TGIF! [DOT 1/11/24]

1/11/24 MegMegMcGee 48

Tonight is my neighborhood’s annual Oktoberfest party. (Yes, I know we are late.) I’m making 40 bratwurst and 15 lbs of German Potato salad.

Wut that’s crazy

Workers Say They Were Tricked and Threatened as Part of Elon Musk’s Get-Out-the-Vote Effort
https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-america-pac-blitz-canvassing-michigan-uhaul

Dog whistles galore

Six racist and bigoted comments you might have missed from Trump’s New York rally

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/31/six-racist-bigoted-comments-trump-madison-square-garden

I do not like it thank you very much

Donald Trump vows to be protector of women ‘whether they like it or not’

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/31/donald-trump-women-protector-wisconsin-rally

My friend’s husband was in the worst of it but is OK. He lost his business (a distillery). Very upsetting.

Spain floods death toll passes 150 as country begins three days of mourning

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/31/spain-floods-valencia-death-toll-three-days-mourning

Sprots! (omg this is so sad)

Australian golfer Jeffrey Guan vows to ‘be back’ after freak accident leaves him blind in one eye
https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/31/sport/jeffrey-guan-blind-australia-golf-spt-intl/index.html

Stonks!

Apple’s services unit is now a $100 billion a year juggernaut after ‘phenomenal’ growth
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/31/apple-services-is-100-billion-per-year-juggernaut-but-growth-slowing.html

Is a pickle a sandwich?

https://twitter.com/WindhorstLarry/status/1851759558131175814

Have a great day!

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48 Comments

  1. …something seems to be breaking the embed thing for some tweets but not others?

    …happened yesterday, too…but…it looks like wordpress thinks it has embeded that one until it’s time for it to show up on my screen…at which point it isn’t even a live link…so I’ll see if it shows up here?

    https://twitter.com/WindhorstLarry/status/1851759558131175814

    …guess not…but…if you want to see sort of a deli sandwich but the bread is a pickle…you’ll be wanting to click through?

        • The Federal Election Commission is essentially dead thanks to the GOP appointees refusing to approve anything, but stuff like this is so sloppy that I would guess if we’re lucky next week there will be other legal avenues for going after that freak.

        • Compare and contrast.

          We all saw the video of Trump in orange face paint speaking incoherently and struggling to open a garbage truck door. What do we get? A vague reference framed as part of a hard fought campaign.

          https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/31/us/politics/harris-trump-women-arizona-las-vegas-nevada.html

          Here’s how the dopey Michael Dukakis photo op in a tank was covered:

          https://www.nytimes.com/1988/09/14/us/campaign-trail-loaded-for-bear-and-then-some.html

          There’s actually a decent argument for not covering Trump as completely over the top as that article on Dukakis. But it would be incredibly easy to just write an article focusing on the incident that was half as skeptical about Trump as Peter Baker’s stupid article that bryanlsplinter wrote yesterday trying to revive the Biden OLD narrative.

          As bryanlsplinter pointed out, Biden isn’t running. Trump is.

          • …that trae crowder guy…the one that does the “liberal redenck” clips on youtube?

            https://www.youtube.com/@TraeCrowderLiberalRedneck/videos

            …I don’t think it’s always them…but the bit he tends to sandwich the monologue around that must presumably pay him in some fashion is often for a service that calls itself “ground news”

            …it’s a decently designed thing with some utility as far as I can make out without actually subscribing to the thing…not sure how much of a “value-add” I’d find it when arguably the source of my problems is not reading too little or from too few places…but the feature they have that lets you toggle between the framing of a particular story in the product of either side of the bias curve draws on a few places I seldom venture…for one…so…I dunno…feels like it’d be perfect fit for the sort of “free” services google cut its teeth on…with an arguable public service case to beg for subsidies with, even

            https://ground.news/blindspot

            …you know…if we decided that access to the tools to allow one to parse content with IRL consequences to our understanding of being freely available was part of holding up both sides of the social contract…or something similarly radical…like a clear & present danger…for instance

            …sorry…I’m just “having a bit of a day” it turns out…don’t mind me?

