Wednesday, September 05, 2018
Tuesday, September 04, 2018
No Way To Get Proper Medical Treatment
Even if you think abortion should be illegal, there's no way women can get proper medical treatment - or that doctors will be willing to provide it - if accidental disruption of a blastocyst is a potential consequence of examination, treatment, medication, etc. Sure relatively wealthy people will always be able to get abortions, but how rich will you have to be just to... see a doctor while female?
More Division
Except for "evenly divided," which is a fair characterization when polls about something are roughly 50-50, I suspect the country is labeled as "divided" on something when clear majority opinion diverges from elite opinion.
Booby
I don't really like Woodward's weird "reporting" style which seems to always be like reading a fictionalized version of events, but have at it..
By fictionalized I don't mean false, just that the quotes are more like paraphrases, the narratives dictated rather than uncovered. Truthy if that.
By fictionalized I don't mean false, just that the quotes are more like paraphrases, the narratives dictated rather than uncovered. Truthy if that.
The Biggest Mistake
This is true.
Absent drugs/alcohol or hit-and-run (of course the former leads to the latter) or maybe clear evidence of texting, it's almost impossible to be prosecuted for running down a pedestrian, even if they're on a sidewalk, in the crosswalk, etc.
A 64-year-old woman waiting at a bus stop was struck and killed by a hit-and-run vehicle in Northeast Philadelphia Sunday afternoon.
..
Joseph Thompson, 52, of the 3100 block of Draper Street was arrested and charged with involuntary manslaughter and related offenses.
"It's a shame," the suspect's neighbor said. "He just made a mistake, that's all. He ran away. That was the biggest mistake."
Absent drugs/alcohol or hit-and-run (of course the former leads to the latter) or maybe clear evidence of texting, it's almost impossible to be prosecuted for running down a pedestrian, even if they're on a sidewalk, in the crosswalk, etc.
Have You Heard About Racism, Fascism, White Supremacy, Ethno-Nationalism, And Ethnic Cleansing?
Aparently these are all new ideas for Malcolm Gladwell. Ideas to which an audience of wealthy elites must be exposed!
We have the worst elites.
Huh. Call me old-fashioned. But I would have thought that the point of a festival of ideas was to expose the audience to ideas. If you only invite your friends over, it’s called a dinner party. https://t.co/VwkL4zOrbX
— Malcolm Gladwell (@Gladwell) September 4, 2018
We have the worst elites.
But also utterly pointless is the notion that Steve Bannon, President Trump’s former chief strategist, might have something new or valuable to offer.
That’s why it was a thoroughly lousy idea for the New Yorker magazine to offer a high-profile perch — an onstage interview by top editor David Remnick — at next month’s annual festival to the deposed Svengali.
There is nothing more to learn from Bannon about his particular brand of populism, with its blatant overlay of white supremacy.
The Country Is Divided
And we need a uniter!
The "funny" thing is I've seen the "divided" frame applied to almost every issue, no matter what the polls say. 50-50? The country is divided! 75-25? The country is divided! I mean, the country is always "divided" in that a significant number of people believe X and a significant number of people believe not X.
I wonder if any newsroom has a style guide about what evidence is required for the country to be "divided" about an issue. I have no idea if the answer should be "50-50" or "75-25" or anything other than "95-5" which would mean the country was divided about everything. It's a completely meaningless description.
The "funny" thing is I've seen the "divided" frame applied to almost every issue, no matter what the polls say. 50-50? The country is divided! 75-25? The country is divided! I mean, the country is always "divided" in that a significant number of people believe X and a significant number of people believe not X.
I wonder if any newsroom has a style guide about what evidence is required for the country to be "divided" about an issue. I have no idea if the answer should be "50-50" or "75-25" or anything other than "95-5" which would mean the country was divided about everything. It's a completely meaningless description.
Torture Is So Fun
I can't even imagine what's in Kavanaugh's papers that is so important that they want to hide it. I mean, of course he's anti-abortion-except-abortions-he-likes and pro-torture. But this was the Bush years! Even the liberals were pro-torture back then (some of them). Everybody forgets.
...I don't mean there isn't anything. I mean, "wow, it must be bad!"
...I don't mean there isn't anything. I mean, "wow, it must be bad!"
How Hard Is It To Find A Native Spanish Speaker in America
Translating ad copy doesn't exactly take weeks of time. Pass one person's card around. Or, obviously, hire this guy.
(Rocha might be talking his book, but it is a real and persistent issue.)
Democrats may be fielding a more racially diverse slate of candidates than ever before, and they acknowledge they are more dependent on nonwhite voters to deliver their victories. But in 2018, the party still relies in the extreme on white political consultants and campaign professionals — with potentially disastrous results.
Sometimes that means they push a message that rings false with constituents; Democrats air so many mistranslated Spanish ads, said Chuck Rocha, the founder of the Latino-owned consulting firm Solidarity Strategies, that he barely notices anymore.
(Rocha might be talking his book, but it is a real and persistent issue.)
Monday, September 03, 2018
STEVE BANNON CENSORED BY INTOLERANT LEFT, ((NEW YORK)) ELITE MEDIA
Remnick changed his mind after everyone started dropping out of his shitshow festival.
