Dr. Johnathan Flowers, Blade Wielding Bisexual (Lordean arc)

“I’m gahtdamn Mr. Terrific! I don’t need your help.”

You bet your ASS I cheered at this line. Hell yes.

I will have much more to say later.

“Perfect comic movies don’t exist.”

Superman: hold my beer. Please, if you would. Also, I’m not perfect, I make mistakes…

Superman might be the single best representation of what Superman should and can be in modernity.

Nothing else comes close, except maybe Superman: the Animated series.

ChatGPT dissidents, the students who refuse to use AI: ‘I couldn’t remember the last time I had written something by myself’ Some college students are beginning to limit their use of artificial intelligence, so as not to hinder their own creativity, discipline and critical thinking

Weird. This doesn’t match what I’ve been told—that students are going to use it no matter what.

Finally, for my part, I grew up to be a goddamned liberal swordsman college professor and I still have a preferred firearm and the desire to own one. And I live in California.

The idea that firearm ownership is a predominantly white, right-wing thing needs to die a fiery death.

Not to put too fine a point on it, my solidly middle-class family held this as a virtue through my father. My uncles were all deep blue Democrats and regularly fought tooth and nail against what they viewed as problematic Democratic gun control issues.

When you consider that Texas has both a significant culture of firearm ownership and a significant Black population, it is not so uncommon to see "come and take it" as a progressive starting point. Further, this STILL is common among Black households across demographics.

Groups like the Panthers and the Nation of Islam used to conduct firearm safety trainings regularly in the name of community defense. As an example of the political weight of this, X's "the Ballot or the Bullet" was backed up by an organized push to ensure that many folks had firearm training.

The NRA used to (and might still) have a significant Black membership and it even made thorough attempts at outreach to Black communities. Why? To paraphrase Ida B. Wells, a firearm offered a kind of security that the law was unwilling to provide. This is before the constitutional rights of it all.

This is not so strange if you think about it.

Historically, one of the core "progressive issues" for Black folks used to be firearm ownership. For about a good 100 years, Black politicians would REGULARLY advocate on behalf of what we might consider "loose" gun control laws.

IT'S GOOD UNION NEWS MONDAY!!!

AI and Fraternity, Abeba Birhane, AI Accountability Lab I envision a future where human dignity, justice, peace, kindness, care, respect, accountability, and rights and freedoms serve as the north stars that guide AI development and use. Realising these ideals can’t happen without intentional tireless work, dialogues, and confrontations of ugly realities – even if they are uncomfortable to deal with. This starts with deciphering hype from reality. Pervasive narratives portray AI as a magical, fully autonomous entity approaching a God-like omnipotence and omniscience. In reality, audits of AI systems reveal a consistent failure to deliver on grandiose promises and suffer from all kinds of shortcomings, issues often swept under the rug. AI in general, and GenAI in particular, encodes and exacerbates historical stereotypes, entrenches harmful societal norms, and amplifies injustice. A robust body of evidence demonstrates that — from hiring, welfare allocation, medical care allocation to anything in between — deployment of AI is widening inequity, disproportionately impacting people at the margins of society and concentrating power and influence in the hands of few. Major actors—including Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and OpenAI—have willingly aligned with authoritarian regimes and proactively abandoned their pledges to fact-check, prevent misinformation, respect diversity and equity, refrain from using AI for weapons development, while retaliating against critique. The aforementioned vision can’t and won’t happen without confrontation of these uncomfortable facts. This is precisely why we need active resistance and refusal of unreliable and harmful AI systems; clearly laid out regulation and enforcement; and shepherding of the AI industry towards transparency and accountability of responsible bodies. "Machine agency" must be in service of human agency and empowerment, a coexistence that isn't a continuation of modern tech corporations’ inequality-widening,

so I am one of the 12 people (including the “god-fathers of AI”) that will be at the Vatican this September for a two full-day working group on the Future of AI

here is my Vatican approved short provocation on 'AI and Fraternity' for the working group

Stop payment processors from censoring games!

Hey, it would mean so much to me if y'all kept up the pressure with phone calls to payment processors to show to them how much people care and that they can't just ignore it—my livelihood depends on adult games not being censored!

You can find info and phone scripts here: stop-paypros.neocities.org

MIDDLETON is up to layout SENATE BILL 7, "The Texas Women's Privacy Act."

"It restores the sex-based boundaries that we have had for generations.... and restores biblical truth."

Google’s healthcare AI made up a body part — what happens when doctors don’t notice? The basilar ganglia does not exist.

NEW: Google dubbed an error from its healthcare AI model, Med-Gemini, a typo. Experts say it demonstrates the risks of AI in medicine.
www.theverge.com/health/71804...

Example 32: requiring a commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion University A requires all candidates for academic promotion to submit a 500-word statement of evidence of commitment to equality (or equity), diversity and inclusion (EDI). Depending on the circumstances, this requirement may be restricting the lawful expression of certain viewpoints. For instance, a lecturer might be sceptical of some aspects of EDI and may be deterred from applying for promotion, or may be refused promotion, as a result. Removing this requirement from promotion processes is then likely to be a reasonably practicable step that University A should now take.

One material consequence of this legislation is removing all university EDI commitments because it *may* deter a *possible* professor that is for inequality, against diversity, and champions exclusion, from applying for promotion

All major Las Vegas Strip casinos are now unionized in historic labor victory The Culinary Workers Union representing 60,000 hospitality workers in Nevada has achieved a historic victory on the Las Vegas Strip.

The Culinary Workers Union representing 60,000 hospitality workers in Nevada has achieved a historic victory on the Las Vegas Strip. For the first time in its 90-year history, all major casinos on the Strip are unionized.

I am so sick of this shit. Keep pushing people out of their goddam jobs with subpar "AI" integrations but still expecting those same people to somehow stay paying into fucking capitalism to buy the, again, increasingly worse "AI"-infused shit. I hate it so much.

Texas House Democrats offer a brief response to Gov. Greg Abbott's threat of arrest and expulsion: "Come and take it."

Meet the Gen Zers who have sworn off AI — and ask their friends to do the same Some Gen Zers are firmly rejecting AI tools in their daily lives. We talked to four people, ages 23-27, who explained why they won't touch the tech.

🫡

the history of the united states is of consistently *almost* meeting moments of crisis with transformative change, before rapidly backpedaling at the last second. reconstruction was sabotaged, the new deal didn't go far enough, and racial integration was never finished. ours is a history of failure.

Student journalism, now more than ever, is essential to keeping us informed as to the ongoing fuckery at the institutions in which they are housed.

He doesn’t want to “reduce chronic illnesses,” he wants to reduce people with chronic illnesses

I’ve written about eugenics too and it wouldn’t kill white people to think about how brazen that shit sounds to people of color

Maybe if you’re white, re-read The Bluest Eye before posting about this

It is as if Galactus reconsidered forcing a child to take up his mantle in light of how desperately the Four and his own damn herald fought to preserve Franklin's life. In fact, I'd say Galactus looks almost resigned in the moments before Shalla-Bal rams him.

Finally, I think Galactus lets her make this choice to save Franklin as his glowing eyes "turn off" moments before she rams him into the portal. The only time his eyes "turn off" is when he's burned or when he's resting in his ship, or otherwise injured. That seemed intentional.

And then, her decision at the end of the film can be read as an attempt to gain some measure of recompense for the cost of her choice, especially given the knowing look she shares with Johnny as she makes that decision to rebel against Galactus.