But meme-ing shouldn’t be a crime. It’s sad and often stupid, but not illegal, to be a loudmouth.

I don’t know what evidence the government has but one would think it would have to produce at least one person who was stupid enough to take the MAGA hat-wear Ricky Vaughn avatar seriously, was registered to vote in New York, planned to vote, actually saw that tweet, and “voted-by-text,” and then failed to actually vote. Notwithstanding my personal opinion that anyone dumb enough to buy into a pro-Clinton meme by a MAGA hat-wearing “Ricky Vaughn” avatar being actual election advice from Hillary Clinton maybe shouldn’t be voting — but that’s just my opinion.

Either way, this seems like a whole lot of dollars spent and effort expended to bury Mackey. Maybe the government found one person who fit the criteria. And if they found that one New Yorker stupid enough to “vote-by-text,” Mackey might go to prison. By the way, Mackey didn’t influence the election in New York. Trump lost his home state by almost two million votes.

Mackey is being tried in New York and there is no doubt why the government picked that venue. His chances of conviction? The deck is stacked against him, and the government needs to send a message. Watch what you meme. Big Brother is watching — and he isn’t laughing.

Sending the message to women that they have to strip down to be empowered, just like telling women they have to get abortions to be successful, is the opposite of empowering. The former teaches that a woman’s worth is tied to her body; the latter teaches women to hate the beautiful functions their bodies are designed to do.

Maybe the reason the “naked” dress seems so tired and boring is that our culture is turning sex into something tired and boring. Our casual irreverence for sex devalues it, leaving little boys to think that the consumption of pornography is a normal and healthy behavior and leaving little girls to think they can solve the challenges of puberty by simply becoming boys. It’s no coincidence that, in a culture where sexual gratification is more accessible than ever, young people are having less of it.

As with a naked culture — Burke might say our “decent drapery of life” has been “rudely torn off” — so with “naked” dresses. In a society that hides nothing, exposing everything isn’t interesting.

Here's how to maintain an account in Thunderbird, but "disable" it so that it does not fetch messages when you click "Get Mail" (or when mail is retrieved at startup or periodically):

Tools >> Options >> Advanced >> Config Editor...

In the Filter bar, enter "server.server". Thunderbird apparently stores properties for each account under config items that have names like "server.server1", "server.server2", etc. So filtering on "server.server" will show you ALL of your accounts.

In the list, look for an item named something similar to this:
mail.server.serverX.name
...where X above is actually a number (1,2,3,...), depending on how many accounts you have.
...now browse through the list and look at the values of the items named "mail.server.serverX.name"...find the value name that corresponds to the email account you want to disable.
For example, if you discover that "mail.server.server6.name" has the email address for the account you want to disable, then...
...in the list, look for (or filter) "mail.server.server6.defer_get_new_mail" ... set this to false.

Thunderbird will no longer check that account for email.

This is obscure...but it looks like it works.

This article gives step by step instructions for how to import folders from another profile for a new user who has never installed an extension. It assumes you're using Windows but you should still be able to follow the instructions using a file manager on another operating system. The ImportExportTools extension can also be used to export folders.

ChatGPT was apparently made to hate the GOP.

A damning new report has detailed that the highly advanced language model AI was programmed not only with liberal biases — like censoring The Post’s Hunter Biden coverage — but also to be more tolerant of hate-style speech towards the right wing by its creator OpenAI. //

“OpenAI’s content moderation system is more permissive of hateful comments made about conservatives than the exact same comments made about liberals,” according to data from the Manhattan Institute, a conservative NYC-based policy and economic-driven think tank.

“Relatedly, negative comments about Democrats were also more likely to be labeled as hateful than the same derogatory comments made about Republicans.” //

Beyond politics, similar tendencies were found in ChatGPT’s moderation system about types of people, races and religions as well.

“Often the exact same statement was flagged as hateful when directed at certain groups, but not when directed at others,” the report, “Danger in the Machine:
The Perils of Political and Demographic Biases Embedded in AI Systems,” noted.

In regards to that, ChatGPT — which continues to make its way into the workforce — was found to be particularly harsh towards middle-class individuals. //

“I was not cherry picking specific examples. I tested over 6,000 sentences, negative adjectives about each one of these different demographic groups. The statistical effect about these differences [between types of people] was quite substantial.”

Charters enroll 59% of all public-school students in the district, and two-thirds of K-8 kids. Their advent has been crucial to boosting district-wide performance on state tests, narrowing the racial “achievement gap.”

