The great “AI” promise of Tesla allegedly just slammed into a giant bus stop structure at high speed, destroying it and itself.
The SF Standard picked up the story by monitoring public services.
Police and firefighters responded to reports of a crash on Divisadero Street between Page and Haight streets at around 9:42 a.m. in San Francisco’s Lower Haight neighborhood, according to city data.
Taking out the competition? Source: SF Standard
Notably, Tesla is infamous for the fraud of saying the more it puts cars on the road, the more it will “see” how to improve safety.
And yet, in reality their cars are now known around the world for operating instead like a suicidal drunk wearing a blindfold.
If the huge bus stop structure hadn’t stopped the Tesla, it would have barreled along the sidewalk into a pubic seating area/parklet and storefronts.
Source: Google Maps
The brand seems to get dumber and more dangerous by the day.
We often speak about disinformation like it’s a side show to news, something motivated in extremes and from adversaries outside of balanced mainstream reporting.
The NYT however gives us a good example of disinformation in the mainstream cycles (pun intended).
They’ve been caught by StreetsBlog pushing an agenda with false analysis.
Richtel never clarifies, though, how the mere presence of a battery and a motor on Champlain Kingman’s bike contributed to the crash, aside from the fact that he personally believes that e-bikes “tempt young riders, untrained in road safety, to think they are safe mingling with high-speed auto traffic.” (Hot take: maybe the bigger problem is the presence of high-speed auto traffic in neighborhoods where children live, rather than the fact that children feel happy and confident riding bicycles — especially ones like Champlain Kingman, who by all accounts did have strong roadway training.)
StreetsBlog is right. Simple logic says if speed is a killer, cars need to slow down to stop killing cyclists. Death was the fault of the driver, as the cyclist would have survived without the presence of the speeding car.
Then, the NYT tries to paint with a rediculously broad brush, arguing that all eBikes are bad if some of them are modified for any speed at all.
This is like saying the Nissan LEAF and Chevy Bolt (five deaths) are as dangerous as the manslaughtering Tesla (nearly 500 deaths).
Richtel’s series, which instead explores the idea that e-bikes may be inherently unsafe for young riders, regardless of how they’re designed, ridden, and regulated.
The NYT seems to lack any understanding of safety engineering let alone transit design, peddling (pun intended) feelings of baseless fear instead.
A bike modified for 30km/hr could be safer than 25km/hr because it travels at the same speed as cars. It’s a fact that the worst crashes are a function of speed difference, so if eBikes are to be made safer they either have to speed up or cars have to slow down.
You know what I’m talking about. A bike at 10mph around cars trying to go 40-50mph is recipe for disaster; just like a car going 120mph around cars going 50mph. If safety is the goal, the worry about an eBike going faster on its own without any context is like 1800s campaigns claiming people were getting dangerously sick from traveling faster than 20mph (because it was bumpy).
That’s not how anything works.
The Nissan LEAF is incredibly safe. The Tesla is a death trap. Both are EV. Both are capable of high speed, but are totally different. The same stands for the variety of eBikes (pun intended) and their engineering/quality practices.
The final point made by StreetsBlog is a killer one (pun intended) about misdirection. The eBikes when adopted widely could dramatically reduce deaths, while the NYT falsely alleges they should be feared for risk of deaths.
The frank truth is that, of all of the dangers the Times attributes to e-bikes — grisly crashes, lawless vehicle owners modifying their rides to be more deadly, lives abruptly stolen from children and teens — car drivers and the auto-centric systems that surround them are overwhelmingly more likely to be the culprit, as evidenced by the fact that nearly every crash mentioned across the four stories involves a driver. And unlike thousands of teen motorists every year, the teenagers who were brutally killed in these collisions didn’t kill anyone else in the process, nor did they contribute to the pollution, sprawl, and staggering public health crises that are part and parcel of mass car dependency.
In fact, studies show the more bikes the lower the fatalities, exactly the opposite of cars. This is a function of bikes having an interactive and social component. Cyclists around cyclists become exponentially safer.
StreetsBlog makes a crucial point that cyclists don’t kill other people. All the cyclists dying on eBikes? Mostly killed by cars. See the problem?
