Tales from the Crypt: Issue #1

CONTEXT

I sense fatigue with posts that keep bashing the GOP, Christian nationalism and brass knuckles capitalism. So, I'll occasionally post a bit or two from radical right websites to convey the flavor and aroma that drives the radical right’s ruthless push to make America a corrupt, brutal, immoral tyranny-theocracy again. These crypt tales are intended to give us glimpses of what the radical right sees, says, thinks and believes.

From the Crypt: Useless vaccines and sanctions

This bit of darkness comes from the American Thinker, which is one of the more hard edged sites out there. It banned me back in 2016 before Trump and the GOP stole the election from voters and the constitution. 

This screed provides the public with a twofer gut punch to inconvenient truth and good faith rhetoric. Not only have COVID vaccines allegedly been useless, but so have Russian sanctions. The AT writes:

Russian Sanctions Have Proved as Useless as COVID Vaccines

 

In teasing an imminent re-election announcement from President Braindead, pretend medical doctor Jill Biden recently bragged that her husband had "brought us out of the chaos." Brought us out of the chaos? Both inflation and illegal immigration are out of control, Americans' financial security is in tatters, forced "vaccinations" did nothing to curb COVID, and we're closer to WWIII than ever before. If this is Slow Joe's idea of "smooth sailing," then nuclear Armageddon is nothing but "a bit of a rough patch."

Just what do Jill and her Marxist mavens smoke that so twists their noggins into thinking that the nation is in better shape since they took control of D.C. behind barbed-wire fences, sandbag barricades, and military troops? Under President Trump — the guy they call "chaos" — the economy was roaring, America was energy independent, blue-collar jobs were returning, a border wall was being built, the U.S. was maneuvering around China to engage North Korea directly, Russia was not invading foreign territories, historic peace between Israel and her Muslim neighbors was breaking out, and the White House had refrained from starting any new wars. The years between Trump's inauguration and the release of the "Chinese Flu" biological weapon were the most prosperous and tranquil in quite some time — unless you felt perpetually "triggered" by truthful "mean tweets."  

.... long screed full of lies, slanders, hypocrisy, crackpottery, hate, rage, etc. ....

If Biden's COVID policies have broken the U.S. Constitution, his Russia policies have helped break the world. That's an awful lot of destruction for a confused man who struggles to form sentences, control his temper, or remember names.

Here's a couple of comments:

I can tell you why they think they are succeeding. The whole point of Progressive/Marxism is to destroy America. That's their goal and they are doing it. Don't be delusional about who we are dealing with or think there's some way we can work through this by discussing it rationally.

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This entire administration, is based upon a Cloward-Piven strategy, which is all about creating chaos, in order to achieve their goals. Our southern border is a prime example of this.

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Well, that was refreshing. Gotta take a shower now.  

Q: Is it useful to get occasional exposure to the flavor and aroma of what the radical right sees, says, thinks and believes, or do we already know and don't need the darkness?

News bits: Funding the CFBP; Update on the Christian war against transgender people

The Supreme Court is considering a case about the constitutionality of how the CFPB (Consumer Finance Protection Bureau) is funded. The constitution’s appropriation clause says this: 

Article I, Section 9, Clause 7: No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; ....

The radical right 5th Circuit federal appeals court held that the funding mechanism for the CFPB violated the Constitution because it receives funding through the Federal Reserve, rather than appropriations legislation passed by Congress as the radical right argues is required by law.

This case is important because if the Supreme Court sides with the 5th Circuit (~75% chance IMO), not only will the CFPB and its protections for consumers disappear, other federal programs could follow because they are funded about the same way as the CFPB. 

What other programs? Medicare, social security, some other federal financial regulatory agencies, the entire Federal Reserve and some others. That would blow a gigantic hole in the entire safety net and regulatory schemes that have protected consumers for decades.

Just a reminder, the radical right Republican Party and radical right brass knuckles capitalists hate consumer protections, civil liberties, labor protections, safety net spending and the federal government generally. Winning this case would constitute a gigantic step forward for corrupt radical authoritarians.

