Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Is trump is trying to break black America over his knee? signs point to ‘yes’.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Second rate reporter says what?

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

T R E 4 5 O N

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

It’s possible to be a liberal firebrand without crapping on the party.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

In my day, never was longer.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

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Artificial Intelligence

Late Night Open Thread: Elon’s Pr0n Machine

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I mean thing with ai image generation rn is literally "AI oligarchs okay with pedophilia." But no one is actually just saying it out loud.
AI is holding up our economy with porn. Cyberpunk 2077 ass universe

— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) January 8, 2026 at 9:22 PM

I just sent this message to Durbin, Duckworth, & Schakowsky:
On X Grok AI is creating sexual images, including of children. The European Union is actively considering shutting down X across the continent. The Congress should investigate X, and you should immediately delete your account.

[image or embed]

— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) January 9, 2026 at 4:11 PM

Someone on here today, perhaps
@danahoule.bsky.social, suggested using
@teslatakedown.com techniques against Apple and Apple Stores to help them decide to do the right thing.

[image or embed]

— Frederick Winslow Homer Simpson (@newdealer.bsky.social) January 9, 2026 at 3:41 PM

… In a letter published on Friday, senators Ron Wyden of Oregon, Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico and Edward Markey of Massachusetts said Google and Apple “must remove these apps from the app stores until X’s policy violations are addressed.”

X, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, has been under fire from officials around the world since last week, when Grok began flooding the site with AI-generated nonconsensual images of women and children wearing revealing bikinis, see-through underwear, or in degrading, violent, or sexualized poses.

The senators’ letter, first reported by NBC News, noted that Google has terms of service that bar app makers from “creating, uploading, or distributing content that facilitates the exploitation or abuse of children.” Apple’s terms of service, they said, bar “sexual or pornographic material.”…

Google and Apple did not immediately return messages seeking comment. X referred Reuters to a January 2 post in which it said the site takes action “against illegal content on X, including Child Sexual Abuse Material.”

X’s parent company xAI did not answer specific questions about the letter or Grok’s explicit output, sending only its generic response that cited unspecified “Legacy Media Lies.”…

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I Finally Found A Use For Chat GPT…

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In the morning thread, Jackal Tobie pointed out that Google does not offer an AI answer for a search asking if Trump has dementia, while generating a reply if one asks about, say Bruce Willis.*

So…what should one do?

Well, if you have my somewhat unfortunate turn of mind, you might ask Chat GPT to generate an internal monologue for a Trump posited to be in the grips of cognitive decline. To its credit, I’d say, that generator of frequency distributions of strings of words declined to do so, explaining that would be too close to offering a diagnosis of a living person.

Being a helpful sack of words+algorithms, however, the LLM offered to write up what a fictional  politician in such straits might be thinking. My first try was a bust–I fed back the word “politician” in the prompt and got a notional senator’s musings.  I tried again with a cleaned up ask, and this is what I got:

Prompt: Write an internal monologue of a fictional American president who is confused, grandiose, or erratic.

I Finally Found A Use For Chat GPT...

Here’s an internal monologue of a completely fictional American president—President Alderidge “A.J.” Mapleson—who is confused, grandiose, and erratic. No real person is being portrayed.

Internal Monologue of President Alderidge “A.J.” Mapleson

Where’s my nuclear football? They told me it’s always nearby, but I don’t see anything shaped like a football. Maybe it’s an actual football. Maybe they’ve been hiding it from me because they’re worried I’ll try to punt it down the hallway again. That only happened twice. People overreact.

Focus, A.J., focus. You’re the president. The President of the United States—the biggest job in the world. Or is it the second biggest? I think the CEO of MegaMart technically has more employees. I should call him. Maybe he can give me leadership tips. Or coupons.

What’s on the schedule? Something about a security briefing? Or a briefing about the briefing? Why do they brief me so much? I already know everything. I’ve read so many files, some of them twice. I could brief them if I wanted. But I won’t. Wouldn’t want to make them insecure.

Is that the Secretary of Defense coming toward me? I hope he doesn’t want an update on the “Mapleson Doctrine.” I don’t remember inventing it, but everyone keeps referencing it like I wrote it in stone tablets. Should I ask him what it is? No—no, play it cool. I’ll nod sagely. Nodding solves many problems.

I need a strong line for the speech today. Something presidential. “My fellow Americans…” Yes, good start. Then something inspiring. Maybe trees? Americans like trees. Or space. Space trees? I’ll circle back to that.

Wait—am I supposed to be in the Oval Office right now? This hallway doesn’t look oval. It looks rectangle. That’s troubling. Maybe they moved the office again. They keep rearranging things. I know they do it to keep me sharp. Or to keep me confused. Hard to tell these days.

I should announce a new initiative. Presidents announce things. “Operation… something.” Operation Lighthouse, maybe? Or Operation Lightning Shark. Yes. That sounds powerful. Dramatic. Cinematic. I’ll figure out what it actually does later, once the polls come in.

Smile, A.J. Smile with gravitas. Think majestic thoughts. Think commander-in-chief energy. Think… wait… where was I going?

Ah yes.

To lead the nation. Boldly. Confidently. And with absolutely no idea what meeting I’m walking into right now.

I don’t know about y’all, but I’m feeling that the veil of fiction is pretty damn thin.

Have fun in the comments, jackatariat; this thread is as open as the presidential mind is welded shut.

PS: I am not an AI-involved guy, at least not yet. As you might expect, the question of how the ready availability of LLMs affects higher ed is a pretty constant topic at my workplace. But I’ve been too much involved in immediate crises to get much of a handle on what actual use such models might be, and how (if at all) to keep their use from wrecking humanistic education. I suspect I will not be permitted such blissful ignorances for much longer.

*To be fair: Google also declines to provide an AI summary for the same search asked of other politicians. I tried it on Joe Biden and Mike Johnson and each time it went “nope.”

Image: Hans Memling, X-radiograph of the painting, Portrait of an Old Man,  c. 1475

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