Great Replacement Theory 2.0

and will the Trail be next?

A.I. Replacing Human Creativity

Attribution: A.I. replacing human creativity by Dave Whamond, Canada, PoliticalCartoons.com

resistance is futile

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Author: patd

“But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad." "How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice. "You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here.” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

86 thoughts on “Great Replacement Theory 2.0”

  1. in the meantime, laugh while you can

    Republicans want to put President Trump’s name on The Kennedy Center, American taxpayers can send the government extra money via Venmo, Trump is suing the owner of The Wall Street Journal over stories linking him to Jeffrey Epstein, and the president’s latest executive order makes it legal to preach religion to your coworkers at a government office.

  2. and more to smile or frown at on last night’s daily show

    Desi Lydic covers Trump opening a new golf course in Scotland before tending to his side hustle of president of the United States to strike a new trade deal with the E.U., which will finally bring product prices to… another all-time high? Plus, Michael Kosta and Grace Kuhlenschmidt take advantage of the government’s latest workplace policy: Take Your God to Work Day.

  3. jamie, more decor for the gilted age in Dodo’s WH.
    this is an example when/where the creativity of a certain human cries out to be replaced by A.I.
    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-checked-white-house-renovations-as-soon-as-he-landed-from-scotland/

    Donald Trump inspected the progress of his beloved White House renovations as soon as he landed in D.C after a work-and-golf trip to Scotland.
    Footage from Tuesday shows the reno enthusiast walking through the Palm Room with son Donald Trump Jr. and his girlfriend Bettina Anderson. The construction area is still littered with a drop sheet, rubbish bag, and red bucket from Home Depot.
    “It’s not looking too good, right,” Trump told reporters, pointing to the roof. “We’re fixing the ceiling” he added, noting he has “nice” chandeliers picked out for the room.
    The president then went outside to check how his radical redesign of the White House Rose Garden was coming along, holding an impromptu news conference while he leaned over bushes.
    The White House has been majorly Trumpified since January. The Rose Garden was one of his first projects. In March, Trump said he wanted to make the area more user-friendly, especially for women, by paving it over.
    “It’s supposed to have events. Every event you have, it’s soaking wet,” Trump said. “People can’t—and the women with the high heels, it’s just too much… We use it for press conferences and it doesn’t work because the people fall into the wet grass.”
    Photos taken on Tuesday show the paved area is now almost fully constructed. That will mean it is ready in time for Trump’s planned UFC match on the grounds of the White House next year.
    In June, Trump erected two 88-foot flagpoles on the North and South lawns of the White House. “I didn’t want to go too crazy,” the part-time renovator said. “I thought that would be enough… You know, they’re big. They’re about as big as you can get. We’re proud of it.”
    Inside the White House, Trump has given the historic building the Midas Touch with his beloved gold decor spread all over. That has included adding gold trim to the crown molding around the ceiling of the Oval Office, to match the gold curtains and gold around the fireplace mantel.
    Gold cherubs from his Florida Mar-a-Lago estate have been installed in the White House, as well as gold vases and urns and a gold ‘Trump’ crest over the door leading into the White House. There are also gold drink coasters with the president’s surname printed on them.
    During a meeting in the Cabinet Room earlier this month, Trump was debating what the correct finish for the ceiling was.
    “Will I gold-leaf the corners?,” he asked assembled officials, adding, “It won’t look good because they’ve never found a paint that looks like gold. So painting it is easy, but it won’t look right.”
    In February, he also spoke out loud about his dream to build a $100 million ballroom in the White House, based on a Grand Ballroom at his Mar-a-Lago Club in Florida. This week, he gave an update on the plans, saying he would start construction in two months and the whole project would be finished in under two years.
    “It’s a very incredible structure, it’s going to be beautiful, normally I could build a building like that in 4 or 5 months,” Trump said on Pod Force One.
    “But it’s very intricate inside, it’s beautiful, the best marbles, it’ll be a great tribute to the White House. Other presidents have talked about it but it never got done. I’m the builder. I know how to do it.”

