Artists release silent album in protest against AI using their work

More than 1,000 musicians – including Annie Lennox, Damon Albarn and Kate Bush – released a silent album on Tuesday in protest at the UK government’s planned changes to copyright law, which they say would make it easier for AI companies to train models using copyrighted work without a licence.

Under the new proposals, AI developers will be able to use creators’ content on the internet to help develop their models, unless the rights holders elect to “opt out”.

The artists hope the album, entitled Is This What We Want?, will draw attention to the potential impact on livelihoods and the UK music industry.

Pop music is already less musical and more formulaic than in any previous era.

The age of autotune has not produced much that AI could not do better.

Bonus – No more political statements by the likes of Madonna!

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"AI - Artificial Intelligence"

Long before Trump, diverting water to the U.S. has been an ambitious vision for the continent

The study imagines North America the way an engineer might, assuming that engineer was equipped with divine powers. First published in 1964, the concept of a North American Water and Power Alliance was an attempt to solve the design deficiencies of a continent that delivers great quantities of water to northern regions where few people live, while parching the sunny latitudes that provide an ideal home for suburbs and lettuce farms.

To fix it, some replumbing would be required, with the power of human technology – including, perhaps, nuclear-powered excavation – substituting for the tectonic forces that so badly misdirected natural water flows.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, USA

Donald Trump and his threats are the dominant topic at federal Liberal leadership candidates’ debate

MONTREAL — The federal government must not deal with Donald Trump the way it did before, agreed Liberal candidates vying to replace Justin Trudeau, as they sparred over who is best suited to deal with the biggest threat to Canada’s economic security.

The U.S. president was not on stage, but he was front and centre throughout the two-hour, French-language confrontation between the four remaining Liberal candidates, as they took occasional aim at the Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre but directed most of their barbs at Trump and his aggression towards Canada.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada's Corrupt Liberal Government

BBC Gaza documentary cameraman appears to celebrate October 7 attacks

Uncovered tweets of Hatem Rawagh raise further questions about film accused of being propaganda for Hamas

A cameraman on the BBC’s controversial Gaza documentary appeared to celebrate the October 7 massacre, The Telegraph can reveal.

Hatem Rawagh, who was listed as an additional cameraman in the credits of the film, posted two tweets apparently praising the worst terror attack in Israel’s history.

In one of the posts on X he appeared to applaud the killing of an Israeli soldier, sharing a video of a gunman which he said should be watched “a million” times.

I don’t think there’s any doubt that the BBC did produce Hamas propaganda.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"Oct 7 2023", WTF?

Shareholders File Class-Action Against Struggling EV Bus Manufacturer

Lion electric bus

Quebec-based electric-vehicle manufacturer Lion Electric Co. is facing a class-action lawsuit from shareholders who allege the company misled investors and misrepresented its financial health.

The proposed lawsuit claims Lion Electric hid facts and details about its order book and production capacities from investors.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"EV's - Electric Vehicles"

Musk Calls to Congratulate Leader of German “Hard-Right” Party

The hard-right Alternative for Germany might not have done as well in Sunday’s election as its leaders had hoped, but its groundbreaking performance was enough for a congratulatory phone call from Elon Musk.

Alice Weidel, the chancellor candidate for the party, known by its German initials, AfD, told journalists on Monday morning that she had slept through a call from Mr. Musk, the world’s richest man and a top adviser to President Trump. When she looked at her phone on the morning after her party won 20.8 percent of the vote, she said, she had a missed call from the United States, which turned out to be from Mr. Musk, who, she said, “congratulated me personally.”

THE HORROR!

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inGermany, Germany - AfD party, WTF?

Lockdowns Cost Small and Medium-Sized Businesses $60 Billion in Pandemic’s First Year: StatCan

Canada’s small and medium-sized businesses lost about $60 billion in the first year of pandemic lockdowns, says the country’s national statistical agency.

In a report published on Feb. 18, Statistics Canada said about 47 percent of all small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)—businesses with annual salary expenses of less than $1.5 million—“experienced a drop in gross profit, totalling a loss of nearly $60 billion” from 2019 to 2020.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in"China eats weird animals disease", Canada

If Trump Wants Canada, Here’s How He Gets It

President Trump offered Canadians the deal of a lifetime — to join the U.S. and be welcomed as equals, as full citizens with all the rights that status entails. Canadian business would have tariff-free access to the world’s largest market. Individual Canadians would instantly be better off by replacing the weak Canadian dollar with the greenback, by getting lower taxes, lower gas costs, lower housing costs, better health care, better everything.

President Trump hasn’t made so generous an offer to anyone else. Yet instead of feeling honored, and responding in a spirit of generosity, most Canadians reacted peevishly and belligerently.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCanada, USA

Vatican Thinks ‘Charity’ Means Championing Democrat Causes And Taking Money To Flout Immigration Laws

America’s Catholics are facing a crisis of authority.

The social and economic realities of mass migration contradict the Vatican’s facile theologizing on open borders. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), in accord with Pope Francis’ globalist conceits, opposes President Donald Trump’s resolve to curtail illegal migration. Catholics are caught between fidelity to ecclesial leadership and obedience to the just laws of our own country.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inCamp Of The Saints, Catholic Church, USA

Why the Sinaloa Cartel May Never Be the Same Again

CULIACÁN, Mexico—Even Jesús Malverde, the patron saint of drug traffickers, has fallen victim to the vicious turf war ripping apart Mexico’s biggest producer and smuggler of fentanyl.

Since the Sinaloa cartel’s two main factions turned on each other five months ago, a chill has descended on this city of gated communities, luxury malls and illicit drug labs. Few pilgrims now dare to venture out to the shrine of the mustachioed Malverde, a legendary early 20th century bandit credited with miraculous powers. On a recent day, not a single person had spent the $1 it costs to buy a candle to place before his image in thanks for a successful drug run across the border to the U.S.

“Nobody comes anymore,” said Luz María González, minding a small stand full of offerings, incense and statues of the folk saint.

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted inMexican drug cartels, Mexico, USA

The civil-rights movement failed – Integration and multiculturalism served black elites

The heroes of Black History Month are the familiar leaders of the civil-rights movement: Thurgood Marshall, Rosa Parks, John Lewis, Ella Baker, and, of course, Martin Luther King Jr. Every February, we celebrate these men and women for championing the self-evident: racial segregation was immoral, integration a moral imperative. Law finally caught up with morality when the “separate but equal” doctrine was overturned in Brown v. Board of Education, forcing school integration.

Yet something seems off about these pieties in 2025. Against a backdrop of broad discontent with liberalism, including among black Americans increasingly drawn to Trumpism, it’s worth returning to a provocative set of questions posed by the black writer Harold Cruse in the wake of civil rights: what if separate but equal contained a good idea, a better idea than advocating for racial integration above all else? Shouldn’t black activism focus on building the capacity of black communities, rather than looking to open up opportunities for the black elite?

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by Blazingcatfur••0•Posted in#BlackLivesMatter