tingilinde

trump and the guided age

HCR points out he pines for the 1890s...  

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Trump simply denies this economic success. He promises to make the economy great with a tariff wall. On September 27, he told rally attendees in Warren, Michigan: “You know, our country In the 1890s was probably…the wealthiest it ever was because it was a system of tariffs and we had a president, you know McKinley, right?... He was really a very good businessman, and he took in billions of dollars at the time, which today it’s always trillions but then it was billions and probably hundreds of millions, but we were a very wealthy country and we’re gonna be doing that now….”

By pointing to McKinley’s presidency to justify his economic plan, Trump gives away the game. The McKinley years were those of the Gilded Age, in which industrialists amassed fortunes that they spent in spectacular displays. Cornelius and Alva Vanderbilt’s home on New York’s Fifth Avenue cost more than $44 million in today’s dollars, with stables finished in black walnut, cherry, and ash, with sterling silver metalwork, and in cities across the country, the wealthy dressed their horses and coachmen in expensive livery, threw costly dinners, built seaside mansions they called “cottages,” and wore diamonds, rubies, and emeralds. When the daughter of a former senator married, she wore a $10,000 dress and a diamond tiara, and well-wishers sent “necklaces of diamonds [and] bracelets of diamonds, sapphires, and rubies.”

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keeping track of recent trump/gop lies

They're spewing out of him and his lieutenants at a firehose rate.

a tip of the hat to Dan

Here's HCR on the Trump/GOP big lie strategy - copied from Nazi Germany and being fueled by the Chinese and Russians.

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“The Democrats don’t matter,” Bannon told a reporter in 2018. “The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with sh*t.” Keeping listeners constantly trying to defend what is real from what is not destroys their ability to make sense of the world. Many people turn to a strongman who promises to create order. Others will get so exhausted they simply give up. As scholar of totalitarianism Hannah Arendt noted, authoritarians use this technique to destabilize a population.

Trump’s administration began with a foundational lie about the size of the crowd at his inauguration. Recent challenges to that assertion from Vice President Kamala Harris and former president Barack Obama rankled as badly as they did for Trump because that lie allowed Trump to define the public conversation. Forcing his supporters to commit to a lie that was demonstrably untrue locked them into accepting others throughout his presidency, for backing away would become harder and harder with each lie they accepted.

Challenging that lie, as Harris and Obama did, challenged all those that came afterward, including the lie that Trump had been the true winner of the 2020 presidential election. Thanks to the October 2 filing by special counsel Jack Smith, we know that Trump was in almost daily communication with Bannon as he pushed that lie.

Scholars of authoritarianism call a lie of such magnitude a “Big Lie,” a key propaganda tool associated with Nazi Germany. It is a lie so huge that no one can believe it is false. If leaders repeat it enough times, refusing to admit that it is a lie, people come to think it is the truth because surely no one would make up anything so outrageous.

In his autobiography Mein Kampf, or “My Struggle,” Adolf Hitler wrote that people were more likely to believe a giant lie than a little one because they were willing to tell small lies in their own lives but “would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.” Since they could not conceive of telling “colossal untruths…they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” He went on: “Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be

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indirect deaths from hurricanes

For years following a large hurricane there are a large number of indirect deaths that wouldn't have happened in the absence of the storm.

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“In any given month, people are dying earlier than they would have if the storm hadn’t hit their community,” said senior study author Solomon Hsiang, a professor of environmental social sciences at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. “A big storm will hit, and there’s all these cascades of effects where cities are rebuilding or households are displaced or social networks are broken. These cascades have serious consequences for public health.”

Hsiang and lead study author Rachel Young estimate an average U.S. tropical cyclone indirectly causes 7,000 to 11,000 excess deaths. All told, they estimate tropical storms since 1930 have contributed to between 3.6 million and 5.2 million deaths in the U.S. – more than all deaths nationwide from motor vehicle accidents, infectious diseases, or battle deaths in wars during the same period. Official government statistics put the total death toll from these storms at about 10,000 people.

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the paper is interesting

 

 

 

a lego turning machine

A fair amount of work went into this one.

 

 

an ad from the 40s

 

a tip of the hat to Richard

 

gop strategy

 

 

it's their core value and the value of their core

 

 

 

slogans

 

In 1972, the CBC had a contest to complete the phrase "As Canadian as ____" (as in "as American as apple pie")

The winner was:
"As Canadian as possible, under the circumstances"

 

pig butchering on truth social

Pig butchering is a common scam that gullible types fall for..  it turns out Truth Social is a target rich hunting ground for perpetrators. Read the cases at the end of the piece.

