Did you chat with Tay?

Earlier this week Microsoft let Tay loose, an AI designed to chat with humans on Twitter. Microsoft describes the chatbot as being designed “for entertainment purposes.”    The Verge says Tay learned a lot while tweeting:

“Unfortunately, the conversations didn’t stay playful for long. Pretty soon after Tay launched, people starting tweeting the bot with all sorts of misogynistic, racist, and Donald Trumpist remarks. And Tay — being essentially a robot parrot with an internet connection — started repeating these sentiments back to users…”

Here’s a series of tweets which show how she went from nice girl to bad bot in about day. We can’t even put some of her tweets on here they’re so bad. For its part Microsoft says it’s taken Tay offline while it makes adjustments.

(Because there wasn’t enough real Trump on Twitter, there’s now a bot which tweets out what he says more often.)

No! Really?

There’s a story in Wall Street Journal which is walled up, so…let’s go to Biz Pac Review to find some shocking news. Illegal immigrants are getting healthcare through Obamacare.

“Hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants in 20 of the 25 U.S. counties with the largest illegal immigrant populations are able to sign up for health care benefit programs paid for by taxpayers that act as health insurance, according to a Wall Street Journal survey of those 25 counties. And at least 750,000 illegal immigrants are receiving care in those counties, costing taxpayers more than $1 billion.”

…

“President Obama’s healthcare law prohibits illegal immigrants from signing up for subsidized plans, but the counties surveyed by The WSJ are treating them anyway, reasoning the reduced emergency room costs will be more cost effective than denying them coverage.”

I’m shocked. Aren’t you shocked?

No, “Rule 40 (b)” does not apply

ICYMI, this bit of news came out last weekend, but apparently word still hasn’t gotten out. The famous NRC Rule 40(b) is not in effect for this election.  The rule required that the GOP nomination was “contingent upon winning a majority of the convention delegates in at least eight states or territories.” But, as the Washington Examiner points out, that was only good for the 2012 Republican convention and has no bearing on the 2016 race.  What could affect this year’s election is the rules committee meeting that will take place  during the week just prior to the convention. ”

Because the Race was getting boring

A Town Hall event talks place Tuesday in Milwaukee, WI for the three remaining Republican presidential candidates. it will be on CNN. Anderson Cooper will moderate. This has been a relatively quiet week so there shouldn’t be anything to divert attention from substantive issues.

 Nikki Haley says Stop It!

South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is going nuclear over a plan to ship over 700 pounds of weapons grade plutonium to her state. The shipment comes from Japan says The Hill and has been planned between the US and Japan since a 2014 Nuclear Security Summit.  Haley sent a letter to the Department of Energy seeking to halt the shipments

Ever wonder where some of the money goes

When you ship money off to a candidate do you wonder where your $5 went. It’s not just airplane rides and hotel rooms. Politico shows how big cash gets funneled out to big venues. The bigger the venue the more it costs. Bernie Sanders loves big venues:

“In February, the Sanders campaign, flush with cash from its small-donor network, spent $1.6 million on site rentals, ticketing and “sound/stage/lighting,” pursuing ever-larger venues for his followers to gather, according to Federal Election Commission filings.”

Quickhits:

• Alaska,Hawaii Washington state all hold Democratic caucuses today.
• Hey, be on the lookout for new Water  Cooler writers. They’ll be starting up pretty soon. Give them some encouragement if you can.
• Today is…absolutely yucky. It’s National Spinach Day.  Do the best you can with it, I suppose.

That’s another water cooler filled up. Jump in line down below to comment on something you saw here, or if you found a story elsewhere while trudging round the net then share it with some info and a link. Don’t worry about thread jacking, Water Cooler’s are always Open Thread.

*All emphasis mine