The person who plans to vote for the Orange Caudllo writes of people "outside the liberal bubble." Then goes on to provide a F*x "News" profile of JRB full of lies and innuendo. I wonder if the comment was AI generated from scraping the MAGA media?
We were at a Hampton Inn breakfast room in 2012 when we overheard a group of guests discussing the re-election of Barack Obama. They actually seemed surprised and were not happy. One claimed no one they knew voted for Obama. It turned out they were from Oklahoma. Conservative bubble, anyone?
Yes, and Pauline Kael once wondered aloud how Richard Nixon could have been elected, since no one she knew had voted for him. She was living in NYC at the time, and originally from California.
I believe another commenter had already posited that liberals live in a bubble. My point was that we are not the only ones. My neighbor flies a nice big Trump flag so my bubble gets burst on a regular basis.
I took a month long road trip through the southeast and every hotel I stopped at showed Fox News in the breakfast room. So it's much different down there than Chicago which is where I live.
I'm really sorry about this and I have escalated the problem to the support staff at Substack. ANyone else with this problem? I wonder if it's a browser issue.
I too did not like the RBG tweet and found it disrespectful. I get it, and I too wish she had resigned to allow her replacement to be made by Obama. Nonetheless I think the tweet emphasizes her one disappointment and dismisses all the good she did. That being said, I am not unsubscribing, just registering my disagreement with you on this topic.
So Eric, are you a Milli Vanilli fan? It seems the public found it disgraceful that they did not do their own singing.
And the Monkees never did get completely over the fact they did not originally play their own instruments.
So using things to enhance original playing or singing is fine, but I do not think having AI fake the actual voice or play the instruments without disclosure is acceptable to me or the public.
I think people have a strong preference for artists doing original material. In the 60s there was a major. shift from vocalists interpreting Tin Pan Alley songs by people they had never met to singer-songwriters and bands doing their own music. Yes, there are/were still covers and traditional songs, but the emphasis changed. If there is no added value to the songwriter performing their own work, how do you explain Bob Dylan? Hardly the most beautiful voice.
I thought the Milli Vanilli thing was much ado about nothing. The Grammy, or whatever award it was that they were stripped of should have simply been given to the actual singers. The real disgrace was the music itself, which was almost indescribably terrible.
I too had a 10 year old in 1983 when Jeanine Nicarico was murdered and we lived less than 15 miles from her home. It forever changed how I, and many of my neighbors, looked at crime in DuPage County. What upset me most in subsequent years was the admiration heaped on Jim Ryan, who, if he did not know the case was a fraud, should have, as the county's top prosecutor. We elected him to statewide office before it became clear that we intended to put to death two innocent men. Ryan defended that position the entire time he was state's attorney.
Feckless? Stephen Hawkings may not have agreed with you. "The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race….It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever-increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete and would be superseded."
Also the men wrongfully convicted of Jeannine Nicarios' murder were could hardly be described as innocents.
So "they must have done something, sometime" is a reason to put people in prison for the rest of their lives? In law school we were taught that it is the prosecutor's responsibility to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt for the crime with which the defendant is charged. Does that no longer apply in your world, Rima?
No, in fact Rolando Cruz, in particular, committed a vile act when claiming to know something about the murders in an effort to screw with the police and perhaps get some reward money. But I did not describe them as "innocents," juist that they had nothing to do with Jeanine's abduction and murder.
Regarding wrongful convictions, suggest you watch "The Innocence Files" on Netflix for numerous proven occasions of incredible cruelty and illegality by prosecutors.
Given what has been said and done—publicly and on the record—since the 2020 Presidential election, I suspect that anyone who still expresses a preference for Donald Trump just wants to keep people in their proper place. Nothing about that sentiment is healthy to a democracy. Eric, I appreciate your efforts to explain to others why Trump would be a disaster in 2024, but we’re way past making that case logically. Ask your Trump-voting followers if they believe that certain people simply don’t deserve the same rights, benefits, and status as they do.
Re: Gambling. You wouldn't be wrong to say that businesses that offer gambling are exploiting a vulnerability that exists in almost every person. Us oldsters in this forum remember when there were almost no legal casinos outside of Nevada, and that seemed fine; so why not go back to that? OTOH, people should be allowed to do what they want with their own money. Also, with social media, poker on TV, crypto currency, and trading platforms that give a gambling like feel to trading securities, it is has become a bigger part of our culture.
I advocate for strong protections for people who are vulnerable and want help. Any person should be able to put themselves on a list maintained by the state which makes them automatically banned from any establishment with gambling. That would include online sites. There are some laws like this, but they could be stronger.
