Please join me and my colleagues on Monday and Tuesday for the Fierce Network Open RAN Summit, a free virtual event. I’m moderating the panel “Creating New Telco Opportunities in the Cloud with Open RAN” at 12:15 am EST Monday with Neil Coleman, product line management lead, Amdocs, and Rimma Iontel, chief architect, global telco, Red Hat.
A new reminder that Russian interference was never a ‘hoax.’
It just succeeded in a way that Russia could never have predicted.
The recent indictment claiming Russians funneled $10 million to a US-based conservative media company is just the latest example of Russian meddling.
Russians are writing MAGA talking points about how “people of color, perverts and disabled” are infringing “the rights of the White Population of the United States.”
A pharma company charges $80,000 for a treatment to cure hepatitis that costs $78 to produce. [Ian Welsh]
… conservatives self-mythologize as the standards-bearers for deferred gratification and making hard trade-offs, but are utterly lacking in these traits when it comes to climate change and inequality.
— Marshmallow Longtermism, Cory Doctorow @pluralistic@mamot.fr
Conservatives have privilege and money to shield themselves from the consequences of their bad decisions and confidence that situation will last forever.
Seeking maximum ethical benefit from minimum effort.
According to podcaster PJ Vogt, many people who choose veganism do not do so because the animals are killed for human use. These people choose veganism because of the horrible suffering industrial farming puts animals through while alive.
Everywhereist: I Went Paleo and Now I Hate Everything
The supermarket moved things around to different shelves and I’m filing a class action lawsuit.
"We have a damaged, delusional, old man who again might get reelected to the presidency of the United States," Mike Barnicle, who served as a longtime columnist for The Boston Globe and other newspapers…. Trump frequently says “deranged” things in public that “you wouldn’t repeat” on “American television” or “in front of your children.”
” How did we get here?" Barnicle asked. Then he pointed a finger at his media colleagues. “Donald Trump can say whatever crazy things he wants to say, about submarines, and sharks, and electric batteries,” [and] these statements are “not really covered” as a window into “who the man is” or a sign that he’s “out of his mind.”
— Finally: Top Journo Erupts at Media for Ignoring Trump’s Mental State [The New Republic]
The world’s largest wind-powered cargo ship just made its first delivery across the Atlantic
Why Would Dick Cheney Endorse Kamala Harris?
Hamilton Nolan:
What unites them is this: a settled commitment to American global supremacy. That is something far more important to Dick Cheney, the human embodiment of the existing global power structure, than a few points on the tax rate or a little more diversity in government hiring. Kamala Harris, in her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, promised that “ will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.” This is enough for Dick Cheney. In this sense, she is a traditional Democrat.
All of us who vote for Democrats need to understand what we are getting. Our feeling of moral superiority on domestic policy—we are the ones against racism and poverty! We are the ones who protect women!—is at all times floating atop an unmentioned sea of weapons pointed at millions of less powerful people outside of our own borders. Republicans are bastards on domestic and foreign policy and Democrats are nicer on domestic policy and very, very close to Republicans on foreign policy. Even among Democrats, the baseline assumption that America must have enough guns to exert our will on the entire world is not questioned. Kamala Harris may push for paid family leave, but she is not going to dismantle the United States intelligence agencies. Kamala Harris may raise taxes on capital gains, but she is not going to meaningfully slash military funding. Kamala Harris may protect abortion, but she is not going to stop sending weapons to Israel, or remove America’s drone bases in Africa, or Give Schools All The Money They Need and Make The Air Force Hold a Bake Sale to Buy a Bomber. The harshest things that America does, its most uncompromising violence, its rawest assertion of pure power over weaker people, is always down overseas, far away from where we can watch it. For generations, there has been a mutual agreement from both major parties to do what must be done to protect America’s ability to militarily dominate the world—the gun that protects our concurrent ability to be richer than everyone else, the velvet fist that allows us to extract trillions of dollars in value from the Global South and use it to raise our own national standard of living. This commitment to maintaining the global order, people like Dick Cheney understand, is more important than all the other, smaller issues that voters get worked up about. This is the tree, not the branches.
