WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A RACE CRIME IS FAKE? That's what a new documentary by the Daily Caller is about. Watch the trailer here.
I"m talking with writer Mary Rooke at 1pm about it and if you'd like to watch it you can do so with a subscription by clicking here.
WHAT'S UP WITH RFK JR'S VOICE ANYWAY? After the interview I did with Robert F Kennedy Jr many of you commented on how bad his voice sounds. He's got a condition called spasmodic dysphonia and I'm talking with my most excellent voice doctor Dr. David Opperman today at 2:30 about why he sounds the way he does and what treatments there are to fix it. To be clear, Dr. Opperman has never treated RFK Jr but he has treated many people who suffer from this condition. If you need vocal cord help you can find Dr. Opperman at the Colorado Voice Clinic here.
COLORADO SKI AREAS COULD BE HELD LIABLE FOR NEGLIGENCE And this case could be earth shattering for an industry which has largely been immune from liability cases when someone is injured or killed. When you get your lift ticket you sign away your ability to sue the resorts, it's part of the deal when you engage in a dangerous activity like skiing. That's as it should be, or there would be NO skiing whatsoever as the resorts would be sued into oblivion for every broken bone. That being said, what happens when someone at the resort if negligent and that leads to death or injury? The Colorado Supreme Court says those situations should be treated differently and override the waiver you agree on. The case of a girl who fell off a ski lift and ended up paralyzed is what we're talking about and now her family is going to be able to pursue a case against the resort they say was negligent.
COLORADO SPRINGS IS THE #3 PLACE TO LIVE IN THE US According to this new list that named Naples, Florida #1. Boulder came in at #10 but a vast majority of the cities in the top 20 are in the Southeast. I guess they can't factor humidity into these rankings. See them all here. Fort Collins came in at #39 and Denver at #40 so as far as western states go we're over represented.
WHY IS DENVER DOING THIS FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS AND NOT HOMELESS PEOPLE? I'm asking this question seriously when I read that Denver is going to be giving illegal immigrants six months of "rental assistance" while also getting them job training and more to help them enter the workforce. Why aren't we doing this for the homeless people we've warehoused in old hotels? Where is their job training? Where is their free rent for six months? Of course I know the answer is they are addicts and have mental issues but if that's the case, why aren't they getting help with those issues?
NO WE DON'T NEED TO DROP THE CHARGES AGAINST THE AURARIA PROTESTERS And that two Denver City Council members have asked for this is nuts. The protesters, who oversaw $200,000 worth of damage and lost revenue for the Auraria campus, need to be held accountable for those actions. You have the right to protest but you don't have the right to be free of consequences when those actions break the law. It's really that simple. Take your conviction and shut up already.
SWEDEN HAS A MIGRANT PROBLEM And some say it could lead to civil war in the small Scandinavian country. Unfettered immigration from the Middle East with a lack of integration has created a powder keg with gun crime out of control and Sweden struggling to figure out how to control or contain it. This is going to happen here, unfortunately, so pay attention to what happens there. When a country is overrun with people who don't share the value system of the native population in a way that is too much to be absorbed into the culture you end up with people who don't integrate and this happens. Sweden says they believe criminal elements immigrated there and they are responsible. Sounds like what we have here.
BILL MAHER WAS ON GUTFELD And I loved it. He didn't hold back on his dislike of Trump, but he also addressed some left wing elephants in the room that needed to be addressed, like the push to medicalize children who say they are trans. Watch this.
GAZANS ARE STARVING AND SUPPLY TRUCKS ARE BEING LOOTED First off, if I were starving I'd be tempted to loot a truck carrying supplies too, but something has to give here. The New York Times had this to report of the supply trucks that rumbled across a $300 million dollar bridge we just built to Gaza:
One of the first aid shipments to arrive in the Gaza Strip through a U.S.-built pier was looted, officials said on Monday, highlighting the ongoing challenge of securely delivering humanitarian assistance in a territory with serious food shortages and other needs.
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Crowds of Palestinians intercepted a convoy of trucks that had loaded goods from the pier, hastily grabbing and running off with its contents, according to Abeer Etefa, a World Food Program spokeswoman. Two senior Western officials and Majdi Fathi, a Gazan photo journalist, confirmed Ms. Etefa’s account. The officials requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter. Aid groups and the United Nations blame the hunger crisis in Gaza on Israel’s restrictions on aid entering the enclave and also on black marketers who have seized supplies to sell at inflated prices. Israeli officials have insisted that enough supplies have been entering the territory and have accused Hamas of stealing and hoarding aid.
