The Weekly Weird #32

Clooney no longer mooney and Pappy gets scrappy, New York City's latest idea is garbage, Spain's porn passport, AI with a bullet, the unflushable Tony Blair, a chart to make you shart

Yee-haw and wilkommen, we’re Weirding again!

That’s right, seven days have passed since the last time I darkened your digital doorstep, and, like the mythical horn of plenty, our cup runneth over once more with the fruits of dystopia.

Seriously, how much can happen in a week?

For one thing, the new episode of the podcast, on facial recognition technology with the New York Times tech reporter and author Kashmir Hill, is out now for your listening pleasure.

As for the rest…

Clooney No Longer Mooney And Pappy Gets Scrappy

It’s been nearly two weeks since the world received incontrovertible proof that the President’s brain is missing. In that time, previously supportive media and donors have said Biden needs to go as passionately as they had been claiming he was “the best Biden ever” right up until he pinwheeled on live television.

In case you missed it, or are capable of eating popcorn while crying, here’s a montage of Biden’s debate vacancy set to a chorus of pundits declaring him “sharp as a tack”, courtesy of Matt Orfalea:

This is a touching example of a once-on-the-ball man brought low by the ravages of time. He should be out of the public eye, away from cameras, at home with his grandkids, relaxing by the seaside or in a comfy chair, eating dinner at 3pm, haggling with his wife over what to watch at primetime, and yelling at the paperboy to keep off his lawn. There’s no need for him to be humiliated in this way; it’s grotesque and demeaning, not just for him but for the American voters that this nonsense belittles.

In an increasingly bizarre and worrying war on reality, the White House has been in full damage control mode, stage managing a process of walking back the initial fears about Biden’s mental capacity voiced by pretty much anyone who watched him “debate” Donald Trump, inasmuch as Muhammad Ali “fought” Larry Holmes when he had onset Parkinson’s, should never have been allowed into the ring, ended up getting the fight stopped because he was so out of it, and caused the man that defeated him to weep with the shame of winning that way, saying years later that he knew Ali “didn’t have it.”.

As an aside, check out this 2017 article from The Hill titled Democrats raise questions about Trump’s mental health in case you need a refresher on why the repeated and enduring denial and evasion regarding Biden’s clearly diminished capacity is not just a practical issue, but a sore and sticky partisan hypocrisy.

Despite the best efforts of Biden’s team trying to pull a Chico Marx, the toothpaste won’t go back in the tube.

No lesser Democratic supporter than world-famous Nespresso shill and occasional actor George Clooney has come out and said what everyone has finally agreed can be said after screaming for years that to even suggest it was wrong and untrue and “right-wing propaganda” and Trumpy and MAGA and borderline treasonous: Biden is mentally unfit to serve and should go.

In a ‘guest essay’ published by the New York Times called “I Love Joe Biden. But We Need A New Nominee.”, Mr Amal Clooney stated bluntly that “our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didn’t see what we just saw.”

One passage in particular stands out (emphasis mine):

Is it fair to point these things out? It has to be. This is about age. Nothing more. But also nothing that can be reversed. We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we won’t win the House, and we’re going to lose the Senate. This isn’t only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor that I’ve spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly.

Let’s set aside that Clooney is stating plainly that elected officials sworn to uphold the Constitution and serve the United States are lying to the American people about the fitness of their President publicly while making their reservations clear privately. Save that for another time.

Let’s instead bask in the grand irony of the situation: The same man who was elected before he was old enough to be a Senator and had to turn 30 so he could take his seat is being urged to step aside 52 years later because he is too old and infirm to serve.

Here’s Biden, post-debate, telling George Stephanopoulos that he would only consider stepping aside “if the Lord Almighty comes down and tells me” (jump to 1:56):

How pious. The “big guy” wants a personal visit from The Big Guy before he’ll consider swapping The White House for a shuffleboard court.

If you watch the whole Channel 4 segment, you can bask in the all-too-British irony of the voiceover stating sombrely that Biden appeared in “an unedited 22-minute interview” at exactly the point that there is a cut in the interview footage. For wags and nags, cutting between multiple cameras while maintaining unbroken chronological order is still editing, and a video journalist should know that. Just sayin’.

So the celebrity set are turning sour on Biden, while “Scranton Joe” (or, as he was often referred to because of his relationship with a certain credit card company, “the Senator from MBNA”) is digging in, egged on by his wife, his son, and a circle of aides who seem reluctant to give up on the shiny gewgaw of power.

