Warren Terra

Eric Rauchway @rauchway.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 06, 2024 at 01:28 UTC

In retrospect, the NYT Spelling Bee’s blithe refusal to care about words that are in the dictionary should have struck more word nerds as symptomatic.

5 replies 7 reposts 68 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 06, 2024 at 01:40 UTC

A lot of journalists claim to have important inside sources reinforcing the narrative, but on the other hand there's so many ways that could be bullshit, or at least highly unrepresentative. If you have the right job and want to cultivate a reporter who will be useful later, you can be that source!

0 replies 0 reposts 6 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 06, 2024 at 00:27 UTC

Reminds me of how all the "Effective Altruism" movement ever seemed to do with its backer's great wealth was buy castles at which they planned to hold conferences on the theme of how great Effective Altruism was going to be, and give small grants to writers so they could talk about the same thing.

0 replies 0 reposts 3 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 23:55 UTC

I'm pretty sure they're just making a joke about how the flamboyant clothing and the weird stance and expression and position all make it look like a haunting.

0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 23:42 UTC

I don't really have a problem with the clip, but the people using the word this way really need to contemplate the history of using the word "coconut" to refer to people.

0 replies 0 reposts 10 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 23:40 UTC

They eventually pushed the plan through despite the sane people calling it cruel and dishonest and the courts calling it illegal and every analyst calling it fiscal insanity, just got Parliament to say nope to all that. They then symbolically deported one volunteer, after which I think no-one else.

0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 23:29 UTC

I am naturally inclined to a little sympathy for the way the Tories left the non-white, non-Christian guy holding the bag, but also he embraced all the worst things about the party (Rwanda deportations, tried to kill the country's climate mitigation plan, etc) and he's a weird billionaire, fk him.

0 replies 0 reposts 2 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 23:23 UTC

The line-up:

0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 23:11 UTC

I think you'll enjoy this one:

1 replies 0 reposts 1 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 23:10 UTC

Have you seen this?

0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 22:58 UTC

I think Trump benefits from COVID's weird effects on societal memory (tho less so among online political obsessives). We do a terrible job of remembering the pandemic, and also any weirdness and failure gets blamed on the virus, as if Trump hadn't been personally responsible for so very much of it.

1 replies 0 reposts 9 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 22:42 UTC

Also, complaints of this nature would be significantly more impressive if they were to come from foreign allies who were doing a better job of opposing Putin than our allies actually are.

0 replies 0 reposts 4 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 22:02 UTC

I also voted for him both times (don't recall how I voted in the primaries). I pay less attention to him than would be necessary to really find him sleazy, but I'm aware it's common. I've never heard much good said about him, though people sometimes appreciate having a loud Dem as Governor.

0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 21:37 UTC

I think of him as the box a real candidate comes in. He's shaped like a candidate, all the obvious boxes get ticked, but he satisfies no-one, no-one likes him or wants him as the real candidate.

2 replies 0 reposts 4 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 20:15 UTC

0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 20:04 UTC

One would hope she's not being consulted. There's several *different* reasons not to include her!

0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 20:04 UTC

It really isn't though, as one would expect.

0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 20:02 UTC

Apparently per some Google image searching it's Jeanne Shaheen

0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 19:58 UTC

I don't think it would actually be bullshit, but I worry it could effectively be portrayed as bullshit.

0 replies 0 reposts 1 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 19:36 UTC

Yeah, I know, I was reasonably careful in the distinction I made.

0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 19:03 UTC

Yes, exactly.

0 replies 0 reposts 2 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 18:39 UTC

There is an idea called "Murc's Law" after the blog commenter who coined it: "only Democrats have agency". No-one asks Trump to be diligent, or honest, or informed, or follow the law. No mainstream outlet ever made it a national crisis for a week that he manifestly never has been any of those.

0 replies 8 reposts 23 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 18:35 UTC

Or there was the time the NYT dedicated five reporters and 14 months to reporting on the money Trump inherited. They started in Feb 2017 - a year earlier it might have affected the election - and discovered he'd used blatant fraud to duck taxes on a billion dollars. But it was never a lasting story.

1 replies 3 reposts 18 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 18:33 UTC

I remember some outlet reported *once* that there were civil servants whose job it was to recover documents that had been on Trump's desk - so were required to be preserved by the Presidential Records Act - and try to salvage them from his waste bin. Tape the torn shreds back together, for example.

1 replies 1 reposts 14 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 18:31 UTC

It was a feature of liberal commentary. It was not taken seriously in the national mainstream pundit commentary, certainly was never the subject of a massive united media push like we're seeing with Biden. Trump's failings and even his crimes would get reported, then they were no longer "news".

