Category: linkdump

See also: Feb 15-28, March 17-31

Outrageous! Emily Holden reports that gas companies in Texas have steered municipal power companies in San Antonio and Austin towards more reliance on natural gas and slower implementation of decarbonization plans. Climate change Emily Atkins wrote a column praising Holden’s articles, and I agree.

Thejuicemedia is an Australian-based video agitprop company which make “Honest Government Ads” — videos resembling corporate or official announcements. In fact these “press people” are in fact delivering cynical/condescending/paternalistic messages that make clear that the office is in fact pure evil. Everything is supposed to be satire, and this anti-Trump video . Also, you have why conservatives are incompetent at managing the economy. (Hint: it has to do with spending cuts, tax cuts and more subsidies for fossil fuel development).

There are a lot of Australian-themed ads (which is only logical and occasionally interesting to Americans — see this takedown of Kyoto carbon credits — wow! Recently they have been making revisionist history disguised as satirical tourist ads — See the ones for Puerto Rico, Hawaii and E. Timor.

Actually alongside these satirical ads are interview podcasts on Youtube with well-known liberals.

A GREAT REPUBLICAN! Sen. Bob Dole announced his presidential campaign on Letterman. David Letterman invited him back to the show a few days after he lost. Here he was relaxed, gracious, self-deprecating and very respectful both to Clinton and the institution of the presidency. Here is a man with class. He also is extremely funny too!) About a decade later, I happened upon a humor book edited and written by Bob Dole. I enjoyed it a lot more than I expected to.

COMING 2 AMERICA — FRIDAY ON PRIME! I am genuinely excited that the sequel to Coming to America will go on Amazon Prime this Friday…. It’s a nice and silly fairy tale with lots of great lines and comic performances. This sequel should be great as well.

Hadley Freeman writes a much-needed defense of Woody Allen after the release of the “true crime” style documentary of his alleged child abuse. I kept an open mind about the subject until the last time the scandal eeked out again 5-10 years ago. Then I read all the related documents in a single day. The investigation in the 1990s established that there was no evidence of child abuse, that at worst, Allen was a strange/neurotic (but loving) father, and that there was a good chance that Farrow was “poisoning the well” in her children’s minds. I’m sure Dylan believes that she was abused (and chivalrously, Ronan Farrow has come to her defense), but the film presents no new evidence, and I’m more inclined to trust the doctors and judges and investigators closer to the time of the event. What is true is that Mia’s charges have already wrecked a director’s movie career even if they were poppycock. I’m not that much of a fan of Woody Allen’s films (so I am not personally invested in whether he did it). But his account of events remains highly plausible to me — while Dylan as an adult seems to have adopted an unprovable claim which only hurts herself and her adoptive father in the long run. Ultimately to me the case doesn’t seem to be about sexual molestation than the use of an inflammatory accusation to pressure the court to refuse child custody to Allen. (Lawyer Alan Dershowitz was probably responsible for such scorched earth tactics).

Here is a long interview from Sun Yi Previn in 2018 . It criticizes many things about Mia Farrow’s parenting skills; and even if Sun Yi’s version of events includes a degree of self-interest, it’s hard to read it without concluding that Mia Farrow was a bit of a nut job herself and a bit too obsessed with children and adoption.

MOVIE RECOMMENDATION: Totally loved the COMING 2 AMERICA sequel (which premiered on AMAZON PRIME yesterday). It was exactly what I expected; a big Hollywood film with most of the original cast and lots of celebrity cameos. Jokes and snide references to the original movie were everywhere. The pagaentry was a feast for the eyes: great costumes and choreography and extravagant silliness. The soundtrack also could not be beat — a mixture of 80s classics and recent funk and comic songs. (like this song).

REVISITING SPINAL TAP: Here’s new footage of Spinal Tap which was used to promote it on SNL. Here’s video of Tony Hendra (who played the group’s music manager) about what it was like to be in the movie. Hendra — who was a British comedian with lots of experience had several major failures and letdowns before showing up at the set — and he found Spinal Tap so relaxing, so easy to improvise for, calling it “practically a documentary” of Heavy Metal fans who expected that kind of music to take over the world. Here’s a Moth story by Hendra about being a teenage Catholic boy seduced by an older woman.

