Wednesday, August 28, 2024

Long Threads: Some things I didn't know


I suffer from"vellichor" myself!

X is slowing down but I still find some great "long threads" posts.

These comparison photos are fascinating:
Here's a "time capsule" post - some amazing facts and photos: Hilarious maps - I thought "the world according to fish" was particularly funny: Finally, a funny story:
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Tuesday, August 27, 2024

Today's News: Show Me The Money! Why Trump wasn't impeached in 2020

So Trump could well have been found guilty and impeached at his first impeachment trial, in February 2020. 
But the key people who could have testified against him -- John Bolton, Jim Mattis, John Kelly, H.R. McMaster -- all decided to shut up and let the nation suffer. 
They saved their juicy tales of treason and malfeasance for interviews with journalists or for their own books -- basically, they took the money. 
Yes, the House impeachment heard from Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman and Fiona Hill. Their testimony was devastating. 
But it wasn't enough to enrage the country - so in the end, the only Senate Republican who voted to impeach was Mitt Romney. 
Just six months later, Bolton confirmed in his book that Trump actually had tried to withhold military aid to Ukraine so they would investigate Joe and Hunter Biden.
Jim Mattis stayed quiet about how incompetent Trump was until he saw how Trump was mishandling the Floyd protests in June 2020.
In 2021, it was revealed that John Kelly had told reporter Michael Bender about Trump's Hitler envy, but nobody knew about it until the reporter's book was published in 2021. 
Now - four years later - we see H.R. McMaster also confirming Trump's incompetence in foreign policy and willingness to kowtow to Putin. 
I can hardly imagine how the world could have changed if they all had stepped up in December 2019 to tell the House impeachment what Trump had done. Their testimony would have been so devastating that I expect enough Republican Senators would then have voted with the Democratic Senators for impeachment on Feb. 5, 2020. 
And Mike Pence would have been president when COVID hit six weeks later. 
At least 1.1 million Americans died of COVID -- I wonder how many would have lived if the Orange Turd and his callow son-in-law had not still been in charge?

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Monday, August 26, 2024

Today's News: President of Joy


David Rothkopf writes Navigating Bullshitworld How Do We Keep the Fires of the DNC Burning When So Many Seek to Douse Them With Torrents of Crap?: 
As the peaks of last week’s Democratic National Convention recede into memory I feel they are also at risk of gradually being submerged by the ocean of bullshit that will immerse us from now through Election Day...The joy and the energy that was supplied by last week’s events was due in large part to the fact that the messages of the convention were so damn straightforward that even the nattering of commentators and the counter-programming of the opposition and the disinformation of our enemies and trolls and bots and army of idiots on social media could not obscure them or diminish their power.
Jeff Teidrich writes Kamala’s successful convention has broken the media’s brain boo fucking hoo, you sad losers and he has a message for the media whining that Kamala won't talk to them: 
 stop wasting Kamala’s time on bullshit, and maybe she’ll talk to you. 
Here is an excellent CNN article from a week ago, describing how Harris got her campaign underway so quickly and so well: Inside the fast-moving launch of Kamala Harris for president
Three weeks into her presidential run was the first time the Biden campaign’s pollsters — now hers — held a deep-dive call with Kamala Harris’ inner circle to discuss what she’s been saying on the stump.
Over the line came a lot of praise, but also some suggested tweaks. First, said veteran Democratic numbers man Geoff Garin, summarizing their analysis, stop saying, “We’re not going back.” It wasn’t focused enough on the future, he argued. Second, lay off all the “weird” talk — too negative.
Harris’ advisers listened. They considered the arguments. They decided to stick with what the crowds were chanting in the arenas.
When advisers who had been on the call briefed the vice president on the suggestions, according to CNN’s conversations with close to a dozen people involved with internal campaign decisions, she told them she wasn’t going to listen to the pollsters herself and would instead trust the instincts she had buried under self-doubt for so long.
Harris has shocked even people close to her with how she’s been coming across in the just four weeks since she became a presidential candidate. Many political obsessives who had largely written off the vice president can’t understand how a woman whose early struggles they still keenly remember is now projecting as succinct and punchy, comfortable onstage and in her own skin.
And Dems just wanna have fun --  we will, we will rock you!
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Sunday, August 25, 2024

Weekend funny stuff: from Escher to Hercules; from politics to CEOs; from ancient wonders to wonderful paintings; from funny maps to funny dogs; from dancing ostriches to Ted Lasso!

