…rhymes with “fudge it” [DOT 10/2/20]

…you know, it shouldn’t surprise me…it’s not as though the very language itself isn’t brutalized on the regular by the alleged administration & its adherents, acolytes & lickspittles (both foreign & domestic) but how the fuck do you even call this kind of shit a plan to do anything but serve the misbegotten interests of the undeserving at the cost of a nation’s finances?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/02/09/trump-budget-plan-would-fail-eliminate-deficit-over-10-years-briefing-document-shows/

…that orange ass needs an entirely different kind of perma-tanning

[COMEDY] Richard Pryor – Childhood Ass Beatings

14 years ago today, the world lost a comedy great. Here's one of the hilarious pieces Richard Pryor left us…More funny videos at Jinx Yeo Comedy

Posted by Jinx Yeo Comedy on Tuesday, December 10, 2019
ugh…facebook…but I really wanted that clip so fuck google for not giving it up from someplace else

…& while we’re lining folks up for much deserved old school ass-whuppin’s…& with thanks (doesn’t seem like the right word but near enough) to Earendil the Mariner for dropping off the link…so I’ll give you their pull-quote, too…here’s another butt-load of candidates

Clearview AI Wants To Sell Its Facial Recognition Software To Authoritarian Regimes Around The World

As legal pressures and US lawmaker scrutiny mounts, Clearview AI, the facial recognition company that claims to have a database of more than 3 billion photos scraped from websites and social media, is looking to grow around the world.

A document obtained via a public records request reveals that Clearview has been touting a “rapid international expansion” to prospective clients using a map that highlights how it either has expanded, or plans to expand, to at least 22 more countries, some of which have committed human rights abuses.

The document, part of a presentation given to the North Miami Beach Police Department in November 2019, includes the United Arab Emirates, a country historically hostile to political dissidents, and Qatar and Singapore, the penal codes of which criminalize homosexuality. …

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/carolinehaskins1/clearview-ai-facial-recognition-authoritarian-regimes-22

…& this might not mean a whole lot to folks stateside but to anyone with any familiarity with the IRA that was the IRA before the Russians had an IRA…hell, before there was an internet to be in need of a not-a-real-research-agency laying down a disinformation superhighway…this may be the craziest thing yet to get spun off of Boris “Bloody Stupid” Johnson’s signature fuckup

Sinn Féin to try to form ruling coalition after Irish election success

that shit ain’t old news to everyone, folks…

…so here’s a few things to catch you up on quite how badly old blighty’s fucked before we return to our regularly scheduled hellscape popcorn gallery fun & games

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/feb/06/inside-the-mind-of-dominic-cummings-brexit-boris-johnson-conservatives

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/09/johnson-spaffing-politicians

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/feb/09/brexit-crisis-not-opportunity-see-that-too-late

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/feb/10/health-alliance-warns-brexit-can-leave-uk-exposed-to-global-outbreaks

…to be fair, though…it isn’t quite wall-to-wall fuckups in every direction, I suppose

https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/evangelist-franklin-graham-scrambles-rebook-tour-after-all-u-k-n1132771

…but from a distance it’s an easy mistake to make

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/08/fears-over-sale-anonymous-nhs-patient-data

…& speaking of mistakes that are apparently easy to make & potentially endanger the lives of millions of people

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/08/misinformation-coronavirus-contagious-infections

…seriously folks…being amongst the smartest isn’t an advantage if you only get that way by making everyone else too dumb to function…we owe it to ourselves & one another to have everybody be better about this shit…because let’s face it…it’s not like we can trust the politicians to have a handle on shit now, can we?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/feb/06/jared-kushner-nato-sinking-in-the-swamp

Trump impeachment trial: Is US politics beyond the point of repair?

