Actor Woody Harrelson recently explained why he doesn’t carry a cell phone. The 62-year-old star discussed his reasoning during an interview on SiriusXM’s “Where Everybody Knows Your Name” podcast with Ted Danson, which aired Wednesday. Harrelson was talking about issues with cell phones in a conversation with actress Kristin Bell.  “And let me explain something about Woody,” Danson said. “He doesn’t have a phone. He’s one of those bullies in life that make other people carry his phone for him.” Harrelson replied that while the statement was “not exactly true,” he did have a complicated relationship with the technology after observing certain habits. “Well, I just don’t like to have, you know, to be readily available to any human being at any time,” Harrelson said.  Bell agreed, saying, “I hear that. It doesn’t feel good.” “That’s not the reason,” Harrelson corrected. “I like to be in touch with people in a way, but I don’t like the appendage on my appendage.” He added, “You know, I made a thing where I’m like, ‘Okay, I’m gonna set a two-hour limit on my phone,’ because this is, I’ve given it up now three, three and a half years, but back then I was like, ‘Okay, I’m going to set this limit. Two hours.’ It’s like 9:30. You know, I’ve already hit my limit at 9:30, so I woke up, and I’ve been on it two hours already because, cuz you know how it can just keep going and going.” Danson asked Harrelson if those limits applied to certain things on the phone, like apps or texting.  “Texting and, well, I don’t know about apps, but texting and also, you know, whatever, so I just finally, I wanted to be able to be in a, like if I were out to dinner with you, right? And there’s just a lull in the conversation,” he said. “Oh, I’m on the phone. ‘Oh yeah. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.’ You know, and I look and I’m back down to the device and this.” Bell mentioned how her two children helped her realize how excessive her phone usage was. “But I think once you recognize that, it reshapes, at least it did for me, my whole perspective, and I think my kids had a lot to do with that, too, where I realized they were talking to me and my kids are also very, like, emotionally articulate,” the “Frozen” actress said. “So, if I’d be checking something, even if it would be the most valid thing ever, like, ‘Oh, her Jujitsu class is changing times tomorrow. I need to tell the other moms.’ Whatever. A valid thing and one of my kids would look at me and go, ‘I just feel like you’re disconnected. I don’t have your whole attention, Mom,’ and I’m like, ‘Oh f***,’” she went on. Bell added, “When they get home from school, I do put it down. I put it upstairs,” she said. “It’s not in my ether when we’re bopping around the house at night and I feel, I really enjoy being less connected to it. It’s such a trick.” Danson concluded by saying he could understand Harrelson’s position. “Yeah. I admire what you do with phones by the way, Woody. I need to emulate that more.”

'Difficult but necessary'

Redick was heavily speculated to be the favorite for the job

'Access reproductive health care'

At the end of May, on the 21st, the long-awaited release of WoW Cataclysm by many players is expected – an update of the classic version, which will largely repeat all the events and ideas of its old patch notes of 2010, but with updated graphics and interfaces for comfortable play in the modern realities […]

'Now where I come from, we call that sexual abuse'