It isn't a surprise - Trump is the current world champ when it comes to pig butchering. 

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3) “Now that I want to withdraw my funds they are telling me I need to pay the taxes”

Total reported loss: $168,920
New York
Age: 65-69
September 2024
I fell victim to a cryptocurrency fraud and need guidance/help. I was contacted on the Truth Social media app, from a girl, she says her name is [redacted] phone [redacted] and lives in Queens supposedly and originally from russia, after talking for a few weeks she asked if I knew anything about bitcoin, I said I heard of it but didn’t know much about it, so she started explaining it to me and I was interested, she asked if I wanted to invest so I did I started out with a small amount, then asked to increase it a few more time for a total of $ 168,920.00, This was all a wire transfer from my bank account to coinbase into a USDT then since coinbase doesn’t USDT to trade she said I need to open a DeFi wallet now that I want to withdraw my funds they are telling me I need to pay the taxes to the DeFi wallet to be able to withdraw my funds, and coinbase does not receive USDT funds and they say I need to pay the DeFi taxes before I supposedly before they will do anything for me. I supposedly earned a total 1,061,155.26. the taxes they want me to pay is $196,972.69 at a 22%00 interest. the wallet is GDXTracex and the website is gdxtracex-web3.com. and they say I only have until 10/5/24 to pay them. or my account with them will be frozen

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vampire drones

Or Baba Yaga to the Russians. The Ukrainians are rapidly expanding their weapons industry.

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The drone war is growing. According to U.S. officials, the Ukrainian armed forces are losing about 10,000 drones a month. Officially, the Ukrainian and Russian sides do not disclose their UAV losses.

Designed to navigate challenging battlefield conditions, the Vampire drone represents a significant leap in the use of unmanned systems. Its deployment not only reflects Ukraine's growing reliance on technology-driven defense strategies, but also underscores the importance of drones in shifting the balance on the front lines.

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a new method for detecting a history of smoking

Looking for certain compounds in the bones of the dead.

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Finally, they used this chemical fingerprint to see whether they could pinpoint smokers among 323 skeletons from cemeteries in London and rural North Lincolnshire. In those remains, the team found high rates of tobacco spanning every stratum of Victorian society. More than half of the skeletons tested showed signs of long-term tobacco use, four times as high as in the United Kingdom today. “It’s amazing stuff,” says Anna Davies-Barrett, an archaeologist at Leicester and co-author of the new study. “We can now determine someone’s lived experience through metabolomics.”

Although contemporary documents portrayed smoking as a mostly male activity, “the smoking rates in the Victorian period directly contradict the historical sources. We found a pretty high rate of women smoking, across all social classes,” Davies-Barrett says. “Most of the historical sources were from male writers, and smoking wasn’t considered a ladylike activity.” (Tobacco use was apparently popular among Victorian-era kids, too: In an earlier study, the team found pipe notches and tobacco stains on the teeth of teens, suggesting they had been smoking for years when they died.)

Upper class women lacked pipe grooves on their teeth because “Pipe notches were related to being poor,” Davies-Barrett says. “Everybody was smoking, it’s just that women who could afford it were buying nicer pipes … with tips that wouldn’t abrade the teeth” made from wood, amber, or bone.

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a beautiful seismic map of an asteroid strike

In the Atlantic roughly about the same time as the larger Chicxulab event

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"We can tell it came from about 20–40 degrees to the northeast, because of spiraling thrust-generated ridges surrounding the crater's central peak—those are only formed following a low-angle oblique impact.

"And we think it would have hit Earth at about 20 km per second, or 72,000 km per hour, although we still need to confirm this with a new set of impact models."

Using the data, the scientists created a timeline of what happened in the seconds and minutes after impact.

Dr. Nicholson said, "After the impact and the central uplift forming, the soft sediments surrounding the crater flowed inwards towards the evacuated crater floor, creating a visible 'brim.'

"The earthquake shaking caused by the impact appears to have liquefied the sediments below the seabed across the entire plateau, causing faults to form below the seabed.

"The impact was also associated with large landslides as the plateau margin collapsed below the ocean.

"As well as this, we see evidence for a train of tsunami waves going away from, then back towards the crater, with large resurge scars preserving evidence of this catastrophic event."