…or “the fake news media”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/fox-news-internal-document-bashes-john-solomon-joe-digenova-and-rudy-giuliani-for-spreading-disinformation

https://www.theguardian.com/media/commentisfree/2020/feb/09/the-new-york-timess-success-lays-bare-the-medias-disastrous-state

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/07/big-swinging-brains-fashy-trolls-clickbait-death-spiral-internet-media

…so, you know, this sounds great

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/is-economic-growth-limited-to-2-percent/2020/02/09/story.html

…& this isn’t a worrying development at all

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/09/bill-gates-orders-500m-hydrogen-powered-superyacht

but, hey – if it doesn’t work out I’ll be on my fucking enormous don’t-call-it-an-ark…
yeah, it’s that kinda monday…
that’s right…monday…motherfucking monday…gonna be a long week, folks…
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18 Comments

  1. When it rains, it pours.

    This weekend I actually went to the gym twice (even leg day) and I’m aching from the workout. Last night, I went off to work night shift (ah the joys of a rotating shift job). This morning, I come home to shovel 10cm of wet sloppy snow off my driveway.

    I barely have the strength to type/bitch about this.

  2. “being amongst the smartest isn’t an advantage if you only get that way by making everyone else too dumb to function”

    This is a little tangential to your point, but I don’t understand why Americans – even ones who aren’t power-hungry monsters – are not interested in funding the education of kids that aren’t their own. Like, is it not frustrating to be out in the world and need things from dumb people?! Is it not frustrating they vote?!

    • That’s because our entire culture is all about “bootstrapping” and “working hard and playing by the rules”. It is most certainly NOT about “socialism” and “godless commies”. If you’re poor, that’s because you deserve to be poor because you didn’t work hard enough. It’s absolutely not because you were born poor, and were given zero opportunities to live a better life because all the poors you grew up around were likewise screwed.

      Good education is for those who can afford private schooling because they’re better than you.

      • …I’m pretty sure both you & HelloAmerica are singing from the same hymn sheet I was looking at, there…the degree of stupidity required to think that deliberately seeding, encouraging & even inculcating ignorance in a broad swathe of a population is “smart” because it can be parlayed into a tactical electoral advantage when literally taken advantage of & generally helps to defray costs the rest of the time by letting you rip those same people off every way you can think of & deny them redress for…it’s not unique to America (just look at Brexit…or Hungary or…well…Russia or China or North-freaking-Korea) but the States certainly seem to be making a play for the title…?

          • Edit, a higher *consistent* R.O.I., there ARE occasional outliers which may have a 1-2/a few years, occasional, higher ROI, but High-quality Early Childhood ed yields anywhere from a $7.00-12.00 return for EVERY.SINGLE.DOLLAR invested.

            • That can’t be right. Republicans keep telling me that public education is a waste of money and resources and that we’re much better off giving as much money as possible to corporations and rich people so they can bestow us their largess via trickle down. It’s going to work…any time now…they promised…

            • …preach

              …it pays off for all concerned (& the rest of us by extension) so handsomely that it is literally insane that any political pitch to run the show doesn’t promise to throw money at good education provided early & as often as possible for as long as you can keep a kid in classes for as near to every kid as can be managed

              …there may not be a better investment?

              • One which is comparable/a branch of the same tree:

                EIDBI–
                https://www.dhs.state.mn.us/main/idcplg?IdcService=GET_DYNAMIC_CONVERSION&RevisionSelectionMethod=LatestReleased&dDocName=DHS16_195658

                From the link, “Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention (EIDBI) services offer medically necessary treatment to people under the age of 21 on Medical Assistance (MA) with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) or related conditions.

                The purpose of the EIDBI benefit is to:

                • Educate, train and support parents and families of people with ASD and related conditions
                • Promote people’s independence and participation in family, school and community life
                • Improve long-term outcomes and quality of life for people and their families”

                Basically, 3-4 years ago, the state decided (based partly on the Rolnick & Grunewald Minneapolis Federal Reserve paper) to go ALL-in, on early Autism intervention.

                And, frankly, as someone who used to work directly in that field**, I think it’s some of the smartest damn money we’re spending.

                Early intervention (EI) is DAMN expensive.

