They are trying to pay Warner Bros. Discovery in an $82.7 billion merger. Here’s why it’s a terrible idea.

https://archive.is/4Pd2y

How do an artist, a videographer, a musician and a copywriter feel about generative AI?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/54551509

Our Antisemitism Envoy may have slight shades of Nazi

Antisemitism Envoy Jillian Segal — whose family bankrolls far-right political lobby group “Advance” — has misled the Senate over her failure to denounce last month’s NSW Parliament House neo-Nazi rally.

Segal said, she had conveyed her “condemnation” to those media outlets “who approached me”.This is false. The Klaxon approached Segal and her office on November 9, in writing, expressly asking: “As Australia’s Antisemitism Envoy, do you denounce the neo-Nazi rally at the weekend?” We received no response.

As previously reported, Segal’s family trust was the tied-second biggest funder of [far-right group] Advance in 2023-24 — the latest data — giving it $50,000 in the year.

A former Labour Prime Minister says Parliament is passing too many laws without proper scrutiny.

Sir Geoffrey Palmer told Nine to Noon the government was increasingly pushing through legislation under urgency, which allowed it to skip stages such as public consultation and select committees.

But Leader of the House Chris Bishop said just nine Bills have been passed in that way, and there were good reasons for all of them.

Palmer said the normal checks and balances were stripped out when laws were made at pace.

"Urgency has become the default mechanism for dealing with Parliamentary legislation and the standing orders are not followed and you also have extended sittings - and both of those mean the Government's agenda is completely at the will of the Government," he said.

Palmer said the Fast-Track Approvals Act 2024 - and its amendment - was a classic example of a trend that "ministers know best" and was "ministerial dictatorship".

"It was criticised by the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment then, Simon Upton, the amendment bill puts the process that was enacted in 2024 on steroids.

"It gets faster and faster. It will be a fast-track to environmental degradation, [more] than it already is."

Bishop was approached for further comment.

The legislation, which passed under urgency at the end of last year, is back before Parliament with an amendment that the government intended to push through by the end of 2025.

It said the amendment to the Act would increase competition in the supermarket sector.

Despite being open for just over 10 days, it received 2158 submissions, with about 95 percent opposed.

Palmer said legislative checks and balances - which he already considered lacking - were further reduced when legislation was made at pace.

"What is the hurry? Legislation is law-making. You want to get it right. You have to analyse it, you have to do proper research, you don't bang it through because a minister has an idea.

"It needs to be properly drafted by Parliamentary council. We have had a degradation of our legislative system in New Zealand in recent years."

Bishop said the government had a big legislative agenda and limited hours in ordinary house time to get it done.

Regarding the use of urgency, he said: "I am reluctant to use urgency to avoid select committees outside of the standard Budget urgency process, and it is only done so when there are good reasons."

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/56438780

How UK of you...

French President Emmanuel Macron has threatened tariffs on Chinese goods, just days after a state visit to China, in an interview published Sunday by Les Echos. He also stated that he still believes a negotiated solution is possible to address the trade deficit between the world’s second-largest economy and the European Union (EU).

My feed has been filled with rpg geeks shitting on him. I do not know why. I assume he said something nasty, or did something worse than his usual disgusting foot fetish.

Why do I see Tarantino drama constantly? What triggered it?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/40009220

So currently I have some decent analog headphones from sennheiser that I use when I spend all day staring at the computer for my email job. Unfortunately I recently moved right near a big ass radio tower and it blasts some talk news show into my apartment so now there is NPR voice muttering in my ear whenever I put my headphones on. This is obviously a ploy by the deep state to instill the understanding that Venezuela must be bombed for world peace. I refuse to go that easily so I need to figure out a solution. Analog is out since I don't think any amount of RF shielding will work and I don't want to spend my time chasing down leaks. Who knew those zillion dollar audiophile shielded cable people had real concerns.

I guess the options are either bluetooth or USB/digital headphones? Bluetooth is ehhhhh since I'm on Linux. I would also like "open ear" headphones if possible, since I don't like to be shut off from the world & general happenings in the apartment. Open ear also lets me hear my own voice so I can speak a lot more naturally during video calls. So something like that, max cost maybe $250 new and ideally something I could get used off ebay for around $100. Also something that does not look dorky as hell so I can reasonably be seen wearing it on work calls. Any recs?