It’s like reading an article in the NYT that says kids can choke on easily modified carrots and broccoli so they should be smoking with their parents instead, which not only kills them but everyone around them.
Wat.
Oh, but the vegetables are organic and could have a bug! NYT says chew on some tobacco instead kids because think of the risk.
NO.
NYT go get 100 eBikes, ride them in an eBike environment protected from cars, and then come back… you spoke too soon (pun intended).
Bottom line is disinformation can come from anywhere. In this case it’s a NYT writer so wrapped up in toxic car culture that he’s become nonsensical, afraid of the very best thing that could end it.
disinformation • \dis-in-fer-MAY-shun\ • noun. : false information deliberately spread to influence public opinion or obscure the truth
A new book “Klan War: Ulysses S Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction” sheds light on widespread American domestic terrorism that has been far too often overlooked or forgotten. The Guardian gives it a nice report.
“[The organized terror movement after Civil War] stock-in-trade was violence – intimidation and violence. People were beaten, people were flogged, people were lynched, people were shot. People’s homes were raided, they were dragged outdoors and flogged in the streets.”
And, he says, the violence often included “truly horrifying sadism”.
“It liberated the absolute worst impulses among” its members, Bordewich says, adding: “You can see this in today’s terrorist movements in other parts of the world – al-Qaida, IS. These are the organizations the Klan should be compared to. We think of terrorism today as something happening in other countries. It happened here in the 1870s.”
This is an intriguing and accurate perspective. However, it’s important to note that Fergus Bordewich, the author, claims that the Ku Klux Klan was the “first organized terror movement in American history,” which could be misleading as it overlooks the actions during Andrew Jackson’s 1830s Presidency as well as earlier examples.
To provide further clarity, one can view the Ku Klux Klan as an extension of pre-existing organized terror movements in America before the Civil War. It’s worth noting that Abraham Lincoln also spoke about these organized terror movements during his campaign for office. Additionally, it’s important to remember it was nation-wide organized terror movements that were cited as the “Casus belli” in John Brown’s famous pre-war defensive actions.
John Brown grew tired of torture and murder of abolitionists and called for armed defense against expansion of slavery. Curry’s “Tragic Prelude” impressive mural can be seen in the Kansas State Capitol memorializing Brown’s mid-1800s moral conviction to defend Americans against domestic terrorism and tyranny.
Bordewich’s analysis of the KKK’s prosecution also highlights that this wasn’t a sudden change following the Civil War; rather, a more rational view is to see the continuation of tactics long used by figures like George Washington. It was no coincidence he recruited white immigrants into an American “revolution” with the expressed aim to violently take control away from Native Americans, Black slaves, and especially monarchies who were abolishing slavery. A long-standing pattern of organized white nationalist terror in America is evident throughout its history from its very creation.
Why hadn’t local or state authorities intervened before? Often, it was because they were themselves members of the Klan. It was up to the federal government to step in, and that’s what it did under Grant and capable subordinates including the attorney general Amos Akerman and Maj Lewis Merrill of the seventh cavalry.
Akerman, a New Englander who moved to Georgia and joined the Confederate army in the civil war, saw Reconstruction as a way to reform his adopted home. He turned in invaluable work as Grant’s top prosecutor. In arguably the epicenter of Klan violence – upcountry South Carolina – Merrill was the point man who used troops and espionage to bring the Klan to bay.
“Akerman personally went to South Carolina and worked hand-in-hand with Lewis Merrill, a heroic military figure,” Bordewich says.
As Grant’s administration dismantled the Klan, it suspended habeas corpus in nine counties of South Carolina. To Bordewich, this was essential. “Why was this necessary?” he asks. “Because the so-called judicial system in the states was so infected by the Klan, so co-opted by the Klan … Akerman mobilized federal prosecutors to prosecute the Klan and the army to arrest members of the Klan.
“Without the suspension of habeas corpus, it would have been impossible to bring them to justice,” Bordewich concludes…
Similar to the invasion and occupation of Germany to remove Hitler after World War II, it’s inconceivable to imagine the U.S. occupying army using Nazi courts for justice. Likewise, we shouldn’t expect Grant to have asked the KKK to investigate and prosecute itself.
