VIDEO: Can you trust AI to answer your questions correctly?

IMHO, Bob Elliott and Ray Goulding, aka "Bob and Ray", were the greatest American broadcast satirists of the 20th century. Their career spanned five decades, most of it in radio in the Boston-New York area, with a few forays into TV.

The duo's format typically satirized the medium in which they were performing, for example conducting radio or television interviews, with off-the-wall dialogue presented in a generally deadpan style as though it were a serious broadcast.

In 1984, Bob and Ray took their act to Broadway, starring in "The Two and Only". Directed by Joseph Hardy, the show was a theatrical celebration of their classic radio and television sketches, featuring iconic parodies, soap opera spoofs, and character interviews. Walt will never forget seeing them live and in-person.

Many of Bob and Ray's skits were prescient, poking fun at institutions, politicians and sacred cows years before the general public realized that those emperors had no clothes. One example was their send-up of the Army-McCarthy hearings. 

Another is this radio interview which aired in the early `60s, in which their award-winning reporter Wally Ballou (Bob) puts to the test the computer invented by Dr Matthew E. Pulcifer (Ray) which its creator said would use previously input information to answer simple questions. This was before the terms "artificial intelligence" or "AI" had been coined. Did it work? Listen and learn.

I have a bad feeling about this...

VIDEO: "Don't 'upgrade' to Windows 11!"

Ed. here. As reported yesterday, Walt bailede on us a couple of days ago. He said he was going to Canada to take the cure, although for what was never specified. I've figured out, though, that our crafty leader didn't want to be here on October 14th, the day that support for Windows 10 officially ended.

Pretty smart, Walt! Final (?) updates have been installing themselves on our PC for two days now, causing chaos in its BIOS and UEFI and everything else. I don't actually know what "BIOS" and "UEFI" mean. What I do know that in the time it took Win10 to boot this morning, I was able to give myself a complete pedicure and darn a pair of socks which my toenails had made holes in.

But I swear by Phil, the Prince of Insufficient Light, that I will not be stampeded into buying a new computer running Windows 11, nor will I try to work my way through one of the many tutorials now appearing on YouTube about how to upgrade your computer to run Win11, even if Microsoft tells you it's incompatible. 

In fact, I might just find some computer geek who can make my PC run Linux, and to heck with Bill Gates and his infernal software. I (and I speak on behalf of Walt, too) refuse to be a slave to Microsoft any longer!

I admit to having been influenced by this video from Rob Braxman, the Internet Privacy Guy. Mr Braxman warns that we are losing our Internet privacy and Internet security every day. Our data is collected with endless permanent data mining. Windows 10 users, he says, are now facing the End-of-Life of their OS since their particular computers have been classified as computer junk by Microsoft. So you may be teased to thinking that it is time to move to Windows 11. Don't!

What alternative is there? Mr Braxman argues that it's time to dump Windows for good. In this video, he reveals the Microsoft plan for your life and how it will own your computer though you're the one who paid for it. And, he warns, they will do everything in their power to prevent you from modifying it. This is certainly worth thinking about -- if not now, the next time it takes your computer 15 minutes to boot Win10. It's not going to get any better!

Footnote: We trust you've noted the backdrop behind Bill Gates in this photo. Yes, folks, it's all part of the plan for the New World Order.

Test your English comprehension

See how long it takes you to decode this excellent pun.

Suzy Smith put on her skates

Upon the ice to frisk.

Her friends all though her slightly mad

Her little *.

Geddit? Ed.

Footnote: When I started looking for a suitable photo by entering "girl skater" in Google's image search window, all I got back was images of girls skateboarding! When I amended the search to "girl ice skater", the first five images to appear were girls of colour.What does that tell you about AI and the biases baked into the big search engines?

Dare we hope that Leo XIV will reverse the "woke revolution"?

Today we're pleased to present a mash-up [How about "Editor's cut"? Ed.] of a recent "Underground" vlog from Remnant TV, featuring our traditional Catholic friend, Michael J. Matt, editor of The Remnant newspaper. If, after you've watched the clips, you want to see the whole thing (run time 41:12), just click on the link.

The video is Mr Matt's response to the election of Pope Leo XIV. Is he a "traditionalist"? (asks Mr Matt) No, he’s not. Will he denounce the revolution of Vatican II? Likely not. So, what hope is there for a reversal -- or at least a halt -- to Francis' attempt to remake Holy Mother Church to conform to the Age of Woke?

Mr Matt lets us hear from a conservative (and non-Catholic) voice, that of Thomas Sowell, an American economist, economic historian, social philosopher, and political commentator. Listen carefully to his concise and precise analysis of what's wrong with the "Church of Francis".

Ed. regrets to advise that Michael Matt has learned that the clip supposedly featuring the voice of Thomas Sowell was a fake -- generated by AI. Mr Matt has deleted it from his video (the one linked above), and Walt has also deleted it from his Rumble account. AI is turning out to be a very dangerous thing. We'll be more careful about reposting videos, and trust that you, dear readers, will keep a healthy sense of skepticism... yes, even about what you see on WWW.