  3. …so…yesterday…@farscythe asked a (possibly rhetorical) question

    did musk get an official position whilst i was asleep or something?
    the fucks he making up budgets for?

    last i checked he was just bankrolling the other terrible business person

    …&…I have a follow-up…not sure it’s a question so much as I’d appreciate a ruling on how many layers of lamination I’d find in a cross-section of my well-worn & at this point possibly even companionable tin-foil hat, really

    …because when I read that comment there’s a bit of my brain that’s seen too many memes which throws up the one with the three guys in spiderman outfits pointing at each other labelled “the one terrible business person”, “the other terrible business person” & “hostile foreign &/or corporate interests”* (* – aka the money™)…& a caption about what happens when the bearer of the silver platter asks who to give the bill to

    …& that’s enough pins in a pitch for a hollywood movie to get greenlit in a strike…which ought to be well into the realms of fantastical escapist fiction…or multi-laminate aluminium-leaf millinery

    …whereas…if I’ve got less layers in my hat than there were keeping the void of space away from the first boots on the lunar surface before they left the lander…well…if we’ve skipped over hoverboards & lightsabres & right to techno-dystopian-societal-collapse with an unfortunate resemblance to the set up in “the peripheral”…I’m gonna be so pissed off…so…if someone could make the idea that the whole diorama is logically disconnected from anything “outcome determinitive” & belongs in the drawer with “maybe shakespeare wasn’t shakespeare?” or “could they have faked the moon landing & would it make sense if they had?”…it’d make me feel better…so…call it a favor?

    • Officially, he’s bankrolling a sizable portion of the operation so he has leeway to call some of the shots. He also stands to both profit directly (government contracts, taxes) and indirectly (slashing of other competitor contracts) under Trump.

      Unofficially, he’s clearly trying to inherit the mantle of Trumpism because he knows as we do that Donald himself isn’t built to survive all that much longer (physically, mentally, legal system-ly, etc.) and he sees himself as The Next Guy way more than JD Vance.

      Conspiratorially, he’s just as indebted to certain dangerous people just as much as Trump is and he has to win Or Else.

      • …that makes me sound alarmingly thin on the tin-foil layers, though…who funds who by how much in which context just seems to be all roundabouts & no swing left unpushed when you put it that way

        …& I have a distinct lack of ninjas…or hoverboards…or lightsabres

        …I…might have a wheelbarrow?

        …if someone remembers where we left the albino, anyway

      • Non-conspiratorially, Elmo is over-leveraged. He’s borrowed heavily against his Tesla stock, and he’s hoping to have Trump shut down the NHTSA so he can manufacture and sell self-driving murder machines without any oversight. That will pump back up Tesla’s value (he hopes) and put him back in the black.

        There are several flaws with that plan, but we’ve pretty well established that Elmo is no great strategist.

        • …conspiratorially…on the other hand

          …the role of MAGA figurehead has some notable features to do with background funding of over-leveraged self-styled business savants…as does being a tech CEO…with skin in the social media game & exposure to goverment requests of questionable legitimacy & a broad spectrum of definitions of the limits of “free speech”…& the financing of the twitter deal isn’t noticeably less shady than a bunch of what deutschebank facilitated for donnie when he got himself into the hole he’s lived in for longer than he’s been in politics

          …traditionally…the sorts of intelligence agencies that get stuck with things like vetting & defining the limits of the security clearance hierarchy…have been pretty open about filing that sort of thing under the heading of “obvious vulnerabilities” on account of all the leverage they offer to a sizeable piggy bank with an agenda

          …I don’t love the part where that makes me sound like I live in somebody else’s basement in a 3-dimensional version of the internet’s most famous image of the wall of crazy…but…in my defense…reality allows for people buying NFTs with crypto for their long-term investment potential…allegedly, anyway…& I can’t help it if that sounds way crazier to me than my three-way spiderman “conspiracy”…which is more of an involuntary waking nightmare than a theory I want to profit from seeing gain widespread traction with a by-product of external validation…but…subjectively…in a “you gotta laugh…” sort of a way…it feels like my brain’s idea of a self-defensive redirect of offensive momentum…I suspect someone suitably qualified would probably call it a coping mechanism?

        • He’s absolutely over-leveraged. It depends so much on to who, though. If it’s just banks, he’s always going to get the benefit of every possible doubt and oh well whatever. If it’s certain other lenders … well … polonium and windows and mechanical failure are different circumstances altogether.

  6. The “protector” isn’t convincing any women. I’m utterly shocked that an adjudicated rapist’s vow to force women to accept his “protection” isn’t resonating.

    Republicans are struggling with women voters—and keep making it worse

    The irony is that women are illustrating what Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito said when taking away their reproductive freedom: “Women are not without electoral or political power.”

    No, Sammy, they absolutely are not.

    • If we are lucky and Harris wins, either by a lot or by a little, I guarantee we will have the sanewashers and horserace fanatics going two ways.

