will. Her problem was that she just didn't like the kiss. When you sign up for an acting gig, rehearsal is a an expected consequence, and the time to protest is before, not after. She also reports that she angrily pushed him away. That's not an appropriate way to react to a scene not going exactly the way you expected, and Franken was understandably offended, maybe as much as she was. The second charge, groping, or simulated groping, is more serious, especially because it was photographed. Franken's revenge wa...

Oddly enough, the word axes is reputed to be the only word in English which is the plural of three different English words: ax, axe, and axis. Though I think that it's a stretch to consider ax and axe as different words. Ax and Axis both trace back to Proto-Indo-European words that sounded similar and had their modern meanings, but I'm not sure if they were related. So far as I know, the dwarvish 'Baruk' (Axes) is not related to the Hebrew 'Baruch', בָּרוּךְ, (blessed), which is related to the semitic word knee.

Moore has denied the allegations against him, and his supporters have attacked his accusers. How about lie detector test all around? I don't have that much faith in them, but willingness to take one is often a good indicator.

I've never watched his shows or otherwise been a fan, so the very credible sounding accusations against him didn't surprise and dismay me in the same way learning about Bill Cosby did. It seems that Louis C. K. is connected with practically everybody in comedy, as friend, former writer, or mentor. Is it really possible that none of these people had a clue what was going on? The rumors have been out there for some time, and the victims apparently were telling friends, colleagues, and others long before they were interviewed by the New York Times. I think that Jon Stewart, Jerry Seinfeld, Aziz Ansari and practically every night time host you ever heard of have some explaining to do. So far nearly all of them have kept their silence or been evasive or worse. Louis C. K. was Stephen Colbert's first boss in comedy and so far has been practically the only male to speak out at all. A lot of these creeps are going to escape without any legal consequences, but at least they...

Big wins in Virginia, New Jersey, Maine, and locally, here in Las Cruces. Even the overwhelmingly victorious Republican congressional winner in Utah is a moderate replacing a right-winger.

Kevin Drum opined that real AI is going to take everyone's job, but he thinks real AI is still decades away. Like objects in your mirror, AI that can do your job is closer than most people believe. It may well be that AI with a general intelligence exceeding humans is a few decades away, but the fact is that most jobs in today's world don't really demand that much general intelligence. What they do require is some specialized intelligence, and we already have AI that has proven very good at that sort of thing. Your cab driver, your radiologist, your check out clerk don't actually need to appreciate Shakespeare or the NFL to do their jobs, they just need some knowledge in a specialized area. I think that it's underappreciated that the big thing holding back robots today is not intelligence but sensors and actuators. Humans, and for that matter, ants, are equipped with rich suites of each. Progress in making small sensors has been very rapid, although the speci...

Rand Paul, Senator and opthamologist, purportedly was assaulted by a neighbor, also a physician, in their gated community in Bowling Green Kentucky. The alleged assailant is said to be a pain specialist.