[Idiots] – INANIMATE CARBON GOD

Cumberland blue

Nice to be able to report that Cumberland City Council undid a bit of stupidity it enacted last week:

A controversial ban on same-sex parenting books at libraries in part of western Sydney has been overturned at a marathon late-night meeting after large crowds of protesters clashed outside the council chambers.
Cumberland city councillors voted 13-2 in front of a crowded public gallery on Wednesday night to revoke the ban, two weeks after it was introduced.
The council’s u-turn followed a widespread backlash and a warning from the NSW government that Cumberland risked losing its library funding.
Councillors narrowly voted on 1 May to “take immediate action to rid same-sex parents books/materials in council’s library service”. During the meeting, the councillor who put forward the motion, former mayor Steve Christou, brandished a book he alleged had received “really disturbing” constituent complaints, saying parents were “distraught” to see the book, A Focus On: Same-Sex Parents by Holly Duhig, displayed on a shelf in the children’s section of the library.
At a fiery meeting on Wednesday, Christou attempted to have same-sex parenting books restricted to the adults’ section of the library.
When that failed, his Our Local Community party colleague Paul Garrard tried to have the same restriction placed just on Duhig’s book.
Ultimately, all but two councillors supported a motion put forward by Labor’s Kun Huang to reverse the ban and ensure all books were catalogued according to national library guidelines, including having Duhig’s book in the junior non-fiction section.
Eddy Sarkis was the only councillor who supported Christou.
Labor councillor Mohamad Hussein, who had voted for the ban originally, changed his vote at the last minute. Hussein declined to comment when asked by journalists why he had changed his mind.

Notably, the 15 council members who voted tonight were more numerous than those who voted for the ban, cos there were only 11 councillors there that time. Almost like Christou, a far-right shit of several years’ standing, was exploiting the other four’s absence to make it easier to push his ban through or something. Anyway, the grand plan came undone and a bit of sense prevailed for once; Christou succeeded in getting drag queen story time events banned at Cumberland libraries despite the fact that none were planned and none had indeed ever happened in the first place, so I quite like seeing him be told to go fuck himself in this fashion.

Shannon Molloy at News, on the other hand, had an interesting take on the affair; after describing a couple of books full of horrors, he makes this “shocking” revelation:

I’m talking about the Bible and the Quran, of course.
If we’re applying Cumberland City councillor Steve Christou’s same logic about what’s appropriate in a library, then surely those holy books have to go too.
Mr Christou’s opposition to a book about kids with two mums or two dads was to prevent the “sexualisation” of children.
The book in question isn’t remotely sexual. It’s about families.
If Mr Christou is really, truly concerned about the welfare of children and saving them from content that’s inappropriate, he mustn’t waste any time.
He should immediately call a vote of the council and push for the removal of the Bible and Quran from Cumberland’s libraries.
To not do so would expose shocking double standards, which I’m sure he doesn’t hold.
Of course, I’m being facetious.
I’m gay, but I’m also a Christian with a deep fondness for the teachings of Christ. I’m in favour of the freedom of religious practice, no matter the brand of one’s faith.
But the metaphor I’ve used here shows how absurd and hypocritical Mr Christou and the council’s book ban is.
It also demonstrates that censorship – which flies in the face of an open and free society and the democratic values we hold dear – is a very slippery slope.

I don’t know why, but I feel like brother Shannon wouldn’t actually be that bothered if the Qur’an did get pulled from libraries…

Anyway, according to Leo Puglisi on Twitter (yes, I KNOW what I said in the last post; I saw this bit earlier before it went to shit), the book in question has apparently been borrowed ONCE in the five or so years that it’s been in the Cumberland library system. It’s so dangerous that hardly anyone’s read it… and, funnily enough, Steve Christou himself had to admit to being among its millions of non-readers. Because OBVIOUSLY. The only thing I worry about in all this is that the silly cunt might look at all this bullshit and decide he needs to up his homophobia game. Or maybe he’ll just go back to racism. I don’t want to say anything more in case I give him ideas.

