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Maura Quint’s Presidential Debate Recaps: The One with All the War Mongering

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-one-with-all-the-war-mongering
Created
Fri, 10/11/2023 - 03:45

2024 REPUBLICAN
3RD GOP PRIMARY DEBATE
MIAMI, FLORIDA
NOVEMBER 8, 2023

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8:01 PM: The debate begins with a more somber tone than previous debates, as the hot dog vendors and T-shirt cannons have been confined to the lobby and bathrooms. The moderators, Lester Holt, Kristen Welker, and Hugh Hewitt explain the rules for the evening: This will be a serious debate, none of that asshole stuff from last time. Invoking a candidate’s name does not mean that person is entitled to a response—no matter what Drake says about rap beefs. Interruptions may result in a loss of additional questions, while repeated interruptions may result in having to spend an hour locked in a room alone with Vivek Ramaswamy (or, in Ramaswamy’s case, with Andrew Yang).

The Imperative—and Peril—of Density

https://steadystate.org/the-imperative-and-peril-of-density/
Created
Fri, 10/11/2023 - 02:52
By Dave Rollo

The transition to a steady state economy—in which humans, their operations, and their artifacts are nested harmoniously within the economy of nature—is fundamentally about reconciling human needs with the needs of nature. Leaving space for habitat and the functioning of natural systems is critical to our survival and  the survival of myriad other organisms.

Natural and traditional agricultural ecosystems are autotrophic (‘self-feeding’), meaning they are capable of regenerating resources and assimilating wastes.

The post The Imperative—and Peril—of Density appeared first on Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy.

Tooth and nail

https://digbysblog.net/2023/11/09/tooth-and-nail/
Created
Fri, 10/11/2023 - 02:30
By hook and by crook It’s not clear sometines whether the beleaguered 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) is as dead as a Norwegian Blue or just resting. The Act, explains Democracy Docket, was not just intended to address open discrimination, but the subtle kind as well, as Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote in 1969. Chief Justice John Roberts will go down in history for eviscerating and/or weakening VRA provisions. Even then, The VRA is not quite dead yet: Over the past few months, pro-voting forces have brought a series of lawsuits under lesser known and rarely litigated provisions of the VRA that seek to combat some of the more “subtle” — but nevertheless pernicious — voting laws that disenfranchise citizens across the country. From Washington to North Carolina and other states in between, these lawsuits are tapping into more obscure portions of the VRA in order to protect voting rights.  You go to war with the VRA provisions you have.

Biden’s Border

https://tomdispatch.com/bidens-border/
Created
Fri, 10/11/2023 - 01:34

On September 23rd, at about 2:30 a.m., a Border Patrol surveillance camera captured two people crossing the international boundary between Mexico and the United States on the outskirts of Nogales, Arizona. A Border Patrol vehicle arrived quickly, but not before one of them had fled back into Mexico. When an armed agent stepped out, dressed in a forest-green uniform, he found a 16-year-old girl from Mexico softly crying, while holding her month-old baby swaddled in a blanket. The agent commanded her to get in the vehicle. As they then drove to the Nogales Border Patrol station, the girl, he later reported, tried to speak to him in Spanish through the security partition that separated them. Her tiny daughter, she was... Read more

Source: Biden’s Border appeared first on TomDispatch.com.

While RNC losers debated

https://digbysblog.net/2023/11/09/while-rnc-losers-debated/
Created
Fri, 10/11/2023 - 01:00
“When in the history of the world have the people banning books been the good guys?” Erin Reed (Erin in the Morning) posts on Threads: This story got drowned out by the elections yesterday, but I want to make it clear to everyone. A decent sized city in Tennessee has banned public homosexuality. This is the kind of law we have not seen since the 70s. It’s straight out of Orbán and Putin’s government. Now Murfreesboro has moved on to local libraries “where at least four books, all containing LGBTQ+ themes, have been pulled from the shelves,” Reed writes, describing the ordinance. “Following that, the [city] council moved to enact a tiered library card system, where most nonfiction content will be gated behind the adult-only library card. This system will go into effect in 2024.” Where have we seen that before? Reed continues: On Monday, however, the county steering committee met to discuss a new resolution: the removal of all books in the library that could possibly violate the Murfreesboro ordinance.

Gaza’s Hiroshima: The Collective West’s Silence Speaks Volumes

https://www.mintpressnews.com/gaza-hiroshima-the-wests-silence-speaks-volumes/2…
Created
Fri, 10/11/2023 - 00:32

Gaza has been turned into a Hiroshima as a result of Western bombs and the blank political check handed to Israel by Western governments and leaders from the onset of the war, which, in fact, began 75 years ago.

The post Gaza’s Hiroshima: The Collective West’s Silence Speaks Volumes appeared first on MintPress News.

This Week’s Punctuation Power Rankings

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/this-weeks-punctuation-power-rankings
Created
Fri, 10/11/2023 - 00:00

10. Curly Brackets (fancy brackets)
Last week: 10

Calm down, Curly Brackets. You think you’re so fancy? Like you’re so much better than everyone else? And did I hear you would also like to be known as “Braces”? Oh, so you can separate yourself from the “other” brackets? Wow. Now, it totally makes sense that time you came back from spending a summer in London, and you suddenly had an accent and kept bragging about your time “on the Continent.” You’re insufferable.

9. Quotation Marks
Last week: 7

Let’s be honest: you never go anywhere without a mirror image of yourself. That’s codependency. It’s also a little troubling, right? That the most meaningful relationship you have is with a literal reflection of you? I don’t know. Maybe it’s best we keep our distance. I’m pretty sure I can never be what you need.

Observers Observed: The Ethnographer in Silicon Valley

https://crookedtimber.org/2023/11/09/observers-observed-the-ethnographer-in-sil…
Created
Thu, 09/11/2023 - 23:31
It is undeniably powerful to hear workers’ stories in their own words. Movements can emerge from the unlikeliest sources. The oral histories of ordinary workers are often seen as distinct from the memoirs of outsiders in tech, many of them women, who have written about their experiences. The latter range from Ellen Ullman’s 1990s memoir […]