      #1 will be “We did it! Our incredibly detailed, nuanced, balanced coverage led to the most informed electorate ever.”

      They’ll use the near miss of the iceberg to justify going even faster.

      #2 will be “Liberal freakouts about us were as bad the Y2K freakout, which we all know was the most overhyped thing ever.”

      They’ll be blind to the reality thar what stopped disaster was people going all out to react in time.

      And if we are unlucky, their response will be to lock the gates on everyone in steerage and make a run for the lifeboats.

       

      • …the other possibility…that’s at least bobbed across the horizon of my mental landscape…would be…if you’ll excuse the big bang theory reference…that the media & all the echo-chambers it resonates in are as much of a determinative factor as…indiana jones in raiders of the lost ark?

        …if they’re right that it’s down in the order of being as few as 15% of people who so much as can vote that haven’t essentially made up their mind how they’ll cast theirs despite as much as because of anything that happens in a campaign year…which I’ve seen taken seriously as an approximate proportion in a few places…& then adjusted by swing-state demographics…& weighted for likelihood of the binomial outcome of (would-vote-for)x(actually-votes)…& salted with a “representative sample” baseline to adjust from

        …it could be his campaign in ’16 just proved the ark existed…& now we’re late in the fifth act & feeling sympathetic because we don’t like snakes in those sorts of numbers either…or rats…& maybe it would be nice if there really was a god…who hates nazis

        …see…I can be an optimist when I put my mind to it?

      • I suspect the answer is Door No. 3 which is publishers will ride whatever high horse they want to believe but will get suddenly sweaty about 9-12 months from now when it turns out they’ve lost 10-20-25% of their subscriber base and the real panic sets in.

        I could write a lot about this, a lot a lot, but I think we’re really close to a tipping point for the national media and that people both have other options (good and bad) and aren’t immediately going to forget 2024 (especially in light of how much of it is just a bad carbon copy of 2016). I’m not sure how many of them are gonna come back home this time.

        • …I know this is normally said with a side of something remembling post-modern irony…&/or for comedy purposes…but

          …I mean…I’m assuming this newsletter is free-as-in-beer…at least for those of us inviting ourselves to the friends&familydiscount party

          …but…anytime you have the time

          …just sayin’?

        • We’re already seeing Door #3 being used as an alibi. Jonathan Weisman of the NY Times tried to rationalize sanewashing on the grounds that only 7% of the US read the Times, so what does it matter if they go on a crusade about Biden’s age, or flip flop on Trump’s age?

          Of course he didn’t try to connect that to the paper’s endless focus on polling showing a close race like the last two, where swings of a few hundred thousand votes in several states decided the election. Weisman’s not very smart, though. He has a long history of saying the quiet part out loud.

          But anyway, I agree with you about the longterm outcome of disinvestment from the billionaire class. I think the Bezos types are going to find it a lot easier to just walk away from national media the same way hedge funds and VC groups have been killing local media.

          I think it has less to do with the bottom line for national political coverage and more to do with the influence. These people consider themselves the gatekeepers and bosses of media consumers, and if they drive away the core and are left with people who sit near a CNN screen in an airport or can’t figure out how to cancel their subscription, it’s not going to make them feel relevant anymore.

          • I think the Bezos types are going to find it a lot easier to just walk away from national media the same way hedge funds and VC groups have been killing local media.

            …so it’s not that we need to worry about one of them pulling a william randolph hearst & getting an AI to provide the pictures while they supply the war

            …just that pretty soon the sinclair broadcast network will own the washington post?

            …oh, good…I feel so much better now…I just knew at some point my day would start looking up

            • Sinclair is actually hurting. Their top guy David Smith announced a fire sale on his portfolio of local stations earlier this year and couldn’t find any buyers, and the end of political ad windfalls is going to make his situation worse.

              Although who knows, it’s entirely possible the next political favor Bezod performs is handing the Post over to some right wing ghoul for twenty six bucks and some gum.

