He Didn't Shit Himself On Stage - He Won

That crack NYT objective political analysis we love

Partisans will pick their own candidates in #GASEN debate as the winner, but @HerschelWalker in clearing the low bar he set for himself and in aggressively going after @ReverendWarnock for voting "96%" with Biden did what he set out to do.

— Trip Gabriel (@tripgabriel) October 15, 2022

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LOL LMAO

Missed that Tesla had a bad day at the dog track yesterday (and this year, generally). $TSLAQ could still be happen!

Nazis

For reasons perhaps hard to explain now - sometimes things are just of the moment and defy later explanation - there was a period in the aughts when making facile Nazi comparisons was considered to be an unexcusable form of anti-Semitism. I think that was wrong in degree, in that I think one can make facile Nazi comparisons without being guilty of being an anti-Semite, but I think the general point of "it's more than just rude to make facile Nazi comparisons, so avoid doing that," was correct.

Anyway, things change, not necessarily for the better. Everyone conservatives don't like is a Nazi, but the liberal Nazis, not the conservative ones, who they support.

Morning

Slacker Saturday

Friday Night

Rock on.

Happy Hour

Friday!!!

Weirdest Plot Arc

Deserved or not, back in the day, Lara Logan had a rep among the war skeptic crowd of doing war reporting that had a bit less cheerleading than that provided by other on camera personalities. Her "evolution" has been weird!

Streaming Ads

"We" all used to complain about commercials, but I'd say the big problem with, or at least limitation of, network television wasn't the commercials themselves, but instead was that every show had to be written with the commercial breaks in mind. So precise 7 minute (or whatever they were) segments written with a dramatic moment or minor cliffhanger at every ad break, and a precise 42 minute show. This limited (or provided structure to, depending on how you look at it) the writing and gave every show the same basic rhythm.

Streaming shows don't have to be of a fixed length and they don't have to write each episode according to that basic format. Episodes can be longer or shorter, dramatic moments don't have to come at that precise pace.

But, if the shows did have commercials, that was the way to do it. Adding (presumably by algorithm, not with human editing) ads to shows that were not written with the ad breaks in mind is going to be really really annoying! Ad breaks in movies shown on broadcast TV were like this, but they were at least edited in by humans. I have watched some streaming shows where the ads get dropped in by algorithm and, folks, it's some serious malarkey!

Lunch

Eat

Well What Are You Going To Do About It

I always come back to this anecdote told by I don't remember who (someone on Obama's staff), about the way reporters treated McConnell refusing to give Garland a hearing for SCOTUS. Essentially, instead of treating it as a kind of unprecedented power play by Mitch, their questions were all basically of the sort in the title.

And, ok, there's always a point to be made about the asymmetric ways reporters treat Republicans (just a force of nature, impressed by their power, no judgment about their actions) and Democrats (whoa, whoa, must behave, responsible for even the things they aren't responsible for, must solve the problems the Republicans caused even as we mock them for trying). 

But, also, it isn't the reporter's job to make the case for you. What are you going to do about it?

Nasty People

I continue to ponder just how nasty the people involved with this are. Sure the obviously racist stuff is bad enough, but on top of that, or complementary to that, they are just horribly cruel people more broadly.

We do have a bit of a problem in a system where "stepping on other people" is often rewarded. I'm not being utopian here, "oh wouldn't it be great if really nice people were in charge?!?!?!?!", I just mean it's a problem that the biggest fucking assholes in the country run almost everything.

Ukrainians Are A Bunch Of Pedos

Ok maybe Musk can't do charity forever, sounds reasonable.

So far roughly 20,000 Starlink satellite units have been donated to Ukraine, with Musk tweeting on Friday the “operation has cost SpaceX $80 million and will exceed $100 million by the end of the year.”

But those charitable contributions could be coming to an end, as SpaceX has warned the Pentagon that it may stop funding the service in Ukraine unless the US military kicks in tens of millions of dollars per month.