 

In his video, Mr Matt concludes that, yes, there is a glimmer of hope. No counter-revolution in sight yet, but some of the first signs of change portend a change "back to the future". Let us continue to resist.

 As the New York Times article cited by Mr Matt shows, we are starting to win!

One more thing... Mr Matt got a good chuckle out of this item from Saturday Night Live.

Indeed. Catholicism is not like a cafeteria. You can't pick and choose which things you want to be believe and which items of faith or its practice you want to pass over. You have to accept all of the Faith... or none of it. As Saint Ignatius of Loyola said, "What seems to me white, I will believe black if the hierarchical Church so defines."

UPDATED: "Dark times ahead!" warns Canadian Conservative MP

"Welcome to the future of Canada!" So said Michelle Rempel Garner, the Conservative Member of the Canadian Parliament for Calgary Nose Hill (AB). 

In what she herself called a "Cassandra speech" to the House of Commons on December 6th, Ms Rempel Garner warned against the debt crisis caused by unrestrained government spending, and the eneregy crisis caused by the continued importation of oil from hostile foreign powers. (Hello, Saudi Arabia, to name just one!) 

We've heard those arguments before, and the honourable member is right in what she says. But the shocker -- something I'd barely heard of and hadn't considered -- is the threat posed by failure to regulate the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Machines -- computers -- which can think for themselves and speak for themselves are being built right now! 

In her address, Ms Rempel Garner reads a speech which was written by a computer, using software which is freely available (she tells you where to find it) with no more human input than a few words about the topic and position to be taken. Pretty soon, she warns, people will no longer have to think for themselves, and will become mere cyphers, even more useless than predicted by George Orwell and Aldous Huxley in their dystopian novels.

 

Agent 6, who sent us the link to this video (thank you, 6!) calls the speech "very moving [and] passionate... talking of bleak times ahead thanks to Trudeau and Bill C-32.  Haven’t heard many speeches in Parliament like this one during the last seven years."

Bill C-32 is titled "An Act to implement certain provisions of the fall economic statement tabled in Parliament on November 3, 2022 and certain provisions of the budget tabled in Parliament on April 7, 2022". Sounds like pretty dull stuff, but the importance of Ms Rempel Garner's point -- that legislators are failing in their duty to protect Canadians from a very bleak future -- cannot be overemphasized.

Note to American readers: Canada has the misfortune to be ruled by Blackie McBlackface and his gang of venal and incompetent cronies and sycophants. Americans are no better off. For "Canada" and "Blackie McBlackface", please subsitute "The USA" and "Joe Brandon", and try to tell me the same warnings don't apply to you... in spades!

UPDATE ADDED 10/12/22 - Click here for more information about ChatGPT, the scary AI text generator to which Ms Rempel Gardner refers.

Everybody knows that!

I had a dream last night. Not the MLK type of dream of a better world, but a dream of a dystopia -- a state or society in which there is great suffering or injustice, typically one that is totalitarian or post-apocalyptic -- not in the distant future but in the near future... if not tomorrow, then the day after.

But first, a thought about what everybody knows. "Common knowledge" is not confined to members of the human race(s). Creatures of the lesser orders have it too. For example, how do squirrels know when it's time to start gathering their nuts for the winter? How do elephants know where to go when they're about to die? They just know! But we humans don't call that "knowledge". We call it "instinct".

Whatever you call it -- instinct or knowledge or "race memory" -- it's hardwired into all God's critters, including us. How do primitive peoples know not to eat certain kinds of mushrooms? [Some more civilized types seem to have forgotten such things. Ed.]  Why are we suspicious of gypsies? What makes us rotate our tires, because it's the smart thing to do?

OK, that last one was a bit frivolous, but the fact is there are certain things which everyone (or nearly everyone) believes to be true, even when there's no scientific proof. This kind of "common knowledge" even has status in Anglo-American common law, where judges are allowed to admit certain facts without proof, because "everybody knows that."

Now, in the 21st century, humans are trying to collect and systematize common knowledge, and inculcate it in machines... computers... so that one day these machines will be just as smart as we are. 

Or smarter. Able to think for themselves. This is the concept we call "artificial intelligence". My problem with AI is a well-founded skepticism about who's programming the computers with what they consider "common knowledge". What's included? And what's being left out?

Take Wikipedia, for example. Ed. uses it a lot to "fact-check" me when I tell him "Everybody knows that!" Its content is supposedly user-generated, and allegedly user-edited. But there are people -- the California-based [Aha! Ed.] Wikipedia Foundation -- who ultimately decide what is a "fact" and what isn't. 