Ebook /Technology blogger Nate Hoffelder has lots of “power user” tips for using gmail. Funny I’d been using gmail for a long time and hadn’t heard of many of them. RELATED: Nate rags on a new Dell laptop which gave him lots of grief.

I’ve been enjoying Ezra Klein’s NYT podcast . Some good interviews with environmental writer Elizabeth Kolbert (Feb 9) and productivity expert Cal Newport (March 5).

Speaking of which, someday I should write a post about my productivity habits.

BERNIE SANDERS AT THE MALL: You may already know that when Bernie was mayor of Burlington, VT in the 1980s, he used to take a camera crew out and ask random people about their outlook on life and put it on Public Access TV. Here’s a fun (and actually insightful) interview with 2 punk students at a shopping mall. Perhaps Bernie’s true calling would have been a talk show host in the spirit of Donahue or Oprah. According to Wikipedia, after the Department of State forbade unsanctioned contacts between US dipolmats/businessmen/journalists with USSR, Sanders set up a “sister city” program between a Russian city and his own.

See also: Feb 1-14 March 1-15, 2021

Glad to be with power again — whew! Out for 2 1/2 days. I know the snow and low temperature is not that unusual, but I was surprised at how long it took to get online. I spent most of the time reading, checking twitter, napping and counting the minutes (and the charge on my cell phone)……

“If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it must be antifa pretending to be a duck to make ducks look bad.” (random sarcastic political tweet found on Twitter)

I watched the nice documentary, FRAMING BRITNEY SPEARS (which I recommend). Spears had some great moments doing SNL comedy sketches such as this one. She was referenced in the most recent Saturday’s SNL sketch (played by Chloe Fineman here ).

Speaking of which, I was truly moved by Craig Ferguson’s 2007 defense of Britney Spears and reflection on the nature of “mean jokes.” Ferguson is really one of the funniest, smartest and flirtiest talk show hosts. He has his schtick and apparently all the leading ladies enjoy him.

Kids tell jokes on the David Letterman Show. “Is Mom tired all the time?” Here’s Dave with a 4 year old toothpaste “expert.” Here’s a hilarious Letterman sketch where he visits a letter writer to be weird.

PILE ON TIME? I’m no fan of Ted Cruz (in fact I disagree with him about on just about everything), but it’s crazy and humorous that people from all sides are getting on Cruz’s case about flying to Mexico during the subfreezing power outage. Don’t we have more important things to worry about?

I’ll go into detail later, but I am totally obsessed with the TV show Community which is on Netflix. More lately.

5 Trump Amendments has made to the constitution.

NETFLIX RECOMMENDATION: I’m not usually a fan of Judd Apatow’s movies or TV shows, but I’ve been loving the Netflix show called “LOVE” starring Gillian Jacobs and Paul Rust. Both as a dramedy and a look into the underclass in Los Angeles. (Gilian Jacobs was a hilarious cast member in Community, but in this role she plays a toxic/addictive and sad personality).Apparently it was not renewed for a 4th season, but the first 2 seasons seem interesting, light-hearted and occasionally profound.

HILARIOUS SKETCH ABOUT AUTHORS (5 minutes): Here’s a brilliant sketch written and performed by Merrill Markoe — former head writer for the David Letterman Show (also an author herself). Here’s another live performance of a dog sketch which is one of my favorites.

See also: Jan 15-31, 2021 Feb 15-28, 2021

A longish profile of author Water Tevis who wrote Queen’s Gambit. I have all his books, but have only read Man who Fell to Earth which Michael Dirda described as a “brilliant tale of loneliness, alcohol dependency and despair.” I’m sure his other books were excellent. Curiously, the main author I publish — Jack Matthews taught at the same creative writing program along with author Daniel Keyes. (I talked briefly with Matthews about that fact, but didn’t mention anything else because I felt that both were less interesting authors than Matthews.