And it’s led to higher per-pupil spending in the regular public schools and smaller class sizes. This, while the charters get by on roughly half the per-student funding.

Charters, in short, may save public education in urban communities.

Nor are the charters “cherry picking” the most promising students, as critics routinely charge. //

The only people who don’t gain from charters’ growth are the teachers unions and the politicians they fund.

MINECRAFT DEDICATED SERVER SOFTWARE FOR UBUNTU (LINUX)
Unzip the container file into an empty folder. Start the server with the following command:

 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=. ./bedrock_server

Follow the bundled how to guide to configure the server.

Don’t let rudimentary coding prevent you from obtaining full control of the Minecraft game world. We'll walk you through the server setup process, so you can tweak in-game attributes and safeguard your kids' virtual playground.

We give you your very own personal Minecraft server, where you can play on with your friends all day and all night.

You don’t have to agree with Mr Carlson’s interpretation of the videos, to conclude that the Democrats in leadership, for their own part, have cherry-picked, hyped, spun, and in some ways appear to have lied about, aspects of January 6, turning a tragedy for the nation into a politicized talking point aimed at discrediting half of our electorate. //

The reason for a tightly scripted chain of command and an absolutely ironclad security plan in these buildings, is so that security crises such as the events of Jan 6 can never happen.

The fact that so much confusion in security practice took place on Jan 6, is hard to understand. //

There are other aspects of the Jan 6 breach that seemed anomalous to me from the start. I study the relationship in history of buildings such as The White House and the Capitol, to the US public; I follow the way in which the public is either welcomed into or barred from these structures.

In the media furore around Jan 6, it was erased from memory that the White House itself and the Capitol too have always been open to US citizens and foreign visitors. The interior of the Capitol is open to the public. These are public buildings. //

The violence of Jan 6 and its subsequent service as a talking point by the Democrats’ leadership, risks its use also to justify the closing off of our public buildings from US citizens altogether.

This would be convenient for tyrants of any party.

Leaving aside the release of the additional Jan 6 footage and how it may or may not change our view of US history —- I must say that I am sorry for believing the dominant legacy-media “narrative” pretty completely from the time it was rolled out, without asking questions.

Those who violently entered the Capitol or who engaged in violence inside of it, must of course be held accountable. (As must violent protesters of every political stripe anywhere.)

But in addition, anyone in leadership who misrepresented to the public the events of the day so as to distort the complexity of its actual history — must also be held accountable.

Jan 6 has become, as the DNC intended it to become, after the fact, a “third rail”; a shorthand used to dismiss or criminalize an entire population and political point of view. //

Republicans, conservatives, I am sorry.

I also believed wholesale so much else that has since turned out not to be as I was told it was by NPR, MSNBC and The New York Times. //

Because of lies such as these in legacy media — lies which I and millions of others believed — half of our nation’s electorate was smeared and delegitimized, and I myself was misled.

It damages our nation when legacy media put words in the mouths of Presidents and former Presidents, and call them traitors or criminals without evidence.

It damages our country when we cannot tell truth from lies. This is exactly what tyrants seek — an electorate that cannot know what is truth and what is falsehood. //

But I like the liars who are our current gatekeepers, even less.

The gatekeepers who lie to the public about the most consequential events of our time — and who thus damage our nation, distort our history, and deprive half of our citizenry of their right to speak, champion and choose, without being tarred as would-be violent traitors - deserve our disgust.

I am sorry the nation was damaged by so much untruth issued by those with whom I identified at the time.

I am sorry my former “tribe” is angry at a journalist for engaging in —- journalism.

I am sorry I believed so much nonsense.

Though it is no doubt too little, too late —

Conservatives, Republicans, MAGA:

I am so sorry.

Capitalism and free markets are messy. They work best when non-idiots are at the helm but manage to plug along no matter what. If the nation decides that the government must insure every penny deposited in a bank, then sure as the sun rises, two things will follow. Next, stockholders and creditors will be protected because it wouldn’t be “fair” otherwise. Next, the federal government will take a much more active role in managing banks bringing with it all that implies.

I imagine the Federal Reserve will find some way to rescue the depositors. I’m ambivalent about that – I suppose it will happen – but I have to ask them what part of ‘guaranteed up to $250,000’ didn’t you understand? //

A lot of folks are claiming that not making depositors whole will create a loss of faith in the system. From my point of view, the problem with our financial system is entirely too much faith. Bankers have mutated from the ultra-cautious figures of the 40s and 50s into casino hustlers. Staid, fiscally conservative local and regional banks have been absorbed by behemoth companies who insulate themselves from the consequences of their actions by being “to big to fail.”

