“The Rio Treaty’s Security Pact and Unintended Consequences of Threatening Canada, Greenland, and Panama”.
“Bringing this all together, the technologies through which we see the public shape how we understand it, making it more likely that we end up in the one situation rather than the other. As you have surely guessed by now, I believe Twitter/X, Facebook, and other social media services are just such technologies for shaping publics. Many of the problems that we are going to face over the next many years will stem from publics that have been deranged and distorted by social media in ways that lower the odds that democracy will be a problem solving system, and increase the likelihood that it will be a problem creating one.”
“Now, on the precipice of another Donald Trump presidency and halfway through the country’s third year without Roe, new ‘mommy wars’ are about to drop. But they won’t be about whether mothers work outside the home, breastfeed or formula feed, or whether or not moms vaccinate their kids. Instead, we’re about to see women pitted against each other over abortion—specifically, those who end nonviable or medically fraught pregnancies, and those who choose to carry to term.”
“I can’t imagine running a nursing home without children in it.”
RIP, Richard “Rico” Garcia, former HPD officer who was a 10-year member of the HPD’s famous Chicano Squad and a founder of the Organization of Spanish Speaking Officers.
“Slightly more than 20% of dolphins swimming along the Texas Gulf Coast have been exposed to fentanyl, according to a study published last month by Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi.”
“Ultimately, ending the war in Ukraine in one day is only the latest campaign promise Trump is backtracking on.” And he still isn’t even sworn in yet.
“But the real and big story is simpler and more structural. The major technology platforms became mature businesses at vast scales; in so doing they butted up against the regulatory purview of the national government; and with the former leading to the latter they shifted toward a more conventionally anti-regulatory politics. A lot of it is really that simple.”
“Chuck D Denounces Use Of Public Enemy’s ‘Burn Hollywood Burn’ In Wildfire Videos”.
RIP, Joe Sayre, Texas Radio Hall of Famer who was known on the air as Colonel St. James.
I have not read the massive Vulture story about the many horrible allegations against Neil Gaiman, but several of my friends have and have posted about it, and boy howdy does it all sound terrible. Here’s a quote from one of them: “He’s — well, you know how his writing and speaking shows a deep understanding of humanity and empathy, and expresses kindliness and likability? It turns out that if you are a horrible, horrible, deeply terrible person, you can use all of that to a) manipulate and abuse victims and b) mask that you’re a horrible, horrible, deeply terrible person.” I really would have preferred to live in a world in which Neil Gaiman was not such a person, but it looks like I did not get that wish.
“Mark Zuckerberg needs the incoming administration to make his problems disappear. Among the many issues facing Meta is a 2020 antitrust lawsuit filed during the first Trump administration, which heads to trial this spring. Section 230 —- the law shielding platforms from liability for user-generated content —- is under attack from both MAGA loyalists and liberals, and Meta desperately wants it to remain intact. Additionally, Meta’s AI ambitions rely on access to copyrighted works, there’s a class-action lawsuit against Meta making its way to the Supreme Court, and the company heavily depends on H1-B visas, a program often criticized by immigration hardliners.”
More WordPress drama. Why must so many tech CEOs make heel turns?
“This was not the wildland–urban interface of the Sierra Nevada, but entire neighborhoods of densely packed houses on gridded streets in and around the country’s second-largest city. To survey the devastation so far—12,000 structures destroyed, 24 dead—is to feel torn between the past and future of the American city. The century of technology and expertise deployed to eliminate the great urban fires that once leveled Chicago and San Francisco has been outpaced by the speed of a changing climate.”
RIP, Heinz Kluetmeier, photographer best known for his “Miracle on Ice” pictures.
“Effectively that means the FBI didn’t ask a single question in Pete Hegseth’s background check that the incoming Trump administration didn’t want asked.”
“It takes work, but you can learn to do it if you really, really want to. Put in that work and, eventually, you can be an ungrateful jerk who resents deaf people just for existing and who almost believes the lies you’re telling yourself about how their presence in this world makes you more entitled and aggrieved.”
“As firefighters are battling multiple huge blazes tearing through Los Angeles, California’s prisons have deployed more than 1,000 incarcerated people to battle on the frontlines.”
RIP, David Lynch, iconic director who gave us Blue Velvet, Mulholland Drive, Dune, and Twin Peaks, among others.
RIP, Bob Uecker, former MLB player and beloved longtime broadcaster for the Milwaukee Brewers, who also did some acting in Mr. Belvedere, Major League, and more.
RIP, Tommy Brown, former MLB player with the Brooklyn Dodgers, teammate of Jackie Robinson, still the youngest person to hit a home run in an MLB game and the youngest non-pitcher to appear in an MLB game.
RIP, Dame Joan Plowright, Tony-winning and Oscar-nominated actor, widow of Sir Laurence Olivier.
RIP Bob Uecker, member of the 1964 world champion and World Series winner St. Louis Cardinals.