Manhattan DA drops charges for Columbia protesters

Wikipedia entries are more likely to paint public figures on the Right in a negative light than the Left, a Manhattan Institute study released Thursday found. The study analyzed the sentiments of 1,628 words that were used in reference to political topics and found that Wikipedia generally uses more negative terms in reference to right-leaning public figures, and less when referencing left-leaning figures. The results would suggest that Wikipedia is contradicting its “neutral point of view” policy, according to the study. It also found that certain terms associated with right-wing politics are connected with emotions of anger and disgust more than left-wing politics. The same pattern can be seen with left-leaning ideas being more associated with joy-related terms than right-leaning ideas. The study warns that OpenAI language models share similarities with Wikipedia, underscoring the potential for bias in Wikipedia to affect other systems that rely on OpenAI technology. “There is a degree of overlap in the prevailing sentiment associations of political terms in word embeddings derived from Wikipedia content and word embeddings from the OpenAI GPT series,” the study said. “This is not surprising, given that Wikipedia articles are likely a prominent part of OpenAI’s secret corpus of data used to train ChatGPT.” OpenAI’s ChatGPT software has been shown to express left-leaning bias in its responses, according to a separate finding from the Manhattan Institute. Other researchers in 2022 have also found bias in its content filtering system. Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger said to UnHerd in 2021 that Wikipedia cannot be trusted any longer as a neutral source of information, saying it has become “propaganda.” “You can’t cite the Daily Mail at all. You can’t cite Fox News on socio-political issues either. It’s banned,” Sanger said. “So, what does that mean? It means that if a controversy does not appear in the mainstream center-Left media, then it’s not going to appear on Wikipedia.” Wikimedia Foundation, the parent 501(c)(3) that manages Wikipedia, created the Wikimedia Endowment as a “collective action fund” managed by the left-wing grantmaking titan Tides Foundation, which has donated millions of dollars to left-leaning causes since its inception. In 2019, the Wikimedia Foundation hired Amanda Keton as general counsel, who was previously the CEO of Tides Advocacy, the 501(c)(4) arm of Tides that works on the “creation, financing, and consultation of various left-of-center organizations,” according to Influence Watch. The Wikimedia Foundation did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation The post Wikipedia Is Biased in Favor of Liberals, Study Finds appeared first on The Daily Signal.

