580 highway at 8:35am in Oakland…everyone’s got their headlights on. pic.twitter.com/c2nxZStGvF
— Sarah Belle Lin (@SarahBelleLin) September 9, 2020
Fred Kaplan, “Is America in the Early Stages of Armed Insurgency?” Slate, September 8, 2020, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/09/america-insurgency-chaos-trump-violence.html
In case you missed it, there were several updates to yesterday’s issue, including many that are unrelated to the Walbridge Fire.
Trumpsters aren’t just sinking each other’s boats: Speaking of a capsized neighbor’s boat, which had been docked in River Falls, Wisconsin, at the time, Keith Smith said, “Boaters all know they’re responsible for their waves, but nobody cared. They just kept going and going and hooting and hollering.”[1] I swear, these are the same motherfuckers I see driving gigantic pickup trucks around Pittsburgh.
Matt Stieb, “Boats Keep Sinking at the Trump Boat Parades,” New York, September 7, 2020, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/09/boats-keep-sinking-and-capsizing-at-the-trump-boat-parades.html
The picture of how November plays out, assuming Donald Trump is defeated, is beginning to come together. If a poll sponsored by a company founded by Michael Bloomberg is correct, Trump will appear to have won on election night, but only until a record number[2] of mailed-in ballots get counted.[3] Trump, whose lackey has been making the Postal Service worse,[4] will, of course, allege fraud,[5] giving Republicans the opening they need to challenge the composition of electoral college delegations, leading to a nightmare scenario described by the Transition Integrity Project.[6]
The caveat here has to be that the poll likely has a low response rate,[7] which means it cannot be trusted because the methodology is profoundly flawed.
Henry Zeffman, “President Trump might appear to have won at first on election night, Democrat poll warns,” Times, September 9, 2020, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/world/president-trump-might-appear-to-have-won-at-first-on-election-night-democrat-poll-warns-2rv66dqxm
Originally published, September 8, 2020, at 10:16 am.
September 8, 2020, 10:52 pm:
Because my mother lives near the Walbridge Fire, I was discussing her situation with a friend via SMS. My friend finds the intensity of these fires surprising but is further irritated with our delusional raging narcissist-in-chief for denying climate change.
The trouble always with this sort of talk is that Donald Trump is more a symptom of the problem than the problem itself. I explained (typos and capitalization failures are due to voice dictation):
I think people often fail to understand why I oppose Joe Biden, a neoliberal, as vociferously as I do Donald Trump. But this is the very sort of neoliberal failure that enables the Republicans and an authoritarian populist backlash. It’s a huge—I think the largest—part of the story of why Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 and why Biden may well lose in 2020.
In broad strokes—I haven’t looked into the details—Uber is matching[1] Lyft’s earlier pledge that all ridesharing vehicles would be electric by 2030.[2]
The way things are going,[3] I might well still be driving for Uber and Lyft in 2030—I’ll be 71 years old at that point, but I have no hope of retirement.
Meanwhile, both Uber and Lyft have now poured over $180 million dollars into their campaign for California’s Proposition 22, which would undo AB 5 and its mandate that drivers be treated as employees rather than continuing to misclassify them as “independent contractors.”[4]
I just updated my Pixel 4 XL to Android 11. I’d seen that accessing the screenshot function would be different and I was completely failing to understand how to do this. The secret is the open apps button—that’s the square button at bottom right. Tap it and towards the bottom of the screen, there are two options: Screenshot and Select. I haven’t tried it, but the latter apparently allows you to select the area covered by your screenshot. You can also get a screenshot by holding down the power and volume down buttons simultaneously but I’m really lousy at pushing two buttons simultaneously.
California has broken its record for most acres burned in a single year after wildfires scorch more than 2 million acres. The view from space this morning shows the state completely blanketed in smoke pic.twitter.com/r5rL59h4N7
— Jon Passantino (@passantino) September 7, 2020
On a brighter note, the evacuation orders and warnings have been lifted for some areas threatened by the Walbridge Fire (figure 2).
So it’s been a couple weeks since I last paid serious attention to the Walbridge Fire. The notifications on my phone have indicated a protracted diminishing of evacuation orders to evacuation warnings to less than that. It wasn’t quite an all-clear, but even with the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office announcing a new evacuation order for an area southwest of Healdsburg this morning (figure 1), the fire had seemed mostly out.
Fig. 1. Screenshot of Sonoma County Fire Incident Map, as of September 8, 2020, at 3:33 am EDT (12:33 am PDT).
The order covers some rugged terrain, but terrain that’s a lot more accessible than a lot that’s burned—you can see the perimeter as a line in red (figure 1). I gather it’s been really hot in California and I saw red flag warnings go up for the weekend, so I guess this isn’t really a surprise.
Fig. 2. Screenshot of Sonoma County Fire Incident Map, as of September 8, 2020, at 10:44 pm EDT (7:44 pm PDT).
There is a new blog post entitled, “Bloody November.”
Rosa Brooks, “What’s the worst that could happen?” Washington Post, September 3, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/09/03/trump-stay-in-office/
Andrew J. Hawkins, “Uber pledges to shift to ‘100 percent’ electric vehicles by 2030,” Verge, September 8, 2020, https://www.theverge.com/2020/9/8/21427196/uber-promise-100-percent-electric-vehicle-ev-2030
Michael Hiltzik, “Uber and Lyft just made their campaign to keep exploiting workers the costliest in history,” Los Angeles Times, September 8, 2020, https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2020-09-08/uber-lyft-most-expensive-initiative
The local sheriff’s department has now officially confirmed that the boats were sunk or swamped on Lake Travis by fellow Trumpsters’ wakes.[1] Which is to say, they were indeed driving their boats like the idiots I see driving pickup trucks in Pittsburgh.
