Animal Crackers

Just a few great animal posts I have seen recently:

the perfect photo doesn’t exi- pic.twitter.com/nf4EOZJ7Ji

— Punch Cat (@PunchingCat) September 13, 2024

Perfect.. 😊 pic.twitter.com/ZMVkyuQPws

— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden) September 4, 2024

Today's Roundup: Sunday's Vance Interview From Hell

I'll bet Vance never thought the leopards would eat HIS face...      

Listen to this closely. JD Vance is explicitly acknowledging that he’s using anti-migrant disinformation as tool for attention. This is an intentional fear-mongering campaign straight from historic authoritarian playbooks. https://t.co/Pifmf2m3Qb

— Ahmed Baba (@AhmedBaba_) September 15, 2024

Post by @aaron.rupar

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Crazy stupid racist crap

Absolute craziness in the United States now:

First they came for the pregnant women And I did not speak out Because I was not a pregnant woman Then they came for the Haitian immigrants And I did not speak out Because I was not a Haitian imigramt ... Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for me

— 123xyz.bsky.social (@123xyz.bsky.social) September 14, 2024 at 9:42 PM

one of the reasons I think it is important that Trump loses big is that I want even the monsters pushing this stuff to believe it’s bad tactics there needs to be a political price for stochastic terrorism and it needs to be high

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— Micah (@rincewind.run) September 14, 2024 at 7:29 PM

Because of the lies about Haitians, this is happening. The Proud Boys showed up. The GOP and Trump are complicit. pic.twitter.com/2lWq3ybpdf

— Chad Scott (@cpscott16) September 14, 2024

Trump is doing the same thing to the Haitians that he did to the Muslims in 2016. This crew has one playbook (racism and othering) and they keep using it again and again and again.

— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) September 14, 2024

Klan: “Trump wants us to attack and exterminate these filthy racial minorities” NYT: “Trump Expresses Concerns About the Financial Cost of Demographic Change”

— Kevin M. Kruse (@kevinmkruse.bsky.social) September 14, 2024 at 5:37 PM

Maybe it’s just me, but I’d much rather have an entire Haitian immigrant family living right next door to me than a white supremacist or a racist MAGA lunatic any day of the week.

— Ricky Davila (@TheRickyDavila) September 14, 2024

if your ancestors were born in Ireland like mine, or were born somewhere in Asia, or Italy or Germany or were Jewish or were Catholic, and so many others, what Trump is saying about Haitians is just what they said about your relatives.

— Matthew Dowd (@matthewjdowd) September 13, 2024

Here's some good news:

Springfield residents supporting one of the local Haitian restaurants after Donald Trump and JD Vance spread racist rumours about their community! ❤️ pic.twitter.com/fjGU3beWAl

— Alex Cole (@acnewsitics) September 14, 2024

On a side note, in Canada, 179,000 people report Haitian ancestry, as per the 2021 census. Notable Haitian Canadians include Governor General Michaelle Jean, Canadian Parliamentary Poet Laureate Marie-Célie Agnant, and Olympic gold medal runner Bruny Surin.

Today's News: #ETTD

Back in 2016, Rick Wilson invented the hashtag #ETTD (Everything Trump Touches Dies) - and he is absolutely right. Every single time.

Every new Trump favorite has that wild eyed look in their eyes for a few days like they’ll be different from all the others he used up and threw away. And you can see it go out of their eyes, photo by photo. It’s speeding up too. Vance is already in shadow. RFK too. Loomer is next.

— Alexander Chee (@alexanderchee.bsky.social) September 13, 2024 at 6:19 PM

Now Trump has America's entire immigration system in his crosshairs:

over and over, Trump has said that he will try to deport 20 million immigrants he means it, Vance means it, Stephen Miller means it, the whole vile fascist apparatus means it this is a dry run of the language and the lies they will use to justify it and all of the violent horrors it entails

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— Micah (@rincewind.run) September 13, 2024 at 1:07 PM

Trump just said he wants to deport Haitian migrants — who are in the country legally — from Springfield, Ohio to Venezuela. Deporting legal migrants.