A lot of attention is being given to support being picked up by Donald Trump among non-white voters. But the change taking place among young voters is even more dramatic. In the elections in 2016 and 2020, Trump was soundly defeated among voters 18-29. In 2016, Hillary Clinton defeated Trump among voters ages 18-29, 55% to 37%. In 2020, Joe Biden defeated Trump in this same youth demographic, 60% to 36%. However, a new Quinnipiac poll shows Trump leading Biden by one point among voters 18-34. Per Gallup favorability/non-favorability ratings, in October 2020, prior to the election, 58% of those 18-34 rated Biden “favorable” against 38% who rated Trump “favorable.” However, in the same polling done by Gallup last month, Biden’s favorability among those 18-34 was down to 33% and Trump’s was up to 46%. In early May, a New York Times/Philadelphia Inquirer/Siena College poll was done in six battleground states—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Among those 18-29, in response to the question, “If you had to decide between the two today, who would you lean more toward?” 43% said Biden and 46% said Trump. Follow-up questions in this same poll give an idea of dissatisfaction among these young voters. Regarding the economy, 91% of ages 18-29 rate it either fair or poor. And they favor Trump over Biden regarding confidence in fixing the economy 68% to 25%. Regarding the political and economic system of the country, 62% said it needs “major changes” and 16% feel it should be “torn down entirely.” None of this is particularly surprising. What is surprising is our nation’s youth are just waking up to the raw deal they are getting. They are inheriting a once uniquely great nation now heading into fiscal and social bankruptcy as a result of totally irresponsible management by the current and preceding generations. Despite current polling showing the youth vote leaning to Trump, according to the same poll, still almost twice the percent of those voters ages 18-29 identify as Democrat, 27%, compared to Republican, 15%. However, 44% identify as independent. We need look no further than the nation’s oldest and largest entitlement program, Social Security. It is well publicized that the system is bankrupt. According to the latest Trustees Report, the system will be insolvent in the year 2035, with a shortfall of about 20%. Yet all these youth, ages 18-29, are immediately forced to pay into this broken system with their very first paycheck, despite the cold fact that the funds are not there to pay them their benefits in full when they retire. In a private company, the management would be facing legal action. Is it any wonder that our youth are cynical about their country?  The Biden administration continues to spend and borrow like economic reality does not exist. According to the Congressional Budget Office, “If current laws governing revenues and spending go unchanged … Debt held by the public would soar from 99% of GDP in 2024 to 166% of GDP in 2054—exceeding any previously recorded level and on track to increase further.” Let’s note that in 1980, this debt was less than 25% of gross domestic product. At the end of 2008, just prior to the Obama presidency, it stood at 43.6%. Larded down by big government and debt, CBO projects annual growth for 2024 and onward at less than 2% per year. Growth averaged more than 3.5% annually from 1950 to 2000. Can things be fixed? Of course, with principled, courageous leadership. Trillions in wasteful spending needs to be cut, and dinosaur government programs should be eliminated or privatized. But the last place to look for leadership for any of this is the current administration in Washington, which loves growing the welfare state by mortgaging the future of our next generation.  It’s time for change, and our young voters know it. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Young Voters Leaving Democrats and Biden appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Influencers and leaders of the video game industry are enthralled with the idea of using a market predominantly targeting minors to sway a whole generation into adopting and accepting LGBTQ ideology.  Major game studios have embraced “Pride” month this year in a manner that gamers cannot escape. What this industry truly needs now more than ever is a Bud Light moment to correct course. Bud Light faced a boycott last year after hiring far-left transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney as a spokesperson. Americans boycotted the brand for endorsing gender ideology, and sales are still foundering a year later. Sales of Bud Light fell 9.1% from January to March this year. Another LGBTQ-pandering company, Target, lost billions of dollars in market value after Americans boycotted the brand for promoting the radical ideology last year. The video game industry is going down the same path that Bud Light and Target did. Take what the official X account for the “Halo” series posted on June 1, for example.  Halo is a game series, a so-called first person shooter, that has remained synonymous with Microsoft’s Xbox platform for over 20 years.  Rather than prioritize gamers having fun as in years past, the official Halo account posted to “embrace love, diversity, and inclusion by equipping the Unity ’24 armor coating, nameplate, and emblem in Halo Infinite this June.” The developers added these features to the game for the purpose of “honoring our LGBTQIA+ community and forging a future of unity and acceptance for all.” Xbox’s studio that runs the Halo franchise, 343 Industries, knew exactly what it was doing when it implemented Pride month memorabilia to a game with a significant impact on youth.  This should come as no surprise considering Xbox’s official account posted on May 31 that it would be working with the Trevor Project, a transgender activist organization. Another major game series that has fully embraced promoting LGBTQ ideology to children is “Call of Duty.”  To celebrate Pride month, the gaming corporation Activision Blizzard added LGBTQ-themed paint coatings for guns in “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3” and “Call of Duty: Warzone.”  The transgender paint coating for the games notably also painted the transgender flag over the bullets of one gun used to kill other players.  The transgender bullets are reportedly a bug in the game. This seems to be a major oversight, with transgender students recently creating hit lists in schools. The largest gaming corporation targeting children is unfortunately following suit.  In May, Nintendo released a remake of the popular 2004 game “Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door.” The game is selling well, and considering this is a Mario game, the audience is predominantly children. In the original release of Paper Mario in 2004, one of Mario’s sidekicks is a prominent character named Vivian. The character in the original Japanese release was described as an “otokonoko” which is a feminine boy. To avoid controversy, the American release completely changed the character to female 20 years ago.  Rather than stick to either the original Japanese or American interpretations, Nintendo of America has changed Vivian’s dialogue to make the character explicitly transgender in the remake, in a game primarily intended for children.  Vivian was not transgender in either of the original Japanese or American interpretations. This change is in line with the company’s new hiring practices, which now reportedly require potential employees to have awareness of “DE&I related topics.” Nintendo of America’s website additionally promotes “Diversity & Inclusion” with Mario front and center. The company appears to have segregated affinity groups, with one labeled as “rainbow.” The goal of this group is “fostering an accepting and open environment to welcome new LGBTQ+ family members into the greater Nintendo family.” Most of the largest corporations in the video game industry appear to be more than willing to use their platform and influence to ensure the next generation of children embrace an extremist LGBTQ ideology that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago.  So it’s time for the video game industry’s Bud Light moment. The goal of activist leaders in the industry is to use their power to influence children. Whether it is Xbox or Nintendo, parents and gamers alike need to speak with their wallets. Just as Bud Light and Target reversed course, game corporations would do the same if it meant losing profits. We simply cannot allow them to target children anymore. This time next year, let’s hope we are referring back to the video game industry’s “Mario moment.” Casey Ryan is a writer and investigative reporter at Parents Defending Education. The post The Video Game Industry Needs a Bud Light Moment appeared first on The Daily Signal.