“I wouldn’t completely write off a Harris win in the Electoral College even if Mr. Trump narrowly won the popular vote.” #NateCohn https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/25/upshot/poll-trump-harris-election.html ht #JoshBarro
// on the bright side, this would be the event that could rid of us of the electoral college.
maybe the LA Times and the Washington Post are part of a conspiracy to make The New York Times look good.
“yes,” said the boy who cried wolf. “but there were guard rails — i mean fences — around the village those times.”
“I’ve noticed a little linguistic tic in some recent public statements – the use of the word ‘ruthless’ as if it was a synonym for ‘diligent’ or ‘competent’.” @dsquareddigest https://backofmind.substack.com/p/ruthless-pragmatism
// kind of dark. reminds me of Kamala Harris’ choice to emphasize the word “lethal” when discussing the armed forces.
you’ve become a casualty of the war — in a sense, just a bit — if you find your initial reaction to news of soldiers’ deaths on the side that you dislike is unleavened by sadness or grief.
@carolannie I see that quote a lot too, and I think a lot of mainstream, center-left liberals nod along with it, accept it at the level of aphoristic generality. 1/
@carolannie But taking the quote seriously, i’ve not seen support for meaningful policy that would secure the preconditions of having democracy in this country. Right now, it’s obvious the mainstream center left is too scared to say anything, hopes not painting a target will be enough to win the election. 2/
@carolannie If Kamala does win, I am genuinely curious what the mainstream center-left will have learned from a near-death experience at the hands of billionaires acting strategically in their own interest event at risk of shredding the country. Perhaps I will enjoy a positive surprise! I did with Joe Biden, on domestic policy. I am really hoping, really praying, that the well-meaning affluent mainstream of the party understands the stakes and actually, affirmatively, acts. /fin
@carolannie they support taxing the rich more heavily. but they tend to justify that (like Bernie too!) in terms of “paying their fair share” to “finance government” (which is actually a bit incoherent, not totally wrong but has a lot of complicated nuances).
i don’t know of any center-left liberal who has averred publicly that certain extremes of wealth are simply incompatible with meaningful democracy, and we should tax to clip and then prevent those extremes. i hope i’ve just missed it!
i love this guy.
of course he was crushed.
from #BenRyderHowe https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/yellowstone-club-real-estate-public-land-montana-crazy-mountains.html
Text: The ranger, Alex Sienkiewicz, had infuriated the ranchers by tearing down their “No Trespassing” signs. In the summer of 2016, he sent a staffwide email that read, “This is my regular reminder: NEVER ask permission to access the National Forest Service through a traditional route shown on our maps EVEN if that route crosses private land. NEVER ASK PERMISSION; NEVER SIGN IN.”
as billionaires buy media, bribe voters with “petitions”, finance dark money influence groups in order to buy a Supreme Court and now an election for a fascist, will center-left liberals finally concede that top inequality is a problem, that it’s not sufficient to just try to “raise the bottom”?
@artcollisions i think that’s right. there are economic efficiencies to scale, but political and social institutions really need a foundation at human scale. i think the unworldliness of this election has to do with the reduction of an activity with incredibly profound consequences to media spectacle that terminates with filling out a bureaucratic form. we’d be and act more sane if we actually got together to form and express our views.
[new draft post] Midsize is the right size https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2024/10/24/midsize-is-the-right-size/index.html
@GuerillaOntologist reading the full piece, it doesn’t sound like they are all that much reformed.
@_dm gonna die with my keyboard in my hand *lawd lawd*
gonna die with my keyboard in my hand.
@simontatham the mode tells you which value has the most entries in your data. the commode is where most datasets belong.
@simontatham oh! with apologies to @CliftonR!
the korean war reanimates as proxy war in ukraine. https://koreapro.org/2024/10/south-korea-announces-potential-weapons-provision-for-ukraine/
when throwing one scapegoat off the cliff doesn’t resolve the problem, well you need to find another scapegoat to throw off the cliff for that!
@curtosis i’ve really only ever been able to muster dipshit, in almost any activity i’ve tried…
@Transportist I think @mhs’s use of “inflection point” was right. It’s not that the anti-hero was unknown prior to 24. But it accelerated, became kind of the norm, during the edgy “golden age of television”.
(The Soprano’s also, also a bit earlier, I think. In general, maybe mafia tales were kind of a ghetto of popular anti-heroism before 9/11.)