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Christian nationalists hate transgender people: The WaPo writes about radical right attacks on trans kids in Missouri:

“Daddy, do you think God could make me over again as a boy?”

Rabbi Daniel Bogard had just finished reading a story to his 6-year-old twin daughters one evening in 2019 when the older one by 15 seconds asked that question. Bogard wasn’t sure what to say, so he tucked them into bed, kissed them good night and left.

As the months passed, and the child began asking people to use “boy words” to refer to him, cropping his hair short and joining the boys’ soccer team, the change just seemed to make sense. Friends, family and schoolmates accepted him as a boy, and he flourished.

.... this fateful moment three years later .... the rabbi worried what might lie ahead. Bills “to protect children,” as some Republicans described their measures restricting gender-affirming health care and limiting how schools treat gender identity, have become this year’s rallying cry in this state and elsewhere.

“Our state is at war with our family,” Bogard said. “It’s not an exaggeration that we are up at night talking about when and how far we might have to flee.”

Over 30 bills are that target transgender and non-heterosexual people are pending in the radical right Missouri legislature. The radicals have a supermajority, so there is nothing to stop all of those bills from passing. The scariest bills make it child abuse to support children and teens seeking medical treatment to help them transition to their preferred gender. There are criminal penalties for providers and possibly parents. Similar bills are pending in 11 other states.

Looks like the Bogards are going to have to leave God’s loving embrace. They need some place where God doesn’t hate and punish chosen innocent children and their parents. At least 12 states similarly hate and target transgendered people, so they probably aren’t suitable.

Qs: Has American Christianity become more harmful than beneficial to (1) society, (2) government, and (3) democracy with civil liberties?

Radical right Christian nationalists praying

in 2015 to keep rampaging, raping transgendered  

men out of the lady’s bathroom

2017 data

Is that true everywhere, just some places, 

or no places?

WTF? COPYPASTA? IS this thing for real??

 OK OK, it is bad enough we have to sift through fake news, biased news, partisan news, but now Pasta isn't even sacred?

YEESH!!

16 Misleading (or False) Examples of 'Copypasta' Messages

This type of post asks people to copy, paste and share text — and doesn't always relay the truth.

We often receive emails asking us to fact-check "copypasta" messages going viral online. These are claims that spread by being copied and pasted on Facebook or other social media platforms, and don't always contain facts.

Often, these copypastas will ask to pass along information that otherwise you wouldn't know, or claim to have a solution to a worrisome issue. Ultimately, though, the messages have no other goal than to trick or embarrass the people sharing them.

Here are 16 misleading — or outright false — copypasta messages that have spread across social media since 2020, capturing the attention of Snopes' fact-checkers.

THE LIST HERE:

https://www.snopes.com/list/copypasta-snopes-false-misleading/

AN EXAMPLE:

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One copypasta falsely claimed Kamala Harris was a "marxist by association."

Before the inauguration of U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in January 2021, a popular copypasta alleged she had "Close Ties with Marxists, Communists, Maoists, and Socialists." The false assertion drew on "guilt by association," a logical fallacy that casts people in a negative light by associating them with others considered to have done something wrong. (You can read the full story here.)

News bits: Private sector eminent domain; Voting rights remain under attack; etc.

Ruthless, cruel capitalism: Real estate investors have discovered a new form of eminent domain to force people out of their condominiums. This is important because in recent years investors have been buying an increasing portion of residential properties and then jacking prices up.

The method is fairly simple. Investors buy condos, then takes over the condo board. The board then terminates the condo legal status, changes the rules making it easier to force people out. Then the investor-backed board votes to force people out and screws them in the process by forcing them to accept a price well under market. This is brass knuckles capitalism in action. It is 100% legal. The NYT writes:

An investor-owner took over a condo board, terminated a condo declaration and is now requiring a couple to sell their condo in what one expert called “a private form of eminent domain.”

This puts the Fellmans in a situation that many condo owners are facing: a forced sale. “After that, they basically said, ‘you’re out,’” said Ms. Fellman, 50. “It’s one thing if your property’s being taken for public good. But this is strictly for a private investor’s profit. And it’s like, why does their investment have more value and power than us?”