  4. ” a gold ‘Trump’ crest over the door leading into the White House”
    eeeww, more mark of the beast

  5. I remember 1993 when so many thought this thing called the World Wide Web would end civilization. My newsroom colleagues thought I was crazy and/or dangerous working on a team to put our newspaper on AOL.

  6. Epstein scandal is the first crack I’ve seen in Trump’s MAGA base.
    From Economist/YouGov poll:

    The starkest change in the latest poll comes from Republicans, who’ve shifted away from the president by 12 points over the last two weeks, as the president navigates the country’s fixation on the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

    My liberal friends don’t get why this is happening. You had to pay attention to Q-Anon and watch Trump rallies to understand why the Epstein conspiracy theories are so real to these people. Now they see Trump joining the cover-up.

    Glad to see House Democratic leadership urging members to focus on this during the recess, advocating release of the records. It’s undermining enthusiasm among GOP voters for the midterm.

  7. Canada Is Home to the World’s Largest Solar Panel Mural

    The building pictured above might stop you in your tracks for its colorful tiles and striking artwork, but what you won’t pick up on at a glance is its status as the Guinness World Record holder for the world’s largest solar panel mural.
    ​
    Located in Edmonton, Canada, this 12-story residential structure has been retrofitted with 34,500 square feet of building-integrated photovoltaic panels, resulting in an annual reduction of about 150 tons of carbon emissions. Starting from year five, the solar generation is projected to save owners and residents a total of around $80,000 per year, per Good Good Good.
    ​
    Beyond cutting carbon and costs, the building is also significant for what it adds to the community: The 85-foot-tall mural, titled “The Land We Share,” was designed by Indigenous artist Lance Cardinal. It honors First Nations and Chinese cultures via depictions of the 12 animals of the Chinese zodiac living in harmony with the seven animals that symbolize the Cree sacred grandfather teachings.
    ​
    “The different teachings and ideals represented by these 19 animals help us see the world in a better way, to be respectful of each other and to understand each other’s differences, and, of course, to take care of Mother Earth,” Cardinal shared in an Instagram video.

  8. Mayor of Funky Town (@quasarfunk.bsky.social‬)

    This isn’t just corruption. It’s a declaration of war on the rule of law.

    Senate Republicans just confirmed former Trump lawyer Emil Bove to a lifetime seat on the federal appeals court — despite three whistleblowers, documentary evidence, and a mountain of red flags.

  9. Love the Scottish politician who wouldn’t meet with pumpkin face because he already had plans to wash his hair.

  11. Hmm, he’s branded the WH as his, not ours. I remember seeing the children’s garden on the WH grounds; bronze handprints and names of children and grandchildren of presidents. It looked like plans for dynasty and it bothered me.

    I think we can all recognize the writing styles and humor of others on the trail.

  17. I think we are going to get close to 100 degrees today. I went out a while ago to bring in the trash can. It is one of those rare days of high heat, humid, and not even a promise of a breeze. The high pressure system must be setting right on top of us
    It is a day, where, you find your shirt soaked in sweat the temperature of a warm bath. The sweat that is supposed to cool you is warmer than you are. If you have to work outside today in my world, be very careful.
    One way to cool down is to run ground temperature water over your forearms first and after you have cooled down a bit you can soak your head in the cooling water. But always use caution.

    Jack

  21. great Blue. 2pm ET. I’ll be introducing latest addition to our newsroom —
    Stat Man: He’s not psychic — just painfully good at guessing what you’ll buy during a recession..

  22. The monkeys writing Shakespeare is a perfect analogy for what passes as AI creativity. AI throws a lot of shit against the wall, examines it against what we have told it we didn’t like. Then compares it to what we did like so that for us poor humans what is left looks like creative genius. When in reality it is just the same old schlock being repackage.
    LLMs, aka AI, are good at sorting stuff and that is all their genius is.