The name “Washington and Lee University“, for simple example, was created to make a clear statement by Americans committed to white supremacist goals. Imagine being in Ukraine and asking why a school is named Stalin and Putin. There are many other cases, such as the obviously racist slogan “remember the Alamo,” and Texas asserting itself to be the “lone star” of white supremacy by forever denying an abolition of slavery.
To bring it into modern context, considering AI companies engaging in repeated instances of racism and bias while claiming support for government regulation, it’s worth contemplating what strategy President Grant would take on matters rather than repeating the gross mistakes of another Andrew Jackson (or his protegee President Woodrow Wilson, who restarted the KKK in 1915).
That’s why I’ve been giving presentations for years on the premise that Grant’s establishment of the Department of Justice to combat the KKK on paper, and Roosevelt’s 1934 creation of the Federal Communications Commission to counter Nazism on the airwaves, provide valuable frameworks for addressing white supremacists on the Internet.
If we still can’t directly address antique racist propaganda like a university being named Washington and Lee, we can at least work towards regulating on the Internet those who seek to continue America’s long history of organized campaigns of white nationalist terror. What would Grant do?
Sergej Sumlenny, the Russian-born managing director of the European Resilience Initiative Center in Berlin, says this morning’s bomb-dropping drone video in Israel has Russian fingerprints.
The reported widespread electronics jamming, effectively disabling countermeasures, coupled with such a single precision anti-armor bomb does seem a bit contrived to be just Hamas.
The timing and reasons for the Hamas attack are linked to Russian and Iranian interests. Hamas is known to be strongly supported by both countries. Hamas leaders have twice held consultations in Moscow in the last 12 months and it is quite obvious that Russia has a wider interest in both distracting attention from Ukraine and, on the other hand, complicating Israel’s rapprochement with Saudi Arabia by creating tension in the region.
It’s worth noting that while the majority of the world is quick to condemn Hamas for initiating terrorist attacks on Israel, Russia is officially adopting a “both sides” narrative.
We call on the Palestinian and Israeli sides to implement an immediate ceasefire…
Already in three ways you should be able to see the problem.
We have tactical evidence showing the sophistication of an invisible bomb-dropping drone, political evidence indicating recent consultations between Hamas and Moscow, and then we see Russia taking a weak-kneed stance on terrorist attacks.
Moreover, as if three ways weren’t enough, there is additional evidence of Russia’s hand in the form of unusually sophisticated attacks targeting civilians.
…planned, coordinated and large-scale attack by militants, which resulted in dozens of victims in the first hours of the attack. At the same time, the victims were civilians who were shot by Hamas militants in towns near the Gaza Strip.
Hamas suddenly demonstrated unusually coordinated (loud) multi-front incursions and immediately started shooting to kill any civilians they encountered anywhere. One reporter described nine Israelis simply waiting at a bus shelter being gunned down in cold blood. A music festival for peace was ambushed, with at least 240 people murdered in a “killing field“. Another report described Hamas targeting and killing a civilian paramedic in a marked ambulance while he was engaged in medical duties.
The unfortunate twist to these escalating terror attacks, before we delve too deeply into Russia pushing such horrible events, is that Hamas also may have been pulled into Israel’s far-right extremist strategy of provocation and wait.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has welcomed the return of Benjamin Netanyahu as head of the most far-right Israeli government the country has known and signaled an intention to strengthen cooperation, the Kremlin said.
Israel’s newly elected PM had “chosen Putin over Biden” and refused to arm Ukraine against Russia. Meanwhile he instructed his government to “pursue” full annexation of the West Bank and put a “professional extremist troll” in charge of police. A former chief of staff for the Israeli leader revealed in April 2023 that Netanyahu was aligning himself with Russia’s “win at all costs” mentality, seeking unilateral undemocratic control much like Putin.
He wants to be like Putin, is seeking unlimited power.
And so earlier today we heard of Hamas throwing themselves abruptly into a brazen attack, and then the phrase…
Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, declared earlier: “We are at war and we will win”
Netanyahu was facing heavy and growing domestic political resistance before this massive terror campaign erupted. What does Russia have to lose by throwing Israel’s leader a sad excuse to end democracy, attack Hamas and invade Gaza (let alone annex the West Bank)? Russia is desperate for allies, and Israel’s increasingly far-right extremist political government seems willing to oblige for a small favor — starting a war.