This is always where it was going to end up.pic.twitter.com/plm8NTDsUa

— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) September 13, 2024

Today's News: What does Singh think he is doing?

Not only is this an anti-progressive, anti climate position, but his stated basis for it is based on right-wing disinformation.

Good job, NDP!

— Emmett Macfarlane 🇺🇦 🇨🇦 (@EmmMacfarlane) September 12, 2024

If the carbon tax really does end up going down and politicians genuinely care about minimizing costs on individuals then we're pretty much giving up the fight on climate. The entire point of a carbon tax is that it is the single lowest cost way to reduce emissions.

— Rob Gillezeau (@robgillezeau) September 12, 2024

Singh is committing political suicide before 37+ million people. https://t.co/ErCdQ9aj7N

— Dale Thompson (@daleethompson) September 12, 2024

Long Threads: More things I didn't know

There is one thing that I still love about Twitter and other social media -- how interesting people are still publishing interesting "long threads" where I learn about a new corner of the world, a new fascination, a new knowledge. 

Here are a few I have collected recently -- I am posting these in a longer form than I did previously, because apparently people who aren't on X can no longer follow its threads (thanks, Elon!) 

Anyway, here goes: 

First of all, Merriam Webster held a "word" contest over the last several weeks, and here are the winners:

'Love' is the winner of Best Word and we couldn't love this more.

Thank you all for playing and sharing your passion for words with us! https://t.co/3mFcNC9aJw pic.twitter.com/iZeXFeBsqM

— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) September 6, 2024

Terrible Maps is an hilarious follow. Here's one:

Alaska’s Passive Aggressive Map of the USA pic.twitter.com/NI9yR1JCxU

— Terrible Maps (@TerribleMaps) August 29, 2024

Today's News: Hooray for Harris!

A triumph! At last! 

The Harris message of a positive, forward-looking, united America really resonated at tonight's debate. 

And Trump just looked like the tired, befuddled old man he really is. 

Here are some zingers about the debate:

Honestly, I was anxious about this debate but what is clear is that Kamala not only has a vision for the future and lifting America up but she is just so much even-tempered and so much smarter that Trump. She crushed him. #Debate2024

— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) September 11, 2024

Post by @briantylercohen

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The only one eating dogs is RFK Jr. #Debate2024

— Al Franken (@alfranken) September 11, 2024

it's so funny how for weeks everyone telegraphed "she's gonna bait him" and her team was like "we're gonna bait him" and he managed to act normal for like 3 minutes and then she said one thing about his rallies and it was like feeding a gremlin after midnight

— Sal Gentile (@salgentile) September 11, 2024

That was a good old-fashioned ass-whupping. 🇺🇸

— Nick Offerman (@Nick_Offerman) September 11, 2024

I really thought this would be the line of the night: “Donald Trump was fired by 81 million people, and he’s clearly having a hard time processing that.” Eclipsed by "concept of a plan."

— Steve Saideman (@smsaideman.bsky.social) September 10, 2024 at 9:41 PM

In the post-debate coverage, the universal opinion was that Harris "won" while Trump "lost". But just as the talking heads might have swung into their ritual "but on the other hand" trashing some of Harris' answers, the Taylor Swift endorsement dropped - another win for Harris - and all the media butterflies went flying off to that bright shiny. 

So it was a win all around!

Rachel Maddow reading Taylor Swift’s endorsement verbatim to Tim Walz during his MSNBC hit is genuinely fascinating television. #Debate2024 pic.twitter.com/MtClWOZzh1

— Franklin Leonard (@franklinleonard) September 11, 2024

Post by @renee.diresta

View on Threads

And by the way, if you want to understand what tarrifs are and why Trump does NOT understand what he is talking about, read this thread about how tarrifs presently affect the price of a men's suit:

Some misinformation in today's US presidential debate about who bears the cost of tariffs. So let's talk about how tariffs affect what you pay for a suit. 🧵 (1/20)

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— derek guy (@dieworkwear.bsky.social) September 10, 2024 at 11:23 PM

Today's News: Getting through the next eight weeks

Just eight more interminable weeks until the American election  

I don't know how I will get through it. 