I also think it is good that the City of Chicago does not own the casino. I don't think that would result in more money coming into public coffers than the alternative of having Bally's pay taxes and fees to operate. It would increase the likelihood of corruption. Also, the role of a government entity is to make an enforce regulation of casino operators. It would be a conflict for a government to also be an operator. Heck, Illinois couldn't even operate a tollway without skimming back when most people paid tolls with cash.
One of the owners of the firm I worked for in Chicago was also the majority owner of 5 casinos around the country, including Rivers in DesPlaines from start-up until a few years ago. He discovered that, unlike virtually every other start up enterprise, once you did the initial capitalization, casinos are profitable the day you open the doors!
We handled the insurance and claims for these casinos, and it was an incredible eye-opener to the gamet of human behavior. Personally I am not a gambler or fan of casinos (I find the ambiance within both jarring and depressive), but they are unquestionably huge money makers.
I have no problem with the jab at RBG. There are many examples of people who did marvelous things in life but screwed up so bad at the end that their legacy is forever tarnished. RBG falls into that category.
Regarding RBG not giving up her seat at the "right time" I don't disagree with that sentiment but it points out how political the court has become. Sadly to me, the replacements are chosen by the president to ensure that his (and it's always his but that's another discussion) philosophy and world view will continue into the future rather than choosing a person who will judge in fairness and in the best interest of the country. Fairness. I was a police officer and spent time enforcing the law and in courts on the prosecution side. In my opinion fairness is at the heart, or should be in the way that judges and juries act. It's not fair that some people speed while driving because speeding can hurt others. It's not fair to use your advantage to harm others. It's not fair to gerrymander the rules to make it hard for people to vote or to say that they can't go the University of Mississippi. So the courts try to fix those unfair things. Is that so hard to understand? Just be fair to all.
The person who plans to vote for the Orange Caudllo writes of people "outside the liberal bubble." Then goes on to provide a F*x "News" profile of JRB full of lies and innuendo. I wonder if the comment was AI generated from scraping the MAGA media?
We were at a Hampton Inn breakfast room in 2012 when we overheard a group of guests discussing the re-election of Barack Obama. They actually seemed surprised and were not happy. One claimed no one they knew voted for Obama. It turned out they were from Oklahoma. Conservative bubble, anyone?
Yes, and Pauline Kael once wondered aloud how Richard Nixon could have been elected, since no one she knew had voted for him. She was living in NYC at the time, and originally from California.
Liberal bubble, anyone?
I believe another commenter had already posited that liberals live in a bubble. My point was that we are not the only ones. My neighbor flies a nice big Trump flag so my bubble gets burst on a regular basis.
Did they storm the buffet?
I took a month long road trip through the southeast and every hotel I stopped at showed Fox News in the breakfast room. So it's much different down there than Chicago which is where I live.
AGAIN. You had a poll and you left me out. I AM A SUBSCRIBER! You wrote back last week that you would fix the problem. You did not.
I'm really sorry about this and I have escalated the problem to the support staff at Substack. ANyone else with this problem? I wonder if it's a browser issue.
I have not had a problem recently
I too did not like the RBG tweet and found it disrespectful. I get it, and I too wish she had resigned to allow her replacement to be made by Obama. Nonetheless I think the tweet emphasizes her one disappointment and dismisses all the good she did. That being said, I am not unsubscribing, just registering my disagreement with you on this topic.
I believe the Notorious RBG would not have minded the tweet.
In regard to A.I. - At some point robots will run the factories and reproduce themselves, and humans
will become obsolete, unnecessary, and disappear.
So Eric, are you a Milli Vanilli fan? It seems the public found it disgraceful that they did not do their own singing.
And the Monkees never did get completely over the fact they did not originally play their own instruments.
So using things to enhance original playing or singing is fine, but I do not think having AI fake the actual voice or play the instruments without disclosure is acceptable to me or the public.
I think people have a strong preference for artists doing original material. In the 60s there was a major. shift from vocalists interpreting Tin Pan Alley songs by people they had never met to singer-songwriters and bands doing their own music. Yes, there are/were still covers and traditional songs, but the emphasis changed. If there is no added value to the songwriter performing their own work, how do you explain Bob Dylan? Hardly the most beautiful voice.
I thought the Milli Vanilli thing was much ado about nothing. The Grammy, or whatever award it was that they were stripped of should have simply been given to the actual singers. The real disgrace was the music itself, which was almost indescribably terrible.
