So I read something...: video games

Opinion Larry Hogan made the wrong choice: The former Maryland governor should have left the Republican Party and run as an independent for Senate. - "Contrary to what a lot of mindless pundits would have you believe, it takes pretty much zero courage to criticize your fellow Republicans when you’re the governor of a state such as Maryland. That’s just rudimentary politics; Hogan actually couldn’t have won two statewide elections any other way. What takes real courage is to break with that party entirely, because you just can’t be in league with these people and still manage to sleep at night."

Trump allies threaten Deloitte contracts after employee shares Vance chats: Republicans are targeting $3 billion in federal contracts after a consultant disclosed messages unconnected to his work. - "Ethics experts said the episode is a potentially ominous preview of how a second Trump administration might use the enormous power the federal government wields over private industry to punish political acts by individual workers. Although federal contracting laws prohibit cutting off a business because of its workers’ private political views, such threats could have a chilling effect, they said."

Earth’s wildlife populations have disappeared at a ‘catastrophic’ rate in the past half-century, new analysis says: The Living Planet Index tracks thousands of vertebrate species globally and found the worst declines were in Latin America and the Caribbean. - "Earth’s wildlife populations have fallen on average by a 'catastrophic' rate of 73 percent in the past half-century, according to a new analysis the World Wildlife Fund released Wednesday.

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"The worst declines were in Latin America and the Caribbean, with a 95 percent average drop, followed by Africa, 76 percent, and Asia and the Pacific, 60 percent. But the report said that is at least partly because in Europe, Central Asia and North America — whose animal populations declined by more than a third — people living there had already wiped out nature on a wide scale by 1970."

Boris Johnson just published his political memoir. It’s unbelievable.: The former British prime minister’s book “Unleashed” has made minor news. But British readers seem to be viewing it more as entertainment than history. - "In the Times of London, reviewer Tom Peck cautioned, 'The reason Johnson, a biographer of notoriously dubious merit, has turned to autobiography significantly earlier than he would have liked is because his party correctly calculated that the country could no longer believe a word he had to say.'"

How hurricane falsehoods are dividing the Republican Party: As the country digs out, Republicans in storm-battered states appear torn between the need to curb dangerous conspiracy theories and fear of drawing a rebuke from Trump just weeks before the election. - "On Tuesday, Edwards issued a lengthy fact sheet dispelling multiple falsehoods about Helene and FEMA. The fact sheet noted that FEMA 'has NOT diverted disaster response funding to the border or foreign aid,' and that NOAA official Charles Konrad has “confirmed that no one has the technology or ability to geoengineer a hurricane.”"

Ohio voters dismiss false claims about Haitians, but Trump has slight lead, Post poll finds: Key Senate race is essentially tied between Democrat Sherrod Brown and Republican Bernie Moreno. [ed. note: a six-point lead is not slight]

How China is using antisemitic conspiracies to influence down-ballot races: China is increasingly targeting down-ballot races in America, spreading divisive and antisemitic claims about politicians on the social media platform X. - "The Spamouflage accounts analyzed by The Post are increasingly posting about the Israel-Gaza war, and spread divisive and sometimes hateful rhetoric about Jews on X in July and August, furthering the rise in antisemitic content on social media since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel."

A lost Trump interview comes back to life: The yet-to-be-president holds forth on strength, friendship, dealmaking, public service and building violations.

D.C. audit of police ranks for links to white supremacy nears completion: Officers at the Jan. 6 riot, and a D.C. lieutenant supporting the Proud Boys, led council to call for audit of D.C. police.

What Went Wrong at Blizzard Entertainment

The Most Dramatic Shift in U.S. Public Opinion: The size and speed of the immigration backlash over the past four years are nearly unheard-of.

What I Learned Serving on a January 6 Jury: He’s guilty. So why do I feel so bad after voting to convict? - "The feminist thought did occur to me at this moment that one way to see some of these J6 cases is that the men were out enacting their 1776 fantasy while the women were home putting away the Legos. And there was plenty of evidence of that in this case.

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"Taylor didn’t explicitly choose his ideals over his family, but that was kind of the end result. Like, he could have pled guilty, which would have probably cut his sentence in half. Or he could have gotten a lawyer, instead of representing himself. But he took none of those roads, and now she had seven years of: Okay. It’s just me.