And no we shouldn't be thankful when rich white assholes get pressured into doing the right thing (sort of) after doing the obvious wrong thing. Supposedly doing the right thing is what they get paid the big bucks for! Most of us are one wrong thing away from tragedy, not just people saying mean things about us on twitter.
Almost too inside jokey even for this blog, but...
And no we shouldn't be thankful when rich white assholes get pressured into doing the right thing (sort of) after doing the obvious wrong thing. Supposedly doing the right thing is what they get paid the big bucks for! Most of us are one wrong thing away from tragedy, not just people saying mean things about us on twitter.
Almost too inside jokey even for this blog, but...
Somewhere in Australia, Bari Weiss’s delicately filigreed hebrew nameplate necklace just started pulsing a pure white light against her clavicle
— your friend Helen (@hels) September 3, 2018
Gonna Burn My Nikes To Own The Libs
Gramps is obviously having a shitty week already (why? maybe we'll find out soon!) so this will make for some most excellent presidential tweeting.
Nike revealed, through ESPN’s Darren Rovell, that it is making Colin Kaepernick the face of its “Just Do It” 30th anniversary ad campaign.
The initial image, announced through Rovell, has a close up of Kaepernick’s face with the caption: “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.”
Trolling With Nazis
The New Yorker Festival, a hive of scum and villainy, the Aspen Ideas Festival for people too lazy (but not too poor!) to travel to Aspen, has decided to be controversial by having Steve Bannon be their headliner.
I cancelled my New Yorker awhile ago because of an incredibly racist piece on immigration - way to read your supposed audience in these times - but I suggest you do the same. If you want!
I cancelled my New Yorker awhile ago because of an incredibly racist piece on immigration - way to read your supposed audience in these times - but I suggest you do the same. If you want!
NeverTrumpers
Just a shadow cabinet of "bipartisan" elites (fake centrist conservatives and right wing nutcases who pissed off Trump) awaiting their return to power, when we put all of these troubles behind us and continue with the same troubles fronted by a different figurehead, with a different set of snouts in the trough.
Not Our Fault
Programming these cars to obey they laws, drive cautiously, and to not run into things (though this last one seems to be not quite as easy as people think at higher speeds), is the easy(or easier) part. The "oh they'll be safer than humans!" (not necessarily true, but ok) crowd has to grapple with the idea that they can be technically safe and legal themselves but cause chaos around them. It's rarely your fault, legally, if you get rear-ended, but it doesn't mean it wasn't actually your fault.
I don't like that first paragraph. "Caused" is complicated. Throwing a bunch of these things on the road which behave legally but not necessarily like humans and sometimes not sensibly is a bit like throwing a lot more Vespas onto the road (though not for precisely the same reasons). I'd expect a lot more accidents to happen then, too, even if those Vespa drivers all behaved perfectly legally. That doesn't mean "ban Vespas" or "ban self-driving cars," it just means that even if they behave safely and legally, they can still complicate the system.
The first car crash experienced by Apple's fleet of self-driving vehicles happened just last week and it was apparently caused by a human driver — not Apple's own technology.
...
Apple's vehicle was merging onto the Lawrence Expressway and was moving at less than 1 mph, according to the report, and the Nissan was moving at 15 mph when it hit the self-driving car. The self-driving car's speed seems quite slow for merging onto a high-speed expressway, but details are sparse in the report so we don't know for sure if its speed was reasonable — the only information we get is that the vehicle was "waiting for a safe gap to complete the merge" when it was struck.
I don't like that first paragraph. "Caused" is complicated. Throwing a bunch of these things on the road which behave legally but not necessarily like humans and sometimes not sensibly is a bit like throwing a lot more Vespas onto the road (though not for precisely the same reasons). I'd expect a lot more accidents to happen then, too, even if those Vespa drivers all behaved perfectly legally. That doesn't mean "ban Vespas" or "ban self-driving cars," it just means that even if they behave safely and legally, they can still complicate the system.
Sunday, September 02, 2018
Put An Asskicker In Charge
It's a fairly common desire, even by people who you would think should know better. The asskicker is going to kick the asses of all the right people, you see. My ass certainly won't get kicked! Of course even an asskicker motivated only by the purest desire to kick the right asses might not always know which asses they are. Also, too, asskickers generally aren't known to be particularly enlightened and benevolent types. They'll leave the authoritarian bootlickers in place and kick the asses of everyone else.
A Winner Needs A Loser
That's all Trump understands.
*some crap he saw on Fox and Friends.
“The White House approach to every country now is that we want you to cave on these random issues we have chosen, which are prioritized by nothing more than presidential whim*,” said Michael Green, a top Asia adviser to President George W. Bush. “And you have to visibly lose on them. There are no win-wins.”
*some crap he saw on Fox and Friends.
WE WILL FIGHT FOR YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUU
.@amyklobuchar on @MeetThePress shows regret for Senate Dems going nuclear for most noms in 2013: “I don’t think we should’ve made that change when we look back at it.”
— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) September 2, 2018
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