Jack’s off

It was news to me that Jack Dorsey was still part of Bluesky until a few days ago, cos I could’ve sworn he’d actually left it a while ago (apparently that was just him deleting his account, not leaving the company), but never mind that. He’s out for real now and not just in my fevered imagination, and here’s why, apparently:

Jack Dorsey, the cofounder of Twitter, slammed the board that oversaw the social media firm during his tenure at its helm, saying the group had “always been a problem.”
“I was extremely challenged by my board,” Dorsey said during an interview published Thursday by Mike Solana, the head of marketing for VC firm Founders Fund and editor of digital media brand Pirate Wires.
“The board has always been a problem at that company, and I was happy to see it end,” Dorsey continued. “But there was only one way for it to end, which is going private. And I think that’s the greatest act.” […]
But Dorsey said he was also unhappy with the board because of an activist investor seeking to boot him, he said.
“I didn’t want to be on a board with an activist,” he said. I didn’t want to run a company like that. It’s just a Wall Street mess. It’s not creative, it’s diminishing.”

So now that Twitter is apparently much more like Beardo thought it should be, he’s recommending people use that instead of Bluesky, cos the latter’s become too much like what Twitter actually was:

This tool was designed such that it had, you know, it was a base level protocol. It had a reference app on top. It was designed to be controlled by the people. I think the greatest idea — which we need — is an algorithm store, where you choose how you see all the conversations. But little by little, they started asking Jay and the team for moderation tools, and to kick people off. And unfortunately they followed through with it.
That was the second moment I thought, uh, nope. This is literally repeating all the mistakes we made as a company. This is not a protocol that’s truly decentralized. It’s another app. It’s another app that’s just kind of following in Twitter’s footsteps, but for a different part of the population.

So people being asked not to be cunts on the Internet is the real problem? Of course it is… and I’ve seen a few folks on BS frown at his choice of the words “very common crowd” to describe the people migrating there, which is indeed a somewhat odd phrase I don’t think he explained or expanded on. Were we all not elite enough for him or something?

And fair enough, maybe some people are offering uncharitable interpretations of what he meant, but maybe explain to us why he used the word “common” instead of those others…

Anyway, though he’s boosting Shitter again (it’s “freedom technology”, apparently, as long as Oolong likes you), Jack’s real interest is Nostr. You know, the social network that only crypto bros like Jack seems to be into. I mean, have you ever seen Nostr mentioned in any other context? Cos sure as shit I haven’t. Who uses it? What do people do with it? Why do you never see anyone talking about it or quoting what people have said on it? And who is the guy who invented it? We don’t seem to know anything about him other than that he’s a developer from Brazil in his early 30s who fell in love with Bitcoin after falling in love with Austrian economics. Maybe it’s just me but I’d be hesitant to give millions of dollars to someone whose identity was unverifiable. Still, libertarians gonna liberty, I suppose…

Well that was unexpected

Elon Musk’s Neuralink reports trouble with first human brain chip

I was sceptical a few months ago when the story of Oolong’s first Neuralink chip started circulating, but I suppose if they’re admitting something’s wrong with it then it actually did happen after all…

The first invasive brain chip that Neuralink embedded into a human brain has malfunctioned, with neuron-surveilling threads appearing to have become dislodged from the participant’s brain, the company revealed in a blog post Wednesday.
It’s unclear what caused the threads to become “retracted” from the brain, how many have retracted, or if the displaced threads pose a safety risk. Neuralink, the brain-computer interface startup run by controversial billionaire Elon Musk, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Ars. The company said in its blog post that the problem began in late February, but it has since been able to compensate for the lost data to some extent by modifying its algorithm.

If I’m reading the story correctly, they seem to be mostly worried that the chip isns’t transferring data fast enough to actually be useful in moving cursors on a screen and that sort of thing. I suppose the thinking is “the guy was already a paraplegic so it’s not like we could fuck him up any further”… I mean, it wasn’t a CybertrucKKK they were putting in his brain…

I wonder why

Rudy Giuliani struggles to find an accountant: ‘nobody seems interested’

“Nobody seems interested” in helping Rudy Giuliani meet accounting obligations in his ongoing bankruptcy case, lawyers for the former New York mayor, presidential hopeful and Trump attorney said in a court filing on Tuesday.
“Unfortunately, the debtor originally had an accountant who was helping,” the filing said. “However, he had a change of heart and indicated that he no longer wished to help prepare the monthly operating reports.
“The debtor advised that he has reached out to a number of accounting firms and CPAs seeking their help, however, no one seems interested in taking the assignment.”

I feel it’s not so much that they’re not interested in the job as such, but more that they’re interested in being paid for it, and they don’t trust Rudy to do so so they have enough sense to not get involved… unlike the man himself, who persists in working for Trump despite the latter owing him millions in legal fees.