Here’s a fun game to guess the language. I got 3 out of 4 right on this one. They include subtitles — but don’t reveal the language spoken until the end… The next three videos are a LOT harder (and more interesting), and all the guessers are language teachers or multilingual. For these three I only averaged 1 per video (if I were lucky!) 

Here’s a fascinating video essay by Vox about the history of the peacock wicker chair.

AMAZON PRIME TV Recommendation: UPLOAD (trailer) is a futuristic TV comedy series about a young man who dies and whose uploaded consciousness is uploaded to a massively multiplayer HEAVEN which (for a hefty fee) he is allowed to keep playing and keep in touch with people in meatspace (who may or may not want to keep in touch). As it happens, the avatar falls in love with his “angel” (actually a young overworked & underpaid woman in the real world assigned to resolve customer service issues with avatar inhabitants). The story is great fun (in the spirit of THE GOOD PLACE), loaded with special effects and fun interactions between the living one and virtual one. A few years ago, the San Junipero episode in Black Mirror used this basic plot as a profound meditation about the afterlife and the preservation of loved ones in virtual worlds. Eventually this plot will grow tiresome, but UPLOAD provides ample opportunity to bathe the story in semi-realistic computer special effects while confronting social issues (there are several tiers of heaven, depending on ability of survivors to pay). What is revolutionary here is that a Non-player character (NPC) is allowed to have feelings and goals, providing to viewers a pleasant deception of free will. Contrary to a metaphysical fairy tale like the GOOD PLACE, this theoretical world is both plausible and cynical. Philosophers have argued about whether the universe is actually a gigantic simulation. What no one seems to have thought about is whether the “real” universe could eventually turn into a simulation once the population of videogame avatars outnumber the world of the living. UPLOAD is just a smart silly show, but it’s all the more disturbing because it tries to imagine a virtual world which disappears once the survivors stop paying or an upgrade fails and no one knows how to reboot it.

Dem Impeachment manager Jamie Raskin:

FIRE DAMAGE: “The incitement to violence is of course not protected by the First Amendment. That’s why most Americans have dismissed Donald Trump’s First Amendment rhetoric simply by referring to Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes’ handy phrase, “You can’t shout fire in a crowded theater.” But even that time honored principle doesn’t begin to capture how off base the argument is. This case is much worse than someone who falsely shouts fire in a crowded theater. It’s more like a case where the town fire chief who’s paid to put out fires sends a mob. Not to yell fire in a crowded theater, but to actually set the theater on fire. And who then, when the fire alarms go off and the calls start flooding into the fire department asking for help, does nothing, but sit back, encourage the mob to continue its rampage, and watch the fire spread on TV with glee and delight. So then we say this fire chief should never be allowed to hold this public job again. And you’re fired and you’re permanently disqualified. And he objects. And he says we’re violating his free speech rights just because he’s pro-mob or pro-fire or whatever it might be. Come on. I mean, you really don’t need to go to law school to figure out what’s wrong with that argument. Here’s the key. Undoubtedly, a private person can run around on the street expressing his or her support for the enemies of the United States and advocating the overthrow of the United States government. You’ve got a right to do that under the First Amendment. But if the president spent all of his days doing that, uttering the exact same words, expressing support for the enemies of the United States and for overthrowing the government, is there anyone here who doubts that this would be a violation of his oath of office to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States and that he or she could be impeached for doing that? Look, if you’re President of the United States, you’ve chosen a side with your oath of office. And if you break it, we can impeach, convict, remove, and disqualify you permanently from holding any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States. As Justice Scalia once said, memorably, “You can’t ride with the cops and root for the robbers.” And if you become inciter in chief to the insurrection, you can’t expect to be on the payroll as commander chief for the union.”

MY TAKE: Probably the most interesting and revealing about this impeachment is that despite the overwhelming evidence of guilt, Republican senators seem unlikely to vote for impeachment. This failure will sound a LOUD and CLEAR message to Americans and the rest of the world that Republicans lack political courage to stand up to demagogues.

“Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” (Voltaire, quoted during the impeachment trial).

