Saturday, August 17, 2024

Weekend Reading Extravaganza: from Da Vinci to Venice; from maps to world wonders; from bridges to train stations; from rock history to Canadian history

Over the last few weeks I have seen some interesting posts about art, culture, etc. that didn't seem to fit into a daily post. So I have gathered them all together here. Enjoy! 

First, a fascinating assembly here -- did you know that Leonardo Da Vinci only did 20 paintings in his lifetime, some never finished?


And here's another fascinating DaVinci art story, about the Last Supper:

Friday, August 16, 2024

Today's News: "Poilievre delivered a plethora of lies"


The Niagara Now newspaper committed real news this week! 
Covering a recent Poilievre speech at a Niagara-on-the-Lake food coop, reporter Richard Wright reported yesterday on Poilievre's remarks and, remarkably, also explained how wrong and inaccurate they were:
Federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre doesn’t believe outlets that serve the nation’s “news deserts” deserve financial help to continue giving Canadians the important and accurate information that affects the areas they work and live.
The man who hopes to be the next prime minister of Canada said the Local Journalism Initiative, which provides rural and small community news outlets with funding to hire reporters to cover specific areas outside the reach or interest of large media organizations, is nothing more than a sounding board for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s liberal government.
“It is terrible … how local journalism has done under nine years of Trudeau,” he told The Lake Report in an interview last Thursday after speaking to a Conservative-friendly crowd at a NOTL food co-operative.
“He’s tried to take it over and basically wants everyone to work for the government so that he can have regurgitated propaganda paid for by taxpayers.”
News deserts — areas that have little or no regular news coverage — have grown enormously over the past 15 years as scores of newspapers have closed.
Launched in 2019, the Local Journalism Initiative gives grants to independent publishers, such as The Lake Report.
Those organizations then hire reporters to cover specific areas, such as agriculture or civic government. Those reporters have no connection to the federal government nor does the government tell the publishers what stories should be covered.
Publications pick and choose what news items to cover without threat of reprisal from any form of government.
The Lake Report, for example, often tackles issues that do not align with the federal Liberals’ agenda and messaging.
Poilievre claimed the program threatens free speech and when asked what he would do with it if elected prime minister, he did not directly answer.
“I am looking into it. But more important than that, the question is how do we bring back free speech,” he said.
“The answer is journalists getting eyeballs so they can sell subscriptions and advertising, get sponsorships and do what media have done for, I don’t know, 3,000 years.”
“How has the media funded itself for 3,000 years?” he asked. “Subscriptions, advertising, sponsorships. That’s how it has worked for 3,000 years.”
Today’s journalists have to contend with the internet, where stories are often shared by people not trained in journalism and whose ethical standards or motivations may be suspect. Their work is often distributed free via social media and digital platforms.
This practice, combined with online giants like Google and Meta sharing legitimate news items on their platforms without compensating publications for the content, has deeply dug into news organizations’ bottom lines.
Poilieve seemed fine with letting what is often illegitimate news be the source of information for Canadians...
Does Poilievre actually think community newspapers were operating back when Menes was the pharaoh of Egypt -- funny, because papyrus had only just been invented then; The Times of London wasn't founded until 1785. And, as Niagara Now says, it was the internet that has destroyed newspaper profits.
Then in their editorial about Poilievre's ignorant and insulting speech, Niagara Now editor-in-chief Richard Harley commits more real journalism:
This Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre delivered a plethora of lies during his visit to NOTL, forcing The Lake Report to respond with the longest editorial it has ever published.
...There are a litany of problems with citizen journalism and Poilievre’s mindset that journalism is doing just fine because every Bob and Sue can post on Twitter is not appropriate for someone who wants to run this country.
Run it into the ground is more like it.
We realize this is probably the longest editorial we’ve ever published. Yet, it might be one of the most necessary editorials yet.
Because one of Poilievre’s tactics is to throw out so much misinformation, that it’s almost impossible to fact check it all, especially on the spot.
It’s why he often appears to eat journalists and other politicians alive. Because he’s on another planet and it’s almost impossible to have a rational conversation with someone who just makes things up.
So it’s our duty as a free press — one that isn’t going to take anything at face value from any political party — to call out Poilievre’s dangerous lies. Or his inability to comprehend the truth.
Either he’s lying to you and knows it. Or he’s just incompetent.
And because he’s not a stupid man, it’s not hard to figure out. If you think critically about what he says.