Even recent polling of the Palestinians showed that Hamas is hoarding the food meant for the Palestinian people and doling it out on a political basis. Of course I'm assuming "Local Palestinian Group" is Hamas because who else is there? If it isn't, where is Hamas in taking care of they people. By the way, the most recent polling shows that 71% of Palestinians in Gaza say Hamas was right to attack on October 7th. This makes it much harder for me to have sympathy for their considerable suffering.
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS "HIS" PREGNANCY And this column goes scorched earth on a story about a Florida woman who has decided she is a man and then found out she was pregnant. Try as they may, they can't make me believe that they are serious when they say "his pregnancy". David Strom dismantles the notion here.
SCARJO IS ABOUT TO TEST THE LIMITS OF AI IMPERSONATION At least I hope she pushes this issue further. When ChatGPT rolled out a new voice, it sounded VERY familiar, too familiar really. It was a carbon copy of actress Scarlett Johansson, who voiced the AI that a man fell in love with in the movie Her. As a matter of fact, the man behind the voice asked Scarlett to BE the voice. She laid it out in a statement:
The voice has been paused now but this is probably only the first of this sort of dustup and one that needs to be resolved quickly with clarity about how ownership one has over their own voice.
THE DEFENSE RESTS IN THE TRUMP CASE and closing statements will be heard next week without Trump taking the stand. He really stood only to lose by doing so, as he would have had to admit his affair under oath.
NEVER BIDEN IS NOW LARGER THAN NEVER TRUMP And this is great news for American and bad news for Joe Biden. Read about the shift in polling data here. Here is the meat:
The most recent poll to show this is Monday’s New York Times-Siena College poll of six key swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Across those states, 46 percent of registered voters said there was no chance they’d vote for Trump, while 52 percent said the same of Biden.
That’s the biggest gap to date, including an earlier Times poll and CNN polling as recently as last month. But even with smaller gaps, every such poll in recent months has shown more “Never Biden” voters than “Never Trump” ones.
REPUBLICAN WOMEN LEAD THE WAY IN COLORADO As the rest of the party is a hot mess. Dick Wadhams highlights GOP women are getting things done in the state without drama here.
THE RISE OF THE DUMBPHONE I've been tempted to change out my smartphone for a dumb one that allows me to call, or text and not much more. I'm not the only one as this article points out. Are you ready to give up your smartphone for a simpler life? One of the groups driving this is teenagers, by the way. Read more here..
INDIANS ARE USING AI TO REACH VOTERS IN A WHOLE NEW WAY This is super interesting. In India, politicians are embracing the use of AI to allow them to reach a diverse group of voters in their native language across the massive country. Read this:
Wearing a crisp white shirt and a ceremonial saffron scarf bearing a lotus flower—the logo of the BJP, the country’s ruling party—Rathore pressed his palms together and greeted his audience in Hindi. “Namashkar,” he began. “To all my brothers—”
Before he could continue, the director of the shoot walked into the frame. Divyendra Singh Jadoun, a 31-year-old with a bald head and a thick black beard, told Rathore he was moving around too much on camera. Jadoun was trying to capture enough audio and video data to build an AI deepfake of Rathore that would convince 300,000 potential voters around Ajmer that they’d had a personalized conversation with him—but excess movement would break the algorithm. Jadoun told his subject to look straight into the camera and move only his lips. “Start again,” he said.
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Across the ideological spectrum, they’re relying on AI to help them navigate the nation’s 22 official languages and thousands of regional dialects, and to deliver personalized messages in farther-flung communities. While the US recently made it illegal to use AI-generated voices for unsolicited calls, in India sanctioned deepfakes have become a $60 million business opportunity. More than 50 million AI-generated voice clone calls were made in the two months leading up to the start of the elections in April—and millions more will be made during voting, one of the country’s largest business messaging operators told WIRED.
This is straight up brilliant. Imagine being able to upload your avatar with all of your policy positions into an interactive website where voters can ask "you" direct questions and get direct answers from "you". It's a highly personal form of communication that could work brilliantly. I love this to be honest.
PLEASE DON'T BANKRUPT BW'S Buffalo Wild Wings is offering an all you can eat deal on their chicken nuggets (sure they call them boneless wings but they are totally chicken nuggets) and they even asked in their social media post about the very limited offer that customers not bankrupt them over it.
THE FIDDLER'S GREEN SUMMER LINEUP IS OUT And it has some great bands from "my" era in the lineup, see them all here.
HOW TO DO ZONE 2 CARDIO We need it, but what is it? Andrew Huberman explains.
THE BEEPOCALYPSE THAT WASN'T And of course John Stossel explains why it was a fraud.
WHO HASN'T DONE THIS BEFORE But most of us only do it in our cars.
WHEN MEDICINE CREATES A MIRACLE These get me every time.