The Harris-Trump debate is tomorrow night, and I suspect its the only one America will get.

Trump is now claiming that Kamala Harris is an illegal alien.

Does that mean that Tuesday’s debate will be Alien vs. Predator?

— Captain Obvious™️ (@TheFungi669) September 7, 2024

Stories from the Internet: The Great Flamingo Uprising

An occasional series:

The Great Flamingo Uprising 

From the Tumblr website "Zookeeper Problems" we find this story of the Great Flamingo Uprising of 2010:

In addition to the aviary/jungle exhibit, our zoo has several species of birds that pretty much have the run of the place. They started with a small flock of flamingos and some free-range peacocks that I’m almost certain came from my old piano teacher’s farm. She preferred them to chickens. 

At some point in time they also acquired a pair of white swans (Or as I call them, “hellbirds”) and some ornamental asian duckies to decorate the pond next to the picnic area. Pigeons, crows, assorted ducks and a large number of opportunistic Canada geese moved in on their own.

Now; the ponds that dot the zoo property (I don’t remember how many there are but the one by the picnic area is the only one with swans) were also full of ginormous koi fish, some of whom by now are at least three feet long. 

Sensing an opportunity to cash in on the koi, the zoo put up little vending machines all over the place that dispense handfuls of food pellets. I swear to god the fish can hear the crank turning, and will show up at the nearest railing, blooping expectantly at whoever happens to be standing there and doing their best to appear starving and desperate.

And they weren’t the only ones who learned to associate the sound with the imminent arrival of food. The Canada geese knew a good deal when they saw one, and had long since ceased to migrate anyway. They formed roving gangs of thug-geese and staked out their turf around the vending machines, ready to mug anyone with pocket change. Picture yourself as a small child squaring off with a bird fully prepared to strip search you while standing on your feet and yelling “HWAAAAAKK!!” in your face. It’s traumatizing to you and deeply hilarious to your parents.

Anyway. ...

Today's News: They're trying to "Sane-wash" Trump

Aaron Rupar has popularized a new term for how the American media is reporting on Trump -- "Sane-washing" 

Trump's speeches are gibberish -- stream-of-consciousness rambling whines about the 2020 election, interspersed with tariffs, 'Sir' stories, tax cuts, shark stories, 'black' jobs, Hannibal Lecter, post-birth 'abortion', describing concentration camps as a 'housing' policy, saying schools are making children 'trans' and going on and on. 

But this gibberish is being smoothed over and plumped up like a morning pillow by American media. They are constructing news stories that make it seem like Trump is offering the nation a set of normal, reasonable, rational conservative policies. 

It is really just bizarre:

Learned a new word today: "sane-washing." It's the process whereby the media cover up Trump's unintelligible gibberish by cleaning up his quotes, never reporting his mental deterioration, and pretending he's sane no matter how insane his comments.

— Bruce Bartlett (@BruceBartlett) September 8, 2024

this is exactly what i mean when i accuse outlets of sane-washing Trump https://t.co/JuM3Ui1YLl

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 5, 2024

Amazing levels of sanewashing here. https://t.co/O8RvkcDaDR pic.twitter.com/CUAbeDoLPd

— Parker Molloy (@ParkerMolloy) September 6, 2024

Today's News: Tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies....

For years now, we have been told how successful the Canadian right-wing social media influencer pundit critics are. 

They told us during the Convoy how popular these yahoos were -- because look at all the money they raised.  They told us how everybody just hates Trudeau because he's so woke and he doesn't appreciate how Canada has such awful problems and is really broken. They told us how everybody just loves Poilievre's three-word Verb-The-Noun policies and these are just what the country needs.