Thursday, August 15, 2024

Today's News: Harris/Walz v. the national press



Once again, America's national press are whining about Kamala Harris not holding press conferences.
Oh sure.... 
Folks, its not happening, not until after next week's Democratic Convention - when the party will endorse policy positions on all sorts of things. 
Remembering, of course, that the Republicans didn't even discuss a party platform last month (hiding their support for the 2025 project ) and the Trump campaign journalists didn't care. 
In reality, the journalists shadowing the Harris campaign don't care about the FTC stuff either -- they just want Harris to give them a few off-the-cuff comments that can be turned into controversial headlines. 
The New York Times Pitchbot parody account gets it:
 At Daily Kos, Markos writes Kamala Harris doesn't owe the national press anything:
...A presidential candidate’s job is to win. That’s it! So pray tell, how does talking to The New York Times or any other national media outlet help that cause? Either journalists will ask ridiculous, shallow questions and waste everyone’s time, or they’ll fish for a gotcha quote they can use to generate “controversy” and clicks. Or they might actually ask a policy question, which … no one cares. Literally, no one. For decades, Democrats issued reams of policy white papers, and no one cared. At best, those policy proclamations are ignored; at worst, they become attack fodder for the other party.
There are two candidates this election, and no one is basing their decision on the finer points of a policy platform. They are basing it on values. Republicans have known this and wielded it to great electoral success, and now Democrats are finally there.
On his substack, Jeff Tiedrich writes hey media: Kamala doesn’t owe you jackals a press conference, so stuff it
...the Times has been pulling this crap for years. they pretend they want to “understand” an issue, so they round up five MAGA dipshits in an Arbys in Midland, Texas, listen to them pontificate on crap they know nothing about, and then write it up as here’s the scoop on what Real Amurricans think.
just once, I’d love to see the Times round up five Harris fans in a Whole Foods in Greenwich, Connecticut and ask them what they think.
but no, that would destroy The Narrative that it’s only the cOnSeRvATiVes fRoM tHe HeArTLand who are the “real” face of America....
...hey, Washington Post, I’m demanding that you sit down for an interview with me. my first question is what the fuck are you doing, publishing this misogynistic twaddle?
Without her beauty, Harris might be joining Biden in retirement. All you have to do is imagine her spoken words coming from a less-attractive package. Or put her on radio.
Harris remains the person she has been for the past 3½ years: a sometimes bumbling beauty with a stride that conveys confidence if not precisely competence.
I shit you not, this is from a Kathleen Parker hit job entitled “News flash: Kamala Harris is not a remake of Barack Obama.” Parker’s premise, in this Year of our Lord 2024, is that Kamala is a vacuous bubblehead who has been coasting on her looks.
is Kamala now supposed to reward these journalistic jackoffs with a sit-down interview? I think not.
news flash for our media:
Kamala Harris does not owe you a press conference, and you have no right to demand one.
let’s imagine that Kamala agreed to hold a presser tomorrow. we all know what would happen: it would devolve into a shit-show. the press would waste everyone’s time — and drop our collective IQ by three points — by asking worthless questions.
“Madam Vice President, Donald Trump says you only recently became Black. what is your response?”
who fucking cares? what fresh insight could possibly be gained by asking these kinds of questions? what’s Kamala going to say, that Donny’s a racist lunatic? we already know this. what would be the point of bringing up the toxic sludge that oozes out of Donny’s rancid anus-mouth
“do you still have confidence in Tim Walz despite the controversy over his military service?”
by the way, THERE IS NO CONTROVERSY. this is a 100% Republican smear job. stop legitimizing it by pretending it’s real.
“when you were Border Czar—”
the media and the wingnuts love this completely fictitious talking point: Kamala was in charge of the border and as a result, eighty skillionty illegals are now criming up a storm. they’re jimmying the lock on your frail old granny’s front door right now.
fun fact: Kamala Harris was never a “border czar.” she was tasked with
leading diplomatic efforts to reduce poverty, violence and corruption in Central America’s Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
this mission has nothing to do with administering border policy — but Republicans decided that assignment somehow made Kamala the “border czar,” and voila — now it’s right-wing gospel.
Kamala doesn’t need to cater to the banal Narrative of the national media. she’s been taking her case straight to the people, and the people fucking love her...

Two useful points:

Tuesday, August 13, 2024

Sweeping up the Heart: Molly


Our Molly died today. 
She was diagnosed with gastric lymphoma cancer in May, and we knew from the beginning that it was incurable. We hoped we could at least have one more good summer with her, and for the most part that happened -- in the end, today was as long as she could last. 
Thank you, Molly, for being such a good dog.

The Bustle in a House 
The Morning after Death 
Is solemnest of industries 
Enacted upon Earth, – 

The Sweeping up the Heart 
And putting Love away 
We shall not want to use again 
Until Eternity.

