Virtual, but permanent.
The stupidity to which American citizenship condemns us all.
The elegance with which a symbol of division and incipient racism is shattered by a favorite children’s playground toy is truly staggering. The design award is well earned.
The installation allowed children to play together from both sides of the US-Mexico border.
Source: Pink seesaws at US-Mexico wall win design award – BBC News
The juxtaposition could not be starker. The Dutch government quit over a scandal comprised of the government accused poor people of theft over welfare funds they had legitimately received. It is hard to imagine any politician in the United States facing any consequences for stiffing poor people for welfare. It is even harder to imagine any member of Congress riding his or her bicycle (see picture below) in public in order to deliver an urgent message to the White House (since we don’t have a king).
After the insurrection of January 6, 2020, it is impossible to imagine that any American politician will ever hold a public forum long enough to be shamed for not doing her or his job. This juxtaposition of Dutch civil life with American civil life begs so many depressing questions. Is American civil life doomed to become extinct? How do we regain civility and equanimity in the general American populace? Does any will exist to effect this change? This is one of the toughest times ever to be optimistic.
Source: Dutch Rutte government resigns over child welfare fraud scandal
Not too long ago, I wrote about how Facebook’s flagship products, Facebook and WhatsApp, have been usurped by malicious actors to decimate the truth and to instigate mass action bordering on genocide. Now, as the article linked below demonstrates, we may have the first quantitative measure of how successful such disinformation campaigns are on US soil. If it is correct that 40% of Republicans are as gullible as Burmese, then it is a sad day for the USA: we were done in by our own technologies.
A survey finds a false conspiracy theory about vaccines implanting tracking microchips is popular among Fox News viewers, Republicans and Trump voters.
Source: WhatsApp imposes even stricter limits on message forwarding
The speed with which social media have been hijacked by malicious forces to achieve ghastly ends is disconcerting. WhatsApp alone has been used to instigate lynchings in India and possibly a genocide in Burma. It is a sign of Facebook’s profound cowardice that it is acting only when a pandemic that affects the entire world–especially Facebook’s country of incorporation, the United States–is in full effect. Even so, the measures they are taking are much too paltry compared to the challenge to be of any use or effect. The quote below from WhatsApp constitutes the epitome of cynicism, the apogee of hypocrisy: after destroying truth, aiding the incitement of genocide and empowering propaganda machines, FaceBook is making a trivial gesture that effects little change beyond the actor making the statement below.
Caveat emptor! If you are getting your news from WhatsApp or Facebook, you are likely an ignoramus.
“We believe it’s important to slow the spread of these messages down to keep WhatsApp a place for personal conversation,” the company added.
www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-10/germany-and-coronavirus
As the asinine, primordial debate about whether universal healthcare is “socialism” or “capitalism” continues in the United States, it is important to emphasize the fact that it reduces risk to the economy and to the live of people who create the economy. Let’s be as cynical as we can possible get. If the only purpose people serve is to be participants in the marketplace, then health care reduces the risks that contagion like COVID-19 poses to the marketplace, to the economy. Germany seems to get it. Will the US?
Stocks Fall When Fed Cuts Rates
Trump insisted that the Federal Reserve Bank needs to cut interest rates because Trump thinks US economy is not doing well. The Fed demurred for the longest time because no data supports Trump’s point of view. Consequently, when Fed finally gave in to the awful businessman, the market saw it as a sign that the economy is not doing well and started a huge sell off.
This is a clear case of the blind leading the the acutely sighted. (Or blind ambition overpowering clear vision.) Trump may get the failing economy he has been projecting after all.
Louisiana police officers fired over post suggesting Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez should be shot
Like it or not, the evolution of humans seems to be marked by the migration of a substantial portion of human existence into cyberspace. The Darwin awards, consequently, need to evolve–or perhaps they have–to account for the new follies therein. The two officers in this story are certainly not the first nominees or laureates of the cyber edition of Darwin awards, but perhaps this blog post can serve as the nomination that elevates them to the models to avoid during this brief period when the dire consequences of digital public stupidity persists in the public’s vanishingly brief short term memory.
Perhaps more puzzling than the fact that two police officers can’t grasp the impropriety of publicly joking about killing a politician is the fact that they target a politician who champions the cause of public servants, which is what police officers are. It is a remarkable feat of marketing that has convinced the great masses that they are better off with busted unions and underfunded pensions than they are with them. So far, only teachers have spoken up against this status quo. These cops don’t seem to have learned much from teachers.
Source: Opinion | Dems, Please Don’t Drive Me Away – The New York Times
If a thinking man like David Brooks is seriously claiming that the Democrats somehow need to convince him not to vote for Trump, then he is effectively confessing that he is every bit a degenerate as Trump.
I so wish the Times had let Mr. Brooks’ career die along with the Weekly Standard, the weasely “magazine” published by cronies, for cronies whence Mr. Brooks arose like so many other primitive thinkers. Instead, the Times gave Mr. Brooks a second life, and this is how he thanks the times: by publishing a veiled defense of a degenerate president.
Thank you, New York Times. Thank you for being the beacon of enlightenment.
Dave, I speak for all Democrats when I say none of us wants you in our party. Thanks to Trump, there is a very special place–complete with Big Macs and caviar–for spineless degenerates like you.
Given how frequently Rudy Giuliani contradicts his own testimony, the amount of air time he gets is baffling. Had any witness responded so erratically to US attorney Giuliani, he would certainly have been condemned by that prosecutor. Hence, the generosity with which media outlets still permit Mr. Giuliani to lie, prevaricate, equivocate and, on occasion, insult is a mystery. Since Mr. Giuliani’s dishonesty is a certainty, perhaps it’s the entertainment value of the strained facial expressions that punctuate every bogus testimony of his is the draw. Presenting such a catastrophe of a personality as entertainment goes far in explaining why viewers are flocking to Netflix and Amazon Prime. At this rate, broadcast media’s audience will look an awful lot like the President’s constituency: extremely meek and gullible; in a word, provincial.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani backtracked on Monday from earlier comments that Trump pursued a business deal to erect a tower bearing his name in Moscow throughout 2016, saying his statements “were hypothetical and not based on conversations I had with the President.”
— Read on www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia/giuliani-backtracks-on-comments-trump-sought-moscow-deal-throughout-2016-idUSKCN1PF26A
The poll, which is linked in the article below, looks legitimate, with most Los Angeles area television stations identified as the sponsors. An apparent new-nazi is the most popular Republican candidate in the California 2018 senate race.
It is difficult to determine whether candidate Little is benefitting from the ignorance of Republican voters in California or from their genuine malice. Either way, the California Republican Party can only hope that Russia will be unveiled as the financial backer of Little so that it can call the candidacy “fake news”. Barring such a revelation, the California Republican Party’s self destruction will be complete if this clown emerges as their candidate in the fall senate election. It is a necessary outcome to the pandering the GOP has made to the basest factions within its base, yet it is unlikely they will change their pandering.
Source: Neo-Nazi running as Republican polls second in California Senate race