This just in from The White House:

New York City’s Latest Idea Is Garbage

At a truly unbelievable press conference this week at which he touted “our trash revolution”, Mayor Eric Adams of New York City revealed the Big Apple’s new innovation to combat a plague of garbage bags lining the city’s sidewalks: the wheelie bin.

Contrast the rather credulous presentation of this completely mundane event by US media (above) with the barely-contained gleeful sarcasm of Australian news (below).

“Many people thought it was impossible.”

There is nothing I can write that will make this funnier. Enjoy the videos.

Spain’s Porn Passport

It’ll be ¡Ay, caramba! for fap-happy Spaniards this summer. Spain’s government are rolling out “an app which forces people who want to watch porn online to use their official digital ID in order to get a monthly pass for adult content websites.”

Yes, really.

From The Local:

Users must request authorisation through the Beta Digital Wallet application, which will be downloadable onto a mobile phone.

The person must then identify themselves using an electronic DNI, digital certificate or Cl@ve.

Based on the data collected, the person’s age will be verified before they can access a site. This will expire after one month, when they will have to reapply for more credentials.

According to this slide guide by NDTV, and this explainer from Politico, the app will limit the number of times you can verify your age, thereby metering the frequency with which you relax in a gentleman’s way.

Once verified, they'll receive 30 generated “porn credits” with a one-month validity granting them access to adult content. Enthusiasts will be able to request extra credits. 

Is the process for getting extra credits automated, or is there going to be a Masturbation Monitor who decides whether you deserve more spanky-time? Will the Spanish have to give reasons? Will some reasons be more valid than others? Is there an unlimited elite tier for politicians to avoid blackmail?

Understandably, in the face of such horrific intrusion by the state and the questions it raises, citizens are resorting to humour:

The monthly pass has been jokingly dubbed in the Spanish press as pajaporte, a play on words between paja (wank) and pasaporte (passport).

What would the equivalent pun be in English? Answers in the comments, please.

More on the rules enabling this atrocity, from Biometric Update:

The age assurance rules apply to Spain-based adult content providers, but the National Cybersecurity Institute (INCIBE) will keep a list of foreign porn providers with the intent of enforcing age verification through web browsers, according to the report. The Ministry of Digital Transformation is also seeking collaboration with social media platforms and messaging apps.

Is there any practical benefit to all this tracking and registering, or is it just another Lovejoy Law at the thin end of the totalitarian wedge?

[Digital Transformation] Minister [José Luis] Escrivá has justified the plan by saying that we need to tackle the problem of children accessing porn. "The data we see regarding minors' access to adult content and its possible consequences are what have led us to develop this tool as quickly as possible," he said. 

And there it is.

Lest other Europeans become smug, the Spanish won’t be the only people registering their sexual proclivities with the government for long.

This from Politico:

Eventually, Madrid's porn passport is likely to be replaced by the EU’s very own digital identity system (eIDAS2) — a so-called wallet app allowing people to access a smorgasbord of public and private services across the whole bloc.

This is, to paraphrase Obi Wan Kenobi, a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of tossers suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

I fear something terrible has happened.

AI With A Bullet

Let’s go from shooting your shot to shooting your shot now, as we fly from Spain to the United States of America for something so American that it might just America harder than anything that has ever America’d: Vending machines selling ammunition in public spaces are using facial biometrics for AI-enabled age verification.

In other news, there are ammo vending machines in America.

To sell the bullets safely, so that they can be used to shoot at things and stuff and definitely not ever people, the vendor is scanning your face.

From Biometric Update:

If you thought age verification measures for pornography were controversial, American Rounds would like you to hold its beer. The company has caused a stir with its automated vending machines for ammunition, which it places in grocery stores to make ammo more available to the public.

American Rounds kiosks offer ammunition for rifles, handguns and shotguns, for what it calls “safe, affordable and available ammunition sales.” The company argues that its ammo kiosks are safer than standard gun sales practices, because ammunition is locked inside the machine and can only be accessed once AI-assisted age verification has been performed via face biometrics matched against a scanned government identity card to prove a customer is over 21.

We’re talking about America, so of course there’s a promotional video:

“We’re getting ammo? Woo!”

Is there anything more Murka than a woman in a mobility scooter yelling the above line at 0:46?

If there is, I don’t think I could handle it.

The Unflushable Tony Blair

Former Prime Minister of Great Britain Tony Blair is in the news again.

No, it’s not because he will finally be held accountable for the “sexed-up dossier” on weapons of mass destruction that drew the UK into a disastrous war in Iraq. No, it’s not because he’s finally explained what really happened to Dr David Kelly. And no, it’s not because he has refused to deny being a lizard like Donald Rumsfeld did on Opie & Anthony years ago.