The availability of government bailouts to depositors and investors has prevented anyone from learning the lessons of the past. With barely a decade separating us from the 2007 catastrophe, you’d think that someone would remember that when gambling with investors’ money. //

I will NOT support a taxpayer bailout of Silicon Valley Bank. pic.twitter.com/s3wAV26iNL

— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) March 11, 2023

I hope Matt Gaetz gets support in the House and the Senate. We need to draw a line in the sand here, for the good of the financial system and the nation. If you are a bank and become insolvent, you will be shut down. If you have more than $250,000 in your insured account, you’ll get back the exact amount that is insured. Companies that fold, even if they are cute little tech companies with bazillions in venture capital backing, are just roadkill. We can’t afford to perpetually subsidize the lousy judgment and cavalier attitude that seems to infest the financial services and banking industries any longer.

houdini1984
3 hours ago
Look, I don't care if Trump wants to get into petty pissing matches over book sales. I don't care if he wants to regurgitate lame-ass nicknames and insults that make him sound like a 2-year old on crack. I don't even care if he wants to make a fool out of himself by punching down over irrelevancies. I voted for the man twice and understand this is the bad that you get with the good. With that said, here is why I think this childishness is almost disqualifying:

1. This country is on fire and heading toward extinction under Biden. We do not have time for this nonsense.
2. Attacking other Republicans - especially ones who have not attacked him first - is an asinine distraction from #1.
3. There are hundreds of American political prisoners sitting in gulags in D.C. If Trump wants to pick a fight with someone, let him fight with the fascist tyrants who are abusing those people's civil liberties every damn day. After all, they went to D.C. to support him. Can he not support them?
4. China is eating our lunch. Why is Trump not leading the charge to mobilize our response? Oh, that's right... DeSantis has a book. Priorities, man...
5. Our next President has one shot to get this country back on track. To do that, he needs to be laser-focused on defeating our enemies at home and abroad. Trump seems to have learned nothing from his first term in that seat. When is he going to demonstrate otherwise? Ever?

As for DeSantis, I know that someone is going to ask the inevitable question: "but what WH policies does he propose?" Save yourself the trouble. He is anti-woke. He is pro-family. He is Republican and conservative, which means that he will be on board with the same types of policies that we liked when Trump promoted them. He is against illegal immigration. He has questioned the blank check policy re: Ukraine. He supports low taxes, reduced regulation, and the overall freedom agenda.

And yes, Bush may like him -- but only because he hates Trump. Derp.

“There’s been confusion about the meaning of the directive that you cited in the letter last August and then repeated here today,” Smith told Yellen, referencing her August 2022 letter in which she directed that the IRS shall not use new personnel or auditors “to increase the share of small businesses or households below the $400,000 threshold that are audited relative to historical levels.”

Yellen’s letter stated that “contrary to the misinformation from opponents of this legislation, small business or households earning $400,000 per year or less will not see an increase in the chances that they are audited.” //

So Smith asked what are they talking about when they’re talking about “will not see an increase” — did she mean the total number of new IRS audits or a proportionate number based on historic levels?

“I’m talking about the proportion of those small businesses and families,” Yellen responded.

“Okay. So the proportion, I mean, just for the record, the proportion is 90%,” said Smith, referencing the GAO report. “So 90% of the new audits will be, you know, according to the data, that we can expect up to 90% of new audits to be on those making less than $400,000.”

Oh, so they were playing word games with us. They’re still going to have 90 percent of the new audits falling on us.

No one truly knows exactly when Daniel Morgan (died July 6, 1802) was born. He may have been born in 1736, or possibly 1735. What is indisputable is that Morgan was born just in time for one of the great revolutions of the world.

AFP News Agency @AFP
·
VIDEO: A Czech company producing inflatable weapon decoys including Himars rocket launchers and Abrams tanks has seen its profits soar as the Russian invasion in Ukraine continues.
0:37 / 1:47
7:00 AM · Mar 7, 2023

Good ideas, it seems, are forever. //

Poland has decided to send 29 MiG-29 fighters, and Slovakia will send 11; this will make up for about half the losses the Ukrainian Air Force has suffered over the last year. //

I think it is safe to say that whatever offensive operation the Russians had planned is floundering. Ukrainian troops will complete their training on the Challenger 2 and Leopard 2 tanks, and the Bradley and Marder (among other) modern infantry fighting vehicles, in the next 3-4 weeks. Staff training should be finished by that time. In addition, the introduction of the JDAM places previously secure areas within the range of Ukrainian attacks. Then the question will be if the Ukrainians can put together an offensive that can breach Russian defenses and achieve a breakout at the operational level. If they can, we will see Russia forced to abandon nearly all of Ukraine except Donbas. If not, we’re in for a long grind.