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"And this was the beautiful, terrible exchange that brought me to human empathy and then deposited me at a dead end—because the couple had doubled down on their doubts about the election watching Dinesh D’Souza’s movie 2000 Mules, a garbage film full of conspiracies and lies. And that had prompted them to think everything involving the government was rigged, including his trial, which is why he went about it in the weird, self-defeating way he did."

Friday, May 27, 2022

Reading archive 2022-05-27

Police slow to engage with gunman because ‘they could’ve been shot,’ official says

Southern Baptist leaders release sex abuser database they kept secret for years

Key takeaways from the bombshell sex abuse report by Southern Baptists

Slain teacher’s husband dies of heart attack days after school shooting

Climate pressure from employees, shareholders rattles: Big Oil The likes of Shell and ExxonMobil are meeting resistance to ‘business as usual’

Opinion The secret planning that kept the White House a step ahead of Russia - "Germany was a reluctant but essential ally, and the Biden administration made a controversial decision last summer that was probably crucial in gaining German support against Russia. Biden gave Germany a pass on an initial round of sanctions against a company building the Nord Stream 2 pipeline in exchange for a pledge from Chancellor Angela Merkel that if Russia invaded, Nord Stream 2 would be scrapped. When the invasion came, Merkel was gone but her successor, Olaf Scholz, kept the promise.

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"The Group of 20 nations were meeting at the end of October in Rome, and Biden pulled aside the leaders of Britain, France and Germany and gave them a detailed readout on the top-secret evidence."

Opinion Kevin McCarthy’s coverup for Trump just got much more alarming - "Consider McCarthy himself. He’s refusing to divulge information about his direct communications with Trump at the very moment Trump was essentially weaponizing a mob to intimidate his vice president and GOP lawmakers into subverting the electoral count, to keep himself in power illegitimately."

Tennis has an anger-management problem, and it’s getting worse

‘Diablo Immortal’ aims to be a breakthrough hit for AAA mobile games

The options for a Commanders stadium site: Bad, worse and nonexistent - "The Washington Commanders badly need a new stadium, and they should have their pick of the three jurisdictions from which they draw the bulk of their fans. More than that: They should have those three jurisdictions elbowing one another out of the way.

"Their reality is this: The club is looking at far-flung sites in Virginia, which has a state legislature that is preparing to sour its offer, not sweeten it. Maryland officials are so indifferent to the Commanders’ presence in Prince George’s County that they’re pledging to pump $400 million into developing the area around FedEx Field even if the team doesn’t stay, a municipal shrug of the shoulders."

Saturday, February 12, 2022

Reading archive 2022-02-11

In Amazon’s shadow, neighbors are dueling over housing density - “This is not a farmer’s field in the middle of nowhere,” said Gattoni-Celli, a former Arlington resident who now lives in Alexandria. “It’s next to the world’s largest office building. It’s a stone’s throw away from what will be the second headquarters of one of the world’s largest corporations. We’re going to need a lot more housing there, but this area is really well set up to absorb it all.”

Two bald eagles along Dulles corridor get named in Loudoun school contest: Meet Martin and Rosa — who has laid two eggs in their nest

Some Trump records taken to Mar-a-Lago clearly marked as classified, including documents at ‘top secret’ level: The existence of documents officially labeled as classified in the trove — which has not previously been reported — raises new questions about why the materials were taken out of the White House.

Opinion: Sarah Palin bombs on witness stand in New York Times trial

‘Scorched earth’ and big profits: How embattled gaming titan Bobby Kotick outlasts his opponents

Biden doesn’t want to change China. He wants to beat it. - "To the surprise of many in Washington and Beijing, the Biden administration has largely followed Trump’s lead, keeping U.S. policy toward China on a more competitive — if not confrontational — footing, an approach now favored, in varying degrees, by lawmakers in both parties and likely to last as long as China continues its great leap backward. Restraining China is now a multi-administration, bipartisan strategy that stands among the most important foreign policy adjustments since the end of the Cold War.

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"In a June Foreign Affairs essay titled 'Washington’s Dangerous New Consensus on China,' Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) advocated a relationship based on cooperation, not conflict. His arguments dovetail with those in official Communist Party propaganda: Don’t blame China’s aggression for the downturn in relations; blame the United States."