First, a glance at art:



Here's a short look at politics with some compare-and-contrast posts:
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Saturday, August 24, 2024

Today's News: RIP Expertise


I'm seeing a number of news stories lately about how expertise is being downgraded, and experts dismissed. Tom Nichols talks about all this in his book, The Death of Expertise:
But I think it is important to remember that "both sides" are not equally to blame for this expertise problem -- for the most part, it is Conservatives who are the most vigorous at disputing expert advice and denigrating expertise.
I guess they simply cannot accept that reality has a liberal bias!  
Recent examples?  First, the Ford government decision to close Safe Injection sites in Ontario -- they just cannot seem to wrap their tiny minds around the harm reduction approach to addiction. It's like they are still thinking Nancy Reagan's "just say no" is the only plan we need. And they are following along with Poilievre's "Liberal drug dens" smears too - another evidence-free component of our Conservative anti-harm reduction / pro-lockup doctrine:
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Friday, August 23, 2024

Today's News: Kamala Harris, the Serendipity President

As I watched Kamala Harris's great speech tonight, I pondered the serendipity of the moment, the incredible chain of accident and surprise and coincidence and luck that brought her to that stage:
First, in 2020 Biden had picked her for VP, so she achieved a national profile and, eventually, hired an excellent staff.
Then, in 2023, Biden decided to seek another term, so the Democratic primaries last spring were not contested by democrats with much more political credibility and experience -- I suspect dems like Pete, Whitmer, Newsom, Booker, Warnnock, Beto, and Kelly, even AOC, might well have beaten Harris in primary voting last spring; she wasn't recognized as much of a campaigner and anyway she would have been stuck in Washington for Senate votes.
Then, the Republicans were so successful with their "he's old" smear / whisper campaign -- too successful, because it doomed Biden's reelection chances.
Then, Biden did himself no favours either. He was either so pigheaded or so poorly advised that he stretched himself too thin over the last year - agreeing to the Hur interview last Oct 8, when it looked like the Middle East would go to war, and to the June debate with Trump, even though he was sick, and exhausted from two overseas trips,  So ultimately, by July, Biden was losing so badly that even a slam-bang press conference couldn't save him, even though millions watched. So fnally Pelosi and, I think, Obama were able to persuade him to withdraw.
And the last serendipitous event: when Biden called Harris that Sunday, she was ready. She had obviously prepared for it to happen, she had set up her team, decided on her plan, and jumped into it so quickly, making hundreds of phone calls that very day, lining up endorsements and taking advantage of Zoom organizing sessions, with such verve and panache that no one else could catch up. 
And in the weeks since, she hasn't made an error or a flub.
The result was this magnificent speech:
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Thursday, August 22, 2024

Today's News: "The audacity of our hope; the vitality of our vote."

 
Here is poet Amanda Gorman's new poem The Sacred Scene at the Democratic National Convention. 
The speeches at this convention have been extraordinary. 
David Rothkopf thinks we're seeing the beginning of a new era: When the Obamas are Just Your Warm-up Act How to Make a Political Tsunami Into an American Renaissance
...It’s not easy to be at the top and then hand the stage to the next great star. Much has been written about Joe Biden’s selflessness in this regard. But Hillary Clinton and the Obamas offered further examples that all those at the pinnacle of influence in the Democratic Party—every single one of them—are throwing their best efforts and energies into the support of the Harris-Walz ticket.
What we are seeing is an unprecedented display of spontaneous, heartfelt party unity...
...all the quibbling I hear among some in DC about whether she will be more of an Obama or Biden disciple is just so much dirty bathwater. Kamala Harris will not be and should not be Obama 2.0 or Biden 2.0. She will be and must be Harris 1.0, something entirely new, elevated and informed by what has come before but not limited by it, unwilling to repeat past mistakes or to let nostalgia lead her to be blind to those errors.
And so the flow of this convention is getting it exactly right. Its narrative arc is that of the Democratic Pary as it has entered the current era. And it will culminate in the nomination of someone who owes much to the leaders who came before her on the stage but who is very different, very much her own person, very much the reason that this convention and the campaign of the past four years feel unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.
American media don't know what to make of it - they have been reduced to inane "fact-checks" about whether Trump really exchanced love letters with dictators (he did) and whether maybe we should all be offended at Obama's dick joke (we won't be). 
If you've been watching the Democratic National Convention, the story of the week has been the almost unnerving positivity, unity, and competence of the Democratic Party as they make the formal handoff ending President Joe Biden's reelection and nominating Vice President Kamala Harris to be the new torchbearer. 
If you've been reading about the Democratic National Convention, however, your most likely takeaway from this week's events is that it has somehow managed to break our big-league media "fact checkers" completely.
Because much of the "fact checking" that the press has scrambled to do, even as they ignore the ridiculous lie-a-paloozas that take place whenever Donald Trump opens his mouth, or surrogates of Donald Trump open their mouths, or partisan ultra hacks in Congress pipe up with new theories of "okay okay, our Joe Biden investigations were all duds but what if Governor Tim Walz something something communist spy," has been ... dishonest. Just straight-up dishonest.

