BONUS: Char-Broil Classic 280 2-Burner Liquid Propane Gas Grill with Side Burner.
Wednesday, May 3, 2023
Monday, May 1, 2023
Uncool Blue Checks
Since anyone can get the blue check now, for $8.00, they're not that glamorous any more.
At the New York Times, "Are Blue Checks Uncool Now?":
Once a coveted status symbol, Twitter’s verification badge — which can be purchased for a monthly fee — is no longer fashionable, according to some users. Twitter’s blue check mark was once a coveted status symbol. Now, some users are calling it “the dreaded mark” or that “stinking badge.” Last week, Twitter began stripping the verification symbols from the profiles of thousands of celebrities, media personalities and politicians. The shift came as Elon Musk, the company’s chief executive, continued to roll out Twitter Blue, a subscription service that offers special features like tweet-editing in addition to the blue badge — for $8 a month. Now that anyone can purchase a blue check, many users find the symbol newly uncool. The icon makes its owner appear “desperate for validation,” according to the rapper Doja Cat. To others, it signals support for Mr. Musk amid his bumpy takeover of the platform. Users who value the symbol enough to pay for it are being shouted over by a chorus of prominent users who say verification is no longer worth it. Can the blue check remain desirable now that it has lost its air of exclusivity? “The idea that you would pay for status, and that it’s something that’s not conferred upon you, seems to be fundamentally undesirable for people who have status,” said Robyn Caplan, a senior researcher at the Data & Society Research Institute. Jacob Sartorius, 20, a musician and content creator, said he was elated to get a blue check in 2016. “It was an honor. It was kind of a symbol of, wow, something’s happening,” he said. Mr. Sartorius said he would now rather spend $8 on a sandwich from Subway than on Twitter Blue. “It’s not something that’s cool anymore,” he said. Twitter users’ self-consciousness when it comes to their blue checks speaks to the symbol’s evolution from a tool designed to prevent impersonation into a fickle marker of cultural relevance. Twitter introduced verification badges in 2009 during what Dr. Caplan called the “red carpet era” of social media, when companies were trying to coax celebrities and brands onto their platforms. The badges reassured public figures that they would not be impersonated, and the recognition served as an ego boost. Because so many public figures received badges, and the faceless masses did not, jockeying for verification became something of a blood sport — and the blue check a symbol of victory. Guides proliferated online advising users on how to gain entry to the club. Mr. Musk sought to undermine that two-tiered approach, which he called a “lords & peasants system.” He has framed Twitter Blue as a move to democratize the platform. Waves of blue-check paranoia began to sweep across the platform last year, when Mr. Musk said he would soon start removing check marks from users’ profiles. After allowing the expected judgment day to come and go at the start of this month, Mr. Musk began removing the badges on April 20. (Mr. Musk has long shown an affinity for the number 420, which is often used to allude to marijuana, once dropping it into a tweet that landed him in hot water with the Securities and Exchange Commission.) Mr. Musk did not respond to a request for comment, and an email to Twitter’s communications department was automatically replied to with a poop emoji...
Now that Musk let the rabble in, Twitter's no longer an insider's club of elite bad actors who have no interest in preserving the regular, majoritarian values of the this country.
Saturday, April 29, 2023
James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg, The Sovereign Individual
See, James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg, The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age.
As E. Jean Carroll Case Proceeds, Donald Trump Is Riding High in the Polls
Heh.
I love it.