                EI day-treatment is billed at about $300/hr, and kids in it typically spend 2.75 hours ×5 days a week there. Family therapy, PCIT (Parent-Child Interaction Therapy), Feeding Therapy, Occupational Therapy, and Speech Therapy are ALL billed *separately,* but most kiddos & their families get those supports in addition to day treatment–which is basically a REALLY intensive, 1:1 or even .75-ish:1 ratioed classroom setting (1 or more than 1 adult in the room *per child*).
                We worked with one kiddo each session, on EVERY aspect of development, fine motor, gross motor, cognitive skills, social-emotional skills, communication, etc. And YEAH, it costs a shit-ton. Between Day Treatment and the additional services, it ran about $200,000-$250,000 per year, per child. Times that by 4 years,which MANY of the kiddos can do at our program, from age 2-6, and YES, it’s around a million bucks per kid.

                HELLA expensive.

                But when you see a child going from 95-100% unable to communicate, with no verbal language (other than grunts or screams when upset & giggles & verbal outbursts when happy), to TALKING, with words, in a *minimum* of 3-4 word sentences, and that’s *before* they go off to Kindergarten, where they’ll keep on expanding their skills, it starts to look better. Especially since they’re learning all the OTHER life skills they’re gonna need, too–bathrooming, washing hands/other hygiene, dressing themselves, etc.

                I worked in the “hardest” day treatment rooms, where the kiddos had zero functional language/ communication, zero interpersonal skills, and sometimes had zero awareness of *anything*/anyone outside their own bodies. My kids were AWESOME, but the autism wall they were stuck behind was about a mile high, and a hundred yards+ thick.

                My job? To find the holes in the castle walls, get to be friends with the kiddo inside the castle, and eventually to lead them outside the castle walls to meet the rest of the world outside.

                It’s slow, hard, work. But with literally only a handful of exceptions, at that job (some of whom went on to ABA therapy), ALL of my kiddos left our room able to communicate. Most using words & those–at minimum– 3-4word sentences. We had kids come in SILENT, who ended up leaving with the ability to talk your ear off (one kiddo in particular, NEVER stopped talking😉 I learned after he went on to Kindergarten, that he’d started the program 100% mute🤣🤣🤣).

                Thing is, when we did our jobs right, that Million-ish bucks that got spent meant that *these* kids were headed out into a world where they’re gonna FUNCTION in society. They’ll be able to get jobs, yes, *some* of them may end up in supportive housing, but most will need only minor levels of help as adults.

                What most of them WON’T need is to live in 24-hour nursing/supervised care, which costs on average $200,000 per year, from age 18-death.

                So that 1M, spent in early childhood, over those 4 years, is a HELL of a lot less than the 12.4M it would cost to put them up in residential treatment/housing (think group homes, etc.) From age 18-80. (200K/yr×62 years).

                1 million bucks *is* expensive. But it’s a HELL of an investment, when you’d most likely otherwise end up spending 10-12+ million, *per* person over their lifetime.🤨😉💖

                Again, though, it’s that 7:1, or 10:1, or 12:1 return, just *this* time, on money saved.

                (**as a pre-K, school paraprofessional, my job still gets some EIDBI funds, but that’s not necessarily our largest source)

                PCIT:
                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parent%E2%80%93child_interaction_therapy

                • …you…& I can not stress this enough…absolutely rock

                  …I’ve known at least a couple of kids who are somewhere far enough along the spectrum that there’s not much question about it & that’s a job almost as hard to do as it is worth doing for which you deserve some praise to go along with what I assume must be a fair degree of satisfaction

                  …so in several senses, thanks for that

      • And these crazy prosperity gospel evangelicals also think poverty is God’s judgement. If you’re poor it’s because you’re a sinner, or not faithful/praying/tithing enough.

    • …the phrase “I just can’t even” is perhaps overused online & it’s entirely possible that I’m alone in assuming the implied phrase continues “begin to” but I can’t even begin to respond to that

      …I tried but then I realized I wasn’t anywhere near the end & cut&pasted the whole thing into what I guess just became tomorrow’s DOT?

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