It’s because, through his think tank the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), headquartered just next to the Derek Zoolander School For Kids Who Can’t Read Good, he really wants to let everyone know that “it should be clear to every political leader that the way government runs no longer works.”

Is he offering substantive granular solutions for the well-documented British issues of shady seat selection deals, rampant cronyism and corruption, failing infrastructure, groaning public services, a slow-motion debt crisis, and the groundless publicity and credibility gifted to former leaders disgraced by the consequences of their terrible decisions and rejected by both the electorate and posterity?

Nah. He thinks the government should use AI.

From his definitely-not-ghost-written introduction to the TBI’s report Governing In The Age of AI:

Harnessing AI tools could repair the relationship between government and citizens, put public services on a new footing and unlock greater prosperity.

This prospect should be exciting in its own right, but in reality it is the only path forward. The public sector is on its knees, with large backlogs and lengthy waits for services, a demoralised, unproductive workforce and a lack of long-term thinking as policymakers go from crisis to crisis. Adopting AI in the public sector is a question of strategic prioritisation that supersedes everything else. The UK cannot be consumed by old debates when the real issue is AI.

“The real issue is AI.”

In a companion think-piece in The Times, also definitely written by himself and not at all the product of a concerted public relations push to immediately centre certain ideas right after his party won the general election, Blair repeats that Britain can be made better by using AI to “turbocharge growth.”

He also shills for digital ID:

In office, I believed the best solution was a system of identity, so that we know precisely who has a right to be here. With, again, technology, we should move as the world is moving to digital ID.

Biometric Update also reported this week on an almost-instant attempt to put digital ID on the agenda and separate it in the mind of the public from a repeatedly-rejected mandatory national ID card, quoting “Open Identity Exchange Chief Identity Strategist Nick Mothershaw”:

“It’s vital that misconceptions about digital ID being national ID cards do not stall its progress in the UK, as digital ID has the potential to drive huge economic growth through the UK’s digital economy, beyond its immediate benefits,” the OIX chief continues. “We urge the new government quickly enact into law the proposed Digital Verification Service (DVS) legislation that supports the use of trusted digital ID so that the UK can move forward with its digital ID strategy.”

Meanwhile, the TBI have been busy bees, pumping out another report called The Economic Case for Reimagining the State in which “AI-era tech” is hailed for its ability to provide solutions to the government’s financial problems.

What solutions? Well, “a digital health record for every citizen” and “a digital ID [that] could significantly improve the way that citizens interact with government,” of course!

One key way the government “needs to change the way it operates” is given as:

Drive adoption of AI-era technology across the public sector by creating a new “Mission Control” at the heart of government, focused on identifying ways to harness technology to improve public-sector productivity. This should be complemented by the creation of new chief productivity officer roles in all major government departments, and a new technology and forecasting unit within the Treasury to explore how the macroeconomic gains from AI technology could evolve to ensure investment is well targeted.

So while elsewhere alluding to a reduction of the public sector workforce by around one-fifth, at a time when “taxes would need to rise by about 2 per cent of GDP by the end of this Parliament, 3 per cent by the end of the next Parliament and 4.5 per cent by 2040 just to stabilise debt,” the TBI’s grand plan involves creating more departments and “productivity” roles.

I wonder who would need to be contracted as a consultant to those departments, to provide insight into the ways “key stakeholders” can “leverage” “AI-era tech” to…gah, I can’t even maintain the sarcastic tone because using these words makes me feel dirty and gross.

Will the UK’s government finally find a way to implement a national ID scheme, perhaps under cover of a supposedly less-intrusive “digital ID” meant for verification and convenience rather than tracking and enforcement?

From another Biometric Update article this week:

“Right now, the priority when it comes to accessing digital services and online services is actually about verification,” [Secretary of State Peter Kyle] says. While a digital identity card cannot be ruled out for future exploration, at present, “we are talking about expanding the verification system so that people can have an easier experience of verifying their identity when they access government services.”

Translation: “Honest, we’re not talking about mandatory ID, we’re talking about mandatory ID.”

And finally…

A Chart To Make You Shart

I found this chart on social media and thought I’d share it with you. It’s a comparison between the price action in the Dow Jones in the run-up to the 1929 crash (left), and the price action in the Dow Jones over the past 25 years up to now (right).

Outro music is a live version of Praying Hands/Uncontrollable Urge by Devo from their 1978 Q&A tour, in sympathy with the self-lovers of Spain, whose attempts to blow off steam will now mainly be a pain.

Stay sane, friends.