Saturday, September 14, 2024

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
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Friday, September 13, 2024

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


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Thursday, 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: Terrible Maps is an hilarious follow. Here's one:
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Wednesday, September 11, 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:
Post by @briantylercohen
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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!
Post by @renee.diresta
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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
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Tuesday, September 10, 2024

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.
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Monday, September 09, 2024

Stories from the Internet: The Great Flamingo Uprising

An occasional series:

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. ...
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Sunday, September 08, 2024

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:
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Saturday, September 07, 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:
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Friday, September 06, 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. 
Here's an interesting interview that tries to dig into why Singh did it: 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....
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Thursday, September 05, 2024

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: 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...
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Wednesday, September 04, 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....
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Monday, September 02, 2024

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:
Here is a wonderful statement about the meaning of the Olympics and Paralympics:
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Today's News: International Overdose Awareness Day 2024

Saturday, Aug 31 was International Overdose Awareness Day and in Saskatoon it was marked at Prairie Harm Reduction through memorial and remembrance. 



The photos show artist Kamisha Alexson placing a star on the star blanket. Photos and story by Star Phoenix reporter Julia Peterson:
A bright red rose. A feather. A child’s hand outlined in blue. Dozens of names — full names, first names, nicknames, initials. Messages written on paper diamonds in careful script; in crayon scribbles:
“Forever in our hearts.” “#1 Dad.” “Brother.” “Love and miss you forever.”
Birthdays. Death days.
Laid out on purple canvas in front of Prairie Harm Reduction in Saskatoon, the community memorial star blanket filled up quickly, each diamond in the pattern paying tribute to a loved one who died from overdose.
When the International Overdose Awareness Day gathering began on Saturday morning, the plan had been to fill the canvas with 72 diamonds. Less than two hours in, organizers were quickly cutting their remaining blank tiles into quarters, so the memorial wouldn’t run out of space.
“It’s hard, as someone who has had some family history with addiction, to see so many names in such a short amount of time,” said lead artist Kamisha Alexson. “It’s eye-opening.
“But it’s empowering, too, to see how people honour those who have passed on: There’s no shame, no guilt, no anger or resentment. Just something beautiful.”...
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Sunday, September 01, 2024

Today's News: "But how is the chicken cooked?"

Sometimes I have thought that bloggers like me are too "down" on the media.
And then then I see how many in the American media persist in living in a myth world where they can pretend there is still a reasonable choice to make about whether Harris or Trump would be "better" for the country. Writer David Sedaris says this:


Some American media keep pretending Trump actually makes sense, and that the decision to vote for him or for Harris is just an ordinary choice between two credible candidates. 
But while Trump can charm people when he tries, basically he is dumb as fuck. 


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Saturday, August 31, 2024

Wrapping up the week: why Poilievre really wants an election; why Harris still needs to work really hard



Why Poilievre wants an early election: Too late! Looking to the United States, we see that Democrats still need to be the grownups while Republicans can still act like children Josh Marshall sums up The State Of The Race:
... in June and July, Joe Biden was looking at a map where the only clear road to victory was through the Blue Wall states, so plausible victory was holding the Blue Wall and winning with literally a single electoral vote. Harris now has multiple paths to victory. She can win in the Blue Wall states. She could win with a mix of Blue Wall or Southern Tier states. She could win them all. Simply put, she has options. She has to fight for every one of them. But she doesn’t have to win every one of them. And Donald Trump is fairly close to having to win every one of them.
Let’s remind ourselves that a two-to-four point lead for Harris isn’t necessarily a “lead.” It’s the range a Democrat needs to be in to overcome Republicans’ Electoral College advantage...
... Donald Trump has no better than a tie now in four or five states, all of which he needs to win: Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania. That’s not a good place to be. At the moment Harris is nominally ahead in all but one of those states.
...I like where Harris is at this point in the cycle. It’s infinitely better than where Biden was even though numerically speaking they’re not dramatically different. But this is going to be hard slog all the way to November 5th.
Finally, this --  off topic but beautiful:
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