1 replies 1 reposts 23 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 18:26 UTC

A cliche says antisemitism is the socialism of fools, and I think it might have worked the same way in our nation's history for democracy not socialism, and with a whole range of and whole series of vicious bigotries. "democracy" working because the electors could exclude and oppress some Other.

1 replies 3 reposts 10 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 18:23 UTC

I have a halfway serious theory that exactly this phenomenon is maybe why our democracy lasted for a couple centuries and is now seemingly failing: for most of that time there were whole classes in society denied their rights, even unto death, and the license to oppress them was a relief valve.

1 replies 2 reposts 13 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 18:03 UTC

Before that, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, and John Major were all about 6' tall (only Blair got the job by election). Thatcher was apparently 5'5".

1 replies 0 reposts 1 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 17:59 UTC

Cameron is also the last British PM to get the job by general election, before Starmer just did (May, Johnson, Truss, and Sunak all got the job by their predecessor's resignation, though May and Johnson later won general elections).

1 replies 0 reposts 3 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 16:43 UTC

Mind you, the op-ed is not generally speaking good. This guy spent years as a Republican apparatchik, he presumably drank the Flavor-Aid. His brief defense of the Court killing the regulatory state is bullshit, and he doesn't really pretend it isn't. But on the Trump decisions he's pretty clear.

0 replies 0 reposts 2 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 16:43 UTC

I (and others) think this op-ed's Republican author wrote it to condemn some Trump-related decisions as unprincipled and wrong. A worthy goal! This only makes the NYT editors' decisions *more* baffling: why not disclose the author clerked for Roberts? Why are the headline and subhed such a waffle?

1 replies 0 reposts 2 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 16:28 UTC

Quinta Jurecic posted that earlier today on Bluesky, reposted by some other law bloggers. I haven't read it, don't know the score.

1 replies 0 reposts 0 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 14:03 UTC

From right: Count Binface Some dude Ventriloquist Dummy Dummy Tall dude with "L" sign Dummy

0 replies 0 reposts 2 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 13:00 UTC

I don't think it explains the results this time - the Tory plus Reform vote is eight points less then the Tory plus Brexit vote five years ago - but it would be really funny if the Tories lost so not because ten or so years ago they screwed their Lib Dem coalition partners who wanted voting reform.

0 replies 0 reposts 0 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 12:16 UTC

I really should have added that the dummies are third and fourth from right.

0 replies 0 reposts 4 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 12:10 UTC

No, on the right is Count Binface. The ventriloquist is second from right.

1 replies 0 reposts 9 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 11:59 UTC

I was struck by that, too. But, the Conservative plus Reform total is 38% not 48%. Also, the low total for Labour might reflect increased tactical voting in constituencies where people who wasted a vote on locally third party Labour in 2019 voted Liberal Democrat this time around.

1 replies 0 reposts 1 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 11:16 UTC

The date isn't hilarious. She lost her case and a judge ruled she's a vicious, borderline criminally violent troll back in November. This event is in response to Tuesday's revelations that she openly self-identified as a Nazi and an avid reader of Mein Kampf, and even so it took a good 48 hours.

0 replies 0 reposts 11 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 06:14 UTC

Wow, amazing.

0 replies 3 reposts 14 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 04:47 UTC

Did you see this one?

1 replies 0 reposts 5 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 03:05 UTC

I'm not entirely sure "lies constantly" captures it. I see no reason to think Trump has any idea what the truth is, that he's misrepresenting. More than that, I don't think he remotely cares what the truth is.

1 replies 0 reposts 1 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 02:38 UTC

I have mediocre German, usually good enough to understand slogans and such, but I couldn't figure out Thällmann. Turns out it's an individual person's surname.

2 replies 0 reposts 1 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 02:35 UTC

Sub-things that should remain sub-things: Yes: subtexts, subtweets, submarine sandwiches Temporarily: actual submarines No: subpar things. Except golfers.

0 replies 0 reposts 4 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 02:22 UTC

Oh, dammit. My apologies to Estonia. My sympathies to Slovenia.

3 replies 1 reposts 3 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 02:18 UTC

Some of them must be going for the hat trick with bigotry against her husband.

0 replies 0 reposts 3 likes

Warren Terra @warrenterra.bsky.social [ View ] Jul 05, 2024 at 02:15 UTC

Still kinda surprised he didn't opt for a regnal name other than "Charles". Bad vibes.

3 replies 0 reposts 7 likes