Mr. Fellman said that the investor, the Pennsylvania-based Scully Company, never gave him a formal offer before the forced termination plan was filed. ....  Since it owned all the other units, it was able to take over majority control of the condo board, and it voted to lower the threshold of owners required to terminate down to 80 percent. Then, in February 2021, the Scully Company voted to terminate the condominium, which meant the Fellmans would be legally obligated to sell their unit to the company.

The appraiser the company hired assessed the Fellmans’ unit at $200,000. But its Zestimate — Zillow’s home value estimate tool which takes into account square footage, location and market trends, among other factors — gives the Fellmans’ condo an approximate worth of $323,500.

There you have it. Brass knuckles capitalism forced the Fellmans out of their home and screwed them by making them accept about $123,500 less than it was worth. That is unregulated capitalism in action. The consumer gets shafted, but capitalists love it. 

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Regarding the radical right Republican Supreme Court’s war on elections and voting rights: NPR writes:

The roots of the next potential U.S. Supreme Court showdown that could further weaken the Voting Rights Act's protections against racial discrimination can be traced to a handful sentences by Justice Neil Gorsuch. This is what Gorsuch wrote in a 2021 Supreme Court case called Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee:

JUSTICE GORSUCH, with whom JUSTICE THOMAS joins, concurring. 

I join the Court’s opinion in full, but flag one thing it does not decide. Our cases have assumed—without deciding— that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 furnishes an implied cause of action under §2. See Mobile v. Bolden, 446 U. S. 55, 60, and n. 8 (1980) (plurality opinion). Lower courts have treated this as an open question. E.g., Washington v. Finlay, 664 F. 2d 913, 926 (CA4 1981). Because no party argues that the plaintiffs lack a cause of action here, and because the existence (or not) of a cause of action does not go to a court’s subject-matter jurisdiction, see Reyes Mata v. Lynch, 576 U. S. 143, 150 (2015), this Court need not and does not address that issue today.

For decades, private individuals and groups, who did not represent the federal government, have filed the majority of Section 2 lawsuits that have stopped state and local governments from minimizing the political power of people of color through the redrawing of voting maps and other steps in the elections process.

But that longstanding practice may be coming to an end.

Gorsuch's paragraph of a concurring opinion, which was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, planted the seeds for an unusual argument that has emerged in an Arkansas redistricting case — that private individuals are not allowed to bring Section 2 lawsuits. And the case may soon find its way before the country's highest court.

This will gut another section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Republicans have hated and chafed under that law ever since it was passed. Gutting voting rights is what authoritarian Republicans mean when they talk about “election integrity.” It means elections rigged so that Republicans win and Democrats lose. 

For context, in a 2013 decision in the case Shelby County v. Holder, the Supreme Court gutted enforcement provisions. Chief Justice Roberts claimed that the situation had changed and red states no longer cheated in elections. That case held that it is unconstitutional to use the coverage formula in Section 4(b) of the Voting Rights Act to determine which jurisdictions are subject to the preclearance requirement of Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Roberts lied, plain and simple. That decision empowered and unleashed the current state of laws designed to subvert and win elections for Republicans in red states. 

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Regarding the radical right Republican Christian nationalism’s war on non-heterosexual rights and free speech: A central dogma of Christian nationalism (CN) is seething hate and condemnation of non-heterosexual people. Non-heterosexual sex is sin. An enraged, vengeful Christian God hates sex sin. The CN movement openly wants to oppress and discriminate against non-heterosexuals and other hated groups. Another dogma target is inconvenient fact, true truth and sound reasoning. LGBTQ Nation writes about a twofer that is being offered up by the radical right CN movement to whack the evil sex sinners and inconvenient free speech:

A Florida Republican introduced a bill that would make it easier for religious people to sue those who call them out as homophobic or transphobic, a bill built on a suggestion from Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).