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terrestrials

RadioLab for kids started a nature series called Terrestrials on the 19th of September.  It's terrific - the way this sort of storytelling should be done.  New episodes about once a week.  So if you have kids or like to listen to nature stories .. wherever you get podcasts or here. 

 

maga's fema lies

From Heather Cox Richardson

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The federal response to Hurricane Helene has drawn bipartisan praise, with Republican governor Henry McMaster of South Carolina thanking Biden by name for what McMaster called a “superb” response.

But on Sunday, September 29, two days after the hurricane hit, the right-wing organization started by anti-immigrant Trump loyalist Stephen Miller posted: “Billions for Ukraine. Billions for illegal aliens. And what for the Americans? Reprogram every single dollar that FEMA has dedicated to support illegal aliens to go towards Americans who are facing unprecedented devastation!”

Yesterday, in Saginaw, Michigan, Trump echoed Miller, claiming that the Biden administration is botching the hurricane response because it has spent all the money appropriated for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on “illegal immigrants.” “They spent it all on illegal migrants.… They stole the FEMA money just like they stole it from a bank, so they could give it to their illegal immigrants that they want to have vote for them,” he said. Today, he claimed that “a billion dollars was stolen from FEMA to use it for illegal migrants, many of whom are criminals, to come into our country.”

Early this morning, X owner Elon Musk posted to his more than 200 million followers: “Yes, they are literally using YOUR tax dollars to import voters and disenfranchise you! It is happening right in front of your eyes. And FEMA used up its budget ferrying illegals into the country instead of saving American lives. Treason.” On Wednesday, Dana Mattioli, Joe Palazzolo, and Khadeeja Safdar of the Wall Street Journal broke the story that Musk has been financing groups with ties to Miller since 2022.

But of course, it is NOT happening in front of anyone’s eyes.

On Wednesday, Alejandro Mayorkas, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security in which FEMA is housed, told reporters that FEMA’s disaster relief fund is adequately funded for current needs. But, he warned, “extreme weather events are increasing in frequency and severity,” and we are not yet out of hurricane season. If another emergency hits, FEMA’s disaster relief fund will be stretched thin.

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And human rights lawyer Qasim Rashid on the feuding issue - the House Republicans refused to adequately fund FEMA.  Many of the MAGA Republicans in the hurricane impacted states voted for FEMA funding.

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Well, anyone condemning FEMA for running out of funds this Hurricane season should know three things:

This has happened now two years in a row. FEMA ran low on funds in 2023 and now again in 2024.

As any basic civics lesson should teach you, the House controls the purse strings. Therefore, whatever budget FEMA has, is due to the GOP led House—which ultimately controls FEMA budgeting. Therefore, FEMA being short on funds is a result of House Republicans refusing to adequately fund FEMA. This could be because MAGAs don't understand how finances work, or because they don’t believe in climate change, or likely a combination of both. Either way, Republicans seem to always find money for tax cuts for billionaires, private school vouchers for the wealthy, and subsidies for Big Oil and Big Pharma. But apparently funding disaster management during a climate crisis is just too difficult.

The reason why Mayorkas doesn’t mention the funds spent on migrants is because $640M is only 2.1% of FEMA's nearly $30B budget. Imagine believing that FEMA is out of money because 2% was spent on migrants—and not because the House GOP which controls the purse strings did not properly fund FEMA now two years in a row.

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trying to explain lightning

The gamma ray hypothesis has been around for a long time, but measurements are very difficult - the first 10 minutes of this podcast describes a new effort

ai and teaching

A teacher quits

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As an experienced teacher, I am familiar with pedagogical best practices. I scaffolded assignments. I researched ways to incorporate generative AI in my lesson plans, and I designed activities to draw attention to its limitations. I reminded students that ChatGPT may alter the meaning of a text when prompted to revise, that it can yield biased and inaccurate information, that it does not generate stylistically strong writing and, for those grade-oriented students, that it does not result in A-level work. It did not matter. The students still used it.

In one activity, my students drafted a paragraph in class, fed their work to ChatGPT with a revision prompt, and then compared the output with their original writing. However, these types of comparative analyses failed because most of my students were not developed enough as writers to analyze the subtleties of meaning or evaluate style. “It makes my writing look fancy,” one PhD student protested when I pointed to weaknesses in AI-revised text.

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