At the New York Times, "Rape Case Places Trump in Legal Jeopardy. Politically, He’s Thriving":
The former president’s new campaign is rolling unimpeded under the spotlights. In quiet courtrooms, he faces more serious threats. During E. Jean Carroll’s first day on the witness stand, her lawyer asked what had brought her to a federal courtroom in Manhattan. “I am here because Donald Trump raped me and when I wrote about it, he said it didn’t happen,” Ms. Carroll replied. “He lied and shattered my reputation, and I am here to try to get my life back.” A day later, Mr. Trump, who has denied the attack and called Ms. Carroll a liar, campaigned in New Hampshire, joking to a crowd about his changing nicknames for Hillary Clinton and President Biden. He did not mention Ms. Carroll’s testimony, or the civil trial going on 250 miles away. But he remarked cheerfully on a poll released that day, which showed him far and away leading the 2024 Republican primary field. Since Mr. Trump was indicted last month in a criminal case brought by the Manhattan district attorney’s office, his legal travails and his third presidential campaign have played out on a split screen. The courtroom dramas have taken place without news cameras present, even as the race has returned Mr. Trump to the spotlight that briefly dimmed after he left the Oval Office. Mike Murphy, a Republican political strategist who advised John McCain and Jeb Bush, said that trials and investigations of Mr. Trump often create “a psychological roller coaster for Trump-hating Democrats,” giving them hope that he will be taken down, only to leave them disappointed. Mr. Trump’s legal problems have yet to create significant political problems given the unflinching loyalty of his core supporters. Since Mr. Trump was indicted, his poll numbers have risen. Criminal investigations against him, in Georgia and Washington, as well as Ms. Carroll’s trial and a civil fraud lawsuit brought by the New York attorney general’s office, have done little to hamper him with his supporters. The poll he mentioned Thursday predicted that he would receive 62 percent of the vote in the Republican primary. His closest opponent, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who has not yet declared that he is running, was polling at 16 percent. But the investigations could cause Mr. Trump real harm. If he is convicted in Manhattan, where he pleaded not guilty to 34 felony charges of falsifying business records, he could face up to four years in prison. Criminal charges in Georgia and Washington could come with steeper punishments. And the New York attorney general’s lawsuit against him — which accused him of deceiving lenders and insurers by fraudulently overvaluing his assets — could exact a heavy financial toll. No matter the outcome, any direct connection between Mr. Trump’s legal fate in the rape case and his political fortunes is tenuous. But Ms. Carroll’s lawyers have reshaped a political bombshell from 2016 into a potent legal weapon: They plan to use the “Access Hollywood” tape on which Mr. Trump boasts about grabbing women by the genitals as the basis for a compelling story about a self-styled playboy man-about-town whose modus operandi was assaulting women. Mr. Trump said on the tape that “when you’re a star, they let you do it.” When the comments became public during the 2016 election, Mr. Trump characterized them as “locker room banter” and after his victory, they became an example of his apparent immunity to scandal. In the courtroom, which Mr. Trump has avoided, Ms. Carroll’s team argued that his words were not to be dismissed, even years after they became public...
Newsmax Ratings Climb After Tucker Carlson’s Exit at Fox
I tried watching Newsmax last summer and I was bored out of my mind. I doubt they'll ever be a peer-competitor network to Fox, but if the latter keeps imploding, you never know.
At the New York Times, "The niche conservative news channel is still small compared with Fox News, but its viewership has doubled and in some time slots even tripled since Tucker Carlson was dismissed":
