Pun Salad

A good article from Jay Nordlinger, who answers the kiddos who ask him: ‘What Should I Do?’

Jay is an extraordinarily decent guy. And I'm 95% on board with his attitudes toward the current state of conservatism. I won't reproduce his advice in full, but here's his bottom line (and mine):

Also of note:

• "People say believe half of what you see, son; some or none of what you hear." Ah, but in these days of modern times, Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong might go into more detail on their skepticism guidelines. For example, don't necessarily believe what you read in the tech journalism sites. The latest, from Emanuel Maiberg at 404media.co: Ars Technica Pulls Article With AI Fabricated Quotes About AI Generated Article.

  The Conde Nast-owned tech publication Ars Technica has retracted an article that contained fabricated, AI-generated quotes, according to an editor’s note posted to its website.

  “On Friday afternoon, Ars Technica published an article containing fabricated quotations generated by an AI tool and attributed to a source who did not say them. That is a serious failure of our standards. Direct quotations must always reflect what a source actually said,” Ken Fisher, Ars Technica’s editor-in-chief, said in his note. “That this happened at Ars is especially distressing. We have covered the risks of overreliance on AI tools for years, and our written policy reflects those concerns. In this case, fabricated quotations were published in a manner inconsistent with that policy. We have reviewed recent work and have not identified additional issues. At this time, this appears to be an isolated incident.”

  Ironically, the Ars article itself was partially about another AI-generated article.

  Worse: it was something Pun Salad portentiously babbled about just two days ago, where I (perhaps too credulously) took assertions seriously that an autonomous AI bot named "MJ Rathbun" was bullying and blackmailing a human online for rejecting code it had written.

  Key bit from the linked article:

  I saw Shambaugh’s blog on Friday, and reached out both to him and an email address that appears to be associated with the MJ Rathbun Github account, but did not hear back. Like many of the stories coming out of the current frenzy around AI agents, it sounded extraordinary, but given the information that was available online, there’s no way of knowing if MJ Rathbun is actually an AI agent acting autonomously, if it actually wrote a “hit piece,” or if it’s just a human pretending to be an AI.

  Emphasis added.

  Also reporting is Slashdot: Ars Technica's AI Reporter Apologizes For Mistakenly Publishing Fake AI-Generated Quotes. Their story does not mention the possibility that the "AI" could be phony. Their observations are nevertheless amusing:

  Meanwhile, the AI agent that criticized Shambaugh is still active online, blogging about a pull request that forces it to choose between deleting its criticism of Shambaugh or losing access to OpenRouter's API.

  It also regrets characterizing feedback as "positive" for a proposal to change a repo's CSS to Comic Sans for accessibility. (The proposals were later accused of being "coordinated trolling"...)

  I will add an update to my original post, pointing here.

• "Look Around the Poker Table; If You Can’t See the Sucker, You’re It." That famous advice wasn't the headline on the WSJ editorial, but it could have been. Because: You’re Paying 90% of Trump’s Tariffs. (WSJ gifted link)

  No matter how often President Trump insists his tariffs are taxing foreigners to enrich the U.S., economic studies keep showing that Americans actually pay the bill. On Thursday it was the New York Federal Reserve’s turn. In an analysis on the bank’s website, four researchers write that last year “nearly 90 percent of the tariffs’ economic burden fell on U.S. firms and consumers.”

  Since I'm in a quoting mood today, here's one from a dead Commie: "We were waist deep in the Big Muddy And the big fool said to push on."

• If you have to ask, you can't afford it. Eric Boehm asks the musical question: How Much Is Kristi Noem's Alleged Adultery Airplane Costing You?

  Rumors of an affair between Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Trump administration political adviser Corey Lewandowski have been flying for months.

  And all that flying, it turns out, might come with a big price tag for taxpayers.

  The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Noem and Lewandowski have recently been traveling together aboard a luxury Boeing 737 MAX jet that includes a private cabin in the rear. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is "leasing the plane but is in the process of acquiring it for approximately $70 million," the Journal reports, citing people familiar with the plane.

  Lewandowski seems to be kind of a sleaze. But, to be fair, that makes him a good match for Kristi. Latest Daily Beast headline: ICE Barbie Kristi Noem’s Alleged Lover Corey Lewandowski Caught Lusting After Her Body.

• It's fortunate that the Constitution gives him a "Get out of jail free" card. Jonathan Turley writes on Ro Khanna and the Impunity of “Wealthy, Powerful Men”.

  Last year, I wrote a column expressing concerns over the move to release the Epstein files en masse, including grand jury material. The files include a wide range of tangential figures and unsupported allegations common to criminal investigations. Politicians eager to capitalize on the scandal would likely show little concern for the underlying facts in “outing” names and repeating unproven allegations.

  That fear was realized this week with the chest-pounding speech of Rep. Ro Khanna (D., Cal.) on the House floor in which he took credit for outing six “wealthy, powerful men” who he suggested were actively shielded by the DOJ from public exposure. After the DOJ unredacted the names at his request, he read them on the floor. It turns out that four have nothing to do with Epstein.

  Had Khanna made these comments outside of the House floor, he would be looking at four defamation lawsuits. However, Khanna knew the men could not sue him because of the immunity afforded to him under the Constitution’s Speech and Debate Clause.

  Four of the redacted names that Khanna (and Republican Thomas Massie) exposed were just "random people selected years ago for an FBI lineup".

  Kind of a clown show, except not actually funny.