«If somebody says liberals have become illiberal, you should consider whether it’s true. But you should also know that this assertion has a long history and that George Wallace and Barry Goldwater used it in their eras to powerful effect. People who make this claim aren’t “renegades.” They’re heirs to an extremely specific tradition in American political rhetoric, one that has become a dangerous inheritance.»
https://twitter.com/yashar/status/1166823812975026179?s=17
Moral of the story: you can now not trust any video without corroborating witnesses, and even then, maybe not. Ever.
Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) Tweeted:
Technology was a mistake https://t.co/kAhtNApv44
https://archive.org/details/Microsoft_Editor_Assembler-Plus_1979_Microsoft
Pretty sure I remember plunking down hard-earned lawn-mowing money for this software, back in the day. Before that, I had done all my machine-language programming by hand-assembling opcodes with pencil and paper. This was a huge step up for me (macros!), and I still have fond memories. (Of course… I never actually wrote a complete program with it. 
)
🙂
https://twitter.com/kierstenwhite/status/1165043359536173057?s=17
🙂
Kiersten White (@kierstenwhite) Tweeted:
“Hello, fellow characters, it’s the middle of act two so let’s have a conversation reminding the reader all the threads in play and what’s at stake.”
“Yes, that is a natural, normal thing to do, and not at all because our author has the attention span of a goldfish.”
https://twitter.com/threadreaderapp/status/1166235377784557569?s=17
Welcome to the 21st century.
«Shiva, knowing Nooshin’s Instagram Live message was sent under extreme duress, posted the audio of it on her Twitter account. In it, Nooshin–in a whimpering, terrified voice–implores Shiva to give the Iranian authorities the password to a Twitter account. (2of8)»
Thread Reader App (@threadreaderapp) Tweeted:
@JohnL4 Hi! there is your unroll: Thread by @ICHRI: “THREAD: Rarely are political prisoners in Iran able to send messages via social media apps from prison, but that happene […]” #Iran https://t.co/yl77XmY8ZA
Have a good day. 🤖
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/02/the-message-of-measles
Here’s an utterly fascinating little factoid: measles has killed more people in the Congo this year than ebola has.
The vast majority of measles cases turn out O.K.—a fortnight of misery—but bad things can and do happen. It isn’t Ebola, but it isn’t chicken pox, either. (That said, it has killed more people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo this year than Ebola has.)
https://popups.uliege.be/1780-4507/index.php?id=10902
Random piece of a text on a random web page:
«4.3. Constraints in using the soil map of Rwanda (CPR)
….
As with all sectors of life in Rwanda, the CPR and its use did not escape the negative consequences of the 1994 genocide. Almost all personnel involved in soil map’s production and use were either killed or driven out, and much information was lost. It took eight years (1994-2002) to rebuild the database and then publish the digitized version. The scant input from Rwandan personnel in the implementation stage meant the loss of valuable experience and understanding of the technology and philosophy underpinning the map. Today, 18 years after the genocide, few Rwandan soil scientists are interested in its use.»
https://religionnews.com/2019/08/23/glamour-and-unattainability-is-out-spiritual-refreshment-is-in/
People are still hungry for meaning. They don’t come to church for it because…?
«But today’s advertisements are designed to evoke different and more numinous emotions: spiritual well-being, an inward journey, a moral sensibility. We’re buying the very things that organized religion used to provide us for free.
These new takes on advertising can draw controversy, as when Nike celebrated Colin Kaepernick’s decision to “Take a Knee” to exhibit his support of the Black Lives Matter movement (“Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything”), garnering the wrath of more than a few white evangelical pastors. Chick-fil-A has donated to anti-LGBT-marriage groups. Companies are increasingly tailoring their advertising, using political advocacy or activism to sell themselves as moral arbitrators. They are selling not just products but values.
In so doing, these brands are selling meaning as a product, reframing capitalist consumption as a religious ritual: a repeated and intentional activity that connects the individual self to its divine purpose, or at least a set of meaningful values. For the 36% of young millennials who identify as “religiously unaffiliated” — a demographic that strongly leans progressive left and tends to respond to the narrative ad language of social justice — commercial brands offer a vision of spirituality that’s linked, often, both with personal self-improvement and wider social utopianism.»
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/hamedaleaziz/vdare-doj-dol-epoch-times
You’d think that they’d have different sections in their briefings: reputable sources and “others”.
«A former senior DOJ official said that the email in question was “generated by a third-party vendor that utilizes keyword searches to produce news clippings for staff. It is not reviewed or approved by staff before it is transmitted.”
“That’s absolutely incorrect,” said TechMIS CEO Steven Mains, adding that EOIR was the most specific and particular of the company’s clients. The agency’s staff would review its work “down to misspellings” if there was anything wrong before sending, he said.
….
One immigration court employee told BuzzFeed News they perceived a shift in the news sources included in their emailed media briefings after Trump took office.
“It shows an increasing effort to politically charge the perspective of immigration judges who are being tasked with being neutral judges who apply the law,” said the employee, who was not authorized to speak on the matter publicly. “The administration has been taking steps to make the court a political weapon in various ways, some big, some small, this is just one example.”»