Paul P. Murphy, “The wake of other boats in a pro-Trump parade in Texas caused 5 boats to sink, sheriff’s office says,” CNN, September 7, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/07/us/trump-boat-parade-sink-trnd/index.html
There is a new blog post entitled “Doubting the ‘Fox News bubble.’”
As news goes, it’s pretty fucking slow, at least in terms of something actually worth paying attention to. But in case you missed them:
I’m pretty unhappy with WordPress right now. When I first signed up to host my blogs on it, it worked well. Now, it’s horrible. It’s slow—my god, it is slow—and it loses posts. The workflow has become atrocious. This has mostly been gradual, but recently they rammed a new interface down my throat, which might address issues I’d had pasting HTML, but has made everything else worse.
What I’m paying for is what it was when I first signed up for it. What I’m now getting is something else, something awful, entirely.
These Trumpsters on Lake Travis remind me of the dickheads driving recklessly on the roads around Pittsburgh.
I doubt I can find the tweet, but somebody nailed this, saying in essence the Trumpsters had navigated their boats like dickheads, swamping each other. https://t.co/aZfYKgx0vn
5 Boats Sink At Trump Boat Parade In Texas https://t.co/R5zOe9ngxl
— NPR Politics (@nprpolitics) September 7, 2020
— David Benfell, Ph.D. (@n4rky) September 7, 2020
It’s telling, awfully telling, that police do not profile their monster pickup trucks the way they do Blacks.
Matthew S. Schwartz, “5 Boats Sink At Trump Boat Parade In Texas,” National Public Radio, September 6, 2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/09/06/910322916/5-boats-sink-at-trump-boat-parade-in-texas
I don’t know that there is a way for the saga of Joe Biden and Anita Hill[1] to end well. But I doubt supporting him for president[2] is it.
Hill is, obviously, recognizing the reality of the two-party system in which she perceives Donald Trump is worse. And in some ways he is. But in other, equally important ways, Joe Biden is worse. This is not a step even toward mitigating oppression, let alone relieving it.
Ann Colwell, “Anita Hill vows to vote for Joe Biden and work with him on gender issues,” CNN, September 5, 2020, https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/05/politics/anita-hill-joe-biden-voting/index.html
David Benfell, [Twitter thread], Thread Reader App, September 5, 2020, https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1302274314578821123
Archived at 2020-09-05 12:00:30
5 Sep, 2 tweets, 2 min read
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1/2 #LibertarianSocialism, in contrast to #CapitalistLibertarianism, sees both economic and political authority as problematic. It does not necessary treat them as illegitimate, as #anarchism would.
Uh…. I'm a libertarian socialist. Not sure if it's seen as negative on the left of not but to me it's just anti-authoritarian socialism. Maybe I'm mistaken?
— Jaybefaunt🌹🌻🌈♋ (@Jaybefaunt) September 5, 2020
2/2 #CapitalistLibertarianism, sees only political authority as problematic.
#Anarchocapitalism sees political authority as illegitimate.
Neither of these have any difficulty with *economic* authority whatsoever.
Kery Murakami, “Fauci Urges Colleges Not to Send Students Home,” Inside Higher Ed, September 4, 2020, https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2020/09/04/fauci-urges-colleges-not-send-students-home
It appears the shooter in Portland[1] was a Leftist. In a National Public Radio article, he is being cast as possibly having mental health issues. The victim in that shooting has been identified as Aaron Danielson; the suspect, Michael Reinoehl, died in a volley of, according to people nearby, forty to fifty shots, as “four officers from three different jurisdictions fired weapons” when Reinoehl allegedly produced a weapon,[2] raising the specter of suicide by cop, assuming even that he did indeed brandish that weapon.[3]
Why aren’t the Portland Police ARRESTING the cold blooded killer of Aaron “Jay” Danielson. Do your job, and do it fast. Everybody knows who this thug is. No wonder Portland is going to hell! @TheJusticeDept @FBI
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 4, 2020
US Marshalls offed him minutes after Trump's tweet. Very effective, in my opinion.
— Theo West (@theodwest) September 4, 2020
That cops are poorly prepared to deal with mental health issues is an argument for abolishing or defunding the police.[4]
Conrad Wilson and Kimberley Freda, “Suspect In Fatal Shooting Of Portland Right-Wing Protester Killed By Law Enforcement,” National Public Radio, September 4, 2020, https://www.npr.org/2020/09/04/909515885/protester-suspected-in-portland-shooting-death-killed-by-law-enforcement
There is a new blog post entitled, “Ice cream and hair appointments.”
Tal Kopan and Rachel Swan, “Nancy Pelosi calls salon visit a ‘setup,’ refuses to apologize,” San Francisco Chronicle, September 2, 2020, https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/Speaker-Pelosi-calls-salon-visit-a-set-up-15538247.php
Marianne Levine, “Schumer rips ’emaciated’ Republican coronavirus relief plan,” Politico, September 3, 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/03/coronavirus-relief-plan-chuck-schumer-407974