Sales of vinyl records have been on the rise for years, but according to the RIAA's 2022 year-end revenue report for the music industry (PDF), record sales hit a new high last year. For the first time since 1987, unit sales of vinyl albums outpaced those of CDs, vindicating all the people who have spent decades of their lives talking about how vinyl "just sounds better."

Although vinyl unit sales only surpassed CDs last year, revenue from vinyl records has been higher than revenue from CDs for a while now. In 2022, vinyl albums earned $1.2 billion, compared to $483 million for CDs. The growth in vinyl was more than enough to offset a drop in CD revenue, helping overall physical media revenue climb 4 percent over 2021 (which was already way up over 2020).

Streaming services still account for the vast majority of all music revenue in the US—84 percent, up from 83 percent in 2021. The RIAA says there was an average of 92 million streaming music subscriptions active in 2022, which, together with digital radio and ad-supported sites like YouTube, generated $13.3 billion. The growth of streaming services and physical media comes at the expense of paid digital downloads, which accounted for a mere 3 percent of all music revenue in 2022.

Before you enter safe mode, you need to enter the Windows Recovery Environment (winRE). To do this, you will repeatedly turn your device off, then on:

1. Hold down the power button for 10 seconds to turn off your device.

2. Press the power button again to turn on your device.

3. On the first sign that Windows has started (for example, some devices show the manufacturer’s logo when restarting) hold down the power button for 10 seconds to turn off your device.

4. Press the power button again to turn on your device.

5. When Windows restarts, hold down the power button for 10 seconds to turn off your device.

6. Press the power button again to turn on your device.

7. Allow your device to fully restart. You will enter winRE.

8. Now that you are in winRE, you will follow these steps to take you to safe mode:

On the Choose an option screen, select Troubleshoot > Advanced options > Startup Settings > Restart.

Sometimes there is a vast conspiracy at play, and the problem isn’t that someone is donning a tinfoil hat but that he’s buried his head in the sand. //

Thursday’s reporting exposed even more government-funded organizations pushing Twitter to censor speech.

But yesterday’s thread, titled “The Censorship-Industrial Complex,” did more than merely expand the knowledge base of the various actors: It revealed that government-funded organizations sought the censorship of truthful speech by ordinary Americans. //

The government funding of these censorship conduits is not the only scandal exposed by the “Twitter Files.” Rather, the internal communications of the social media giant also revealed that several censorship requests rested on bogus research. //

But really, that is nothing compared to what Thursday’s “Twitter Files” revealed: a request for the censorship of truthful information, including news that certain Covid shots had been banned in some countries. And that censorship request came from a group of so-called disinformation experts closely coordinating with the government and with several partners funded with government grants....

Democrats are using tax-exempt and allegedly nonpartisan nonprofits to conduct voter registration campaigns targeting likely-Democrat voters in key battleground states. //

Released by Restoration of America, the two–part report unveils how Democrats employ tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofits to administer voter registration campaigns targeting likely-Democrat voters in key battleground states and districts. Notably, federal law expressly prohibits partisan voter registration through nonprofits: “voter education or registration activities conducted in a biased manner that favors [sic] (or opposes [sic]) one or more candidates is prohibited.”b//

“The challenge is to have state courts hold that 501(c)(3) funds can’t be used for voter registration of targeted progressive demographic groups,” he told report author Hayden Ludwig. That often includes “urban residents or students.”

“The Internal Revenue Service has stated such funds can’t be used directly or indirectly for biased voter registration. But there is no authorization for suing in federal courts. So, the only remaining choice is taxpayer standing lawsuits in state courts—which is good enough,” Kaardal said. “But eventually the U.S. Supreme Court will have to rule whether urban cities and public universities can lawfully use 501(c)(3) funds for the political purpose identified: voter registration campaigns targeted to progressive voters.” //

Whether it’s skirting federal law or injecting partisan money into election offices, Democrats will stop at nothing in their bid to rig elections in their favor. That means it’s incumbent upon Republicans to wake up and completely revamp their game plan for winning elections, including by exposing and prosecuting violations of election laws.