See also: 2021 Jan 1-15 and 2021 Feb 1-14

Still catching up on fave music links. First, I highly recommend this Out of Obscurity podcast managed by two US music fans — one of whom lives in Thailand. (Here’s a subreddit devoted to it). The Thailand dweller (Julian Lee) is all over several music forums — especially emusic — and speaks Mandarin, so has a special expertise in Asian music. It’s more chatty than previewing music, and by the way, I might be a guest on this show! (see my one page blog about unusual finds on emusic, bandcamp and freegal). Hmm, now that I think of it, I should start doing posts exclusively about my music discoveries. (I’ve spent years cramming my music discoveries I may start doing that in a month or so (stay tuned).

Great article about why the natural gas industry is pushing hydrogen fuel.

The concept of natural gas as a “bridge fuel” to a point in the future when renewable energy is economically viable is over; renewable energy is already often cheaper than natural gas. Research and analyses continue to reveal natural gas as a dirty fuel, raising pressure on the industry. Now, the European gas lobby Eurogas has begun talking up blue hydrogen — derived from methane and relying on pricey and largely undeveloped carbon capture technology — as the new bridge fuel.

The natural gas industry has been a victim of its own success, producing record amounts of gas but losing massive amounts of money in the process. Fracking has helped unleash huge amounts of methane, and oil and gas companies continue to discover more natural gas that they need to sell — because their continued existence is based on discovering and selling more oil and gas. But the reality is that much of that natural gas will remain in the ground as stranded assets because there won’t be willing buyers unless the industry can convert its current infrastructure to use methane-derived hydrogen to create a new market for methane.

On the generations page for Wikipedia, there is a great graphic differentiating each US generation by nickname (Baby Boomer, Generation X, etc). The graphic is here. The article itself very interestingly describe how other countries refer to generations. The “Strawberry Generation” refers to Taiwanese people born in the 1980s who are “easily bruised.” has the “Post-80s” The Children of Perestroika generation refers to children born with no memories of communist control. I like the “MTV Generation” which — despite behind a commercial tagline — accurately groups the people who grew up with MTV.

Wow, here’s an even more interesting graphic: a comparison of relative population size. Strangely, for Generation X, the number of people born in that cohort is less than the number who live in USA who belong in that cohort (I’m assuming immigration is responsible for that — or maybe someone has invented a cloning machine without telling anybody!).

Here’s a fascinating media criticism of the host entrance scenes in the Price is Right. It’s 25 minutes long (!) but is a fascinating analysis about the subtle ways game shows and talk shows manipulate you with clever sets and camera shots. Related: Here’s a short film (Perfect Bid: The Contestant who knew too much) about the best contestant ever for the Price is Right. It’s an amazing story and really fun to watch. **

Here’s a fun Southern dude wax poetic about bidets. Here’s a sequel where he praises to the heavens the “rolls-royce of bidets”. **

“Narcissism begets narcissism. Trump’s narcissism will create more narcissism in American society. Trump is not the end. Trump is the manifestation of problems that have been brewing for years. With respect to the impact that narcissism has had on America and is going to have, Trump is just the beginning. We have to be concerned about this. Narcissism is an epidemic, and we cannot let it dictate the course of history. The problem that we have now is that all the people who really believe that the election was stolen and that it is time for an insurrection — they really believe that — they are ready to kill people; they are ready to invade the capitol and foster a coup — because they believe they are right. That is the thing that a lot of people who are normal — whose perceptions of the world is based in reality and facts and things which can be tested — we can barely comprehend how delusional these people are and we underestimate them for that reason. The problem that we have in America now — that we have been fostering for 30-40 years in the name of profit — is that the delusional people are FUCKING ARMED. ” (New Yorker reporter & videographer Luke Mogelson — who personally videotaped the Trump extremists as they stormed around the Senate floor). Here’s another commentary by Mogelson. **

Classic comedy improvisation sketch from 13 years ago — and wait for the surprise near the end.

I SMELL A NEW OBSESSION: Watching reruns of Love Connection (a very cheesy dating show from the 80s and 90s). I’ve been watching old Dating Game episodes for a while now. The show itself isn’t that interesting (the question time is really short, and it seems very staged), but for a while every major celebrity and potential celebrity ran through it including Michael Jackson, the Carpenter siblings, Farah Fawcett, Andy Kaufman, Maureen McCormick (aka Marcia Brady) and lots more (including a serial killer). My faves have to be Don Rickles (asking questions on behalf of a young woman) and John Ritter (at the tender age of 19). **

Ok, I’ll admit it. I’ve been moonlighting as a stunt car driver for several Hollywood studios. Here’s me as a fanatic of extreme sports and running software teams. **

I cannot tell you how much I look forward to the weekly Tom Tomorrow cartoon every Monday morning. Love the Ted Cruz/Monty Python reference: “Indeed, let us not bicker about who did or did not incite a murderous mob.” Ok, I shouldn’t have swiped the comic, but I’m finally going to subscribe (and pay for) Sparky’s List newsletter. A few observations about Tom Tomorrow’s comics:

• Try to grab one of the printed collection of strips. You really get to appreciate the color and shapes of everything.
• Believe it or not, though the topical references seem to fade, it’s still delightful to read these strip decades later.
• It’s a dense comic, and you need to unpack it — and often subtleties can be missed the first time.
• It’s hard to capture political absurdities with an image, but Tom Tomorrow sometimes hit the bull’s eye (such as the Invisible Hand — it gives me joy every time he makes another appearance).
• Apart from the visual style and humor, you could view his comics as a lesson in bad logic and actually bad-faith logic

BEST PICTURE: Every year before nominations are announced and without having seen any of the movies, I predict which movie will win the Oscar for Best Picture. This year my pick is NOMADLAND. (My guesses are based on superficial criteria, film buzz and awards, the trailer and that indescribable wholesomeness + “indie-ness.” I’ve also heard wonderful things about Minari — and have actually seen “Trial of the Chicago 7” at home…)

RIP Jessica Campbell who died of indeterminate causes a week ago. Campbell had a supporting role in the 1999 Election film. She played a gay sister of the class jock who ran for class president just as a prank. But she stole the show with a speech she gave before the assembly. The actress later became a doctor, but this scene ensures her place in cinematic history.

I’m a big fan of Daily Show with Trevor Noah, which does a comic and informative perspective on politics and social policy. Here’s a light-hearted look at Cahoots, a first responder organization based in Eugene Oregon that handles nonemergency phone calls. Apparently the nonconfrontational strategy of deescalation is more effective and saves the city money as well. (It’s a 2 million dollar program in a city with a police budget of 70 million; the the clinical administrator says that program is estimated to save the taxpayer about $20 million per year.

TRUMP COURT BLESSES TRUMP…. AGAIN! I am depressed that the Supreme Court struck down the lawsuits about Trump’s emoluments by claiming it’s moot for an ex-president. The Supreme Court has a nasty habit of letting bad actors keep filing unending motions of appeal to delay the making and enforcing of a judgment. Meanwhile aggrieved parties wait for the court system actually to do its job. The emoluments lawsuits involved complex questions of standing and probably deserved at least one appeal. But it’s beginning to seem like the Supreme Court is employing a tactic of continuous delay. Similarly the matter of releasing tax returns to investigations has been delayed so long that it has basically made it impossible for the voter to make an informed decision about Trump. I don’t consider this judicial restraint; it seems like the judicial system is giving free reign to tyrants (and to the destructive force of global warming). By failing to take action against gerrymandering, the court is basically destroying the concept of one man, one vote — instead letting legislatures to manipulate voting all it wants. It is setting the stage for US democracy to transform into a tyranny (and making itself irrelevant in the process).

Many court decisions have left me disillusioned. Perhaps it started at Citizens United, but I couldn’t believe that it rejected intervening in the Chevron vs. Ecuador lawsuit

View other Social Media Dumps: 2020 Jan 16-31

“Like looking both ways before crossing the street and then getting hit by a submarine.” (said by 9 year old Clark Smith, when asked for a word or phrase to describe the year 2020).

Here’s a new Robert’s Roundup for Smashwords’ December ebook sale. (Still cleaning it up).