    Everything else we attribute to AI is really the product of the creative efforts of generations of science fiction writers from Mary Shelly to the current crap coming out of Hollywood.

    Jack

  23. I think we need to remember the basic axiom of computers and AI is just a fast computer. “GIGO” garbage in , garbage out. It is why AI so often fails. It was trained on the biggest pile of garbage out there, the internet.
    Jack

  26. In addition to the GIGO information factor, my chief complaint about AI is the non-existent editing. A great deal of my working life was spent editing documents for large printing runs of technical manuals. Just yesterday, I saw an obviously AI produced document where multiple paragraphs were repeated throughout and since there was no “eyes on” editor, it was almost unreadable information.

  27. I remember 1993 when so many thought this thing called the World Wide Web would end civilization

    you call this “civil”?

    The Internet has literally driven everyone crazy

    and I realize many of you are retirees, but everybody’s terrible now, just rude and awful

  28. My experience is everybody is polite to the kindly old man, they even politely listen to my dumb stories. I’ve got to where I thank the checkout clerks for being tolerant.

    Jack

  30. None of my doomsaying is going to compel regulation of AI tech by any governing entity anywhere, so smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em

    the naivety is cute tho, 99% of people are whistling past the graveyard also

  31. we have a society where the rich people don’t want the poor people to have healthcare, the white people don’t want the brown people to have rights, pseudoscience (hokum) is now official policy, a level of overt corruption to a previously incomprehensible degree, and a crumbling infrastructure no one wants to pay the taxes to improve

    And you’re calling it “civilization”

  32. i almost died of heat stroke recently in a public place and my phone was dead and literally no one helped me. I could’ve keeled over dead on the street and 100 people would’ve watched.

    I happened upon a disabled motorist recently so I pulled over to help them and I said how can I help and he said man I just need a tire iron to replace this wheel and nobody would help me. You’re the first person. I’ve been waiting here two hours.

    I saw a black woman struggling to load her car I offered her to help and she broke down crying because she didn’t think anybody was nice enough to help anymore. Everybody is so rude to her. (She literally said “everybody is so cruel now, i don’t understand why”, heartbreaking)

    Maybe your world is different. Mine is full of terrible fucking people.

    It’s not a coincidence we ruled by a big selfish dipshit

  33. if I wasn’t the best driver on the road, I’d be run off of it, and people frequently are, accidents everywhere all the time every day. I could give you 10 anecdotes a day of from my commute of people treating other people and inhumanely, and you could chalk it up to car armor, but I think that’s even more damning like somebody blaming alcohol for exposing their true selves

    Irredeemable! smoke them if you got them!

    The political lesson is liberals are appealing to people’s better angels. They have none. No wonder you’re losing everything all the time.

    Slava Ukraine, maybe they’ll do better than we did ✌️

  34. here I’ll say something good about tech. It’s placating the populace so effectively they’re too lazy to participate in the race war the president is trying to start.

    hooray

  35. oh, here’s a good one: a handicapped guy in a wheelchair that had to use his one foot to cross the street because his arms were too weak and cars zoomed around him like he was a squirrel, they couldn’t wait five seconds for him to cross the street. This was maybe two weeks ago

    🇺🇸

  36. The world has always been full of cruel selfish people Nothing new here.
    It is all in how you view your world.
    The wonder in your world is that the person in the wheelchair felt it was safe to slowly cross a street with busy traffic.
    His voting with his life may carry more weight.
    Jack

  37. I see the Fed is ignoring Trump by a vote of 9 to 2. The 2 are probably the 2 Trump appointees who are proving their loyalty to Trump in hopes of becoming the next Fed chair.

    Trump is still threatening to fire Fed chair, Powell as if being fired by Trump could be more threat then reward.

    Jack

  38. The House of Representatives needed an intelligence test and the Senate needed a courage test

    A non-government of weak dumb people trying to regulate the smart ruthless people

    Don’t get me started on state governments holy shit!

