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VIDEO: Understanding the insane appeal of Argentina’s Javier Milei

https://thegrayzone.com/2023/12/01/appeal-argentinas-javier-milei/
Created
Sat, 02/12/2023 - 03:01

Renowned Argentine sociologist and anti-imperialist critic Atilio Boron joins The Grayzone to discuss the victory of former tantric sex coach and emotionally unhinged liberatarian economic fundamentalist Javier Milei as the country’s president. Boron explains why the desperate popular sectors of Argentina fell for Milei’s shtick, and forecasts a violent rebellion of the president-elect’s economic austerity plans come to pass.

The post VIDEO: Understanding the insane appeal of Argentina’s Javier Milei first appeared on The Grayzone.

The post VIDEO: Understanding the insane appeal of Argentina’s Javier Milei appeared first on The Grayzone.

Yes, it is a bad decision

https://digbysblog.net/2023/12/01/yes-it-is-a-bad-decision/
Created
Sat, 02/12/2023 - 02:30
ICYMI. (You did not, of course.) Medhi Hasan’s take-downs are what people watch MSNBC for. Chris Hayes (MSNBC primetime host): The nature of this business is that people who are supremely talented sometimes have shows cancelled. It’s rough every time, but it comes with the territory (lord knows I’ve been close myself!) But I just want to say that @mehdirhasan is one of the most talented broadcast journalists I’ve ever seen or worked with and probably the single best interviewer in American TV. Grateful to have him as a colleague. Taylor Lorenz (Washington Post technology and online culture columnist): Mehdi is literally one of the only people in cable TV with a moral compass still intact. What a huge loss Washington Post: Although Hasan was not among MSNBC’s top-rated stars, his segments often went viral on social media, where users celebrated his takedowns of conservatives such as former Trump adviser John Bolton and Israeli government adviser Mark Regev. During a Nov. 16 interview on his show for NBC’s Peacock streaming service, Hasan pressed Regev on the children killed in Gaza by Israeli strikes.

Sleep Easy, Shane

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2023/12/sleep-easy-shane/
Created
Sat, 02/12/2023 - 01:32

If Shane MacGowan had a hero, it was the Irish writer and playwright Brendan Behan. When the New Musical Express sought out Brendan’s mugshot for a 1984 feature on the working-class Dublin writer, the image credit went to ‘Shane MacGowan’. The image had been on the wall in his London apartment, part of a shrine […]

Why we need causality in science

https://larspsyll.wordpress.com/2023/12/01/why-we-need-causality-in-science/
Created
Sat, 02/12/2023 - 01:32
Many journal editors request authors to avoid causal language, and many observational researchers, trained in a scientific environment that frowns upon causality claims, spontaneously refrain from mentioning the C-word (“causal”) in their work … The proscription against the C-word is harmful to science because causal inference is a core task of science, regardless of whether […]

Learning from Las Vegas: The Costs of Growth

https://steadystate.org/learning-from-las-vegas-the-costs-of-growth/
Created
Sat, 02/12/2023 - 01:21
by Daniel Wortel-London

Since 1998, the City of Las Vegas and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) have been gambling with nature. By auctioning off public land from the BLM for development and using the proceeds to preserve natural areas, policymakers and federal officials have bet that development and conservation can go hand-in-hand.

But it hasn’t worked out that way.

As the Las Vegas region has grown from 1.3 to 2.7 million people since 1998,

The post Learning from Las Vegas: The Costs of Growth appeared first on Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy.

Down the algorithmic rabbit hole

https://digbysblog.net/2023/12/01/down-the-algorithmic-rabbit-hole/
Created
Sat, 02/12/2023 - 01:00
Are you curating your feed or is something else? A medical professional at a friend’s party recently asked if I’d had any contact with a mutual acquaintance. No, not since before the pandemic. But I’d been horrified a year or so earlier when I glanced at her Facebook page and found a stream of anti-vax and “do your research” style postings. He knew. It’s why he asked. He’d run into her at the gym. She told him she’d not received the Covid shots and had lost friends over it. And she’d been a medical professional as well. What happened? Perhaps the isolation during the pandemic. Perhaps too much time exposed to an algorithmically generated diet of such stuff. David French this morning cautions about the dangers of creating our own curated bubble realities. Conspiracy theories have been with us forever. Rachel Maddow’s “Prequel” recounts tales of Depression-era Americans convinced that Jews and communists had taken over the government. They stockpiled canned good and weapons for when the Jews came marching down the street to make slaves of them.

We Can’t Wait to Be Part of Your Neighborhood, but First We Need to Dig This Massive Hole

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/we-cant-wait-to-be-part-of-your-neighborhoo…
Created
Sat, 02/12/2023 - 00:00

Hello there, neighbor. We are your friendly corporation moving in next door. We’re taking over this six-story building that used to house various small businesses, artists, and families. Integrating into your community is extremely important to us during this transition, so we’re removing all your parking for the next month.

We’re working with the best designers and engineers to ensure that we bring value to your community. It’s obvious that you don’t need any public spaces, cafés, restaurants, dog parks, playgrounds, or a new fire station. Your nearest grocery store is a mere thirty-minute drive away. What you’re lacking here is corporate offices.

We are committed to keeping you 100 percent in the loop about our construction plans. In fact, we mailed a certified letter to all you abutters—sorry, neighbors—about a Zoom meeting to discuss the project and voice any concerns you might have. You’ll receive this letter promptly three days after the meeting has occurred.

The anti-wokist is a dog

https://crookedtimber.org/2023/12/01/the-anti-wokist-is-a-dog/
Created
Fri, 01/12/2023 - 20:57
Another week another tedious attack on “wokery” in the New York Times. This is by the conservative David Brooks, but I’ve seen it endorsed by “class-struggle” anti-wokists. Anyway, Brooks helpfully lists the characteristics of wokery in bullet-points, enabling some immediate commentary: “We shouldn’t emphasize what unites all human beings; we should emphasize what divides us.” […]