So I read something...: outrage culture

Showing posts with label outrage culture. Show all posts

Tuesday, February 10, 2026

Reading archive 2026-02-09

Killers without a cause: The rise in nihilistic violent extremism: “The message is there is no message.”

The AI boom is so huge it’s causing shortages everywhere else: The $700 billion AI spending spree has few precedents. Good luck finding an electrician or a reasonably priced smartphone.

Another ludicrous canceling of a name from the past: Shaming the dead is an asinine culture warriors’ pastime. Now it’s the great diarist Samuel Pepys’s turn. - "It is notable that the ire of activists never seems to be directed at Karl Marx, whose repeated use of the most objectionable racial slurs in his personal correspondence is curiously overlooked. Meanwhile, protesters in Portland, Oregon, in a 2020 demonstration that organizers called an 'Indigenous Day of Rage,' tore down statues of former presidents Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt."

Ice dance will incorporate queer culture unlike in any other Olympics: Officials asked teams to open their millennial playlists and skate their first program to music from the ’90s.

Will Texas elect a Democratic senator?: James Talarico, a liberal minister-in-training, fights an uphill battle to capture a GOP Senate seat in deep-red Texas.

The unflinching hosts of ‘I’ve Had It’ aren’t backing down: Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan have emerged as effective political commentators.

American Milk Has Changed: A dramatic increase in fat content is causing pains in the dairy industry.

Friday, April 11, 2025

Reading archive 2025-04-11 pt 2

What RFK Jr. Told Grieving Texas Families About the Measles Vaccine: The nation’s top public-health official has been promoting suspicions of the shot even as he offers comfort. - "Hildebrand said that, before they took Daisy to the hospital, his family was given advice on her care by, among others, Ben Edwards and Richard Bartlett, two West Texas doctors whom Kennedy has praised as " extraordinary healers" treating measles patients in Seminole. Edwards and Bartlett are pictured in a photo that Kennedy posted from his meeting with the two families, which occurred after the funeral at a steak dinner at the West Texas Living Heritage Museum, in Seminole. Like Kennedy, Edwards has raised doubts about the safety of the MMR vaccine and instead promoted treatments such as cod-liver oil, which is high in vitamins A and D. At one point, he was offering free cod-liver oil to Seminole residents at an ad hoc clinic next to a coffee shop." [ed. note: they treated her, she didn't get better, they delivered her to a hospital, she died]

Trump Says He Is Serious About Staying in Office Past 2028: Why do Republicans keep claiming he isn’t?

The Tariff Damage That Can’t Be Undone: Nothing here has ended well. In fact, it hasn’t even ended. - "Yesterday morning, the U.S. economy appeared to be on the verge of catastrophe. The stock market had already shrunk by trillions of dollars in just a few days. Usually, when the stock market falls, investors flock to the safest of all safe assets, U.S. Treasury bonds. This in turn causes interest rates to fall. (When more people want to buy your debt, you don't have to offer as high a return.) But that didn't happen this time. Instead, investors started pulling their money out of Treasury bonds en masse, causing interest rates to spike in just a few hours.

"Suddenly the entire global financial system appeared to be at risk. If U.S. Treasuries were no longer considered safe - perhaps because the country that issues them had recently shown its willingness to tank its own economy in pursuit of incomprehensible objectives - then no other asset could be considered safe either. The next step might be a rush to liquidate assets, the equivalent of a bank run on the entire global financial system. 'This scenario is more serious than 2008,' Adam Tooze, an economic historian who wrote the definitive history of the financial crisis that triggered the Great Recession, argued on Substack."

A Defense Against Gaslighting Sociopaths: If you can recognize their signature move, then forewarned is forearmed. - "Some scholars argue that we now inhabit a 'culture of offense,' a way of turning a claim that some behavior or statement is offensive into, in effect, a right to be offended, which creates a further claim of victimhood. I expect that we can all think of examples of how this culture can be used as a cudgel to disingenuously keep disfavored views and voices out of the public realm."

Monday, June 10, 2024

Reading archive 2024-06-10

Statues near White House vandalized during Gaza cease-fire protest: National Park Service workers power-washed sculptures in Lafayette Square that were graffitied and vandalized during a Gaza cease-fire protest on Saturday.

Opinion Is Donald Trump okay?: His story about hypothetically being electrocuted is another glimpse into a mind that is unwell.

Justice Alito talked about political divide on purported secret recordings: Recorded by a liberal filmmaker, the audio shows how hardball political tactics have landed at the court.

A home in Ohio for African immigrants with nowhere to go: Asylum seekers from the African nation of Mauritania are settling in a city drawing relatively little attention as immigration to the United States has soared.

OB/GYNs routinely experience sexual harassment, study suggests: Up to 70.9 percent of participants in the reviewed studies reported sexual harassment in the workplace.

What does Chinese repression look like? View these photos of Hong Kong

Opinion The U.S. military plans a ‘Hellscape’ to deter China from attacking Taiwan: But a top U.S. military commander for Asia says time is running out to put the plan in place. - "President Biden has repeatedly said he would send the U.S. military to defend Taiwan, although he added a new caveat in his latest interview with Time, saying, 'It would depend on the circumstances.' President Donald Trump seems less likely to intervene on Taiwan’s behalf, having told a GOP senator while in office that if China attacks, 'there isn’t a f------ thing we can do about it."

Tuesday, April 16, 2024

Reading archive 2024-04-16

A major US state just achieved a critical milestone for nearly two weeks: 'It's wild that this isn't getting more news coverage': "This has never happened before in history."

I went hunting for invasive iguanas in Florida. Not much went according to plan.: After traveling to South Florida to hunt green iguanas, maybe we’re thinking about them all wrong - "He’s most worried about Asian swamp eels. The species is now spreading through parts of the Everglades. In study areas, it has already eradicated more than 90 percent of several small fish and crustacean species, eroding the base of the food chain for other animals."