    😆 😭

  39. Another day and further decomposing by mangomoron. Watched a little, very little, of today’s presser. It it weren’t for the dead squirrel on his head I would have guessed he was on chemotherapy or immunotherapy (almost the same thing).

    Can’t see, can’t hear, and stinks. Stupid really is horrible. Long game is cheeseburger for the win, short game is trip and fall.

  40. “For now, my leadership—and public service—will not be in elected office. I look forward to getting back out and listening to the American people, helping elect Democrats across the nation who will fight fearlessly, and sharing more details in the months ahead about my own plans.

    In the United States of America, power must lie with the people. And We, the People must use our power to fight for freedom, opportunity, fairness, and the dignity of all. I will remain in that fight.” -Kamala Harris (email that y’all may have received, too)

  41. https://www.rawstory.com/social-security-2673791088/

    Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent added a new wrinkle to the debate over what to do about the future of Social Security, since experts have warned the social safety net will be depleted by 2033.

    At a forum hosted by Breitbart News on Wednesday, Bessent claimed that the tax-deferred children’s investment accounts, called Trump Accounts in the Big Beautiful Bill, “is a back door for privatizing Social Security.”

    The plan’s architect, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), claimed that giving $1,000 seed money from the Treasury to “every child born in America” will “help them begin the journey of savings and benefit from the wonders of compound interest.”

  42. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/07/30/trump-accounts-social-security-scott-bessent/85444012007/

    Under the program, American children born this year through 2028 are eligible for a one-time $1,000 contribution from the federal government per toddler into a mutual fund or index fund that is tied to the performance of the stock market.

    “In a way, it is a backdoor way for privatizing Social Security,” Bessent said, speaking at a policy event hosted by the conservative outlet Breitbart News. “Social Security is a defined benefit plan paid out ‒ that to the extent that if all of a sudden these accounts grow, and you have in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for your retirement, that’s a game-changer.”

    *IF ALL OF A SUDDEN THESE ACCOUNTS GROW. IF. So, new parents between now and Dec, 2028 will get $1,000.00…and billionaires won’t be paying taxes and there will be dwindling social safety nets between now and then. A slow-rolling heist. Guillotines will make a comeback.

  43. bId – I am a believer in Kamala. She is solid, lots of “executive” experience, and tested on the trail. I am one of those convinced the 2024 vote was messed with, denying her of the presidency.

    Her veep nominee, Tim Walz, was also a good choice. He took on his role and knocked it out of the park! (my first full blown baseball reference for the year)

    Of all the others, there are a lot right now, there are many strong candidates. But, there is one question that has to be answered, can they take the hits from deranged magat media and candidates? The fight is deep and personal. The magats kick the crotch and try to pop out eyeballs. They make up stuff and have no control on what they do.

    Dems have a great tendency to fight with the Marquess of Queensberry Rules, when they should be fighting with the U.S. Marine Corp. hand to hand combat training.

  44. Jamie,

    I hear you on the editing complaint. I spent a couple hours yesterday editing an AI generated deposition transcript. Who knew that the AI “transcriptionist” can’t tell the difference between Buchanan and Buckhannon?

    And anon, weak and dumb – that about sums up Congress, house by house.

  45. 🚨 NEW EPISODE: TRAIL MIX — LIVE ON TAPE
    MAGA MELTDOWN 🫠
    Polls are crashing. Cheese is fascist.
    Maxwell’s back — and she might’ve leaked the birthday book.

    Craig and Stat Dude are joined by blueINdallas, whskyjack, and Jamie for a clothes-optional dive into the chaos:

    🧀 Freedom Cheese
    📉 GOP polling collapse
    👑 Maxwell’s “Get Out of Jail” strategy
    ⚙️ Immigration, labor, and AI vs. your plumber

    Watch it before the swamp eats the internet:

  46. BB -I agree. Adolf made too many comments about having all the votes he needed and Elon knowing computers and a “secret” they had, plus Elon said he had an app that gave him the vote totals hours before anyone else had them. All of those swing state wins. All of the hinky tRUMPsky v down ballot race counts. It stinks.

