Gavin Newsom Tagged as Big Fat Liar
Rory Merry/AFLO/ZUMAPRESS In an ad currently running on every TV in California, our well-coiffed lieutenant governor, Gavin Newsom, says he was “the first to take on the National Rifle Association and win.” This has unleashed a tsunami of tut-tutting, like today’s column in the LA Times from George Skelton: You’ve got to wonder what goes…
Chess Robots Are Getting Kind of Sneaky
PhotoXpress/ZUMApress From Garry Kasparov, trying to get everyone to calm down about increasingly intelligent AI: Imagine a chess program with the potential to trounce human opponents and explain its moves to us, revealing the patterns that turn knowledge into practical wisdom, like a father teaching chess to his daughter or son. That sounds so cozy.…
Wall Street Got Its Tax Cut, and Now It’s Depressed
I don’t follow the stock market super closely, but I was curious about why I haven’t heard Donald Trump bragging about it lately. This is why: The market seems to have spiked in anticipation of the tax cut, but then it slumped once it finally got its tax cut. Kinda strange. I guess they’ve got…
Eels Are Not Afraid of the Dark
EelsThe DeconstructionE Works/PIAS Mark Oliver Everett, who records as Eels, could be mistaken for a modern-day Job, recounting tales of extreme psychic distress in a weary rasp of a voice that suggests he’s perilously close to the breaking point. On his first studio outing in four years, Everett mixes up the grooves with his usual…
John Oliver Explains What the Hell Has Happened to Rudy Giuliani
Last week, Rudy Giuliani shocked the country—and even Sean Hannity—with the revelation that President Donald Trump’s money paid for the $130,000 hush agreement involving adult film star Stormy Daniels. The subsequent clean up efforts by Trump’s newest lawyer appear to only have added to the confusion, and perhaps even the president’s mounting legal troubles. If the…
The Pentagon Considers This Russian Sniper Rifle a Big Threat to US Soldiers. The NRA Helped Promote It.
In late 2016, the US Army released a report noting that the Russian military, through experience gained during fighting in Ukraine, was undergoing a transformation and becoming a more potent battlefield threat to American forces. One troublesome development identified by the report’s authors was the increased proficiency of Russian snipers. “The capabilities of a sniper…