38 Comments

Regarding the press release...

1 - How can it be a press release if it's not news? Sounded like same-old-same old. 2 - is being disgraced in Tampa really such a bad thing? I'm thinking badge of honor.

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Yes! I think it was Yosemite Sam (but maybe Bugs Bunny). Now I will have to see if I can find a clip on YouTube.

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For those of you now too busy asking DALL·E 2 for baby pictures of Gene and Pat in diapers or a velvet painting of them as dogs playing poker, you may have missed the news that the latest iteration of chatbot ChatGPT (recently released v.4) has passed a bar exam (as well as the LSAT and the SAT) with flying colors. Since the former Pretender to the Presidency is running out of lawyers (who expect to be paid, in any event), could ChatGPT be next up in his legal rota of shame ? Certainly couldn't come up with defenses any more "novel" than the human mouthpieces have to date. Although it might very likely advise that since it still must rely on human input, it doesn't yet have the ability to find one --- and to wait for v.5.

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I could agree with Liszt's Rhapsody NO. 2, but ONLY if there is a mouse running up and down the keyboard while he's playing.

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The Sri Lankan Civil War was a civil war fought in Sri Lanka from 1983 to 2009.

Right again, Gene! Right up there with guys thinking they provide all the material for babies!

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"What's the difference between a conservative commentator and a liberal commentator? One is called a conservative commentator; the other is called a commentator."

Let's credit that to Hall of Fame Loser Jeff Contompasis; it was his winning entry to one of my first contests (2004), asking specifically for right-leaning humor. In fact, I'm pretty sure that it was his first inking entry ever. He now has 914 blots of Invite ink.

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Montgomery not only practiced journalism at a high level (nominated for a Pulitzer), he taught journalism as well, so this business with the Dark Side email and Axios strikes me as odd and probably not a one-off. He likely reached the limit of his bullshit tolerance and threw caution (and his job, as it turns out) to the winds. Like "Howard Beale" (Peter Finch:) in "Network," he no doubt yelled on receiving the so-called press release, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore!" He made a choice facing all true journos these days --- and especially when the shots are being called more by bean counters than experienced editors --- to keep an umbrella unfurled for the ever-present shit storm to fight another day or --- to quit or commit suicide by intimidated editor. The other odd part of this business was that the Axios editor-in-chief actually has some cred as a serious journo/editor from her days at NPR and the executive editor who officially did the deed was previously deputy national editor at the NYT. Strange all around, but unfortunately not unexpected in our present alternate universe.

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I guess I sort of misunderstood the rules--there are several selected titles that didn't actually use every letter in the original title when some of them were duplicates (A GULAG OF THEIR OWN is missing the two Es in "League," etc.).

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I thought I posted this comment already. Second attempt:

Doesn't DALL-E limit the number of requests from a single account per month or have they changed this?

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Mar 16, 2023·edited Mar 16, 2023Author

FYI: Gene's comment about the Sri Lankan people WAS A SATIRICAL, SELF-DEPRECATING JOKE. He knows about the Tamil Tigers, etc.

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So Montgomery gets "tarnished" and fired for privately speaking truth to powepropagandar.

This should be a warning to journalists that all communication from the DeSantis organization should be treated as both public AND propaganda.

A couple of weeks ago, Last Week Tonight did a good takedown of DeSantis.

Still, the question remains: Are there that many MAGATs in Florida who have smaller brains than a Burmese Python?

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"Do you think DeSantis would be more disastrous for our country than Trump?" - I said from the beginning of his term that my greatest fear is that the next guy HAS to be Trumpier than Trump to get elected.

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What a moron you are. The way to set a grandfather clock without having to wind the hands a quarter of an hour at a time is to set your phone alarm to go off a minute before the time that your grandfather clock reads. When the alarm goes off merely set the clock to ticking.

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Regarding the unfortunate but should-have-been forewarned Ben Montgomery:

I've worked as a journalist. I've also written and distributed press releases aimed at journalists. All press releases involve a degree of propaganda (spin, if you prefer). Politicians like DeSantis engage in almost pure, uncut propaganda. Even heroin dealers dilute their product, but not Gov. Kinkyboots. Still, the best course for a journalist is just to ignore this junk -- or limit comments about its Pravda-worthy composition to colleagues within the newsroom. Especially in today's environment, throwing it back in the face of highly aggressive propagandists is (a) likely to get you in hot water; and (b) going to be used by the Friends of Goebbels Society, er, I mean Fox News types, to brand establishment media as biased against perfectly legitimate propaganda.

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