After more closely reading NYT coverage over the past week, a simpler conclusion: The Times has lost its mind. This is an old-school crusade by the paper, news and editorial, fixated on Biden's age and the NYT's belief he should leave the contest. It is not "independent journalism" or neutral, the two descriptions its editors use. But they reject all criticism as partisan, and are blind to their biases. #journalism #USPol https://mastodon.social/@melaniesill/112700669294275770
1865: The 13th Amendment codifies prison slavery, so racists passed vagrancy laws to criminalize people on the street—forcing many formerly enslaved people back into prison slave labor.
2024: SCOTUS criminalizes homelessness, forcing people on the street into prison slave labor.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — the U.S. Supreme Court has been the single biggest blockade to progress and justice in America. They’re proving it again this session.
Trump must step aside as the Republican nominee.
Trump called war dead losers and suckers. He should step aside as the Republican nominee.
Trump is an adjudicated rapist. He should step aside as the Republican nominee.
Trump has been convicted on 34 felony charges. He should step aside as the Republican nominee.
Trump is charged with inciting an insurrection for trying to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. He should step aside as the Republican nominee.
Trump willfully retained our most guarded secrets and obstructed the government’s efforts to get them back. He should step aside as the Republican nominee.
A jury has found Trump liable for $454M in disgorgement for fraud. He should step aside as the Republican nominee.
Trump’s business has been convicted on 17 felony counts of tax fraud. He should step aside as the Republican nominee.
-From A.G. at MSW Media
The Gish gallop is a bad faith rhetorical technique that overwhelms opponents with numerous false weak arguments.
Wikipedia can be a starting point for ideas on how to counter it.
"Note that no one is demanding that Trump step down due to his making a mockery of the 'debate' with his lying, or because of the disgrace he brings to America’s global reputation by being a convicted felon and having staged an insurrection.
Instead, it’s Biden who is supposed to step down."
~ Ruth Ben-Ghiat
https://lucid.substack.com/p/a-debate-that-reveals-our-surreal
An eggcorn is when someone mistakes a word for a different word, often in the context of an idiom. It comes from the surprisingly common mistake of thinking the word "acorn" is actually "eggcorn".
Anyway, my favourite eggcorns are the ones that imply the existence of a powerful and mysterious animal, such as "and their elk" (instead of "and their ilk"), "from the gecko" (instead of "from the get-go'), and, most recently, "locust of control" (instead of "locus of control"). #linguistics
I have no idea why this is but #Mastodon feels like one of the sanest places in the world right now.
Still very grateful to have found it.
I just recently realized that what I truly hate about LLMs is that it devalues language. I love language, I love using it very intentionally, I love how different people wield and work language differently. A well forged phrase can cut right to the soul. Language is literally magic. It can do things where man and machine all fail.
But now with the press of a button you can get sugary pink language goo in any shape you like. And this is sold as an equal replacement to real human language. The insult! The depravity!
I think it might say something about how far language is already devalued. We live in a morass of content marketing and business process documentation and terms and conditions and propaganda and spam. All soulless language that nobody asks for but that people are compelled to create. We can't imagine not creating such language goo. And so we're grateful for the pink goo machine.
You know those stories about how there was once magic in the world but it was lost? This is it. This is how it happens.
"Something has changed for me in the Trump era. I struggle more than I once did to wall off a person’s character from their politics when their politics is binding them to an unusually—and I would say undeniably—destructive person. The lies that MAGA world parrots are so manifestly untrue, and the Trump ethic is so manifestly cruel, that they are difficult to set aside."
~ Peter Wehner
#Trump #MAGA #lies #morality #ethics
/1
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/06/when-are-trump-supporters-complicit/678704/
My new book, Autocracy Inc, is published in five weeks. Read the introduction here:
https://anneapplebaum.substack.com/p/autocracy-inc?r=177tk
"Microsoft's secret sauce is impunity. The PC companies that bundle Windows with their hardware are held blameless for the glaring defects in Windows. The IT managers who buy company-wide Windows licenses are likewise insulated from the rage of the workers who have to use Windows and other Microsoft products."
@pluralistic nails it.
https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/14/patch-tuesday/#fool-me-twice-we-dont-get-fooled-again
Alito and Thomas haven’t recused. Why?
By Ann Telnaes
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/05/22/ann-telnaes-cartoon-samuel-alito-clarence-thomas-supreme-court/
#Cartoon #EditorialCartoon #Humor #SCOTUS #SupremeCourt #Alito #ClarenceThomas #Politics #USA
We in the #media have failed by becoming inured to Trump’s verbal incontinence — not just the rapid-fire #lies & #revenge-seeking threats, but also the frightening glimpses into a mind that is, evidently, #unwell. In 2016, #Trump said outrageous things at his campaign rallies to be entertaining. In 2024, his tangents raise serious questions about his #MentalFitness.
#Unfit #Demented #MalignantNarcissist #Deranged #BidenHarris2024
Expert in probability, statistics, and data science, with some programming skills as well.
Former academic and current quant trader.