And we believed it! 

Though we kept on fighting the good fight, we progressive lefties still found ourselves wondering if maybe we actually were just out-of-touch elitists who didn't have a clue about what "real" Canadians really wanted. 

And we wondered if we should just try harder to pay attention to these social media influencer pundit critics, maybe we should start watering down our unpopular lefty ideas so they would like what we were saying.  

Because one thing did seem clear -- that millions and millions of "ordinary" Canadians obviously loved what the Canadian right-wing social media influencer pundit critics were saying, because look how much money these guys are making! Look how many page-views they were getting! Look how many subscribers they had!

This week we found out it was all a lie.

We already knew about a few things, like conservative politicians buying subscriber lists for their social media posts, and bot-farms sending out tweets to support right-wing politicians.  We already knew about Russian hackers trying to distort the news.

But this week we found out that so-called popular right-wing social media influencer pundit critics in Canada and America -- bunches of them, whole channels of them! - were just shills for Russia. 

And well-paid ones at that.  

They were actively trying to undermine democracy and our democratically-elected leaders by lying to us, by creating "content" lies that could be amplified by politicians and also by legitimate media, so that people would believe it.

The Pitchbot gets the tone of this betrayal exactly right:

In this Ohio town, it was tradition: Latin mass, biscuits and gravy at Bob Evans, and then down to the old Russian content factory to make six figures trashing America’s democratic institutions. But now the woke mob wants to take all that away.

— New York Times Pitchbot (@DougJBalloon) September 5, 2024

Trying to protect the NDP vote in Elmwood-Transcona?

Canada is still mystified by Singh's decision to "rip up" his Supply and Confidence agreement with Trudeau. 

Funny, most of the time when people “rip up agreements” it’s because the other side didn’t deliver. Notice @theJagmeetSingh never once mentioned that? And that because he can’t. Because we DID deliver. Voters will not look kindly on him.

— Mark Gerretsen 🇨🇦 🇺🇦 (@MarkGerretsen) September 5, 2024

Here's an interesting interview that tries to dig into why Singh did it:

If you want to watch David Cochrane absolutely eviscerate Jagmeet Singh on national television, it’s the first twenty minutes of this clip. https://t.co/WvceDwK39d

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) September 6, 2024

Cochrane notes that Singh has been considering this move for a month - he recorded his video announcement in August -- so Cochrane asks Singh several times "Yes, but why, and why NOW?"  

Singh never really answers - lots about high food prices and higher rents, but never explains why he sprang this sudden announcement on the Liberals without even giving Trudeau a phone call heads-up.

Then at the very end of the interview, Cochrane mentions the upcoming Manitoba byelection. 

And that's when I started to wonder....

Ain't we havin' some fun now? Crazy stories today about Singh in Canada, and the Russians in the US

 

First in today's news, of course, was Jasmeet Singh's announcement that he is "ripping up" the Supply and Confidence agreement with the Liberals - whatever that means:

You are delusional Sir. Every appearance suggests that when Poilievre says 'jump'... you jump. Cannot imagine worse political timing. Which sadly is nothing new for you.

— Mike Morris (@1MikeMorris) September 4, 2024

“I really hope the NDP stays focused on how we can deliver for Canadians—as we have over the past years—rather than focusing on politics,” PM Trudeau tells reporters

pic.twitter.com/YBfWNHsieW

— Cheryl 🍁 in Nova Scotia 🍁🇨🇦🦞 (@mini_bubbly) September 4, 2024

My fellow Canadian. Where do you stand? pic.twitter.com/O8Al8nWA3U

— Roddy 🇨🇦 (@RodKahx) September 4, 2024

The pundits seem to agree that it is unlikely the end of the agreement will result in an election this fall, but of course we never know whether Singh's tender fee-fees will be hurt by something Trudeau says in passing...

