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Monday, April 3, 2023

I Can't Believe It's Not Buddha

stilton’s place, stilton, political, humor, conservative, cartoons, jokes, hope n’ change, rambling, Kathy, AI, Trump

It's been a week or so since I've posted anything, mostly because life has simultaneously been busy and boring. I'm not sure how that works either, but trust me on this. So I thought that I'd simply post whatever the heck I've got bouncing through my head at the moment. I was going to call it "Deep Thoughts with Stilton" but then realized that none of my thoughts are particularly deep.

By the way, the AI self-portrait above is in no way representative of how I really look. I certainly weigh too much but don't think I'm quite as inflated as this guy. I asked the computer for "portly" and was instead given "rotund." 

AI is a funny thing, which is perhaps why Elon Musk and other high-tech types are currently warning the world to put further development on immediate hold before it destroys us all. Which is a real possibility, albeit probably not in the way that most of us would have expected. Social media and the (ahem) "news" are all guided by algorithms now. Algorithms designed to ramp up our fears and anger against others and addict us to getting more and more upsetting information. Which is why our country is so divided and angry.

But AI puts those algorithms on steroids (currently growing in what has been called a double-exponential curve) and will be able to tell each and every one of us exactly the most convincing arguments to embrace full-fledged paranoia and enmity of others while developing a heroin-level dependence on whatever the computers (or whoever's running the computers) wants to tell us.  Bonus: any information - audio, video, photo, document, or text - that can be transmitted electronically can be faked easily, instantly, and (quite soon) perfectly. 

So slowing things down on AI development is probably a very good idea...and also the definition of the genie already being out of the cybernetic bottle. 

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On what can't exactly be called the bright side,  Artificial Intelligence could be brought to its imaginary knees by Nonexistent Intelligence if our national power grid fails owing to a natural solar flare (we just recently missed a huge one that would have done the job) or an EMP attack from anyone who can explode a nuke in the stratosphere above our country. We would instantly be thrown back into 1880's technology - no electricity, no gas for cars, no computers, no water systems, no food delivery, no communication, etc. Our nation would go "Lord of the Flies" in about two weeks.

Happily, our grid can be "hardened" for what amounts to flyspeck money in Washington...only no one is making it happen. As a case in point, here's a cartoon and editorial I did about this very subject some 12 years ago. 

Actor Dennis Quaid has just made a documentary about all of this that you can sign up to watch at the website for "Grid Down, Power Up."  Do it now before the story can only be told around campfires!

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In actual good news, I've recently been reading about the poor biologically-female athletes who keep getting crushed in competition against biologically-male "female" athletes and aren't happy about it.  Competing against their hormonally-augmented opponents gives them a tremendous handicap. Which is what inspired me to create a perfect solution for the problem: allow all biological females to compete in the Special Olympics so they can finally start winning medals again.

Granted, this would pretty much be taking a dump on special needs kids, but isn't it still the same reasoning that the Left is already making about biological females? You're welcome, America!

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And say, how about that indictment of Donald Trump? How much of a pisser is that? He's accused of commiting a misdemeanor (falsifying a business record) that has already expired under the statute of limitations. Only the rogue District Attorney has bumped up the charge by claiming that Trump's payment of $130k in hush money to Stormy "Slutzilla" Daniels became an illegal campaign donation, and categorizing it as a "legal expense" therefore becomes (egad!) a criminal act and felony.

Unlike Hillary Clinton, who in the same election paid over one million dollars for the creation of the Steele Dossier, which was definitely a contribution to her campaign, and which was reported (in her falsified records) as "legal expenses." 

So however you look at this mess, Hillary is at least eight times more guilty than Trump and she's not being charged with diddly-squat. Probably because DA Alvin Bragg doesn't want to commit Arkancide.

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I've been working on my taxes and, as is the case almost every year, I'm gaining new insights into why some people end up in bell towers with sniper rifles. I'm a smart-ish guy, college education, successful businessman, and I have a pricey computer program to help me compute my relatively simple taxes. So why is it still frigging impossible?!

One reason is that the tax forms aren't written by Earthlings, or at least not by any with even a rudimentary understanding of English.  A recent breaking point of mine came when reading this question from the IRS (which I'm paraphrasing):

Are you an American or someone who lived outside of the country for more than half of 2022? 
[   ] Yes
[   ] No


Well, I'm an American so I should answer "yes," right? Because if I answer "no" I'll probably lose my citizenship and be deported. Seriously, how am I supposed to answer this?! Would it have killed them to replace "or" with "and/or" so I didn't have to play guessing games in which the prize for getting the answer wrong is a federal fine?! Bastards.

