On November 5, Donald J. Trump was widely reported to have won a big U.S. presidential election victory. A key factor was his success in attracting more of American minority voters than usual: Latinos and Blacks. Indeed, this made a difference. However, little was said about another minority—Asian Americans. They, of course, are a much Continue reading »
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Beyond the appalling consequences of the Gaza war Netanyahu’s full scale attack on the credibility and legitimacy of the UN and its institutions is in danger of inflicting lasting damage by instilling a Western moral exceptionalism. That attack has intensified following the ICC’s arrest warrant for Netanyahu – an attack which is drawing a concerning Continue reading »
Someone got an earful from someone last night… I’m guessing someone told him about the fees and he got all excited and happy that he has something new to complain about. But he obviously subbed out this tweet to a donor or adviser because it’s far too coherent. I think what the important Heather said was correct: In the old days I would have said Steve Bannon but I’m not sure who it is today. One thing we can be sure of is that Trump isn’t reading anything. Unless it’s the Classic Comics version of the McKinley era. It sure seems as though Trump is on an expansionist tear these days. Personally I expect that the pending Mexico invasion is the most likely but who knows? Maybe someone should tell him to colonize Alaska. He almost certainly doesn’t know it’s already a state. Update — Of course. It’s revenge:
Andreas Cervenka har i sin senaste bok försökt beskriva den svenska bostadsbubblan och vad som ytterst skapat den. Några av de orsaker han lyfter fram är: ♦ Riksbankens långvariga låg-räntepolitik som gjort det billigare för hushåll att låna pengar och därigenom också drivit upp efterfråga och pris på bostäder. ♦ De snabbt ökande bostadspriserna har […]
And vampire squids Some friends and stilletto-sharp thinkers lately are busy discussing the meaning and implications of Cory Doctorow’s “enshittification.” ICYMI, Macquarie Dictionary declared it the word of the year, defined as: “The gradual deterioration of a service or product brought about by a reduction in the quality of service provided, especially of an online platform, and as a consequence of profit-seeking.” As Doctorow explained a couple of years back: Here is how platforms die: first, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. I call this enshittification, and it is a seemingly inevitable consequence arising from the combination of the ease of changing how a platform allocates value, combined with the nature of a “two sided market,” where a platform sits between buyers and sellers, holding each hostage to the other, raking off an ever-larger share of the value that passes between them. Dave Roberts (a.k.a. Dr.
Whether you’ve been bad or good IYKYK: The South lost the Civil War but won Reconstruction, neutered the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments across the South, and maintained a rigid system of Jim Crow oppression for the next 100 years. IYKYK: Each July 4th, we celebrate America’s war to overthrow rule by hereditary royalty and landed gentry and to create on these shores democratic self-rule … plus a little slavery to appease the South’s economic royalty. Like the Civil War, the American Revolution now seems to have failed. Is there any doubt? Former bartender, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, doesn’t think so. Her Instagram followers asked about American oligarchy, and one oligarch in particular from the South (Africa). AOC: “Oh, I don’t think we’re witnessing the START of an oligarchy.
Doctor Who Christmas Specials feature companions who show up only once, but there's a deeper meaning under all that beyond the big names.
Indiana wanted to kill Joseph Corcoran under the cover of darkness, but one journalist slipped in to witness.
The post Indiana’s Midnight Executions Are a Relic of Another Age appeared first on The Intercept.
Happy Solstice! I thought I’d whip up a wintry mix of (literally) cool tunes to celebrate the shortest day of the year (buck up, little camper…we’ll start gaining daylight tomorrow). So for a much-needed mental health break…turn off the news, fix yourself a nice cup of hot chocolate (or kick it up a notch), dim all the lights, cozy up in front of the fireplace (real or virtual), don your favorite noise-cancelling headphones and (if I may quote from a Styx song) let the melody just drift your cares away.
My current playlist is this diorama of Lulu the Piggy channeling Tupac Shakur in a toy vending machine in the basement of New World Mall in Flushing Chinatown.