Newsmax, the niche conservative news channel that has long played David to Fox News’s Goliath, has seized on Tucker Carlson’s shock dismissal from its rival network and declared itself the true TV home for right-wing Americans. So far, the strategy is showing some promise. Viewership of Newsmax remains far below that of Fox News. But its audience at certain hours has doubled, and in some time slots tripled, in the immediate aftermath of Mr. Carlson’s exit — an abrupt spike that has turned heads in conservative circles and the cable news industry. On Monday evening, Eric Bolling’s 8 p.m. Newsmax program drew 531,000 viewers, according to Nielsen. One week earlier, it had 146,000. On Tuesday, Mr. Bolling’s audience grew to 562,000 viewers, equal to about 80 percent of Anderson Cooper’s CNN viewership that evening. Newsmax’s other prime-time shows also experienced big jumps. The sharp rise in viewership can be timed almost to the minute of Fox News’s announcement on Monday that it was parting ways with Mr. Carlson, in part because of private messages sent by the anchor that included offensive and crude remarks. Executives at Newsmax quickly sensed an opportunity. Starting on Monday, Newsmax programming has aggressively pushed a narrative that Mr. Carlson’s dismissal was a capitulation to the left by Fox News and the Murdoch family. One pundit mused on the air that Lachlan Murdoch, the executive chairman of the Fox Corporation, was “much more liberal” than his father, Rupert. Andrew Napolitano, a Newsmax pundit who was fired by Fox News in 2021 over a harassment allegation, said Fox News dismissing its top-rated anchor “is like the 1927 Yankees firing Babe Ruth for his table manners — I don’t get it.” Anchors and guests harped on a recent appearance by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, in which she called for Mr. Tucker’s firing. “A.O.C. speaks, and now Fox listens,” grumbled the Newsmax anchor Chris Salcedo. “These really are end times.” By Thursday morning, the network was inviting viewers to vote in a poll: “Is it right for Fox News to fire Tucker Carlson?” “Fox has been moving to embrace more of an establishment position,” Newsmax’s chief executive, Christopher Ruddy, said in an interview on Thursday. “They want to renounce some of the Trumpisms and populist MAGA stuff that Tucker was echoing.” Mr. Ruddy said he preferred to “embrace all sides of the Republican Party.” Over all, Newsmax remains a ratings minnow. On Tuesday evening, “Hannity” on Fox News drew 2.1 million viewers; “The Ingraham Angle” attracted 1.6 million. Fox News has pointed to Nielsen data showing that in the first three months of the year, it was the highest-rated network across all of cable TV. And the network has bounced back from losing stars like Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck. But the absence of Mr. Carlson, its biggest prime-time star, has been felt. On Tuesday, Fox News lost to both CNN and MSNBC in the 8 p.m. hour among adults ages 25 to 54, an exceedingly rare defeat for the network in the key demographic for cable news advertisers. The “Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade, sitting in for Mr. Carlson, fell short to Mr. Cooper on CNN and Chris Hayes on MSNBC in that coveted demographic, although he was first in total viewership. Newsmax is surging shortly after Fox News paid $787.5 million to settle a defamation lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems, an election technology firm. Evidence in that case showed that Fox News executives were deeply concerned by Newsmax’s growth after the 2020 election, when President Donald J. Trump denounced the Murdoch-owned network for its projection that Joseph R. Biden Jr. would win Arizona. At the time, Newsmax saw a burst in viewership, even recording higher ratings than the Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum one evening in December 2020. (Ms. MacCallum was switched to a different time slot not long afterward.) But its audience eventually shrank. And despite Mr. Trump’s complaints, Fox News continued as the undisputed ratings king of cable news, powered in part by Mr. Carlson’s increasingly provocative program. So would Mr. Ruddy consider hiring the now-former Fox anchor for Newsmax? ...
Still more.
Elon Musk on Real Time with Bill Maher (VIDEO)
A great interview. The more I see Elon unfiltered the more I love the guy. He doesn't get ruffled.
Friday, April 28, 2023
Tuesday, April 25, 2023
Monday, April 24, 2023
Don Lemon Fired! (VIDEO)
Same day as Tucker Carlson, too. Makes for some intrigue.
Lemon's termination is hardly surprising. The fucker's both arrogant and stupid. It cost him.
Tucker? That's another story. That one hits me out of left field, though I can understand Rupert Murdoch's position. He's still on the hook for the Smartmatic lawsuit, which is supposed to be more blockbuster than Dominion's.
At the Wall Street Journal, "Don Lemon Is Out at CNN."
Tucker Carlson Out at Fox News (VIDEO)
Blockbuster! Absolutely blockbuster!
I was teaching when I happened to see that Carlson was fired --- and I stopped for a minute to mention to my class how big a piece of news this is. I'm just now back home and able to surf around for some news.
He's out not just because of Dominion, apparently. According to the Los Angeles Times, "Carlson’s exit is related to the discrimination lawsuit filed by Abby Grossberg, the producer fired by the network last month, the sources said."
