KGB Report

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The Google engineer who thinks the company's AI has come to life. AI ethicists warned Google not to impersonate humans. Now one of Google's own thinks there's a ghost in the machine. The chorus of technologists who believe AI models may not be far off from achieving consciousness is getting bolder.

More: LaMDA: Google's breakthrough conversation technology.

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Over 235 million people set to experience temperatures 90 degrees or hotter this week.

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Barr says Trump was 'detached from reality'. No kidding.

Also: Bill Barr cracks up during January 6 testimony while dismantling Dinesh D'Souza's 'indefensible' big lie documentary 2,000 Mules.

Also: An 'inebriated' Giuliani urged Trump to falsely claim victory on election night. Former Trump attorney Jason Miller testifies that Giuliani who was advising Trump on election night was 'definitely intoxicated.'

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Court: Geico must pay $5.2 million to Missouri woman who got STD from sex in car. An arbitrator's decision in favor of the woman was affirmed by the Jackson County Court, and upheld by three judges with the Missouri Court of Appeals.

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Ohio Gov. DeWine says he'll sign a bill arming teachers after 24 hours of training. The new law dramatically reduces the amount of training a teacher must undergo before they can carry a gun in a school safety zone. Instead of more than 700 hours of training that's currently required, school staff who want to be armed would get training that "shall not exceed" 24 hours, House Bill 99 states.

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Diseases suppressed during Covid are coming back in new and peculiar ways. Health experts say Covid-19 restrictions could have reduced exposure and lowered immunity to infectious diseases, making society more vulnerable to new outbreaks.

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Texas police want Uvalde bodycam footage suppressed because it could expose law enforcement 'weakness'. Too late, fellas.

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The forthcoming bipartisan agreement could be the first new gun control laws enacted in decades. But it focuses primarily on mental health and school security interventions, rather than meaningfully restricting access to firearms.

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The end of the Millennial lifestyle subsidy. Start-ups are starting to want to make profits.

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A Florida man was bitten by an alligator after apparently mistaking it for a dog in the middle of the night.

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Miscellany:

Birthdays:

• 1831 - James Clerk Maxwell, Scottish physicist and mathematician (d. 1879)
• 1892 - Basil Rathbone, South African-born British-American actor (d. 1967)
• 1910 - Mary Wickes, American actress (d. 1995)
• 1926 - Paul Lynde, American actor and comedian (d. 1982)
• 1929 - Ralph McQuarrie, American illustrator (d. 2012)
• 1943 - Malcolm McDowell, English actor and producer
• 1951 - Richard Thomas, American actor, director, and producer
• 1953 - Tim Allen, American actor, comedian, and producer
• 1962 - Ally Sheedy, American actress and author
• 1981 - Chris Evans, American actor and producer

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On this date in:

• 1854 - Anthony Faas patented the first US accordion, having made improvements to both the keyboard, and to enhance the sound.
• 1966 - The United States Supreme Court ruled in Miranda v. Arizona that the police must inform suspects of their Fifth Amendment rights before questioning them (colloquially known as "Mirandizing").
• 1971 - Vietnam War: The New York Times began publication of the Pentagon Papers.
• 1983 - Pioneer 10 became the first man-made object to leave the central Solar System when it passed beyond the orbit of Neptune.
• 1997 - A jury sentenced Timothy McVeigh to death for his part in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombingOklahoma City bombing.

Today is:

National Kitchen Klutzes of America Day, Random Acts of Light Day, Sewing Machine Day, Weed Your Garden Day, and World Softball Day.

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Comments and observations:

When ovaries are more regulated than assault weapons, that's when you know it's a war on women.
-Andrea Junker

Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper likes you.
-Adam Carolla

Lauren Boebert "praying" for President Biden's death at a "Christian" event is just the latest and perhaps most despicable example that this person never should have been handed a microphone by voters.
-Stephen Beschloss

True, "no sitting or former president has ever been put on trial." But so what? Not even Nixon matched Trump's crimes, and Nixon would've been put on trial but for the pardon he got from Ford. Failing to try Trump for his crimes would mean anything goes.
-Laurence Tribe

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Categories: Artificial Intelligence, Climate change, Florida Man, Geico, Google, Gun laws, Guns, Heat Wave, January 6

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Matthew McConaughey's full White House press briefing statement on gun violence. (Video)

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A timeline of failed attempts to address U.S. gun violence.

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FTC to probe CVS Caremark, Express Scipts and other pharmacy benefit managers. These businesses, the biggest of which are run by companies that also operate health insurers, have been criticized by doctors and patients over their formularies and other concerns about drug access.

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A 'dangerous and deadly heat wave' is on the way, the weather service warns. More than 25 million people are under heat alerts, and more than 50 daily high-temperature records could be broken through the weekend - including in Death Valley, California, one of the hottest places on earth.

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Dentist warns against one habit that leaves 'the baddest, toughest' germs in your mouth. The biggest problem is that people either neglect their mouth or go to the other extreme by disinfecting and sterilizing it to such a degree that they disrupt the balance of the oral microbiome.

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Queens man accused of killing Chinese food delivery worker is obsessed with duck sauce, other condiments, say police. Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz previously called Hirsch's demand for duck sauce an "obsessive point of contention." On Tuesday, a police source told the New York Post that his whole refrigerator was discovered to be filled with duck sauce, calling him a "hoarder."

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As the Great Salt Lake dries up, Utah faces 'an environmental nuclear bomb'. Most alarming, the air surrounding Salt Lake City would occasionally turn poisonous. The lake bed contains high levels of arsenic and as more of it becomes exposed, windstorms carry that arsenic into the lungs of nearby residents, who make up three-quarters of Utah's population.