Today's News: Commentary on Poilievre v. journalists, and on Harris v. Trump (plus dissing Poilievre's wardrobe)


Starting with Poilievre v. journalists:

David Moscrop Why Pierre Poilievre disowns the extremists he flirts with
...Poilievre, who supported the Convoy that descended on and occupied Ottawa in 2022, keeps showing us who he is and this fits with that history. When he’s called out on that support, he simply turns the table, rails against the government and Trudeau, and attacks journalists. Pretending not to know of Diagolon gives him an opportunity to turn things around on the media and generate highly-clippable “gotchas” in a bid to control the narrative.
...Poilievre may be foolish, but he isn’t a fool. He’ll shun the media until he hears a question that allows him to frame discussions as he’d please – or else he’ll take the conversation in that direction anyway and berate journalists...
...As he attempts to portray himself as a respectable centrist, why was the leader of the official opposition cavorting with the far right? The best answer seems to be because he supports their anti-government ends....
In the face of Poilievre’s cynical politicking, the media and other observers ought to keep up the pressure. Keep asking questions, keep calling out his bullshit and flood the zone with the facts. If he gets aggressive, get aggressive right back. Bullies only understand and respond to power, and so the Conservative leader ought to get a dose of that in return every time he decides to “forget” what Diagolon is, hurls abuse at a wire service for issuing a correction as he did with the Canadian Press, or insists on taking a direct question and using it to attack the reporter who’s asking it, like he did when he attacked Akin.
This approach won’t make for elegant and conciliatory politics, but who thinks politics can always be elegant and conciliatory? And when a guy such as Poilievre shows up on the scene, the rules change. We must change right along with them.
And on a side note, before I lose track of this tweet, here is mens-wear guru Derek Guy's enjoyable critique of Poilievre's "t-shirt and jacket" look:

Monday, August 12, 2024

Fun stuff: from Olympic horses to Olympic moments, from Fox News to other stuff, from dogs to plate tectonics. And fall is coming!



Well, the Olympics are over for another two years. Here are a few remaining odds and sods:
Post by @jennyjohnsonhi5
View on Threads

Sunday, August 11, 2024

Today's news: Wanna know who is "online savvy"? That would be Trudeau, not Poilievre


So Canadian media have finally noticed Poilieve's "Bot-Gate" scandal and they just can't believe the CPC would actually do something so glaringly stupid, because Poilievre is just so "online savvy".
Oh, give me a break. 
Mr. Verb-The-Noun isn't down with the youngs at all.  Two weeks of Canadian Olympic success - the whole country is proud and excited - Canada even won a Gold Medal in Breakdancing, for heaven's sake! - and Poilievre hasn't tweeted a word of congratulations to anyone.
And could Poilievre and the Cons really be this petty? Yes, I do believe they could!
Anway, getting back to the point of this post, wanna know who actually IS "online savvy"? This simple, effective, funny tweet has 52,000 "likes", 7,000 re-tweets, and 1,500 comments:

Saturday, August 10, 2024

Today's News: Ukraine's Kursk invasion


Here is a roundup from some of the better sources of Ukraine Russia War information, with their analysis about the recent surprising, and surprisingly successful, Kursk offensive:
Post by @ianbremmer
View on Threads
As the war in Ukraine settled into a stalemate, two assumptions became prevalent among analysts: First, that it is nearly impossible to achieve any surprise on a battlefield blanketed by drones. Second, that it is nearly impossible to mount fast-moving offensive operations, given the extensive defenses erected by both sides. Ukraine has challenged both assumptions over the past few days with its surprise, lightning-fast thrust into Russia’s Kursk region — an area familiar to military historians as the site, during World War II, of the biggest tank battle in history.
The Ukrainian military shocked the entire world — and the Russian defenders — when it sent an armored column on Tuesday across the border from Ukraine’s Sumy region. There had been cross-border raids by Ukraine before, but those were much smaller operations conducted by Russian volunteers. This was something much more ambitious: a combined-arms offensive utilizing armored vehicles (some of them German- and U.S.-made), infantry, artillery and electronic-warfare equipment. Ukraine reportedly committed elements of four elite brigades to the operation....

Friday, August 09, 2024

Did you know its International Cat Day?

Credit: Getty Images Copyright: Nico De Pasquale (Nico De Pasquale (Photographer)

August 8 is "International Cat Day" so let's go!

