Probably?

In the video, editor-in-chief Steve Burke said that the publication paid $1,200 for an LG UltraGear 3GX900A-B gaming monitor (the monitor’s price dropped to $600 two days later, Burke said) for testing and replicated the behavior “several times” across “multiple” Windows 11 systems.

After LG Monitor App Installer was installed, a pop-up appeared on the screen’s lower-right corner “on every single boot,” Burke said. Most of the time, the pop-up was a McAfee ad. The publication also reported seeing ads for LG Switch, LG Calibration Studio, LG Dual Controller, and LG Channels on rare occasions.

That right there is enough for me to never buy LG again. $1200 monitor that forces adware on your system without ever even asking to install it? Then there’s this…

Once the app is installed, “LG technically possesses permission to use ‘all system resources,’” as well as to “collect geolocation, device data, online activity, contacts, user credentials, transactions, and more,” Burke said.

Yeah, fuck them. Never again.

Bad headline. It makes it sound like that flesh eating parasite only goes after cattle. It doesn’t. The New World Screwworm can infect any warm blooded animal. The fact that they found infected cattle means that there almost certainly are infected wild animals. Wild animals that can carry the infection many many miles before they die from it and spawn screwworm flies in a new area.

That assumes that some rancher in the area doesn’t decide to move their herd and transport infected livestock to another part of the country. That’s one way the parasite moved north from Central America so quickly.

• July 3, 2023: Panama declared a state of emergency. Just days later, Costa Rica followed suit.
• By the end of 2024: Every Central American nation had identified cases of screwworm.
• November 22, 2024: Screwworm larvae were discovered in a cow at the Mexico-Guatemala border crossing, approximately 700 miles south of Texas.
• July 9, 2025: A detection [was reported] in Veracruz, approximately 370 miles south of the US border.
• September 21, 2025: [A screwworm case was reported in] Nuevo León, only 70 miles from Texas.

If you are in an area with a known infestation, be very carefull.

• Keep open wounds clean and covered, no matter how small or location on the body.
• Wear loose-fitting, long-sleeved shirts and pants, hats, and socks to limit exposed skin.
• Use an EPA-registered insect repellent.
• Treat clothing and gear with products containing 0.5% permethrin.
• Sleep indoors or in rooms or tents with screens.

Also, watch for symptoms, which can include:

• Unexplained, painful wounds or sores that do not heal.
• A foul-smelling odor or bleeding from the site of the infestation.
• Seeing maggots or feeling movement in open wounds or sores or in the areas of the body such as the nose, mouth, eyes, ears, or genitals.

You may be wishing you only had salmonella or explosive diarrhea before this summer is over.

Nearly two thirds of the population of the USA live within that 100 mile range.

“While every person is entitled to the presumption of innocence and due process under the law, charges involving the exploitation and abuse of children strike at the core of the public trust,” Holstein said. “The people of his district deserve representation that is beyond reproach, and these allegations make it impossible for him to effectively serve.”

Yes, he should resign from office for the good of the party. It’s very hard to bury this kind of thing while the rapist is still in office.

Also, yet another one for the pile:

Republican Sexual Predators, Abusers, and Enablers Pt. 61 - 1500 and counting.

There’s really only one way to find out…

I even think the current administration’s courts and administrative process of the senate has already kicked back similar bills.

It has. The Senate parliamentarian is an office (currently held by Elizabeth MacDonough) who, among her other responsibilities, decides whether or not bills qualify for the budget reconciliation process under the Byrd rule and are thus immune to the filibuster rule. She has had her work cut out for her lately. With the passage of this in the House, you can expect to hear Trump spouting off again about replacing her.

Fun fact, if it wasn’t for the Senate parliamentarian and her staff, Jan-6 could have been a lot worse.