Momentum builds to oust Johnson from House speakership: One right-wing member called on the speaker to resign, which Johnson rejected

A tech-stock bubble and burst, all within three weeks: Behold the Trumpstockalypse

They criticized Israel. This Twitter account upended their lives.: Since Oct. 7, StopAntisemitism has flagged hundreds of people who have criticized Israel’s actions in Gaza. Many were swiftly fired. - "Celine Khalife, a 25-year-old therapist, says StopAntisemitism shut down her career just as it was getting started. A video posted by StopAntisemitism shows the Palestinian American tearing down a poster of Israeli hostages. She said Israel kidnapped its own citizens, a false conspiracy theory."

Police suspect custody battle linked to killing of two Kansas women

Amazon HQ2 was supposed to add jobs last year. It shed them instead.: The tech giant’s deal with Virginia had it adding more than 2,500 new employees at its new Arlington headquarters in 2023. But it lost more than 200 positions there last year.

Opinion This might be Trump’s most inflationary, economically destructive idea yet - "Trump’s policy team is reportedly scheming to devalue the U.S. dollar. This might well be Trump’s most inflationary and economically destructive idea yet. That’s quite an achievement, considering everything else he and his advisers have cooked up (universal tariff hikes, deficit-financed tax cuts, huge reductions in the labor force, etc.)."

Opinion Biden embraced Trump’s tariffs. It might be his undoing. - "The tariffs are the most egregious of all these policies. Despite Trump’s rhetoric to the contrary, they are a tax on American consumers. U.S. Customs and Border Protection estimates that so far Americans have paid more than $230 billion in these taxes. In addition, tens of billions of dollars have been handed out to farmers to compensate for their losses in agricultural exports (as a consequence of China’s retaliatory tariffs)."

Palestinian paramedics said Israel gave them safe passage to save a 6-year-old girl in Gaza. They were all killed.

Opinion What was Iran thinking? Maybe not what you think.

How to revive hair that thins, grays or gets out of control as you age - "Minoxidil pills are FDA-approved for hypertension but used off-label at much lower doses for hair loss. At dosages of up to 2.5 mg per day for women and 5 mg per day for men, it achieves higher blood levels than topical, which can make it more effective, Olsen says. But, she cautions, there may be side effects (like changes in heart rate and blood pressure), so it’s wise to start with the lowest dose possible and take it under a doctor’s supervision."

Friday, November 3, 2023

Reading archive 2023-11-03

Famed climate scientist has a new, dire prediction: Some scientists question the new study, which asserts that Earth is warming faster than previously estimated

Students hated ‘To Kill a Mockingbird.’ Their teachers tried to dump it.: Four progressive teachers in Washington’s Mukilteo School District wanted to protect students from a book they saw as outdated and harmful. The blowback was fierce. - "Chaitna Deshmukh, a Mukilteo graduate, said she thinks 'To Kill a Mockingbird' fails to address the complex racial reality of 21st-century America." [ed. note: what single text does or even can?]

As Hong Kong stood up for democracy, a neighborhood was brutalized

Seriously, why aren’t millennials having kids?: Also, with birthrates plunging, why aren’t there more only children?

John Fetterman unleashed: ‘I’ve already been dead once’: After being treated for depression, the senator is finally having fun – and taking aim at some Democrats

Carjackings prompt finger-pointing and criticisms among D.C. officials: Mayor Muriel Bowser inaccurately described a youth’s criminal record, court records show

Grieving and angry, Maine residents demand change after mass killing

Opinion Is the House GOP about to give Putin a pat on the back for his barbarism?

‘You just gaslit her’: How Dean Phillips’s first town hall went off the rails in N.H.

How Gaza’s tunnel network leaves Israel facing ‘three-dimensional’ war

Why Do Young Americans Support Hamas? Look at TikTok.: The app is digital fentanyl made by China. And it is brainwashing our youth against the country and our allies, argues Rep. Mike Gallagher.

Wild Horses Are Terrible for the West: They’re scourges, not symbols, of wilderness. - The herds are increasing at a fast clip, and the native biota has already suffered greatly. By shunning our responsibility to control feral horse herds like those found in the Salt River, we are delaying the inevitable, passing the difficult decisions down to the next generation, who will have to do the dirty work we refused, and without the chance to save the native species we abandoned. The Forest Service’s only mistake was waiting this long to attempt removal; anyone who truly values nature, the deserts, and their native species will support the relocation of feral horses from the Salt River Basin and everywhere else they are causing damage.

Thursday, February 25, 2021

Reading archive 2021-02-25

Scientists see stronger evidence of slowing Atlantic Ocean circulation, an ‘Achilles’ heel’ of the climate The Atlantic meridional overturning circulation, a system of currents, is weaker than it has been in 1,000 years

Inside a Battle Over Race, Class and Power at Smith College: A student said she was racially profiled while eating in a college dorm. An investigation found no evidence of bias. But the incident will not fade away. - "'This is the racist person,' Ms. Kanoute wrote of Ms. Blair, adding that Mr. Patenaude too was guilty. (He in fact worked an early shift that day and had already gone home at the time of the incident.) Ms. Kanoute also lashed the Smith administration. 'They’re essentially enabling racist, cowardly acts.'"

"Ms. Blair has lupus, a disease of the immune system, and stress triggers episodes. She felt faint. 'Oh my God, I didn’t do this,' she told a friend. 'I exchanged a hello with that student and now I’m a racist.'"

At the mercy of foreign powers: Libyans ousted a dictator, but an ensuing civil war has drawn in Russia, Turkey and others with a thirst for control