I met with AI data labelers in Kenya who are organizing their colleagues to fight the brutal working conditions and horrible pay given to the workers at the "bottom of the AI supply chain." They believe the NDAs they've signed are unenforceable so are speaking out:
www.404media.co/ai-is-africa...
“We are forced to stay despite the danger, when we defend our land, and we do so peacefully. None of us carries weapons. All of us carry peace and goodness and love.”
These were the words of Father Pierre al-Rahi one day before Israel killed him in Lebanon today on March 9.
Israel has just issued a demand that all of Beirut’s southern suburbs, an area roughly the size of central Berlin or lower Manhattan, run for their lives. Tens of thousands are forced to flee- again. Real fears that they will level much of southern Beirut- an area where more than 500,000 live.
In just four days.
As the laid off Middle East News Editor, I concur. Management eliminated the positions of every single staff correspondent and bureau chief in the Middle East.
This is disgusting. Rationalizing the bombing of a school that reportedly killed 108 girls.
But since she asked,
"Currently, 161 public schools operate on military installations across the United States."
www.militaryonesource.mil/education-em...
JD Vance personally invited Pope Leo to the U.S. 250th celebration on the 4th of July. Today the Vatican announced Leo will be spending the day with migrants instead.
Statement from Oscar-winning director Hamdan Ballal: This afternoon, nearly a year after we won the Oscar, the same settler who attacked me shortly after l returned from Los Angeles-Shem Tov Lusky-again led an attack against my home and my family. Four of my family members are currently arrested and one is in the hospital. I invite all journalists and diplomats to come visit me and my family this Tuesday, February 17, to hear about how the situation has gotten worse in the year since we won the Oscar, as it has across the West Bank. Email me to coordinate your visit: hamdanalhrane90@gmail.com Two weeks ago we managed to get a decision from the Israeli court that the area around my home is closed to non-residents, but the settlers break that order and still come with their flocks almost every day. We call the police, they do nothing. The army comes, they do nothing. Today, Shem Tov Lusky-the settler who attacked me in my home shortly after I won the Oscar last year-came with his flock to my home. My brother called the police to report the incursion. The army came first and immediately raided our house, attacking everyone inside. Then they arrested two of my brothers, a nephew, and cousin. Another brother was badly injured and is now in the hospital. The Israeli court decision was supposed to make things a bit quieter for us. But the opposite has been true. The settlers have ramped up their harassment and the Israeli authorities have done nothing to enforce the decision, and today they joined the settlers in the attack. 8 hours ago
From Hamdan Ballal, co-director of last year’s Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land.” This is happening now.
MUST READ:
The best synthesis I have seen so far of things I knew or had put together from various sources but had not really seen pulled together 🧪
Importantly, I don’t think these academics were an aberration. I think a lot of scientists would have entered these circles, given the option.
Im literally getting a PhD on this subject, yet nobody wants to listen to me when I explain that AI doesnt work in the way people claim
Ive even been passed over for jobs because they wanted a hype-man instead of a professional.
I think the greatest gift college professors in the humanities can give to students right now is a seminar room where, for 80 minutes twice a week, nothing that happens to them is a sales pitch for an AI product.
Me every time a new TV commercial for ANY kind of product (tech or non-tech) comes on: “please don’t say AI please don’t say AI please don’t say AI”
Sunglasses commercial: “Now with AI”
Me: DAMMIT
Idiot in commercial: “AI sunglasses, can I eat mud?”
NEW: ICE has a plan to lease offices across the US as part of a secret, months-long expansion campaign.
Today, @wired.com is publishing dozens of those locations. Many are near schools, medical offices, and places of worship.
Vital work from @leahfeiger.bsky.social that I'm proud to publish.
Jack Duffy attaches a respirator to his bagpipes to play through tear gas. “I always play it whenever the police retreat because it's like, ‘You fucking ran while we stayed,’” he says.
The full story: lataco.com/protest-bagp...
By Julianne Le
Edward Said on BBC Arena talking about culture & imperalism
[Edward Said voice]
Ever read a Jane Austen book and thought about the atrocities of the sugar cane industry?
Elmo @elmo · 1h That Bunny was AMAZING. Elmo thinks he should be called Good Bunny! Elmo loves you, Mr. Good Bunny! ❤️🎶🐰 Based Yankee @thebasedyankee You and Bad Bunny should be deported
It's not even midnight and we're already at "Deport Elmo."
Published my first piece at @wired.com today, about a string of AI thrillers that have bombed (most recent being the hopelessly naive Chris Pratt vehicle 'Mercy'), the backlash to Darren Aronofsky's YouTube slop take on the American Revolution, and a grotesque nostalgia-bait Super Bowl ad:
Portland City Council member
Not just any journalist, she won the goddamn Triple Crown of broadcast journalism (an Emmy, a Peabody, and a Murrow) in 2024 for her reporting on Gaza.
This is textbook censorship of the highest degree
The Democrats cannot even bring themselves to talk about reducing the ICE budget (which was TRIPLED out of the blue and no one knows how exactly such sums could ever be spent even on the vast network of concentration camps and private contractors) to, say, its already-record 2024 levels.
Court order. didn't save. toddler.
The political ground is shifting on ICE. Your own Dem rep or senator may not have caught up yet. Now - before the 1/30 funding deadline - is the time to push.
I find it necessary these days to affirm the obvious because the descent into fascism is mostly a continuous, not discrete, process so here it goes:
these are internal checkpoints by secret police for what is routine freedom of movement.
Democrats are simultaneously beginning to refer to ICE and CBP agents as "poorly trained."
This message comes from leadership. They're trying to use it as a substitute for dismantling ICE and CBP and imprisoning their current employees. Don't fall for it; don't take any Dem seriously who uses it.
42% for abolish ICE without an iota of mainstream elected Democratic buy in, this could be over 60% if they tried even a little.
semi-regular reminder that ICE was only created in 2003
when you are asked to imagine a world without ICE, you're basically being asked to remember where you were when Lilo & Stitch came out
We literally don’t need ICE for anything
they didn’t leak it to make the shooter look innocent, but to make the victim look guilty. not guilty of a crime. guilty of having a visibly queer wife. guilty of liberalism. guilty of opposing the regime. they don’t seek to exonerate themselves, only to demonstrate who deserves to die.
The New York Times has just confirmed that 40 civilians died in President Trump's invasion.
This is the aftermath in one area
Greg provides a brilliant response to @rweingarten.bsky.social's inexplicable defense of classroom AI -- and he wrote every word of it himself.