Losing seats and allowing a Conservative supermajority isn’t something to gain https://t.co/eOwqz8JKna

— Evan Scrimshaw (@EScrimshaw) September 4, 2024

Today's News: Roundup on vaccine denialism

Here is an excellent commentary on vaccine denialism - Timothy Caulfield Politics and Vaccine Misinformation: A Horrifyingly Bad Mix :

...Misinformation about COVID vaccines, and vaccines more generally, has become so entrenched and normalized that it now regularly forms part of political platforms.

Given that vaccines, including COVID vaccines, are widely considered one of the greatest achievements of biomedicine – it has been estimated that over the past 50 years vaccines have saved more than 150 million lives – this is a deeply worrying trend. We need to recognize that the merger of politics and vaccine misinformation is doing grave harm....

given the strong, broad and international scientific consensus on the value of COVID vaccines, how did we get here? Obviously, there are many factors at play, but, alas, the embrace of vaccine misinformation is increasingly about ideology.

Political identity has become one of the most significant – perhaps the most significant – variable predicting vaccine hesitancy, the embrace of vaccine misinformation, distrust of relevant scientific institutions, perceptions of risk surrounding vaccines, and belief in the efficacy of disproven COVID therapies (e.g., ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine). Indeed, numerous studies have shown a strong and growing association between vaccination hesitancy and ideology. In the U.S., political partisanship matters more than race, age, insurance coverage or education in predicting vaccine uptake. Studies have consistently shown that those who identify as Republican are much more likely to not get vaccinated and to hold a dim view of COVID vaccines. A 2024 study found that even the reporting of vaccine adverse events is influenced by political identity, showing that in Republican states, “vaccine recipients or their clinicians” are more likely “to report COVID-19 vaccine AEs” than in Democratic states.

A similar trend can be found around the world, including in Canada. ....

...The harms of increasingly politicized vaccine discourse are not isolated to COVID. The hesitancy created by the spread of misinformation during the pandemic has spilled over to adversely impact the perceptions of other beneficial vaccines. A 2024 study found, in the words of the researchers, that “conservatives in the United States spread their negative attitudes towards the COVID-19 vaccines to unrelated vaccines,” including flu, HPV, MMR and chickenpox. Studies show that politicizing public discourse about vaccines can also heighten equity issues and make it more difficult to counter harmful misinformation....

Today's News: Paralympics pride; remarkable connections; funniest book Forward ever; and Animal crackers

I haven't been following the Paralympics as much as I should have, but here's some great news:

GOLD FOR CANADA 🇨🇦

Nicholas Bennett wins Canada’s first gold medal at the Paralympics.

He swims his way to gold in the 100m breaststroke SB14. It’s his second medal at the Games. Canada now has 11 medals in Paris.https://t.co/nHgA1oV408

— Devin Heroux (@Devin_Heroux) September 2, 2024

It was at the sharp turn coming up from along the seine. I believe there was an issue with the chain and he ran into the barriers right in front of me. Devastating turn of events, but it was incredible to see him get back up and finish the race out. He waved at us the next lap <3

— Je suis fatigué (@DevittIsabelle) September 2, 2024

BRENT LAKATOS WINS SILVER FOR CANADA! 🇨🇦🥈💨

The six-time Paralympian brings home Team Canada’s first athletics medal of the Paris2024 #Paralympics in the T53 400m final with a Season’s Best time of 47.25s! 👏

📸: Marcus Hartmann / Gate3 Photo Agency pic.twitter.com/rOnMHiwiAA

— Athletics Canada (@AthleticsCanada) September 1, 2024

Here is a wonderful statement about the meaning of the Olympics and Paralympics:

After Team Canada’s women’s sitting volleyball victory today I asked Allison Lang about this being so much more than sport

And then she answered with 60 seconds of magic I’ll never forget.

Here’s 🇨🇦 Allison Lang on what the Paralympics are truly about.

pic.twitter.com/fPU9ojQMib

— Devin Heroux (@Devin_Heroux) September 2, 2024