State Rep. Alex Andrade (R) filed H.B. 991 on Tuesday. The bill would make it easier to sue journalists, publications, or social media users for defamation if they accuse someone of racism, sexism, homophobia, or transphobia. The bill specifically says that publications can’t use truth as a defense when it comes to reporting on people’s anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments by citing the person’s “constitutionally protected religious expression or beliefs” or “a plaintiff’s scientific beliefs.”

Transgender Harvard Law School’s Cyberlaw Clinic instructor Alejandra Caraballo called the bill “absolutely chilling.”

“If someone calls you a faggot or tranny and you say they discriminated against you, they can now sue you for at least $35k and cite their religious beliefs,” she noted on Twitter. “This would apply to the internet as well. This would empower bigots to target the LGBTQ community with impunity.”

“This applies to the internet as well so if the person is in Florida, you could be liable even if you have never stepped foot in Florida.”  

Under current law, someone suing for defamation has to prove that the defamation hurt their reputation, but H.B. 991 would make it so that statements “that the plaintiff has discriminated against another person or group because of their race, sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity constitutes defamation per se.”

Is it just me, or is there an endless supply of radical right authoritarian cranks and crackpots operating in Florida? I guess this means that DeSantis is running for president in 2024. This affords another glimpse of what the radical right would do to democracy and civil liberties if the authoritarians ever get enough power. Of course, that assumes the radical right CN already does not have enough power, i.e., think of the radical right, CN Supreme Court.

Science bits: AI designs new enzymes; A neuroscience advance; Hackers hacking

This one could be a game changer: Since the 1980s humans have been tinkering with changing genes and enzymes to make them work better or differently. Directed evolution is one way to generate new enzymes. Genetic engineering has advanced to the point of being able to engineer humans. Now, artificial intelligence software is starting to design new enzymes. Sci Tech Daily writes: 

A natural language model has jumpstarted the process of protein design by creating active enzymes.

Researchers have developed an AI system that can generate artificial enzymes from scratch. In laboratory experiments, some of these enzymes demonstrated efficacy comparable to natural enzymes, even when their artificially created amino acid sequences greatly deviated from any known natural protein.

The experiment shows that natural language processing, initially created for reading and writing language text, can grasp certain fundamental concepts of biology. The AI program, known as ProGen, was developed by Salesforce Research and employs next-token prediction to construct artificial proteins from amino acid sequences.

Scientists said the new technology could become more powerful than directed evolution, the Nobel-prize-winning protein design technology, and it will energize the 50-year-old field of protein engineering by speeding the development of new proteins that can be used for almost anything from therapeutics to degrading plastic.

“The artificial designs perform much better than designs that were inspired by the evolutionary process,” said James Fraser, Ph.D., professor of bioengineering and therapeutic sciences at the UCSF School of Pharmacy, and an author of the work, which was recently published in Nature Biotechnology. 

“The language model is learning aspects of evolution, but it’s different than the normal evolutionary process,” Fraser said. “We now have the ability to tune the generation of these properties for specific effects. For example, an enzyme that’s incredibly thermostable or likes acidic environments or won’t interact with other proteins.”  

With proteins, the design choices were almost limitless. Lysozymes are small as proteins go, with up to about 300 amino acids. But with 20 possible amino acids, there are an enormous number (20^300 - twenty to the 300th power) of possible combinations. That’s greater than taking all the humans who lived throughout time, multiplied by the number of grains of sand on Earth, multiplied by the number of atoms in the universe. (🥴!)

Given the limitless possibilities, it’s remarkable that the model can so easily generate working enzymes.

This is an area of application for AI that could revolutionize medicine. It's still too early to predict the long-term impacts. Buy my gut tells me this will turn out to be a big deal within the next couple of years. This will play out pretty fast, for better or worse.

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An advance in understanding the brain: Medical Express writes:

For the first time, researchers record long-term electrical activity in a single brain cell

.... scientists need to understand how individual brain cells contribute to a larger network of brain activity and what role each cell plays in shaping behavior and overall health. Until now, it's been difficult to get a clear view of how brain cells in living animals behave over extended periods of time. 