Less obviously

Elon Musk Asks Fellow Transphobe JK Rowling To Post Other Content

Astonishingly, Oolong is apparently as sick as the rest of us of Mr Galbraith hating trans folks all the time:

Harry Potter author and self-proclaimed TERF JK Rowling has been asked by CEO of X (formerly Twitter) and fellow transphobe Elon Musk to turn the transphobia down a notch.
In response to a lengthy tweet from April that saw Rowling employ much of her usual anti-trans rhetoric, such as invalidating trans identities and touting gender essentialism, Musk decided to step in and personally ask the author if she could perhaps pivot to other topics.
“While I heartily agree with your points regarding sex/gender,” he said, “may I suggest also posting interesting and positive content on other matters?”
Musk’s request is particularly ironic, given his previous attempts to lobby against gender-affirming care and current plans to sue Australia’s ESafety Commission after a request to take down an anti-trans post on his platform.
Rowling is yet to respond to Musk’s request, and though most people would probably pause to reflect if told to scale back the transphobia by Elon Musk, it’s not difficult to imagine Rowling will only be emboldened to quadruple down on her anti-trans rhetoric due to this request.
In fact, in the days since this reply, Rowling has continued to post transphobic content completely undeterred by Musk’s request.

According to The Humanist Report, she did in fact post one non-transphobia thing after making a snarky comment about Musk’s tweet, but does seem to have otherwise carried on business as usual after that. But yeah, when a champion transphobe like Oolong is saying “Jesus fuck, Joanne, can’t you talk about something else for once?”, you’d think she might take a bit more notice than that… but I suppose we’ve known for a while what really matters to her, and it’s not being remembered for the Potter books…

That’s not how you do this…

I’ve seen a fair bit of discourse about how Joe Biden’s presidential chances will be affected by his responses, or lack thereof, to Israel’s ongoing hammering of Palestine, and people saying they won’t vote for him because of that. This, however, goes to a new and even stupider place:

Oy. Let’s break this down. The worst possible election outcome is Trump, right? I think Lena will agree with me there. And if people don’t vote for Biden, that is what they will get. There isn’t a third option. And “burning it all down” is a nice thought, but only if you have something better to build over the ashes. Which, currently, you do not have. You have Biden or Trump; you don’t have a great socialist revolution waiting in the wings to be better than either of them. Again, no third option. And Palestine’s not going to be any better off under Trump. And, frankly, look what Republican governors are doing without a Republican president, then imagine what they’ll get away with if Trump’s running the show.

As for Lena’s rights… well, FUCK her rights if she’s willing to give them up that easily. But it’s not her rights that she’s willing to give up in the interests of taking a firm stand, of course, it’s everyone else’s. It’s a decision she’s willing to make on their behalf. It’s a decision she’s made already, indeed. And if she’s willing to give up her rights in the interests of sending a strongly worded message to Joe Biden, she probably deserves to… it’s the ones who’ll lose their rights without deserving to I’m more worried about.

Oh the irony

Amazing. After introducing laws requiring photo ID at polling booths (which, ironically, he was violently opposed to when he was a journalist two decades earlier; amazing what becoming PM does to you), de Pfeffel forgot to bring his. All he had to do was go home and get it and come back, which he did, but I imagine he was fuming while he did so, cos EVERYONE would’ve known it was him anyway but they had to uphold the rules cos he introduced them. The world political situation is so vile at the moment that I’ll happily take even a small moment of levity from it…

Sad!

Another professional liar looks like going down:

The Gateway Pundit, the notorious far-right blog and prolific publisher of conspiracy theories, said Wednesday that it had filed for bankruptcy protection as it grapples with litigation related to its coverage of the 2020 election.
The move comes as the staunchly pro-Donald Trump website, which promoted the false notion that the 2020 election was stolen by President Joe Biden and his allies, faces multiple lawsuits over its bogus claims.
One of the lawsuits, filed by two former Georgia election workers, Ruby Freeman and Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, accuses The Gateway Pundit of publishing stories that falsely accused them of election fraud, which the pair said prompted a wave of harassment and threats of violence. The judge has rejected several attempts to throw out the case, which is currently in the discovery phase ahead of a potential trial.
Another lawsuit, filed by former Dominion Voting Systems executive Eric Coomer, accuses the outlet of defamation. A Colorado appeals court ruled earlier this month that Coomer’s sweeping case can proceed toward trial against Gateway Pundit and several other prominent defendants.

Heart: not bleeding. Gateway Pundit has a string of bullshit news stories to its (dis)credit and a bunch of lawsuits already behind it as well. Fuck Jim Hoft and his cast of hate-spewing maggots, I won’t miss them if this forces them out of business.