Tuesday, January 18, 2022

Reading archive 2022-01-18

The GOP Won't Introduce A New Party Platform For 2020. So What Does It Stand For? - "'And the moral of the entire story, as Boehner's chief of staff put it to me at the time, he said, 'Look, you can slice and dice this one hundred different ways. But ultimately, we fed the beast that ate us.' And I think that that is about as appropriate a metaphor for this last 10 to 15 years of Republican politics as you could hope to find.'" [ed. note: from 8/2020]

EXPLAINER: Why didn’t China send troops to aid Kazakhstan?

Microsoft to acquire Activision Blizzard, the embattled Call of Duty, Warcraft publisher, for $68.7 billion: The deal would be Microsoft’s largest acquisition in company history.

How coal holds on in America: In North Dakota coal country, officials rally to save a coal-fired power plant at renewable energy’s expense. - "One farmer who was happy when he heard the polluting coal plant may shut down said he did not dare discuss that publicly. 'If we were to be quoted, and it got in The Washington Post, our farm would be targeted,' he said, describing the area as 'Trumpian to the max.'

"'They would come out there, and I think they would start shooting holes in the tires,' the farmer added. 'That is how bad it is. I really believe that. We would be ostracized within our community.'"

Monday, August 9, 2021

Reading archive 2021-08-09

Antiabortion activists at Supreme Court cite an unlikely authority for overturning Roe v. Wade: Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Sturgis Motorcycle Rally revs up, drawing thousands and heightening delta superspreader fears

Florida offers school vouchers for families angry with mask mandates while judge temporarily blocks ban in Arkansas

Democrats head home with a clearer message for voters as they try to avoid a repeat of the 2010 midterm disaster

The Cheapo Olympics Are Coming: The 2024 Summer Games in Paris will feature a big change: a modest price tag.

At Blizzard, groping, free-flowing booze and fear of retaliation tainted ‘magical’ workplace

Opinion: Trump’s coup attempt grows even more worrisome as new details emerge

Opinion: Shocking new Trump-DOJ revelations should shape the Jan. 6 investigation

A rape allegation at China’s Alibaba spurs furor over sexual assault, binge drinking

Florida church reeling after six members die within 10 days amid spike in cases

Visitors enter Montana mines filled with radon as a therapy for their ills

Judge asks why Capitol rioters are paying just $1.5 million for attack, while U.S. taxpayers will pay more than $500 million

Humans have pushed the climate into ‘unprecedented’ territory, landmark U.N. report finds: U.N. chief calls findings ‘a code red for humanity’ with worse climate impacts to come unless greenhouse gas pollution falls dramatically - "Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen to levels not seen in 2 million years, the authors state. The oceans are turning acidic. Sea levels continue to rise. Arctic ice is disintegrating. Weather-related disasters are growing more extreme and affecting every region of the world."

Billionaire James Murdoch building “recreational retreat” in Nascall Bay: A Globe and Mail article has confirmed that the 445 acre property in Nascall Bay was purchased by billionaire media mogul James Murdoch [ed. note: the super rich have apocalypse bunkers in New Zealand]

Thursday, August 5, 2021

Reading archive 2021-08-05

Northwest D.C. ‘NIMBYs’ fight proposal over new schools

A critical ocean system may be heading for collapse due to climate change, study finds: ‘The consequences of a collapse would likely be far-reaching’ - "Studies suggest that toward the end of the last ice age, a massive glacial lake burst through a declining North American ice sheet. The flood of freshwater spilled into the Atlantic, halting the AMOC and plunging much of the Northern Hemisphere — especially Europe — into deep cold. Gas bubbles trapped in polar ice indicate the cold spell lasted 1,000 years. Analyses of plant fossils and ancient artifacts suggest that the climate shift transformed ecosystems and threw human societies into upheaval."

How Provincetown, Mass., stress-tested the coronavirus vaccine with summer partying and delta

Nearly 200 doctors clash with school district that refuses to mandate masks

Buoyed by rising nationalism, China’s keyboard warriors take aim at Olympic athletes

Peter Doocy and Jen Psaki’s daily clashes have become a White House briefing room ritual

A Texas GOP leader railed against vaccines and masks. Then he died of covid.

GamerGaters inundated her with death threats. Now some are apologizing — and she forgives them.