Thursday, August 08, 2024

Today's News: Cue the Swiftboating


So at first glance, this story questioning Tim Walz's service record really does look innocuous -- another "just asking questions" article in the New York Times:
Post by @murshedzaheed
View on Threads

But as Jamison Foser writes tonight, it isn't harmless at all -- Breaking: The New York Times helps JD Vance swiftboat Tim Walz:
...This is an extremely simple situation: JD Vance is lying about the military service of a fellow veteran for political gain. The story is extremely simple, and extremely important — and it is a story about JD Vance being a liar.
Journalists have a responsibility to tell that story, the story about JD Vance smearing a fellow veteran. Vance and Donald Trump want the story to be about a controversy over Walz’s military service. But that isn't the real story, because there is no controversy. There is the truth — Walz retired before his unit was called up — and there is JD Vance lying. Liars telling lies does not make a controversy; it’s just a guy lying.
Predictably, Vance and Trump are already getting a helping hand from the news media, which is privileging their lies.
...The first seven paragraphs of the New York Times article are devoted to recounting Vance’s false claims — without once even hinting at their falsity. The article portrays this as a problem for Walz instead of for Vance — and thus makes it so.
This is a classic example of privileging the lie, a phrase I developed in 2008 while at Media Matters for America to describe news reports that centers a false claim (rather than centering its falsity) and thus helps the person making the false claim spread their lie instead of holding them accountable for lying....
What Trump and Vance and the New York Times are doing is also a textbook example of “Swiftboating.” During the 2004 presidential campaign, Republicans — led by current Donald Trump advisor Chris LaCivita — smeared John Kerry over his service in Vietnam, where he served on Navy swift boats and was awarded three Purple Hearts.
What JD Vance is doing is as disgusting as politics gets. Privileging his lies, as The New York Times has done, is as disgusting as journalism gets ...

Wednesday, August 07, 2024

Today's News: Laughing all the way



Saw some funny stuff today: And just to follow up on my last post:

Tuesday, August 06, 2024

Today's News: RFK and the dead bear cub


This is even weirder than the dead brain worm story, and that's saying a lot. 
And yes, that's Roseanne Barr who he is talking to:

Monday, August 05, 2024

Today's News: Poilievre's "Bot-gate" scandal


Hundreds of very excited twitter posts today from people from around the world talking about a recent Pierre Poilievre rally in Kirkland Lake Ontario. 
But they're all just fake "bots". 
They're not Canadians at all, they're not even real people -- its just a ridiculous grift to inflate Poilievre's support.
They even "braved the cold" to attend! Wonder what they thought about the black flies? And there's more... Canada should just point and laugh: Here's the reality: I'll bet Poilievre's staff will start claiming that all these people could have "participated" by Zoom, just like the Kamala virtual rallies going on.

Sunday, August 04, 2024

Weekend funnies and animal crackers


Hope your mood is Quokka #7 at least.  And enjoy some of the other good stuff I have collected over the past few weeks.

First up, so to speak - the lighter side of the Olympics: And just by the way, Imane Khalif is a woman, not trans. 
And France should never have apologized for including trans-gender performers in the opening ceremony Last Supper parody, it just made the MAGA haters think they could boss everyone around. 

Moving on, it appears that Trump is still trying to figure out some way to avoid debating with Harris while somehow blaming her for it: Its becoming a meme too:

Wednesday, July 31, 2024

Today's News: "Brace yourselves"


Americans are wondering how they will deal with a three-month presidential campaign -- of course, the rest of the world is saying "that long? Ours are just a few weeks!". 
Just this year, England and France have both campaigned and voted in the few months between the US primaries and Biden's withdrawal. 
But America is used to a more leisurely pace.
Here is Josh Marshall talking about the unprecedented dynamics of a 100-day US presdential campaign:
...something totally unheard of and unprecedented in modern American political history. American presidential campaigns last at least 18 months. In some ways they’re perpetual. But there’s nothing in recent American history to compare to what Kamala Harris is doing right now.
The Trump campaign is obviously furious about the switch. Vance called it a sucker punch. They essentially wasted their convention on the wrong candidate. You can understand why they’re mad.
But the key part that stands out to me is this: a huge amount of modern Republican campaigns are based on wearing down a Democratic politician over months and years in the right-wing echo chamber. We saw it with Clinton, Obama, Clinton, Biden, Kerry. It’s a well, well worn thing. But it takes time. There are seldom knock-out punches. It’s a slow osmotic process. And the critical part of it takes place at the nexus where what’s happening in the right wing echo chamber bleeds into and begins to shape mainstream media reporting.
Obviously we don’t know how this campaign is going to play out. Looks pretty good ten days in, but there’s ten times more days coming. But regardless of how it plays out, this blitz factor — something totally new and unexpected right as the true campaign starts — is clearly wreaking havoc not only with the Trump campaign but with the whole far-flung Republican political and media apparatus.
Obviously there was no planning any of this. It only becomes possible out of the ashes of an electoral disaster. But some portion of what we’re seeing now derives from the fact that this late switch simply breaks the structure of American presidential politics and has, at least for the moment, allowed Harris to begin the presidential sprint while her opponent’s campaign is still trying to make sense of what happened.
This seems prescient: