Fluid ImaginationFrom The House Freedom Caucus push to diminish the imperial speakership:
As Republicans head into the new year with a looming razor-thin majority in the House, …a group of GOP representatives often viewed as “far right,” “radical” or even a threat to democracy…are leveraging their votes for speaker to push for the diminishment of the imperial speakership and a return of power to individual members and committees.
And they’re absolutely right.
From Strange coincidences: Are they fluke events or acts of God?:
In his new book published in September, “Meaningful Coincidences: How and Why Synchronicity and Serendipity Happen,” [Dr. Bernard Beitman] shares the story of a young man who intended to end his life by the shore of an isolated lake. While he sat crying in his car, another car pulled up and his brother got out.
When the young man asked for an explanation, the brother said he didn’t know why he got in the car, where he was going, or what he would do when he got there. He just knew he needed to get in the car and drive.
“I don’t say I’m right, but I’m telling you this stuff happens,” Beitman said. “Scientists have difficulty believing it because they don’t know how it happens… Whether they say it’s probability or God, I just go crazy with people who think there’s only one thing that causes coincidences.”
From The devious fossil fuel propaganda we all use:
“[BP’s] strategy [of asking individuals to consider their ‘carbon footprint’] is to put as much blame on the consumer as possible, knowing the consumer is not in a good place to control the situation…It basically ensures that nothing changes.”
From She Spent a Decade Writing Fake Russian History. Wikipedia Just Noticed.:
Over more than 10 years, the author wrote several million words of fake Russian history, creating 206 articles and contributing to hundreds more. She imagined richly detailed war stories and economic histories, and wove them into real events in language boring enough to fit seamlessly into the encyclopedia. Some netizens are calling her China’s Borges.
From A Tweet Before Dying:
The whole tech industry—by which I mean the cluster of companies that sell code-empowered products to billions of humans—is in extraordinary decline… I’m grieving a little over here. But life must go on, despite who…owns Twitter, and how ridiculous the metaverse might be. That’s why every morning, sometimes before breakfast, when I am in despair, I remember the three letters that always bring me comfort: PDF… This was the original function of the web—to transmit learned texts to those seeking them. Humans have been transmitting for millennia, of course, which is how historians are able to quote Pliny’s last tweet (“Something up w/ Vesuvius, brb”). But the seeking is important, too; people should explore, not simply feed. Whatever will move society forward is not hidden inside the deflating giants. It’s out there in some pitiful PDF, with a title like “A New Platform for Communication” or “Machine Learning Applications for Community Organization.”
From This team is playing Celtics basketball the way it is supposed to be played:
It’s not just that these Celtics are really, really good. They’re an absolute joy to watch, an aesthetic godsend. They’re reveling in sharing the basketball. They’re wearing out the bottom of the nets with their shooting. No matter who is on the court under what circumstances, they are playing complementary basketball in the spirit of Celtics Big Threes both original and sequel.
From The Authoritarian Right Is Regrouping:
[E]lected [GOP] officials are quiet [about Trump courting anti-semites] because they know their voters, and the tolerance of the GOP base for Trump is…deep and resilient. But in the end, it is not the job of Mike Pence or Ron DeSantis to halt Trump’s attempted return to power. That responsibility belongs to Republican voters, who must decide whether they care if Trump is yukking it up in Florida with an anti-Semitic rapper and an odious, racist punk.