SNL Playlist: I’ve put together 55 of my favorite SNL sketches — with some Christmas ones thrown in for good measure. (ONLY VIEWABLE BY USA AUDIENCES)

MY RESOLUTIONS FOR THE YEAR 2021: 1. Don’t get covid. 2. Get the #$#$#$ vaccine. (32,000 new positive COVID cases in Texas yesterday — a new record. Sure, it’s just catching up with Christmas cases, but wow! — California set a one day record of 50,000 two days ago as well).) **

Fun facts about Edge Browser. Did you know that Edge was based on the Chromium code? Me neither. **

Historians on reddit discuss the problem of heteronormativity/handling the “was he/she gay?” about historical figures.

I binge-watched the Community TV show on Netflix — wait for my post about that. Am thrilled that there are some “webisodes” about the show. **

To my amazement, there was a 1977 TV special of the Adams Family TV show. It was called Halloween with the New Adams Family featured ALL of the original actors, was 90 minutes long and was in color. Also, a laugh track (ugh!). Fun Fact: Uncle Fester (aka Jackie Coogan) when he was a kid, starred in a movie with Charlie Chaplin. Here’s a outtake of Coogan dancing with Chaplin

Something also sweet: Comic actress Melissa Hunter does a web-miniseries called Adult Wednesday Addams. Lots of fun with Ashley Addams encountering the vagaries of modern life. **

Watching the TV, I’m seeing a lot of Texas flags on the protesters who have forcibly entered (and sometimes even gone inside) the Capitol building…. (UPDATE: and a number of Confederate flags, and a cap for University of Texas — gotta show team spirit!). **

I know many things are shocking about today, but I’m particularly incensed that it took Trump over an hour to activate the National Guard to protect the Capitol. As a CNN reporter described it, Trump was elected to be the commander-in-chief; now he is merely the TV watcher in chief (ME: and also the instigator in chief).

PROPAGANDA IS EVERYWHERE! PROPAGANDA IS EVERYWHERE! Probably the most remarkable thing about yesterday’s insurrection is how easily Americans can be misled and emotionally manipulated about political events — by media, politicians, social media & political ads. I blame many things: money in politics, polarization inspired by gerrymandering, the gutting of the journalistic profession and the weakening of voting rights. I also blame the increasing adoration of gun rights, dehumanization of certain categories of people and — frankly the tendency to demonize normal government functions (apparently calling something “socialist” is sufficient reason to condemn anything you want). We need to call out politicians and media figures who use specious circular arguments to amplify controversy. We also need to be more careful not to dismiss so easily the dangers of demagoguery. **

Since Texas has played such an oversized role in facilitating Trumpist extremism, it’s probably fair to cite Patricia Roberts Miller on demagoguery (she’s a Texas-based expert on political rhetoric. I’ve read her book, Rhetoric and Demagoguery.

What people call “right-wing” politics should be called reactionary toxic populist nationalism. It isn’t conservative. Conservativism is a political ideology that, although I disagree with it, even I will say is generally internally coherent and principled. Pro-Trump politics isn’t internally coherent or principled—it’s irrational factionalism. Using a private server is terrible, unless it’s a Trump family member. Pornography is terrible, unless it’s a Trump family member. A problematic charity is terrible, unless it’s Trump’s. There are no principles that are applied consistently across groups.

A puzzling/absurdist 3 minute comedy sketch by Julie Nolke (who is most famous for doing comedy sketches such as Explaining the Pandemic to my Past Self. If Samuel Becket were alive today, imagine the Youtube videos he would be making! (Related: Charlie Rose by Samuel Beckett on youtube)

Sad to read about director Michael Apted’s death. He directed the magnificent documentary series, called UP SERIES. Seeing 63 UP at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts was one the highlights of my year (Never available for DVD or streaming, it showed for exactly one day in March, and the Museum shut down because of COVID). Apted has directed a lot of quality movies, but my favorite has to be a 1993 thriller called BLINK. ** (Obits also in NYT, Washington Post).