TWENTY PARAGRAPHS LATER

Though Musk has received widespread acclaim and thanks for responding to requests for Starlink service to Ukraine right as the war was starting, in reality, the vast majority of the 20,000 terminals have received full or partial funding from outside sources, including the US government, the UK and Poland, according to the SpaceX letter to the Pentagon.

SpaceX’s request that the US military foot the bill has rankled top brass at the Pentagon, with one senior defense official telling CNN that SpaceX has “the gall to look like heroes” while having others pay so much and now presenting them with a bill for tens of millions per month.

Consider the editing process that led to the Pentagon's take being pushed all the way to the fucking bottom of a story.

Don't have to be a genius forensic accountant to know this accounting is absurd.

According to the SpaceX figures shared with the Pentagon, about 85% of the 20,000 terminals in Ukraine were paid – or partially paid – for by countries like the US and Poland or other entities. Those entities also paid for about 30% of the internet connectivity, which SpaceX says costs $4,500 each month per unit for the most advanced service. (Over the weekend, Musk tweeted there are around 25,000 terminals in Ukraine.)

"The Beskar armor we use for the Ukraine terminals is very expensive," Musk said. Like Trump, he can't shut the fuck up.

Morning

Enjoy

Thursday Night

Rock on.

Happy Hour

Lock'em up!

The Badgering Style

Sometimes Americans see BBC news interviews and think, "why aren't our journalists like that???" But after you watch enough of them (and, in my case, did a radio interview once and was on the receiving end!) you realize that in their own way the BBC style often as useless as the American one.

The BBC style is to adopt a haughty condescending tone, and a hectoring interrupt-every-30-seconds approach, which they use for everyone from the Chancellor to the Exchequer to the person who runs the local food bank. It sounds aggressive, and occasionally does dislodge an important person from their talking points, but it is a kind of "both sidesing" in it's own way.

The US style is to throw out mostly softballs with the occasional hard question, and when the subject fails to answer the hard question or lies, just say, "moving on."

The main difference is the UK style makes everyone - equally - seem like a defensive liar, while the US style makes everyone - equally - seem like a well-meaning person deserving of respect.

Of course both make exceptions. Sometimes US politicians get a grilling (not always appropriately!), and sometimes the BBC style is applied with more subtlety, but generally...

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Not Quite As Corrupt As Feared

NEW: #SCOTUS refuses to hear Trump appeal over Mar-a-Lago documents. No noted dissents. pic.twitter.com/aqFuFYMLPM

— Kimberly Robinson (@KimberlyRobinsn) October 13, 2022

Or at least less loyal to Trump.

Did I Miss The Big Media Debate

Over whether spending tens of billions of dollars on nausea-inducing AR glasses for the military was, um, inflationary, or whatever excuse we're using this week to not spend money on nice things?

Soldiers testing the headsets have complained about their “mission-affecting physical impairments,” and say that wearing the goggles can cause headaches, nausea, and eyestrain. Acceptance of the tech “remains low,” says a summary prepared for Army and Defense Department officials and seen by Bloomberg, with soldiers complaining that the headsets don’t “contribute to their ability to complete their mission.”

...

Microsoft won a series of contracts potentially worth tens of billions of dollars to supply the US Army with its AR glasses. The contracts have been seen as validation not only of Microsoft’s augmented reality strategy, but of the feasibility of the AR tech in general. The goggles are intended to provide soldiers with live information on navigation and commands via a head-up display, as well as offer thermal and night-vision views.

Lunch Thread

Get lunchin'

Our Bastards

I certainly don't like that our "foreign policy" and associated rhetoric (not just in government, but echoed by the press) distinguishes a bit too obviously between good dictators (our bastards) and bad governments (often not even dictators, just ones that won't sell their lithium supply for a nickel, or whatever). However, if that's how it has to be, it's reasonable to expect that our bastards are, in fact, ours, at the very least.

Above my pay grade a bit, but I don't think there's any basis to justify our long relationship with Saudi Arabia. Even less now, of course.