  47. Playing around on youtube, one of the things I love about youtube music.
    I found 3 different versions of the same song performed by Guy Clark at 3 different times of his life.

    YouTube thumbnail

  49. From a comment on this video

    Only Guy Clark can sing a song and make you miss someone you haven’t even met.

  50. Project 2025, associated with Stephen Miller and Donald Trump, reflects a vision for a significantly reduced U.S. population, with Miller reportedly suggesting a goal of only 100 million people, primarily reflecting a desire for a less diverse nation. This aligns with the project’s broader agenda of strict immigration control and a push for policies that could lead to mass deportations. -ai

    Total current population for the United States in 2025 is 343,603,404, a 0.52% increase from 2024. -ai

    *Stephen Miller is a n@zi ghoul.

  51. Ron Bennington is using AI to improve Andrew Dice Clay’s infamous, vulgar nursery rhyme gags (which I never found funny and neither did AI) and you know what? the AI punchlines are funnier!

  57. those are just separated at birth, Ivy. those are clones!

    Chips off the old crumbling block, Craig.

  58. Big announcement, we bought a retreat house in the mountains. We’ll be on retreat. It’s a buyers’ market out there. Big change from 4 years ago, depending on which side of the transaction you’re on. Anyway, that’s what’s keeping me busy lately.

  59. 🚽 NEW SHORT: AI Won’t Fix Your Toilet

    Law school? Meh.
    AI’s taking briefs and billables.
    But plumbers? Butchers? Untouchable.

    A brutal truth from today’s Trail Mix episode — now clipped for your scrolling pleasure:
    👉

  60. Craig, I like the cut and paste recordings. It’s much easier to follow as it avoids most of the talking over each other, and feels more like being in the same room. When live, it’s a little hard to tell when someone has finished a thought with the hazard of talking over others.

  61. On population, I’ve always had a theory of percentages. There is a tiny percentage of extreme dangerous evil and an almost equal percentage of truly angelic saints with the rest grinding along the spectrum of behavior with the majority clustering around the middle.
    When the population is small, it is fairly easy to keep track of who is who and stand a chance of avoiding the bad actors while knowing how to get help. When the population is huge, fear can set in and conspiracies take hold because you know getting murdered while shopping becomes a distinct possibility.

  62. we bought a retreat house in the mountains

    i’m on my way, stock up on tea and chicken nuggets. Thank you.

  63. oh, and Sturge, Bennington and his studio sidekicks were talking about new music and he said “do you think some kid in the ‘30s put on ‘Chattanooga choo-choo’ for the first time and was like ‘WHAT…THE…F***?!’”

    lol

  64. “Dude, you gotta listen to this ‘Chatanooga Choo-Choo’ album, it’s INSANE!”

    …it was the laugh i needed

  65. Yes Jamie, glad I moved to the “Live on Tape” edited format. Need more trailmixers on board. Can do them anytime, at your convenience. Then I just grab some gum and duct tape, stitch them together.

  66. i’m on my way, stock up on tea and chicken nuggets. Thank you.

    ❤️ How are you with altitude?

  67. Anon
    Yes “Pardon me boy” hits modern ears like a slap in the face. There are several songs and films with similar lines. Then there are songs where younger folks completely miss the reference though at least one may make a come back:

    I never miss a trick
    I caught the measles and the mumps
    Every time I play an ace
    My partner always trumps.
    Everything happens to me

    I telegraphed and phoned
    Sent an airmail special too
    Your answer was goodbye
    And there was even postage due

  69. Once during a one and a half year tuxedo gig I had a brief immersion into “songs written in the key of F major” a key full of groovy.

  71. Altitude sickness is weirdly awful. Had it up in Breckenridge. Fine in Boulder and Longmont and Denver and Durango (Purgatory).

