Donald Trump fans cry betrayal as he rebukes Capitol violence
Donald Trump’s belated “concession” to a peaceful and orderly transition of power after the storming of the US Capitol has provoked anger and conspiracy theories among some of his most ardent followers. On social media channels and chatrooms like Parler and 4chan, where far-right Trumpists have gravitated as other social media sites have increasingly shut out the president, there were complaints of betrayal. Trump claimed on Thursday that he was “outraged by the violence, lawlessness and mayhem” of the Capitol siege that he had incited, and said those who “broke the law will pay” – comments that perhaps reflected concern over mounting legal and political hazard rather than a newfound sense of contrition and integrity. Nevertheless they prompted an outpouring of anger, grief and denial from his hardline acolytes.
How to Fix the Supreme Court, Part One: C is for Clarence - PREVAIL by Greg Olear
“If everyone made war only according to his own convictions, there would be no war,” Prince Andrei Bolkonsky thought… A good player who loses at chess is genuinely convinced that he has lost because of a mistake, and he looks for this mistake in the beginning of the game, but forgets that there were also mistakes at every step in the course of the game, that none of his moves was perfect. The mistake he pays attention to is conspicuous only because his opponent took advantage of it. —War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy, 1867) Three Generations of Imbeciles are Enough.
Fact-checking Hawley’s claim about Pennsylvania’s election law
Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri led the Senate charge against the electoral college certification of Joe Biden’s victory. Much of his argument was based on changes to mail-in voting in Pennsylvania. Hawley said that he objected to Biden’s win because Pennsylvania failed to follow its own state election laws. "You have a state constitution that has been interpreted for over a century to say that there is no mail-in balloting permitted, except for in very narrow circumstances that's also provided for in the law," Hawley said Jan. 6.
What are deepfakes – and how can you spot them?
What is a deepfake? Have you seen Barack Obama call Donald Trump a “complete dipshit”, or Mark Zuckerberg brag about having “total control of billions of people’s stolen data”, or witnessed Jon Snow’s moving apology for the dismal ending to Game of Thrones? Answer yes and you’ve seen a deepfake. The 21st century’s answer to Photoshopping, deepfakes use a form of artificial intelligence called deep learning to make images of fake events, hence the name deepfake. Want to put new words in a politician’s mouth, star in your favourite movie, or dance like a pro?
How Anti-Asian Activity Online Set the Stage for Real-World Violence
Negative Asian-American tropes have long existed online but began increasing last March as parts of the United States went into lockdown over the coronavirus. That month, politicians including Representative Paul Gosar, Republican of Arizona, and Representative Kevin McCarthy, a Republican of California, used the terms “Wuhan virus” and “Chinese coronavirus” to refer to Covid-19 in their tweets. Those terms then began trending online, according to a study from the University of California, Berkeley. On the day Mr. Gosar posted his tweet, usage of the term “Chinese virus” jumped 650 percent on Twitter; a day later there was an 800 percent increase in their usage in conservative news articles, the study found.
William Cronon - The Trouble With Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature
by William Cronon Print-formatted version: PDF In William Cronon, ed., Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1995, 69-90. The time has come to rethink wilderness.
Physics explains why time passes faster as you age
Mind time and clock time are two totally different things. They flow at varying rates. The chronological passage of the hours, days, and years on clocks and calendars is a steady, measurable phenomenon. Yet our perception of time shifts constantly, depending on the activities we’re engaged in, our age, and even how much rest we get.
Climate crisis: our children face wars over food and water, EU deputy warns
Older people will have to make sacrifices in the fight against climate change or today’s children will face a future of fighting wars for water and food, the EU’s deputy chief has warned. Frans Timmermans, vice-president of the EU commission, said that if social policy and climate policy are not combined, to share fairly the costs and benefits of creating a low-carbon economy, the world will face a backlash from people who fear losing jobs or income, stoked by populist politicians and fossil fuel interests. He said: “It’s not just an urgent matter – it’s a difficult matter. We have to transform our economy.
Nothing Changes If Nothing Changes: #firstdayfirstimage
Does anyone really believe that we live in a post-race or a post-gender world? For those who value diversity, freedom of speech, social progress and a commitment to a vibrantly engaged culture of the arts, these seem like dark days. When considering the current condition of equal representation in the business world, the art world and in the canons of art history, is there any proof that rectification of the pervasive under representation of women, people of color, gay, trans or other marginalized groups actually gets better over time?
Palestinian American: Criticizing Israel doesn't make me antisemitic
I may not live in Palestine, but the trauma I have to go through in order to go see my family and friends is painful and enraging. To be Palestinian is to be perpetually gaslit. Each and every day, choices are made that all but ensure that the imbalance of power and continued oppression lives in perpetuity. From the nearly $4 billion per year handed over from the United States government to the Israeli government with no humanitarian strings attached to the propaganda machine of the Netanyahu regime – the Israeli government has no motivation to stop oppressing and brutalizing my people. This situation isn't complicated.
America’s gun obsession is rooted in slavery
Bodies are piling up all over the second amendment as two of America’s pandemics converge. The “plague of gun violence” and the inability to mount an effective response, even in the wake of multiple mass shootings, is, unfortunately, rooted in the other pandemic gripping the United States: anti-Blackness and the sense that African Americans are a dangerous threat that can only be neutralized or stopped by a well-armed white citizenry. For too long, the second amendment has been portrayed with a founding fathers aura swaddled in the stars and stripes. But “a well-regulated militia” wasn’t, as the story goes, about how valiant and effective the militias were in repelling the British. George Washington was disgusted with their lack of fighting ability and the way the men would just cut and run from battling against a professional army. Nor was the militia reliable as a force to uphold the law.
Michelle Wie West Was Ready to Retire. Then She Got Mad.
Wie West has sought out other athletes who fought for change, including Renee Powell, one of the first African American members of the L.P.G.A., and the tennis icon Billie Jean King, who described how her threat to boycott the U.S. Open in 1973 as the defending women’s champion spurred the tournament to become the first of the Grand Slam events to pay men and women equally for their victories. Wie West has compared notes with W.N.B.A. standout and players’ association president, Nneka Ogwumike, whose undergraduate years at Stanford overlapped with hers. The conversations inspired Wie West to float the idea of forming an inter-sport council that could address the pay disparity and unequal resources between men’s and women’s sports. In 2019, the last full season before the coronavirus pandemic disrupted the playing calendar, 73 women’s players exceeded $50,000 in on-course earnings. That same season on the PGA Tour, the 73rd-highest earner made $1,553,149.