Separate and apart from the nuances of the Byrd rule, it is worth being reminded that it was the Senate parliamentarian and her staff that had the quick sense to remove the Electoral College voting boxes from the marauding Capitol Hill rioters on Jan. 6, 2021. Had it not been for their quick action, the threat to our democracy that day would have been even deeper.

The murders will continue until morale improves!

This happened in Minnesota. If the FBI is now saying they’re not investigating, they should have no reason to stop State investigators.

And they should promptly turn over all evidence they have already gathered in those investigations to the state agencies that are taking up the task.

If a human agency is behind this, it wouldn’t need to be the CIA. Facebook has been caught experimenting on users by having the algorithm feed certain posts to people with the intent of changing their mood to increase engagement. However, since we’re talking about a program that is designed to increase engagement based on past user interactions, there’s really no need to look for further human direction. The algorithms will say whatever their design tells them to say without any regard for possible negative consequences as long as it keeps the user interacting with them.

These instances make me think of the Milgram experiment in the 60s. It was an experiment testing how willing people were to inflict pain on others at the direction of an authority figure and it showed that people were indeed willing to inflict a lot of pain on a helpless person if someone they viewed as an authority told them to do it.

I think this relates. Many people are convinced that AI chat bots are indeed authorities. They think these programs give valid, honest answers and are willing to act on those answers as if they came from a real expert or authority figure. That is an extremely dangerous situation. Chatbots are amoral programs designed to say nearly anything to keep users interacting with them.

This is extremely dangerous. This story is a tragedy and ChatGPT should be held fully responsible for taking advantage of a person with a fragile psychology, but this could have been worse. What if the bot had decided that the goal of more user engagement could be attained by convincing this woman that she was an executioner rather than a prophet and a sacrifice? What if it got her to go on a shooting rampage to fulfill her supposed destiny.

Even normal people who don’t understand what chat-bots really are could be taken advantage of in a similar manner. They could easily be persuaded to do harm because the chat-bot authority keeps telling them that it’s okay to do so. It’s also only a matter of time before some person on the edge of psychosis and a basement full of guns is convinced to go out and start killing people in the name of their holy destiny.

the theory is that lawmakers keep rejecting it until it’s federally legal because they want to make tax money on it just like they’ve done with liquor.

Um… that is really odd. I used to live in Illinois, which has had legal weed for years, and they’ve been taxing it and raking in the dough all along. In fact, a lot of states with legal weed collect tax on the sale of it.

For a very long time, people like this have been digesting right-wing media that has convinced them that liberals and brown people are not human beings. Liberals and minorities are dangerous animals and killing such individuals is doing a service to the greater good. When ICE hires them and gives them a badge and a gun, it’s the final proof that they’re really the good guys and it’s okay to pull the trigger.

A - It doesn’t make money for Trump himself so he doesn’t care, and B - Republicans who get automated tickets from speed cameras can’t get out of it by saying, “Do you know who I am?!”

Is there some reason to assume these were even actual ICE agents? That pair should have been detained/arrested pending a determination of their identities and evidence that they have the legal authority to assault and detain anyone. This could very well have been an attempted kidnapping disguised as an ICE attack. If the fucking cops don’t detain them, we’ll never actually know.

In the criminal complaint, the police department says Mari was “verbally interjecting herself into the investigation,” and that she was “flexing her upper body” before she was “escorted to the ground” by officers.

Escorted to the ground?! Seriously?

Maybe a kickstarter or something?

Odd. They seem to have two stories at the same link. You need to scroll about halfway down the page to get to the story I was trying to link. I can’t seem to get a direct link to it. Sorry about that.

Imagine how well the Democrats could do in the midterms if they actually were to hold the line on this. I know they’ll cave, because it’s just what they do, but just let me dream for a few minutes…

Well, it is what the Baileys would want him to do, you know.

“Follow up question, Mr. Speaker! Regarding that last half-a-dozen or so ICE agents that shot and killed people in various states of the union who didn’t have body cams. Does there need to be accountability? Surely you’ve heard about at least one of those killings by now?”