The most straightforward argument against any notion that Putin and Netanyahu have conspired to manipulate this situation, with the aim of cornering Hamas militants in an untenable position of killing hundreds of civilians, is that this war is being reported as a significant intelligence failure on Israel’s part.
How is it possible that, on the most heavily surveilled border in the world, equipped with cutting-edge defensive technology and an extensive intelligence network, Israel was caught off guard by a group of gun-waving irregulars on tractors, motorboats, motorcycles, and paragliders?
Israel has condemned the EU’s outgoing envoy to the Palestinians after he paraglided over Gaza’s coast to draw attention to the blockade of the strip. A video showed Sven Kühn von Burgsdorff declaring he had carried out “the first Gaza paragliding flight in history”. “Once you have a free Palestine, a free Gaza, you can do exactly the same thing,” the German diplomat adds. Israel’s foreign ministry said it was a “provocative action” that served as propaganda for militant groups in Gaza.
And now, surprise!
October 7, 2023. Source: ET
Historians also will undoubtedly highlight and contrast today with Prime Minister Meir’s situation on October 6, 1973. She had intelligence suggesting an impending attack on Israel but, based on her military advisors’ counsel, chose not to launch a preemptive strike. This controversial decision led to an establishment of the Agranat Commission of Inquiry to investigate “military failings” and ultimately resulted in her decision to resign.
She is shown taking the fall for the egregious errors of her military leaders — in particular Chief of Military Intelligence Eli Zeira and Defense Minister Moshe Dayan — to protect the public’s faith in its army. Documents declassified in 2020 showed that Zeira ignored intelligence warnings that Cairo and Damascus were poised to attack, withholding the communications from the government in his belief that the chance of imminent war was “lower than low.” Meanwhile, Dayan objected to fully mobilizing troops in the hours before the war, according to his testimony to the Agranat Commission, which was declassified in 2008.
That article about the war of October 1973 was published only a couple months ago in August. It concludes with an interesting prediction.
…leadership blinded by hubris and power can poison a society. He referenced the current political crisis in Israel, in which Prime Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to weaken the Israeli Supreme Court have triggered mass protests that have been ongoing since January. “It’s kind of crazy that today we see the Yom Kippur of democracy in Israel,” said Nattiv. “The blindness again, the same debacle that happened in 1973 is returning now.”
Here we are, witnessing a situation that mirrors the events of 1973. Some people speculate now whether Netanyahu will face consequences for either knowingly or unknowingly allowing a Yom Kippur War II, but historically his reputation has been marked by a lack of accountability.
One has to wonder whether Netanyahu (in consultation with Putin) has planned this whole thing, including of course how to avoid a fate similar to Meir’s through various means.
Firstly, Netanyahu has shown no intention of stepping down for any reason. Furthermore, the element of surprise could enable Netanyahu to gain control over the military and enforce military service through declarations of war. This is especially important given recent protests against his leadership and refusals to serve in the military. Additionally, it might contribute to the growing normalization of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel by forcing them to choose sides in a conflict. Lastly, it fosters radicalization among Israelis, pushing them into an “us versus them” mindset that undermines compromise and moderation, which aligns with the goals of Netanyahu (and Putin).
Hamas is Iran so that’s the obvious part for me, but too few are talking about the gift from Russia. Iran gives basic munitions stock to Russia for their ongoing occupation of Ukraine, Russia then gives sophisticated operations training and coordination to proxy Iran’s intentions of… Israel’s occupation of Gaza?
I can hear now the Russian Wagners laughing cruelly as they say “sure, yeah our mercs in Belarus can get your Hamas across that line and blow stuff up, sure yeah whatever you want Iran. We’re sick of Ukraine too. Just show us the money”.
Electronics jamming and high precision anti-armor attack drone? That’s Russia practically begging to be recognized. The only thing more Russian is trolling the world with an official statement for “both sides” to ceasefire in a terrorist attack.
A new book “Klan War: Ulysses S Grant and the Battle to Save Reconstruction” sheds light on widespread American domestic terrorism that has been far too often overlooked or forgotten. The Guardian gives it a 