But Jia Liu's group at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) has developed an electronic implant that collected detailed information about brain activity from a single cell of interest for more than a year.

"This research solves a fundamental issue—the challenge of creating a brain-electronic interface that does not disturb brain function or degrade over time," says Liu.

"Maybe one day it's cold and gray outside, and you feel unhappy and in a bad mood. Another day, it's sunny and you're on the beach and you're in a great mood. How those representations change in the brain cannot be studied by current technology because we haven't been able to stably track activity from the same neuron," he says. "This research completely overcomes that limitation. It's the beginning of a new era of neuroscience."

The researchers intend to transmit brain activity in real time from the brain to an artificial neural network in a computer for analysis. Researchers will look at how the mesh nanoelectronic sensors can be used to study phenomena such as "neural representation", which is how the brain generates images we perceive via vision.

This is a significant advance in brain-machine interface technology. At some point, computers and brains will be communicating. That could lead to major knowledge advances in hard to study areas such as consciousness, sentience, and the will to live. 

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Technology is a two-edged sword: As is usual these days, morally rotted people rush in and misuse new technology that was designed to be helpful and good. Mashable writes:

Scammers are spoofing ChatGPT to spread malware

No new product can be called successful online until the scammers show up

ChatGPT has blown up in just a few months' time, becoming the fastest growing app of all time.

So, of course, hackers are already weaponizing the popularity of OpenAI's artificial intelligence chatbot in order to scam internet users.

Cybersecurity researchers have already uncovered hundreds of recently registered(Opens in a new tab) domains utilizing the term "ChatGPT." While not all of these domains will be weaponized for nefarious purposes, some of them already are being used in that way.  

.... as first reported by Bleeping Computer, one such website "chat-gpt-pc.online" attempted
to convince visitors to its page that ChatGPT was offered as a downloadable local application for Windows. Alvieri found that this download would inject users with the RedLine information-stealing malware. Essentially, this malware steals stored information in users' applications, such as their web browser. For example, if a user has Google Chrome store their passwords or credit card information, this malware can pull the data and send it to the hacker. 

Sigh, this is why we have so many bad things these days. 

A very comprehensive look at biased news outlets....

 To quote the author:

COMMENTARY

I spent an incredible amount of time on this article. By far the most I’ve ever done for a single piece.

The constant anger, arguments, and contempt we see in our everyday lives spurred me on to gather and analyze this dataset.

And yet, I find myself now with even more questions than I was able to answer in creating this article.

• How can we stop such bias from infecting the national discourse?
• Where is the line between allowing propaganda to permeate freely versus free speech? Is this an absolute argument, or can we somehow find a line to discern the truth from fiction?
• Can we please stop listening to tinfoil hat-wearing maniacs?

As you can see from some of the data above, there are many sites that are clearly spreading false information, opinion, and extremism.

This does not bring us together.

It leads to us doubting our neighbors, our friends, our parents, and other important people in our lives.

Eternal distrust.

You can’t believe what you hear.

Every man for himself.

It seems that many people these days, mistakenly in my opinion, search for sources based on what they already want to hear.

They look for articles to confirm their suspicions. Their thoughts and feelings.

Right or left, it doesn’t matter. If you search on Google for something to back up your feeling on a subject (regardless of truth) — you will find it.

There’s an article for everything now.

Opinions being added to the news cycle has corrupted the impartiality of it.

This is not how we come together as a world, as a nation.

We must be better than this.

It’s my belief that many of these websites, their owners, and their anchors are one of the largest absolute causes of anger in the world today.

Be better, people.

I’ll close off by stating my most nagging thought after conducting this extensive exercise — I couldn’t wait to clear my browser cookies fast enough.

J.J. Pryor

https://threwthelookingglass.com/how-biased-is-news/

Talk about dissecting what is and isn't trustworthy news. The above link is very comprehensive and a time consuming read. I love the thoroughness though. 

The article starts out with a challenge:

“I challenge anybody to show me an example of bias in Fox News Channel.”

Challenge accepted.

You will have to read the rest of the analysis at your leisure. 😏