SHOULD TRUMP RESIGN? “Hey, Vladimir, this is your good friend Don. I got a deal for you. I got tons of valuable information about Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi and White House IT security protocols to help you do what want to that fake president, Joe Biden. All I ask in return is 50 million dollars to pay off my Russian debt, licenses to let me open a Trump Tower in Moscow and St. Petersburg and a written guarantee never to extradite me and my family back to USA. Need more? Don’t worry. I got amazing intelligence about Ukraine and EU and all kinds of military secrets — I’m still the president! –I got the best people who could get me anything I ask for in minutes. Do we have a deal?” **

POLITICAL RHETORIC: I hate it when anyone — politicians, pundits, officials, friends, family — uses the word “strongly.” It is a pretentious way of asserting you are are powerful and must be listened to. Whenever I hear someone use the word “STRONGLY” I ALWAYS substitute it in my head with “STUPIDLY.” **

Timothy Snyder on American Abyss (NYT) (Snyder is the brilliant historian whose massive book about WW2, Bloodlands, is one of the most powerful books I’ve ever read):

Informed observers inside and outside government agree that right-wing white supremacism is the greatest terrorist threat to the United States. Gun sales in 2020 hit an astonishing high. History shows that political violence follows when prominent leaders of major political parties openly embrace paranoia.

Our big lie is typically American, wrapped in our odd electoral system, depending upon our particular traditions of racism. Yet our big lie is also structurally fascist, with its extreme mendacity, its conspiratorial thinking, its reversal of perpetrators and victims and its implication that the world is divided into us and them. To keep it going for four years courts terrorism and assassination.

In the Atlantic , Caitlan Flanagan wrote a caustic review of the Trump insurrectionists:

It seems as though they hadn’t expected to gain entrance with such ease—an ease that becomes more suspicious as the hours pass—and once there they didn’t know what to do, exactly. One patriot made it all the way to Nancy Pelosi’s office, where (per his own gleefully repeated description) he sat at her desk, scratched his balls, left a note—“Nancy, Bigo was here, you bitch”—and grabbed a trophy: an envelope stamped with her name. Soon enough he’d trotted back outside to show it off, the victor in a one-man panty raid. He was an envelope guy in an email world, but suddenly he was taking control of his destiny.

A man in a Viking helmet and the kind of face paint not often seen outside sporting venues held a sign reading Hold the Line Patriots, which made you wonder if he was just a misguided New England fan. Who can make sense of the new football schedule? Inside, he ran around issuing guttural cries and climbing the furniture, like someone who had been thawed out from a 1995 Robert Bly retreat. (Bly was part of the movement that coined the term toxic manhood, the toxicity being office work and too much time around bossy women, and the antidote being a return to the original state of dude nature: roaring, beating drums.) This was not a low-T group. This was not a group that had been robbed and diminished by radical feminism. And they proved it by defecating on the floors and tracking their own filth through the hallways. They were dazed by power and limited in their conception of what to do with it. Some rioters left the building in the charged, happy way people exit the Dive Devil ride at Magic Mountain: single file, grinning, and not really sure what just happened. They cried out for beer, they pumped their fists in triumph, they went looking for Mom and money for curly fries. **

Pre-insurrection, here’s a piece by Ben Collins , We Need to Learn How to talk to and about accidental conspiracists.

Because at some point in these next few months, you’re going to return to the honest-to-goodness, real-life social world. You’re going to be standing next to another parent at soccer practice, watching your kid fail to kick a ball for the first time in 14 months, and that dad is going to lean over to you and, in the most clarion, measured tone, he is going to say the most insane thing you have ever heard. It won’t even be that you’ll disagree with him. You will simply have no idea who or what he’s talking about.

This guy will look normal. You probably knew him and talked about the NBA salary cap with him before COVID. But now he’ll be speaking about scary political actors and evil companies and probably some private citizens like Ruby Freeman as if you’re both living in the same YouTube morass only he had accidentally slipped into. He’ll be talking with the same voice that might otherwise talk about James Harden trade rumors, which will be the spookiest part.

I have encountered quite a few of these types — mostly retired people who are decent enough on the outside, but stubbornly cling to myths about Antifa, Soros, Hunter Biden and China they picked up from Fox. My strategy has been simply to point out that relying on one source for your political news is dangerous and even poisonous. **

WORD OF THE DAY: Retrumplican.

(More to come)