              • …I dunno if vulture capitalism is the term I’d be looking for…but…be it thiel & gawker…or musk & twitter…or the zuckster’s new meta-imperial wardrobe

                https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/25/what-does-mark-zuckerbergs-shirt-say/

                …but…burning eye-wateringly vast quantities of cash…& or climate-significant resources with a comensurately significant carbon-footprint…for incomprehensible amounts of personal profit/influence/do-what-thou-wilt-shall-be-the-whole-of-the-law…to a point that would put the overwhelming majority of “going concerns” well & truly out of business…in a lucky-if-you-could-recognize-the-parts-they-cut-it-up-into-before-selling-for-scrap sense…which to what seems like a pretty considerable extent is at best a different flavor profile to the same shit-sandwich offered by the when-we-win-you’ll-be-sorry ticket that relies on being able to peddle kool-aid full of acid they plan to run an electric current through without anyone objecting in the audience’s hearing…does rather have a lot of the hallmarks of what I think still gets called a loss-leader

                …& there’s a reason they don’t make TVs in the US these days

                …so…it’s not completely nuts to think it might be the sort of thing where the national interest might…at least according to the until-lately meaning…trump those of private enterprise to the point of not getting to have that all their own way

                …when you can drop the sort of cash you’d have to be an idiot to throw away on what you’re getting for it at the sort of scale that covers the spread in a budget deficit & the effect on what you can or can’t do afterwards or your surrounding material environment is less noticeable than if you change the paper stock your company uses in its printers…is it even a loss, really?

                …getting to ride the flaming wreckage of twitter into the ground like he’s trying to one-up the guy with the stetson at the end of dr strangelove very possibly looks like nothing but upside if you’re elon, after all

                …he’s the legend in his own lifetime…& a messiah in his own mind…& money is just another matter of abstractions to him…he’s…beyond that now…he doesn’t have to think like a mere mortal

                …we’re just ants in an inefficient colony that would work better if he transplanted it to mars where he could also be the CEO of humanity

                …the fact a lot of people can see that emperor hasn’t got any new clothes & keeps crapping all over the place like he never got toilet trained is the part of the problem that screams for your attention…but not sectioning him for acting like a lunatic & posing a danger to himself & others…that part might be worth stopping to think about…once we’ve finished hosing the place down like the augean stables…& had a bit of a breather…& maybe a few drinks

                …apparently we don’t have time just at the minute while this incredibly close election for massive stakes determines whether or not the american experiment has got the point where they let the cat called democracy out of the bag & we find out if it’s dead or not

                …so…it won’t matter if we take our time & cut ourselves a little slack about getting around to it

                …I really am feeling better & better about all this as the day progresses…although I’m sure that must be obvious on account of all the joy I’m spreading?

  8. …on the basis that I realized only belatedly that after the reddit embed vanished while I was compiling the DOT yesterday the link/quote from the register I appended never actually mentioned vlad’s anything-you-can-do-I-can-do-better bid for most punitive fine levied on a tech-giant as a number

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/11/01/russia-google-fine-20-decillion/

    …which is an interesting contextual note while this ping-pongs about the judicial system to see if it ultimately falls in or out of the federal basket

    Elon Musk case over $1 million voter giveaway moved to federal court [WaPo]

    …if you map the players from elon, xi & shut-up-donnie-you’re-out-of-your-element…to…say…nigel farage, giorgia meloni &…shut-up-donnie-you’re-out-of-your-element…or boris…same difference give or take an oceanwide difference…the horse-trading on trade & the mutual back-scratching looks like the sort of thing robert mueller would have taken a dim-but-weirdly-toothless view of…&…it’s not an altogether pointless exercise in false equivalence…definitely algebra rather than math…& might require imaginary numbers & invisible coefficients…or integrals…or trig…not to collapse before you can say it works out…but sometimes the shape is just shadows on the cloud…& sometimes it’s a big dark thing on its way to emerging from the cloud…& we’re long past the point where it became clear that I’ve watched way too many movies & read altogether unhealthy volumes of sci-fi with a questionable score on the cognitive dietary health chart…so…hmm…I seem to be saying I’m not the scorpion in this analogy about waving while drowning…I’m the innocent but conspicuously slow-on-the-uptake frog, apparently

    …clearly today is just going to be one new existential crisis of identity after another for me

    …how about some time-flies-when-you’re-having-fun for a change instead of all this fisheye-panning bullet-time this-is-what-clutching-a-live-wire-looks-like

    …a change is as good as a rest, they say…& I think that’s the they that’s still ok…not the one that’s secretly running the whole world as a simulation on quantum substrate architecture at the behest of the mice or anything

    …so…I’d be game for that…anytime now?

    • They think that this is their version of how black folks use the “N-word” which is why they’re rushing to embrace it.

      It will fail because

      1) they’re forcing it

      2) It’s their fucking attitudes, beliefs, closed/stunted mind and behavior that makes them garbage.

      They could change their minds, read a book, show some empathy for others, but won’t.

      The worst part they don’t get is that they’re actually being judged “by the content of their character” or lack there of including their racism.

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