  72. My Dad (industrial engineer) loved Glen Miller and Chattanooga Choo Choo. My mom was an Elvis fan (the movie phase). My dad thought the Beatles’ songs (on Meet the Beatles) all sounded alike. I begged to differ. My mom kinda liked that album.

    The closest I got to WTF is that was Hendrix. Neither of my parents could wrap their heads around Purple Haze.

  73. Altitude sickness is weirdly awful

    BiD, Like flu but weirder. I come down with it now only if I go up to Pikes Peak.

  74. *TX has redrawn their districts and they have drawn Representative Jasmine Crockett’s house out of the district she represents. Gavin Newsom and other Dem governors better go hard on this.

    After shutting down public hearings and making it clear they had no intention of listening to their constituents, Texas Republicans today unveiled a new proposed congressional map designed to boost their party’s prospects by creating five additional seats likely to go GOP-including three districts that Donald Trump would have carried by 10 points and two by more than 15.

    The map, which redraws lines ahead of the 2026 elections, forces several Democrats into tough spots: notably, Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (TX-30) would find herself drawn out of the district she currently represents.

    She spoke about this in a video shared online, she explains that she does not have to live in the district to run in the district but the makeup of the population, what her constituents tell her and other factors will play a role in her next steps if this map is approved.

    There is still a chance to speak out against this gerrymandering. A 10-hour public hearing is set for this Friday in Austin for Texans to share their views and make their voices heard as the high-stakes redistricting debate continues.” – Politico

  81. Jamie
    A quote from the article you posted about AI

    “It’s like a super-smart, capable person. There’s no phone tree, there’s no transfers. It can do everything that any customer support agent at that company could do.”

    To which I thought, that probably tells you more about the customer support at that company then the ability of AI.

    Jack

  82. Craig
    Your AI assisted animation is improving. But why does every voice sound like it was trained on Britbox?
    Because it was ?
    I did notice Lady Maw Maw using some phrases that sounded like they came straight out of the ozarks. The dialect phrasing not the voice.
    Jack

  83. https://citizenwatchreport.com/treasury-file-shows-4725-epstein-transfers-while-senate-demands-release-of-1-1b-bank-data/

    The Treasury Department is sitting on a file that details 4,725 wire transfers totaling nearly 1.1 billion dollars through a single Jeffrey Epstein bank account. That figure was confirmed by Senate Finance Committee investigators who reviewed portions of the file in person last year. The file is real. The transactions are real. The money trail is mapped. And the Trump administration is refusing to release it.

    The transfers span over a decade. The money moved through JPMorgan, Deutsche Bank, Bank of America, and Bank of New York Mellon. Some of the largest transfers were linked to art sales, fees from wealthy associates, and payments to women from Belarus, Russia, and Turkmenistan.

    The total flagged activity across all accounts exceeds 1.5 billion dollars. That’s not speculation. That’s documented. Suspicious Activity Reports were filed after Epstein’s 2019 arrest. The banks flagged the transactions. The Treasury logged them. The Senate reviewed them. But the public hasn’t seen them.

  84. I hate chatbots for Customer Support. And after it doesn’t help you, it asks you how it did. And when you give it a thumbs down, you get a follow-up question because they want you to actually train the damn thing, but you can’t because you asked it a question and it didn’t know and you wouldn’t have asked if you didn’t need to know, so you certainly can’t train it.

    Hey, you kids. Get offa my lawn.

  86. https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2025/07/19/red-carpet-rolls-out-chief-war-premiere-with-jason-momoa/

    Momoa plays Ka’iana, an alii of Kauai in the historical drama about King Kamehameha the Great’s unification of the Hawaiian islands in the late 19th century.

    “We can talk about Hawaiian history in a way that is appropriate,” Sibbett told Hawaii News Now. “When have we ever been able to have that conversation?”

    The nine-part Apple TV+ series has been years in the making, with filming in New Zealand and Hawaii, with several local actors in leading roles.

    *This will open eyes like “Roots” did in the 1970s. It needs to happen more often, so the message sticks.

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