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What is a recession? A really good explanation. (Video) Also, what is inflation? in six minutes (Video).

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iPhones will be required to use USB-C charging by 2024 under EU policy. Provisional EU agreement applies to additional electronics, laptops to follow. Let's hope the policy spreads to the US as well.

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Late night watch: President Biden will visit "Jimmy Kimmel Live" tonight.

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Miscellany:

Birthdays:

• 1867 - Frank Lloyd Wright, American architect, designed the Price Tower and Fallingwater (d. 1959).
• 1910 - John W. Campbell, American science fiction writer and editor (d. 1971).
• 1918 - Robert Preston, American captain, actor, and singer. (Video)
• 1925 - Barbara Bush, American wife of George H.W. Bush, 41st First Lady of the United States (d. 2018)
• 1927 - Jerry Stiller, American actor, comedian and producer (d. 2020) (Video)
• 1933 - Joan Rivers, American comedian, actress, and television host (d. 2014). (Video)
• 1940 - Nancy Sinatra, American singer and actress. (Video)
• 1951 - Bonnie Tyler, Welsh singer-songwriter. (Video)
• 1955 - Tim Berners-Lee, English computer scientist, best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web.

On this date in:

• 1789 - James Madison introduced twelve proposed amendments to the United States Constitution in Congress. Ten were eventually adopted, known as the Bill of Rights.
• 1887 - Herman Hollerith received a patent for his punch card calculator.
• 1912 - Carl Laemmle incorporated Universal Pictures.
• 1949 - George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four was published.
• 1953 - The United States Supreme Court rules in District of Columbia v. John R. Thompson Co. that restaurants in Washington, D.C., cannot refuse to serve black patrons.
• 1964 - Jan and Dean released the single "The Little Old Lady (from Pasadena)". (Video)
• 1966 - the National Football League and American Football League announced a merger effective in 1970.
• 1968 - Gary Puckett and Union Gap released "Lady Willpower". (Video)
• 1979 - "The Source," the first computer public information service, went online.
• 1984 - the film "Ghostbusters" was released. (Video)

Today is:

Best Friends Day, Betty Picnic Day, Jelly-Filled Doughnut Day, Name Your Poison Day, National Caribbean American HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, Thomas Paine Day, Upsy Daisy Day, World Brain Tumor Day, and World Oceans Day.

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Comments and observations:

Credit card debt soared by $17.8 billion in April, the second highest amount ever. The highest was March, when it soared by a staggering $25.6 billion. Consumers are completely tapped out. They're using their credit cards to buy food and pay for other essentials.
-Peter Schiff

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Categories: Climate change, Dental Care, Drugs, Economics, EU, FTC, Great Salt Lake, Gun laws, Guns, Heat Wave, Inflation, iPhones, Matthew McConaughey, Recession, Weather

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(The New Yorker)

The Onion: 'No way to prevent this,' says only nation where this regularly happens.

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Firearms are now the leading cause of death for U.S. children.

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Senator Chris Murphy's desperate plea for gun action: "Spare me the bullshit about mental illness," Murphy said. "We don't have any more mental illness than any other country in the world. You cannot explain this through a prism of mental illness because we're not an outlier on mental illness... We're an outlier when it comes to access to firearms and the ability of criminals and very sick people to get their arms on firearms. That's what makes America different."

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Noted American historian Heather Cox Richardson makes it clear: The idea that massacres are "the price of freedom," as right-wing personality Bill O'Reilly said in 2017 after the Mandalay Bay massacre in Las Vegas, in which a gunman killed 60 people and wounded 411 others, is new, and it is about politics, not our history. (Thanks to friend and reader Paul Stockhausen for reminding me to check my newsletter emails.)

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Governor: Texas gunman said he was going to shoot up school. The murderer sent private, one-to-one text messages on Facebook that were "discovered after the terrible tragedy," company spokesman Andy Stone said. He said Facebook is cooperating with investigators.

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From Columbine to Robb, 169 dead in US mass school shootings. Here's a complete chronological list.

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AP full coverage: Uvalde school shooting

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Mass shootings: the Supreme Court may be about to make the problem worse.

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Guns are just dandy, but Texas bans the possession of or promoting the use of more than six dildos.

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Texas Republican leaders promised action on gun safety after the El Paso shooting. Instead, they passed permitless carry.

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Why the Senate protects Supreme Court justices from protesters but won't protect kids from mass shootings

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Guns are banned during Trump's upcoming speech at the NRA conference. Of course they are.

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Beto O'Rourke interrupts Texas governor's press conference on shooting

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Donald Trump's plot for revenge against state politicians who didn't overturn the 2020 presidential election results failed. Badly.

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Tweets, observations, and diversions:

Mass killers are frequently too insane to stand trial but rarely too insane to buy AR-15s.
-John Fugelsang

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I bet the folks who wrote the Second Amendment never thought a well-regulated militia would spend so much time killing children.
-Mrs. Betty Bowers

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If you think gun violence is strictly a mental health issue, you're crazy.
-Middle Age Riot

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Daring someone to come and try to take your AR-15 away from you is a pretty good reason to have your AR-15 taken away from you.
-Jeff Tiedrich

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Don't even suggest arming teachers. Some of y'all don't even trust us to select library books.
-Amanda Lee

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Friends and patients of the late Lawrence J. Nelson, MD... A memorial will be held Sunday, June 12 at noon at the George Irvin Green Funeral Home, 3511 Main Street, Munhall.

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Categories: Beto O'Rourke, Chris Murphy, Donald Trump, Georgia, Greg Abbott, Gun laws, Heather Cox Richardson, Mass shootings, NSA, Paul Stockhausen, Second Amendment, Sex Toys, Supreme Court, Texas, Uvalde school shooting

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