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This past week, a friend of mine posted that he'd stripped the fingerprints from one finger while zesting a lemon on a grater - and it hurt. And because real friends reach out to help in times of trouble, I sent him this inspirational poster. Now we can all feel his pain.

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Speaking of pain, he segued deftly, I've been in less of it recently. Something changed on the one-year anniversary of losing Kathy. I'm certainly not missing her any less, but the grief has become more bearable. I'm not entirely sure why, in part because I don't want to burst the bubble with too much introspection. 

I still haven't made much progress in re-engaging with the world, though on Tuesday I'm going to attend a meeting of our local gardening club. This will hopefully provide a bit of social interaction while gathering advice on how to take care of Kathy's landscaping. 

When she was very ill indeed, she still told me that she thought we needed some Bloomstruck Hydrangea and made me write that down. And this week I found a couple of them at Home Depot! So on Tuesday, I'll give someone at garden club a wonderful straight line when I ask where I should stick them.

Friday, March 24, 2023

Everything Is Vine!

Because we live in a wonderful country, I have access to Amazon's "Vine" program (which you get by either being invited or by floating a big enough bribe). Here's how it works: Amazon posts literally thousands of products that Vine members can order absolutely free in return for writing an honest review of the product.

Or maybe I should say almost absolutely free; at the end of the year, Amazon totals up everything you got and sends a tax form saying that you received that amount as income, meaning you have to pay taxes on everything. Which usually isn't bad, although currently there's an $1800 massage chair on there (really) that I don't even want to pay tax on because it's so spectacularly ugly. It looks like a wrecked VW Beetle covered with Naugahyde and disco lights.

Still, it's fun to occasionally find something I need or just something that seems like it would be fun to own. It's also fun browsing through all of the items and discovering how many absolutely horrible product ideas have actually made it to market. I like to imagine an entrepreneur suddenly sitting bolt upright in bed at 3 a.m. and shaking his wife awake in the dark...

"Honey! I've got it! A million-dollar idea! IT CAN'T FAIL!!!"
(yawning) "Okay...what is it this time?"
"A RUBBER REMOTE CONTROL FOR BABIES TO CHEW ON!"
(long pause, followed by a gunshot)

So just for a little Friday fun, here's a sampling of some of the honest-to-gosh products currently being offered on Amazon Vine and my initial thoughts about them...


Monday, March 20, 2023

The Tale Is Wagging The Dog

stilton’s place, stilton, political, humor, conservative, cartoons, jokes, hope n’ change, Fauci, Covid, Wuhan, Raccoon Dogs, Wet Market

In a recent news story that I'm not going to bother to read, it was reported that so-called "experts" have suddenly - almost magically - discovered records from China claiming that there were some wet market raccoon dogs that tested positive for Covid back in 2020. This is being cited as compelling evidence that Covid somehow originated in these poor, delicious dogs and NOT the nearby Wuhan biological lab that was simultaneously conducting Fauci-funded experiments to create exactly the same lethal virus strains that have since killed millions.

In fairness, this new evidence does make a compelling argument that governmental agencies and scientific experts believe, deeply and sincerely, that we must be effing morons.  

To begin with, faking the racoon dog test results would be preposterously easy to do. Secondly, even if the dogs did have Covid, it was already well established that humans (like, oh, millions of people in China) can pass the virus to dogs and other mammals without the little beasties being required to spontaneously master bio-lab level gene splicing. Additionally, there are still no known examples of raccoon dogs or any other varmints who haven't been exposed to humans testing positive for the Wuhan-strain of Covid.

For this reason, anyone who tells you that Covid came from raccoon dogs is either announcing their own stunning ignorance and naivete, calling you a blithering idiot, or both.

In related news, when Dr. Anthony Fauci was asked to comment on this story, he confirmed that wet market raccoon dogs "taste like Covid-infected chicken."

ARRESTING DEVELOPMENT

Also in the alleged news, it is widely believed that former President Donald Trump will be indicted and arrested on Tuesday, accused of falsifying business records. Oh, not the kind of business records falsified and destroyed by Fauci's Wuhan Lab partners to conceal their liability for holocaust-level mass murder. No, we're talking about Trump potentially mischaracterizing the money paid to porn whore Stormy Daniels to keep her yap shut about having a sexual dalliance with The Don.

Granted, everyone thought this was resolved years ago, back when I was doing cartoons like this...

And this cartoon, after the over-the-hill stripper lost her defamation case against Donald Trump and was ordered to pay all of his legal bills relating to the case...

Frankly, I don't care about Trump's personal life and am tired of the unending harassment he's suffered. Especially when those who are genuinely guilty of crimes go unpunished...