Check the articles related to American politics and the 2020 election and see if you can find any reference to allegations that the election was rigged and the presidency stolen from Donald Trump in the dead of night. Such allegations may be presented, but in such a fashion that an uninformed reader would think "Everybody knows these allegations are false."

There are certain things which are presented in Wikipedia and the lamestream media as "common knowledge" and therefore unassailable. Before the fall of Communism we used to see this all the time in "news" reports in Pravda (to name just one), which inevitably began "As is well known..." Then came the Lie of the Day.

Which brings me to my dream. In spite of the constant repetition of the liberal orthodoxy, there are some of us who believe other versions of well-known narratives -- "alternate facts", if you will -- and have opinions other than those deemed politically correct by the folks at Wikipedia or the controlled media.

In my dream, I was being pursued by agents of the state -- or should I say the One World -- who wanted me to contribute to the "common knowledge" my particular knowledge of certain events and people. Why? Not so that everyone would know, but so my "errors" could be corrected! 

My pursuers were certain as death and taxes that their version of the "truth" was correct. You could hear it in the way they talked. They spoke the language of political correctness, of "wokeness". (See "Babylon Bee's Guide to Wokeness", WWW 28/10/21.) One of my favourite examples is "racialized communities". I guess you can't say "coloured people" any more, but what in hell does "racialized communities" really mean? It means "non-white and therefore entitled to preferential treatment (and money!) for not being white."

If you think I'm kidding about that, check out President Brandon's American Rescue Plan, part of his $10.4 billion "stimulus package". According to WaPo (the US version of Pravda), about half of that taxpayer money has been earmarked for "disadvantaged farmers", of whom about a quarter are... wait for it... black. 

Only in America, you say? Not so. Check out Canada's Black Entrepreneur Startup Program, funded by the Royal Bank of Canada and the Canuckistan government's Business Development Corporation. All you need to get your nose in this trough is an idea for a business -- hair salon, recording studio, cannabis store -- but you have to be not just "racialized" but Black with a capital B. 

But programs like those are OK, y'see, because everybody knows black folks have been kept down by white colonialists ever since 1619. That's the only reason why the incidence of poverty, crime, single-parent families, welfare dependency etc is higher in black communities than in other "racialized communities", let alone the communities of "white privilege". Everybody knows that!

I went around the Horn there, but to get back to my dream, the purpose of my pursuers was not so much to find out what I knew and what I was thinking as to convince me that what I knew was wrong and that I should "get woke" and embrace the liberal orthodoxy, like everybody else. 

I woke up just before they started pulling out my fingernails, and am glad to say it was only a dream... so far. Consider the words attributed by playwright Robert Bolt to Saint Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons.

Norfolk: Damn it, Thomas, look at those names.... You know those men! Can't you do what I did, and come with us, for fellowship?

More: And when we stand before God, and you are sent to Paradise for doing according to your conscience, and I am damned for not doing according to mine, will you come with me, for fellowship?

Everybody doesn't know everything. Just because almost "everybody knows" something doesn't make it so. Skepticism is a weapon! It deflects spin, propagnda, PR, BS, press agents, publicity seekers, hearsay, unnamed sources and anyone with a hidden agenda. Skepticism is a quality shared by truth-seekers, free thinkers, and realists... not everybody.

VIDEO (Banned on YouTube): "The New Normal" - documentary from America's Frontline Doctors

Agent 6 is one of those who's veen skeptical, from the beginning, about the Covid-19 pandemic. He has forwarded to us this video, "The New Normal", published on the America's Frontline Doctors website. AFD has been accused by the usual suspects -- the liberal one-worlders -- of being "a handful of conspiracy-minded physicians" who believe that the whole point of the Dempanic, is to pave the way for the Great Reset, the beginning of the New World Order. 

According to the controlled media, they are guilty of "spreading misinformation" about a virus which is -- can we be honest here -- nothing more than a new form of the "flu" which has been with us for centuries. That's why YouTube doesn't want you to see this video. But here it is! Running time 53:13.

   

The video sure made a believer out of me! Agent 6's reaction: Maybe there was a good reason why they had us read Brave New World, Animal Farm, and 1984, back in high school days. (That shows you how old Agent 6 -- my contemporary.) 

Nowadays those books are being stricken from high school curricula in many "progressive" school districts. If you've never done so, read them while you can still find them! If you can do so and still trust your government and other elites to do the "right thing" for the good of the people, it's just possible that you've been infected with the "new world virus", beyond hope of a cure.

Comment from Poor Len Canayen: Did you see those clips of police mistreating and arresting people who were demonstrating against forcible vaccination? That's what Max Bernier was talking about! See video "Non à l'implantation d’un passeport sanitaire! / Say No to the Vaccine Passport!" WWW 11/8/21, and "FDR was right about one thing...", WWW 15/8/21. 

Another video worth watching:"'Illegal and unconstitutional' says Prof of Ethics Julie Ponesse", on the Max Bernier Show, 2/8/21.