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6:00 am, April 14th, 2025 - 12 comments
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Open mike is your post.
For announcements, general discussion, whatever you choose.
The usual rules of good behaviour apply (see the Policy).
Step up to the mike …
Luxon on ZB this morning was just a mess IMHO. He feels so incoherent against Peters when we seriously need a unified leadership team. Hipkins is so on point about this right now. Peters in particular advising Luxon not to unify with other world leaders is so dangerously inept he may as well be waving a piece of paper on the airport steps declaiming "Peace in our time".
The crisis is so deep it's making Albanese, Carney, and Starmer look like giant statesmen. Which is some feat.
I sort of covered this here.
https://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-13-04-2025/#comment-2031512
The more recent Winston, the elder statesman still with us. As per Key in opining that Trump would be better for the economy.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/elder%20statesman
Perhaps Key's idea of what makes "the economy" good is (as a former currency trader) a place with plentiful opportunities for unearned income, where speculators can thrive and countries become rich by being financial services hubs and welcome opaque foreign trusts to set up. If so, he may be right about the Trump economy.
When anyone talks about "the economy" we should try to understand what idea they have in their heads about what "the economy" is and what purpose it should serve.
the best people…
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/04/12/linda-mcmahon-a1-instead-of-ai/83059797007/
Any panegyric about AI from an obviously stupid person is all about creating acceptance of an environment where AI is not (and will not be) adequately regulated.
If Trump just replaced his entire Cabinet with AI-empowered androids with the same faces we could probably have better risk mitigation for decisions and a more informed US President.
First thought was that these were video edits but it seems someone has been playing with pedestrian crossing signals..
.
Matt Novak
@paleofuture.bsky.social
It looks like someone has hacked a crosswalk button in Palo Alto to deliver at least two different messages in the voice of Elon Musk. (They are not complimentary)
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4usmserhjqkvhldgedfjb3jw/post/3lmo22lcnk226
Crosswalk buttons along the mid-Peninsula appear to have been hacked, so that when pressed, voices professing to be Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk begin speaking.
Videos taken at locations in Redwood City, Menlo Park and Palo Alto show various messages that begin to play when crosswalk buttons are hit. The voices appear to imitate how Zuckerberg and Musk sound.
https://www.paloaltoonline.com/technology/2025/04/12/silicon-valley-crosswalk-buttons-apparently-hacked-to-imitate-musk-zuckerberg-voices/
If Keir Starmer can nationalise British Steel, why can’t we nationalise the power companies?
So social media seems to think that Trumpy will pass/use the insurrection act on April 20th? To those that follow american politics, what are the chances? Scary stuff.
why the 20th?
The date tRump set in January for secretaries of Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to recommend whether the president should invoke the Insurrection Act.
(b) Within 90 days of the date of this proclamation, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall submit a joint report to the President about the conditions at the southern border of the United States and any recommendations regarding additional actions that may be necessary to obtain complete operational control of the southern border, including whether to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/declaring-a-national-emergency-at-the-southern-border-of-the-united-states/
What scares me is that Dwight seems to think that social media ‘thinks’ and, presumably, ‘feels’. To me, that comes across a bit botty.