Hollywood is feeling the lure of Saudi Arabian money (...)

Saudi money is also behind a portion of Paramount Skydance’s more than $60 billion bid this week for Warner Bros Discovery, according to Variety, which cites multiple sources, and Bloomberg, which cited people familiar with the discussions. A spokesperson for Paramount declined to comment.

Additionally, the kingdom is backing a $1 billion new independent content studio called Arena SNK launched in October by former Lionsgate executive Erik Feig, and a $55 billion deal for video game maker Electronic Arts announced in September. A representative for Feig declined to comment.

Executives from Sony traveled to Saudi Arabia this fall for meetings, a spokesperson confirmed. Comcast CEO Brian Roberts also traveled to the country this fall to attend a conference and view a potential theme park site in Qiddiya, a tourism megaproject in Riyadh province, according to a source with knowledge of Roberts’ trip who was not authorized to speak on the record about it. (Comcast owns NBCUniversal, which is the parent company of NBC News.)

The Red Sea Film Festival 2025 is going on right now (Dec 4-13). The glitterati are partying with Saudi royalty & following the money while blithely ignoring Saudi human rights abuses

Thailand launched airstrikes against Cambodia on Monday as a new wave of fighting erupted between the southeast Asian neighbors, marking the potential collapse of a peace plan presided over by Donald Trump just two months ago.

Both sides accused the other of launching strikes along their disputed border Monday morning, after weeks of simmering tension and the earlier suspension of progress on the ceasefire agreement by Thailand.

"Nah, too obvious. I'll run it out of the basement of a D.C. artisanal pizza parlor that I also hold public events in. Who would see that coming!"

A refreshing change from the depressing dystopian science fiction which seems to be de rigeur these days. And ironically, that makes it more like actual science fiction than the "realistic" SF that just brings me down.

Framed as a series of oral history interviews of survivors of the end of capitalism by the authors about the emergence of a post-capitalist society, or cooperating societies, it's a surprisingly hopeful read, even though there are elements that may seem rather alien to the modern reader. Particularly straight older readers like me!

But the idea of a world of communes without money or wages, where people feed and care for each other simply because they're human beings, is incredibly refreshing. It makes me want to read more.

There are a couple of points that did strike me as odd, though. One was the almost total lack of any mention of New England. The oral histories focus on New York, but the near-total lack of any sort of role for New England seemed a bit odd to this New Englander. It's as if the whole region had been scraped off the map! Other areas were mentioned, such as New Jersey and New Orleans. But not one word about anywhere in New England except Maine, and that was very limited. I couldn't help but wonder why.

Another odd point was the near-universality of trans-hood (if that's the right word for it). Virtually everyone interviewed was trans to one degree or another, and I can't recall a single cis person. In fact it was specified that the incidence of transsexualism had been constantly rising since the initial crisis point and failure of capitalism.

This was explicitly tied into huge technological advances in the field, including the option for any gender to gestate offspring. Although initially done via surgical alterations, it was specified later that gene therapy could also accomplish complete regendering - a process which was apparently a relatively casual choice.

This is the point where I'm guessing many readers of this review will find me hopelessly old-fashioned and sexist and contemptible, I suspect. I don't find the notion of gender change particularly disgusting; Robert A. Heinlein was writing about that sort of thing in the '80s, as I recall - albeit in a frequently creepy way. The oft-neglected Justin F. Leiber (son of the great SF author Fritz Leiber) covered the same subject far more professionally in Beyond Rejection (1980). I just find it strains my suspension of disbelief to buy the notion that the majority of the human race would effectively abandon the whole notion of gender within a period of 50 to 80 years.

Maybe I'm wrong. We'll see. That said, I would gladly adjust to any number of changes in order to live in a world where we survive the end of capitalism and fascism. And "Everything For Everyone" presents a vision of such a world in a way that gives me hope.

I'll definitely read it again.