This Week’s News
Is Biden out of touch? (Hint: yes) - As inflation hit a “cumulative 20%” under President Biden’s watch, most of us are keenly aware of it’s impact on prices, especially on groceries and gas prices. This does not appear to be the case with the President who claims American’s have “money to spend” and blamed rising grocery prices on the “greedy corporations” and “shrinkflation.” To make matters worse, Biden has promised to “dramatically raise taxes on small businesses by letting the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act expire in 2025.” Is he worried about the effects of all this on the polls which currently show him at 34% approval for the economy and 29% for inflation? No, because “the polling data has been wrong all along.”
Political Battles
Grocery prices are on the rise in Canada as well and as they continue to rise and as an election (presumably) approaches, politicians begin to look for ways to…I don’t know what to call this…blame the incumbent for society’s problems? Pass the buck to somebody else? With respect to grocery prices, Jagmeet Singh, leader of the left wing NDP (junior partner of the Liberals) has been attempting to put the blame for grocery prices on “greedy capitalist companies” while accusing Pierre Poilievre, leader of the frontrunning Conservative Party, of being in the pocket of the grocery lobbyists. Poilievre, for his part, has refused to go down quietly and is accusing Singh of picking on Loblaws because his brother works for Metro (a different grocery chain). Is it inflation or greed? Or both? I can’t be certain, but I do find it odd that grocery chains are only accused of raising prices due to greed when inflation rises, or an election is on the horizon. I’m sure that Liberal/NDP inflationary policies had nothing to do with it.
It what promises to be a more entertaining battle than Canada’s “who’s deeper in the pockets’ of the lobbyists” debate, Biden and Trump have accept CNN’s invitation to debate on June 27. Will we learn anything we don’t already know? Very doubtful. Could it be absolutely hilarious? Definitely! Will Biden be able to stay awake? What wacky claims will Trump make? You’ll have to tune in to find out. Of course, the entertainment value of the debate will depend on your ability to temporarily forget that one of these gods among men will be the leader of the free world in…counts months on fingers…5 and a bit months. Let’s let the Babylon Bee have the final say.
AI will be our doom! Are we headed for the dystopian future of “The Terminator?” No. “The Matrix?” No. “Wall-E?” Ya, that sounds about right. If anything, AI is less likely to kill us than it is to make us lazier and fatter…just like every other technological advance.
Google has begun to integrate AI answers into its search capabilities promising that it will “do more of the searching for you.” How did they know I was tired of all the work involved in clicking on links and reading? What am I a caveman? And if the side effect is that it kills all the independent online creators how bad will that be? Won’t life be much easier when Google does everything?
If you think looking stuff up is hard, trying to get a date must be exhausting. Relax, Bumble has you covered. Whitney Wolfe Herd (wolf herd? Isn’t it a pack?), the founder of Bumble, imagines a future where your AI dating concierge could go on a date with someone else’s AI dating concierge and report back to you. This would eliminate the hassle of meeting and talking to people.
AI is now being used to create personalized audio messages from political campaigns which don’t even require the participation of the candidate. In this instance a BBC reporter received a call from an AI generated Donald Trump. AI is going to be yuge!
As of May 8th, Biden continues to lead Trump based on bids placed by “investors” but it’s getting closer:
Biden 50 cents (-1)
Trump 49 cents (+2)
Who doesn’t like graphs? I can’t be the only nerd so let’s take a look at the polls before we move on to the only thing that does matter:
How can we be sure who will win without looking at a prediction based on the Electoral College? Not that we’ll be sure before November. Good news, there’s only a little over 5 more months of this!
What I’m Reading
The Treason of the Intellectuals - Niall Ferguson of “The Free Press” examines the similarities between the rise of Nazism in pre-World War II German universities and today’s progressives on American campuses. The racism and “desire for homogeneity and exclusion” were overt in German academia, progressives today “engage in racism in the name of diversity.” He argues that those who naively believe that higher education instills ethical values would likely be surprised to find that university degrees “far from inoculating Germans against Nazism, made them more likely to embrace it” and concludes that the only hope is for universities to once again separate politics from scholarship.
Is it 2016 all over again? – Ruy Teixeira over at “The Liberal Patriot” (yes, I’m becoming a big fan) looks at the upcoming election and Biden’s unpopularity (he’s behind in most polls, in every swing state, and is flailing with respect to the economy and immigration) and wonders if the dynamics at play in 2024 will be the same as those during the 2016 election. My take? By bending over backwards to support issues favored by the progressive wing of the Democratic Party (campus protests, weak/non-existent approaches to illegal immigration, etc.), Biden risks alienate moderate Democrats and losing the election. On the other hand, Trump is his own worst enemy and is more than capable of snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory.
Free for Me but not for Thee – Abigail Shrier of “The Free Press” looks at “free speech” on university campus and finds two standards. While using “the N-word on campus or misgendering a classmate” will be met with swift punishment, pro-Hamas students freely cheer for “intifada” and “certain students are allowed to call for the death of their Jewish classmates.” The conclusion? “[T]here are at least two sets of rules governing elite universities today: one for the favored, protected class; the other for everyone else. And in case anyone has any doubt which category Jewish students fall into, the unwillingness of universities to enforce their own codes of conduct against pro-Hamas protesters in the months since October 7 should disabuse them.” So much for the creation of a “safe, inclusive, supportive, and fair” community.
Non-Political Item of the Week
As break from the political I’ve decided to add this topic to ensure that you get at least one non-political new story or article per week. You’re welcome!
Do smarter people walk faster? Answer: yes, we do so get the h*ll out of our way dummies! “Interestingly, slower walkers displayed lower IQ scores, reduced emotional stability, and weaker motor skills even as toddlers.” There’s a joke here about my siblings but I’m too nice a person to say it.
My Podcast Recommendation(s) of the Week
My steak of non-political (apolitical?) podcast recommendations has come to an end. Nothing lasts forever. This week’s recommendation looks at the sorry state of journalism during the woke panic of the last 8 years or so.
Honestly with Bari Weiss – Nellie Bowles Knows Why So Many Progressives Lost Their Minds—She Almost Did, Too
In this Bari interviews here wife Nellie Bowles, who at one time was both a NY Times reporter and “deeply embedded in the progressive left.” They talk about what happens when you discover that the claims and realities of your movement prove to be at odds and what it’s like “to walk away from a movement that was once central to your identity?”
Addendum
The title of today’s article was a play on “Battle of the Network Stars” which was a televised series of sports competitions in the 70s and 80s involving stars of ABC, CBS, and NBC.
Is a joke funny if you have to explain it? I say yes, and as I’m a fast walker, I’m smart enough to know.
I'm a fast walker & I'd make a comment about my mother, who is not, but I think you get the idea.