It’s not that Donald Trump has any ideological opposition to this commitment, which the Republicans have always embraced with relish. It’s just that he’s insane and an unpredictable egomaniac and therefore cannot be counted on to fulfill his role on this matter.
Today's ephemera: The sun sucks
Sunday, September 8, 2024
She Demons (1958). They seem nice.
“This Kodachrome slide was taken by me, William D. Volkmer, on August 30, 1957, on Atlanta’s Peachtree Street in the theater district during a Shriners convention. I was entering my Senior year at Georgia Tech.” via
I have found people’s preferences for hot and cold beverages do not deviate based on the weather.
I’m a hot coffee man. 100 degrees out and the a/c is broken? Don’t care. Bring me my hot coffee.
Similarly, an iced coffee drinker will drink iced coffee during a North Dakota winter.
Today's ephemera: Yipes!
Friday, September 6, 2024
Boarding House, paperback digest cover, 1954 by George Gross
Behind the scenes of The Shining (1980)
I went to the La Mesa-Foothills Democratic Club event last night, and they had a coffee urn out with the usual fixings. Normally, I am a coffee snob who buys gourmet beans, grinds them at home and drinks it black, but last night I poured a cup of the institutional decaf, added coffeemate and a packet of Splenda, and it was delicious. It was so good that I had two more. I told the organizer that if he had accidentally mislabeled the regular coffee as a decaf, I would give him a call at 3:30 in the morning to let him know.
Trump is telling us that we need to “get over it” about school shootings.
A major podcast network supporting Trump is supported by big Russian money. I’ve seen their alleged talking points – it’s basically the Trump campaign party line.
There are credible allegations Trump took $10M cash from the Egyptian government.
We know he was openly accepting payoffs during his Presidency – it was widely discussed at the time. Even he talked about it.
He’s also an admitted sexual predator. He’s on tape admitting it and those tapes have been widely and publicly played. Around two dozen people said they are his victims. He was sued over it, lost and the judge said he’s a rapist.
He’s a convicted criminal. Dude’s a felon, no different from a guy who sticks up a 7-11.
Add this to his mishandling of the Covid crisis. No matter how serious or trivial you think Covid is and was, you can still look at Trump and say he failed. Either it was a horrible pandemic or a hoax. Either way, Trump failed to protect us.
Also, Trump supports the people who tried to violently overturn the 2020 election results, and murder Nancy Pelosi and Mike Pence. He calls them political prisoners and is hosting a fundraising event for them.
On the other hand, Kamala says she worked at McDonald’s. But it’s not on her resume. So did she REALLY work at McDonald’s?
I can understand why undecided voters are finding this such a difficult decision!
An Informant Exposes The Inner Workings Of The Ku Klux Klan [Fresh Air]
Joe Moore, a former Army sniper turned FBI informant, shares how he infiltrated the KKK and helped foil a plot to assassinate then Sen. Barack Obama. Moore explains how hate groups are growing. His new book is ‘White Robes and Broken Badges.’
Bob hit “reply all” one time too many: “A worker on an office hiking retreat to a national forest in Colorado had to be rescued after 14 of his colleagues allegedly left him stranded on a 14,230-foot mountain, authorities said.”
Real-Estate Shopping for the Apocalypse
Patricia Marx writes for the New Yorker about her tour of bunkers in which people can survive the apocalypse in comfort.
After weeks of scrolling, I found a handful of dream hideaways on the market whose sellers were willing to let me take a tour. There were two bunkers in Montana, one of which sleeps at least ninety; a prepper bunker in Missouri that features an inconspicuous entrance and a conspicuous arsenal of guns (not included in sale, but makes you think twice before criticizing the kitchen-countertop choice); a defunct missile-silo site in North Dakota; and a twenty-thousand-square-foot cave in Arkansas used by its previous owner to raise earthworms. (Favorite bit of real-estate marketing copy: “The worm room speaks for itself.”)
Wednesday, September 4, 2024 →
I compare myself to other people too much. Other people are much better than me at not comparing themselves to other people.