You know, Poilievre must be terrified:

The Democrats nominated Ted Lasso for VP.

— Gerald Butts (@gmbutts.bsky.social) Aug 21, 2024 at 11:42 PM
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Wednesday, August 21, 2024

Today's News: Obama Nailed it!


Obama gave a great speech tonight at the DNC, but there was one "short" part in particular that will never be forgotten:
And today Trump tried to counter the DNC by holding his own little event, at a Michigan town known for its KKK history.
I have never before heard the term "sane-washing" but it is exactly what the media find themselves trying to do now when they report on Trump's babble: UPDATE: I just saw this, too:
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Tuesday, August 20, 2024

Today's News: "When we fight, we win"

 

The Democratic Convention speeches tonight were outstanding, but none so much as Biden's - Dark Brandon was in the house tonight, and unexpectedly, I found myself crying at the end - "America, I gave my best to you."

But already, America is moving on -- David Rothkopf writes that This is the first Convention of the Post-Trump era:
...the big difference between the Biden Era and the Harris Era to come is that the Biden Era took place in a moment in our history when the specter of Trump and MAGA and the end of democracy and a national movement founded in hate and division was always near.... part of the genius of Harris’ approach to this campaign 2024 is that she has chosen to turn the page, to look to the future rather than to respond to Trump. While her opponent in this election is Trump and MAGA, she is running this campaign as the first post-Trump, post-MAGA campaign almost a decade.
And this is the first post-Trump convention in that period. Old, tired, devoid of ideas, burdened by his horrific record and his many crimes, Trump is faint orange shadow of his former self. There is no doubt he must be stopped. But it is clear that the Vice President and the Governor of Minnesota understand that the way to stop him is to deny him the chance to set the terms of the election, to stop letting outrage at his antics and more grave threats be the core Democratic message and to say, “Enough. We will lead. We will set the terms. This is between us and the American people. We will not let extremists hijack our elections or threaten our system any longer. We will win by tapping into the idea of America that is shared by the vast majority of Americans. We will win by charting our own course.”
It is satisfying to see a candidate who you believe in be celebrated. But I think it will be hard for anyone who is under say 40 or so to understand how deeply gratifying and reassuring it is to see the hopes and dreams you had for the future seemingly be restored, to see a reality you had only imagined come into focus, to be within reach.
The new Democratic "Freedom" ad speaks to this too - "when we fight, we win": Here is AOC's speech, who I am convinced will be the Democratic presidential nominee for 2040 (after two terms each for Harris and for Walz, AOC will still only be 52): America is singing tonight:

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Monday, August 19, 2024

They pulled that creepy "morning in Canada" video? Oh, waaaahhhh!


Somebody posted Poilievre's bizarre "morning in Canada" video on You-Tube before the CPC deleted it. It is creepy, out-of-touch with reality, and absolutely full of bees! 
Is it the CPC "communications experts" who are trying to manufacture a Canada that doesn't exist? Or is it Poilievre himself? 
  
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Today's News: Kamala and Tim are cooking!

Hey, on a side note, did you know that Harris and Walz both like to cook? I think that's pretty great.
Responding to another tweet, I posted this a couple of days ago and it now has hundreds of "likes": I wonder if they'll ever do it?
Harris already has a You-Tube playlist of her cooking videos:

USA Today writes:
If Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris wins the election in November, she may be the first president with a platform on dry-brining turkey.
She's in favor, and also recommends a rub of butter and herbs under the skin.
..."I take it very seriously," Harris said about cooking ...When Harris was young, her mother told her she better learn how to cook, because anyone who loved food that much needed to know how to make it. As Harris became a national figure, she kept cooking. The vice president turned a passion for baking, broiling and sautéing, which might have sunk the prospects for female politicians of an earlier generation, into a political asset...
But she's not the only cook on the ticket -- Walz has cooked winning"hotdish" recipes for years - along with democrats Al Franken and Keith Ellison:
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Sunday, August 18, 2024

Today's News: Our wannabe Emperors

As summer turns into fall, its becoming increasingly obvious that the wannabe Emperors in our midst have no clothes.
Emperor Trump:
Meanwhile, in Canada:

Emperor Poilievre:
The #FuckTrudeau flags aren't flying anymore:
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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:
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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.
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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:
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