I too had a 10 year old in 1983 when Jeanine Nicarico was murdered and we lived less than 15 miles from her home. It forever changed how I, and many of my neighbors, looked at crime in DuPage County. What upset me most in subsequent years was the admiration heaped on Jim Ryan, who, if he did not know the case was a fraud, should have, as the county's top prosecutor. We elected him to statewide office before it became clear that we intended to put to death two innocent men. Ryan defended that position the entire time he was state's attorney.
Feckless? Stephen Hawkings may not have agreed with you. "The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race….It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever-increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete and would be superseded."
Also the men wrongfully convicted of Jeannine Nicarios' murder were could hardly be described as innocents.
In what sense were Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez not innocent of the murder of Jeanine Nicarico?
So "they must have done something, sometime" is a reason to put people in prison for the rest of their lives? In law school we were taught that it is the prosecutor's responsibility to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt for the crime with which the defendant is charged. Does that no longer apply in your world, Rima?
No, in fact Rolando Cruz, in particular, committed a vile act when claiming to know something about the murders in an effort to screw with the police and perhaps get some reward money. But I did not describe them as "innocents," juist that they had nothing to do with Jeanine's abduction and murder.
Regarding wrongful convictions, suggest you watch "The Innocence Files" on Netflix for numerous proven occasions of incredible cruelty and illegality by prosecutors.
Given what has been said and done—publicly and on the record—since the 2020 Presidential election, I suspect that anyone who still expresses a preference for Donald Trump just wants to keep people in their proper place. Nothing about that sentiment is healthy to a democracy. Eric, I appreciate your efforts to explain to others why Trump would be a disaster in 2024, but we’re way past making that case logically. Ask your Trump-voting followers if they believe that certain people simply don’t deserve the same rights, benefits, and status as they do.
Just for fun, let's run the numbers, shall we?
The average casino in Illinois NETS:
$120,000 a day
$5000 an hour
$83 a minute
This is odd because everyone I talk to tells me how much they've won.
Re: Gambling. You wouldn't be wrong to say that businesses that offer gambling are exploiting a vulnerability that exists in almost every person. Us oldsters in this forum remember when there were almost no legal casinos outside of Nevada, and that seemed fine; so why not go back to that? OTOH, people should be allowed to do what they want with their own money. Also, with social media, poker on TV, crypto currency, and trading platforms that give a gambling like feel to trading securities, it is has become a bigger part of our culture.
I advocate for strong protections for people who are vulnerable and want help. Any person should be able to put themselves on a list maintained by the state which makes them automatically banned from any establishment with gambling. That would include online sites. There are some laws like this, but they could be stronger.
I also think it is good that the City of Chicago does not own the casino. I don't think that would result in more money coming into public coffers than the alternative of having Bally's pay taxes and fees to operate. It would increase the likelihood of corruption. Also, the role of a government entity is to make an enforce regulation of casino operators. It would be a conflict for a government to also be an operator. Heck, Illinois couldn't even operate a tollway without skimming back when most people paid tolls with cash.
One of the owners of the firm I worked for in Chicago was also the majority owner of 5 casinos around the country, including Rivers in DesPlaines from start-up until a few years ago. He discovered that, unlike virtually every other start up enterprise, once you did the initial capitalization, casinos are profitable the day you open the doors!
We handled the insurance and claims for these casinos, and it was an incredible eye-opener to the gamet of human behavior. Personally I am not a gambler or fan of casinos (I find the ambiance within both jarring and depressive), but they are unquestionably huge money makers.
I have no problem with the jab at RBG. There are many examples of people who did marvelous things in life but screwed up so bad at the end that their legacy is forever tarnished. RBG falls into that category.
Regarding RBG not giving up her seat at the "right time" I don't disagree with that sentiment but it points out how political the court has become. Sadly to me, the replacements are chosen by the president to ensure that his (and it's always his but that's another discussion) philosophy and world view will continue into the future rather than choosing a person who will judge in fairness and in the best interest of the country. Fairness. I was a police officer and spent time enforcing the law and in courts on the prosecution side. In my opinion fairness is at the heart, or should be in the way that judges and juries act. It's not fair that some people speed while driving because speeding can hurt others. It's not fair to use your advantage to harm others. It's not fair to gerrymander the rules to make it hard for people to vote or to say that they can't go the University of Mississippi. So the courts try to fix those unfair things. Is that so hard to understand? Just be fair to all.
“casinos are citadels of loss for most people.”
So are movie theaters, except the monetary “loss” is guaranteed.