Since it’s Saturday, I thought I would take a few minutes to talk about my pal Dennis Hartley who’s been holding down Saturday nights here at Hullabaloo for the last 18 years. I’ve actually known Dennis since I was a teenager and we were growing up in Fairbanks Alaska. We (mis)spent some of our 20s in San Francisco whiling away hours and hours in the fantastic repertory movie theaters that were numerous in all the big cities in those days. (This was before you could pretty much find every film ever made just by asking Mr Google.) In those days they had film addict types curating the bookings, which changed every day, and you could see classic film programs, foreign films and offbeat independents on huge screens in big, old movie palaces any day of the week. We devoured them. It was an incredible education in the art of film. Dennis went on to pursue a career in comedy and radio in Seattle and I ended up in LA working in the movie business but we’ve stayed in touch and Dennis has remained a film hound on a level I couldn’t keep up with. His personal collection is probably bigger than most film schools at this point.
And yes he should I’ve been hoping he would do this since the day he got elected: President Biden is considering commuting the sentences of most, if not all, of the 40 men on the federal government’s death row, people familiar with the matter said, a move that would frustrate President-elect Donald Trump’s ability to resume the rapid pace of executions that marked his first term. A broad coalition of religious and civil-rights groups has been pressing Biden to take the step, and the effort gained momentum earlier this month after Pope Francis, in his weekly address, prayed for the commutation of America’s condemned inmates. If their death sentences were commuted, the prisoners, all convicted of murder, would serve life without parole. Biden, a devout Catholic, spoke with Francis on Thursday and is scheduled to meet with him at the Vatican next month, the White House said. A decision from the president could come by Christmas, some of the people said.
Thank you once again for your support for this old blog this year. I am so very grateful for all my readers and truly appreciate those of you who are able to put a few bucks in the kitty. It means everything, especially in tough times like these. So they managed to avoid a shutdown at the last minute and everybody got to go home for Christmas. But their hiccup at the end exposed the glaring fact that the Republican legislative majority is going to be an even worse shitshow than we might have thought. We knew they’d be incompetent and extreme. But I don’t think any of us understood that Elon Musk would be the new leader of the party and would take to his massive platform to threaten Republicans with his massive fortune. But it was entirely predictable that the Freedom Caucus weirdos would just say no. They always do. Apparently, they were finally able to appease President Musk and his assistant Donald Trump with a promise to raise the debt ceiling while simultaneously making massive cuts to the safety net: House Republicans have a new plan for their agenda next year — one that might even satisfy tech billionaire Elon Musk.
Steven Moffat discusses Doctor Who not getting a Season 3 order yet, those "woke" accusations, and why The Doctor is "a classic liberal."
That came after his earlier endorsement and a flood of criticism. Then the VP-elect also endorsed German neo-fascists and threatened a woman who works for a think tank called The Foundation for Defense of Democracies. He may think his sarcasm masks the fascism but he’s wrong. This is unamerican, obviously. These are the people who will be running our country for the next four years openly aligning with Nazis and deploying Nazi tactics. By the way, the man who ran his car into that crowd in Germany is a big fan of Elon Musk: Taleb A. apparently shared the resentment of conspiracy ideologists and agitators such as the US podcaster Alex Jones or the British right-wing activist Tommy Robinson. The entrepreneur Elon Musk, who has increasingly openly expressed his sympathies for right-wing parties, was also one of his role models: “If you listen to someone like Tommy Robinson or even Elon Musk, and even if you are ignorant of the process of Islamization, you will think that they are both conspiracy theorists,” said A. in an interview.
Coal-rolling Trump’s enemies The old, red-brick Memorial Auditorium where the spouse as a tween saw The Monkees is long gone. Its replacement sports a plaza in front, a modern, electronic marquee, and a name that expires with its corporate sponsorship. Before pyrotechnics, before Vince McMahon made professional wrestling professional and a media empire, the old joint is where Monday Night Wrestling was as much local culture as ambulances and cop cars outside west-end beer joints on Saturday nights. What the hell, I thought. A friend and I went out for pizza and beer, then took in the show once. Once. Wrasslin’ wasn’t the spectacle it is now. It wasn’t even mildly entertaining. But for fans it was a weekly morality play of “The Drunkard” sort. Clean-cut heroes. Snidely Whiplash villains (heels) to hiss, and The Foreign Menace. Like McMahon’s empire, Donald Trump’s MAGA show offers obvious heroes and dastardly, America-hating villains. It’s more mildly threatening than mildly entertaining. But it’s a kind of theater with similar morality-play charm for a similar audience.
Use to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts.