Macklemore says Ed Sheeran and his team decided to remove him from tour due to his comments in support of Palestine, after Kraft Group rallied stadium owners and gave Ed an ultimatum:
“[Ed] told me that the words ‘Free Palestine’ and the image of the Palestinian flag were hurtful to a lot of people he spoke with. I told him that if those words were more offensive than tens of thousands of Palestinian children being killed by Israel, then there was a fundamental disconnect between where those people stood and where I stood. But he couldn't get past his public facing, ‘I don't take sides.’”
I resigned from Anthropic today. I spent the last three years doing pretraining research at both OpenAI and Anthropic. Neither company is acting responsibly. They are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives. More thoughts below.
Sometimes a homunculus emerges from the vat with an ungovernable spirit, like that of a wild stallion on the Great Plains of old. Straight to the incinerator
Hasan Piker has now been condemned by dozens of Democratic senators and members of Congress, which must mean that his comments were so horrifying they would shock anyone with a conscience.
According to these fairly scripted denunciations, Piker said that American Jews “deserve” or “bear responsibility” for rising antisemitism. Here’s how Sen. Cory Booker put it: “Suggesting that Jewish Americans bear responsibility for hatred or violence directed against them is wrong, dangerous, and antisemitic.”
Rep. Jimmy Panetta edited it slightly, saying: “The suggestion that Jewish Americans who publicly support Israel bear responsibility for violence against the broader Jewish community is wrong, reckless, and antisemitic.”
So if Hasan Piker’s remarks were severe enough to warrant this extensive round of condemnation, it should be easy to pick them out. See if you can find his below. (The answer is in the reply.)
“You can’t have the kind of policies the government of Israel is engaged in and not expect that there’s gonna be pushback and backlash. The people that say that people that disagree with the policies of the government of Israel are antisemites are frankly full of shit and they need to be told that.” 1
“Anti-Zionism is rising as a response to what Israel is doing. It will simply not be possible to treat it as a marginal viewpoint that can be shamed or shunned into invisibility. Yes, antisemitism often cloaks itself in anti-Zionism. So don’t do the antisemites’ work for them. If you keep telling people that if they oppose the Jewish state then they must hate the Jewish people, eventually, they will believe you.” 2
“Look, the anti-Zionist Jews in my community, you have a very tough job ahead of you, where you have to go back to your communities and try to get your elderly relatives to understand that this connection between Israel and Zionism that is expressed over and over again through a lot of these Jewish institutions . . . is teaching people the idea that Jews are monolithic. And this is a dangerous…mode of propaganda…If Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone’s going to come around and take action. Not against the State of Israel, mind you, but against American Jews…I don’t know how many different ways I can explain this. I don’t know how people don’t recognize how dangerous this predicament is, how dangerous this is for Jews.” 3
“A lot of the actions by [Netanyahu and his] government are making Jews in the United States unsafe.” 4
“Benjamin Netanyahu has made us less safe. He has frankly put Jews in an uncomfortable position across the country.” 5
It is an “obvious fact that Netanyahu is making Jews in America and the world less safe.” 6
There was no one like him. Not one. He was hilarious in a way that can only be attained by fearless authenticity and defiance of the status quo. Whatever unique set of circumstances made him who he was and informed what he did and how he did it, the world had not seen anything like it, nor has it since.
As if it wasn't enough to be the funniest, kindest, most exuberant, most handsome (in and out) soul in the room... the man suffers a terrible stroke - an event that dooms most to turn troglodytic - and continues to defy. The man resolves to remain in the public eye, proudly carrying on, showing that even mortality wouldn't stop him.
Nor will it now. He WILL continue to inspire long after today, as he did in life. The sheer willpower this took, to tackle such harsh reality for 14 YEARS, with the same mischief and charm that carried him for 66 years prior... Herculean.
He never played the role, but he would have been a great Green Lantern.
🖤 Rest in peace a prince of Halloween, the King of Camp, and one of my greatest inspirations. The world is dimmer without you, Tim Curry, but we'll never forget the light you gave us, for it was a new color.
> work at a cafe
> sweet tiny girl asks to use the toilet
> yes of course
> stays on the toilet for like 10 minutes
> sweet ‘ bye tysm ‘
> shat all over the toilet
> smells like death
Every action hero having to be a hitman or Navy SEAL has been an annoyance of mine for a while. Bring back the Hitchcockian everyman who has to rise to the occasion! More Richard Kimbles and Alan Grants, please.