And at CBS News:
Sunday, April 23, 2023
Another Biden-Trump Presidential Race in 2024 Looks More Likely
And there's been so much hope for DeSantis too.
But this does seem about right.
At the Wall Street Journal, "Biden’s impending campaign entry and Trump’s lead in Republican field mean they could square off again":
WASHINGTON — America could be headed for an epic rematch. President Biden is expected to announce his re-election campaign this week, putting to rest questions of whether he will seek a second term as the nation’s first octogenarian president. At the same time, polls show former President Donald Trump with a substantial lead in the Republican presidential field despite facing criminal charges in New York and the potential for more legal problems on the horizon. While the race for the White House remains in an early stage and presidential campaigns can shift quickly, the start of the 2024 cycle shows that a rematch between Messrs. Biden and Trump is a distinct possibility, one that would play out before a divided nation as the two parties uneasily share control of the levers of power in Washington. A second showdown, this time with Mr. Biden in the White House and Mr. Trump as the outsider, could determine how the U.S. proceeds in its support for Ukraine’s war against Russia and its work to counter the effects of climate change, as well as how it would balance domestic and military spending and economic policies at a time of high inflation. A 2024 campaign would likely be different from the first encounter, when Mr. Biden limited his in-person campaign events and rallies because of the Covid-19 pandemic and Mr. Trump used the trappings of the White House in his campaign, often featuring Air Force One in the backdrop of airport rallies. Mr. Biden is expected to open his re-election bid with a video announcement. Advisers are considering a Tuesday launch to coincide with the fourth anniversary of his entry into the Democratic primaries in 2019. Mr. Biden is scheduled to address the North America’s Building Trades Unions that day, allowing him to highlight his $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure law before an audience of union members who have backed both Democrats and Republicans in the past. Mr. Trump is planning a response to the announcement, aides said, and he has said the president is vulnerable on a range of issues, from immigration to inflation. Mr. Biden defeated Mr. Trump three years ago in an election marked by the Covid-19 pandemic and heated protests over police tactics and racial justice. Since then, the aftermath of the 2020 election has lingered over the nation’s politics, with Mr. Trump facing investigations into his attempts to overturn his defeat, the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol by his supporters and the former president’s storage of sensitive government documents at his residence and club in Florida. Mr. Biden faces an investigation into his own handling of sensitive documents after his time as vice president, while his son, Hunter Biden, is facing a criminal investigation related to his taxes and whether he made a false statement in connection with a gun purchase. “Our politics have only gotten more divided since Election Day 2020, as we saw most graphically on Jan. 6,” said Doug Heye, a Republican strategist. “Add to that we’ve never had an indicted nominee, nor potentially, a son of the incumbent president indicted, and thoughts of a high-road election on issues are foolish to the extreme.” A Wall Street Journal poll released last week found Mr. Biden at 48% and Mr. Trump at 45% in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup, a lead within the poll’s margin of error. In testing a potential field of 12 competitors for the Republican presidential nomination, the poll found that Mr. Trump had the support of 48% of GOP primary voters, followed by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis at 24%. No other Republican candidate was in double digits. While Mr. Biden faces minor opposition in the Democratic primaries, polls show that the public holds deep reservations about his presidency. In the six Wall Street Journal surveys dating to late 2021, an average of 43% of voters have said they approve of Mr. Biden’s job performance, while an average of 48% said they approved of how Mr. Trump handled the job when he was president. When a Journal poll asked this month about Mr. Biden’s work on eight issue areas, voters rated him more positively than negatively on only one—his handling of Social Security and Medicare. By 22 points, more people disapproved than approved of his handling of the economy, and the gap was 27 points on dealing with inflation, 26 points on border security, and 21 points on fighting crime. Donna Brazile, a Democratic strategist and a member of the Democratic National Committee, said that Mr. Trump would seek to make a rematch about retribution and revenge over the 2020 election and that Mr. Biden would be tasked with making the campaign about his agenda and the future...
Still more.
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