Reading

Created
Tue, 18/07/2023 - 03:00

When I burst forth from Earth’s molten core into downtown Manhattan, I had one intention: to destroy every living thing on Earth. “I will turn the world into my dominion of shadows, a barren wasteland of chaos.” The humans shrugged, unfazed by my horrific threat. “Also, I’m a lesbian.”

The humans screamed, their faces twisted in disgust. “Oh God, it’s going to make us design websites for its gay wedding!”

As I picked up my first victim in my serrated claws, I expected him to beg for his life. But instead, he said, “I think you just haven’t been with the right guy yet.” As I approached a school, ready to vaporize it with my eyes, humans shrieked, “No, that monster will teach the children how to scissor!” When I wrapped my thirty-foot-long tail around a woman’s neck, she wheezed, “It’s really cool you’re killing me, actually. Representation matters.”

I foolishly believed being a lesbian was just another part of me, like my ability to breathe a noxious gas that turns human organs into slurry. But these humans didn’t care that I was destroying them. They just wondered which character I most identified with on The L Word.

Created
Tue, 18/07/2023 - 02:30
If he loses the primary don’t ever think he’ll take his ball and go home I wish I understood what all these Republicans running for president hope to get out of it. It can’t be that they actually believe they are going to win. We know that Donald Trump will never accept that he lost so he will proclaim that the winner stole it from him and many of his followers will believe him and they’ll stay home handing the election to Joe Biden. Remember, he even claimed that Ted Cruz stole the Iowa caucuses in 2016. After first conceding the race he turned around and tweeted: “Ted Cruz didn’t win Iowa, he illegally stole it. That is why all of the polls were so wrong any [sic] why he got more votes than anticipated. Bad!”  He removed the word “illegally” but then followed it up with: He let that go when he started winning primaries but once he got the nomination he famously declared that he would only accept the results of the general election if he won. He did win but he still wasn’t satisfied because he lost the popular vote so within a couple of weeks he was declaring that it was the result of voter fraud.
Created
Tue, 18/07/2023 - 00:30
Greg Sargent nails it The failure of Rep. Jim Jordan’s (R-Ohio) House Judiciary Committee hearing last week to generate any kind of coherent narrative might have been expected (Washington Post): Blame it on the “MAGA persecution complex” — the vast array of outlets in the right-wing media ecosystem that incentivizes GOP lawmakers to pander to conservative victimization and grievance. It’s feasting on so many claims of persecution that it’s essentially eating itself to death. At last week’s hearing, Republicans alleged that the FBI investigated conservative parents at school board meetings. (That’s entirely baseless.) They insisted FBI Director Christopher A. Wray, a registered Republican, personally sicced the FBI on conservatives. (Wray called this “insane.”) They claimed the FBI has eagerly persecuted Trump. (The FBI has actually been rule-bound and cautious.) They railed that FBI plants incited the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.
Created
Mon, 17/07/2023 - 23:01
Using ‘simplifying’ tractability or ‘heuristic’ assumptions — rational expectations, common knowledge, representative agents, linearity, additivity, ergodicity, etc — because otherwise they cannot ‘manipulate’ their models or come up with ‘rigorous ‘ and ‘precise’ predictions and explanations, does not exempt economists from having to justify their modelling choices. Being able to ‘manipulate’ things in models cannot […]
Created
Mon, 17/07/2023 - 23:00
“Our campaign is data-driven” The trade show area of political conferences is lined with of booths filled with vendors and staff from nonprofit groups. Lots of tech firms with the latest in campaign software — for fundraising, for campaign communications and social media, for data management. I feel like strolling through dressed as Darth Vader and intoning, “Don’t be too proud of this technological terror you’ve constructed.” That sentiment is not mine alone. Micah L. Sifry discusses a survey of volunteers from 31st Street Swing Left, Markers for Democracy and Swing Blue Alliance. He summarizes their report, “The Experience of Grassroots Leaders Working with the Democracy Party,” calling it “sobering.” One bullet speaks to a pet peeve of mine and a current project (bolded): One volunteer I spoke with recently complained that VoteBuilder/VAN is not only clunky but still has “a 1980s interface.” While Democrats may attempt to update their software, there is a reluctance to update their strategies. There is a systematic overreliance on tech to solve Democrats’ problems.
Created
Mon, 17/07/2023 - 22:00

1. PSAT tutor

2. ACT proctor

3. Buying and selling GameStop index funds while I’m trying to collect the fucking homework

4. Youth soccer camp coach

5. Piano lessons and biweekly plasma donations

6. Wedding photographer

7. Wedding violinist

8. Lifeguard

9. Cadillac car salesboy

10. Running a literacy enrichment program for underserved youth

11. Running a multilevel marketing cannabis empire over Facebook and LinkedIn

12. Waiting tables

13. Instagram influencer for athleisure wear

14. Teaching ten- to twenty-minute online ESL courses to Korean adults (who may confess to opening a second savings account to hide money from their spouses before hitting on you from many time zones away) back-to-back-to-back for six consecutive goddamn hours

15. Scooping water ice at Rita’s, which pays a better hourly rate than the above

16. Summer curriculum alignment for your own school admin, who still pay you less than the Rita’s down the street

Created
Mon, 17/07/2023 - 20:50

The United States is experiencing an investment boom, owing to industrial policies that grant enormous subsidies – including to European firms – for investing in America, largely in green tech. Europe, meanwhile, is responding with a return to the austerity policies that caused it to fall behind the US in the first place. ATHENS – […]

The post Austerity Ruined Europe, and Now It’s Back – Project Syndicate op-ed appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

Created
Mon, 17/07/2023 - 18:16
The question is when is a Labour Party a Labour Party? The answer is: When it is a Labour Party! Which means when it defends workers’ interests against capital and when it defends families against pernicious neoliberal cuts or constraints on welfare. Which means, in turn, that the British Labour Party is a Labour Party…