Photo by Bruno Figueiredo on UnsplashW
Texas/Gun Control
Benghazi.
Hillary’s e-mails.
The stolen election.
You know exactly what I am talking about, even if you don’t know the underlying facts, because the Republican party hammered these messages every day for years, they kept them top of mind, they still want Hillary locked up, even though she’s a doting grandmother sans elected office.
Abortion?
George W. Bush returned to the news last week. The man who once said, “Our enemies… never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we,” coughed up a gem of accidental truth about Ukraine. In the midst of blasting Vladimir Putin for suppressing dissent, he said:
The result is an absence of checks and balances in Russia, and the decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq. I mean, of Ukraine.
The hard right’s takeover of the Supreme Court is real, and is having real consequences. But despite that leaked decision that would overturn Roe, this takeover isn’t just about abortion, and it’s not just about the Supreme Court. In fact, Trump-appointed judges at all levels of the judiciary are remaking nearly every aspect of American law, from voting rights to environmental regulations, police accountability to LGBTQ and women’s equality.
When the news alert popped up on my screen, I froze. Another deadly mass shooting had taken place, and a racist white man had murdered innocent Black people. Once again, the communities I study had fomented mass murder. And I very much doubt this will be the last time.
I’ve been doing fieldwork in far-right online communities since 2016. I hang out on white supremacist Telegram channels, comb through QAnon threads on 8kun (formerly known as 8chan), and watch TikToks that claim COVID-19 is a globalist plot. Like most people who work with far-right content, I find it emotionally draining and unpleasant. But I’m also convinced that the mainstream acceptability of extremely racist and conspiratorial beliefs is a threat to American democracy.
The United States has dramatically more lax regulation of firearms than any peer nation, and as a result has far more gun ownership and, consequently, astronomical rates of gun violence. If you happen to be either a Second Amendment absolutist or a Republican who defers out of conservative-movement allyship to pro-gun absolutists, that last fact is simply an unavoidable cost.
“This,” announces Caroline Knowles, as we walk along a deserted road on the private Wentworth Estate in Virginia Water, “is where the trail runs cold. This is where money disappears from view.”
Knowles, a professor of sociology at Goldsmiths University, is interested in money, in wealth, how it is spent and how, as she puts it, it got “encrusted in the landscape of London”. That’s essentially the subject of her new book, Serious Money. Its subtitle is Walking Plutocratic London, and that’s exactly what she does in its pages, striding from Shoreditch and the City, through to St James’s, Mayfair, up to Regent’s Park, back down to Belgravia, Knightsbridge, Kensington, Notting Hill, Chelsea and out west to Richmond and finally Virginia Water
NASHVILLE — My grandmother was still a teenager when she started her teaching career. She went to college for a year and then taught for a year to save money for tuition. After another year of college and another year of teaching, she married my grandfather. The wedding, everyone assumed, marked the end of her career. She was 21 years old.
Musk Self-Immolates
And brings Tesla down in the process.
By the time you read this, “The New York Times” documentary on Tesla will have launched on Hulu. But read here for the main takeaways:
“Company insiders rip Tesla’s stance on safety in hard-hitting Elon Musk doc”: https://lat.ms/3LyXbki
For months the story has been percolating in the press. How Elon Musk personally chose a self-driving system that everyone but he believe is substandard. This is one case in which the ancient, rearguard companies may win in the end, by being cautious and thorough, which is hard for a tech company to be, at least one being launched and trying to build a customer base.
NEW DELHI — Heavy pre-monsoon rains in India and Bangladesh have washed away train stations, towns and villages, leaving millions of people homeless as extreme weather events, including heat waves, intense rainfall and floods, become more common in South Asia.
More than 60 people have been killed in days of flooding, landslides and thunderstorms that have left many people without food and drinking water and have isolated them by cutting off the internet, according to officials.
Finn Wolfhard, Charlie Heaton and Noah Schnapp. Photograph: Courtesy of NetflixWay back in 2016, when Stranger Things first hit Netflix, the world was a different place. The streaming service itself cost $8, and if you weren’t turned on by the prospect of endless, if vastly quality-variable content, there was the small matter of Stranger Things to convince you to hit that subscribe button. It had 80s nostalgia in spades, a soundtrack better than most John Hughes movies, and somehow seemed to do Stephen King better than the writer himself – or at least those film-makers and showrunners who have tried to bring the horror maestro’s work to the screen.https://www.
This takes less than 15 seconds..If you are male and over 65 yrs old,you SHOULD take this Alzheimer's TestHow fast can you guess thesewords and fill-in the blanks?1. _ _NDOM2. F_ _K3. P_N_S4. PU_S_5. S_X6. BOO_SAnswers:1. RANDOM2. FORK3. PANTS4. PULSE5. SIX6. BOOKSYou got all 6 wrong...didn't you?The good news is: You do NOT have Alzheimer's.However, you are a pervert.
Hi Fred, this is Alan next door. I have a confession to make.
I've been riddled with guilt these past few months and
have been trying to get up the
courage to tell you to your face, but I am at
least now telling you in text as I cannot live with myself a
moment longer without you knowing.
The truth is I have been sharing your wife, day and night when
you're not around. In fact, probably more than you.
I haven't been getting it
at home recently, but that's no excuse, I know. The
temptation was just too much.
I can no longer live with the guilt and I hope you will accept
my sincerest apologies and forgive me. It won't happen again.
Please suggest a fee for usage, and I'll pay you.
Regards, Alan.
THE RESPONSE
Fred, feeling insulted and
betrayed, grabbed his gun, and shot his neighbor dead. He
returned home where he poured himself a stiff drink and
sat down on the sofa.
He took out his phone where he saw he had a second
THE SECOND MESSAGE
Hi Fred, This is Alan next door again.
Sorry about the typo on my last
text. I expect you figured it out anyway,
changed "wi-fi" to "wife"
That's technology for you, hey?
Regards, Alan
