Donald Trump
Coup attempt
There is a new blog post entitled, “Keeping it real.”
Jon Allsop, “The January 6 hearing and the value of spectacle,” Columbia Journalism Review, June 10, 2022, https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/january_6_committee_hearing_media.php
Harold Meyerson, “All Roads Lead to Trump,” American Prospect, June 10, 2022, https://prospect.org/politics/all-roads-lead-to-trump-january-6th-hearing/
Privacy
It looks like Chromium-based browsers, including Google Chrome, may soon stop supporting the Ghostery ad blocking extension. AdBlock Plus will continue to work. Firefox will continue to support Ghostery.[1]
Historically, I’ve relied on AdBlock Plus and Ghostery, but these days, I rely principally on AdGuard, which requires a paid subscription. It operates on two levels. One is a program that runs apart from your browser, protecting your system and you from ads and tracking. The other is with a browser extension. I use both levels of AdGuard and implement the VPN feature that, as I understand it, reroutes browser and browser-like traffic within your system to the system-wide program.
My experience with Firefox has that it fails with some Google tools, like Google Docs, which for me are now (not when I was a student, but now) sufficient for my word processing and spreadsheet needs, so I haven’t been able to eliminate Chrome entirely, but Firefox is now my default browser. (I’m not a Reddit fan, but this thread seems to match even my more recent experience.)
On Mac OS, I’m able to use Mimestream for Gmail, so most links I click in email still open in Firefox. I still have a tab open for Gmail in Chrome, but I use this principally with Google Tasks and to add filtering rules. Mimestream is now free in beta; it will eventually cost money.
I have no recent experience with Thunderbird but historically, it was possible to use this with Gmail on Windows and Linux systems.
Corin Faife, “Firefox and Chrome are squaring off over ad-blocker extensions,” Verge, June 10, 2022, https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/10/23131029/mozilla-ad-blocking-firefox-google-chrome-privacy-manifest-v3-web-request
Ukraine
The Polish president, Andrzej Duda, has harshly criticized France and Germany for continuing to attempt diplomacy with Vladimir Putin. From what I can see Duda is largely right, though perhaps overstating the matter a bit:
“Did anyone speak like this with Adolf Hitler during World War II?” [Andrzej] Duda said.
“Did anyone say that Adolf Hitler must save face? That we should proceed in such a way that it is not humiliating for Adolf Hitler? I have not heard such voices,” he continued.
Duda argued that such conversations achieve nothing and “only bring about a legitimization of a person who is responsible for the crimes the Russian army is committing in Ukraine.”[2]
Duda’s argument[3] appears broadly consistent with Julia Ioffe’s.[4]
French President Emmanuel Macron has insisted that the West must not “humiliate” Russia,[5] and:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky criticized [Emmanuel] Macron’s remarks, reportedly saying earlier this week: “I do not really understand what is humiliating Russia. Are we talking about the fact that for eight years they have been killing Ukrainians?”[6]
I do not see that the French and German efforts can be productive. Putin lives in his own set of delusions and it is clear that this has not changed[7] since before the war.[8] To the extent that diplomacy, even if futile, is not in itself capitulation, I am not seeing that what is reported of the conversations[9] is harmful.
But Ioffe’s portrait of Putin’s childhood[10] leaves little doubt that Macron is wrong, that Putin must indeed be humiliated, as this is the only language the bully will understand.
Times of Israel, “Polish president compares Putin to Hitler, slams France, Germany for talking to him,” June 10, 2022, https://www.timesofisrael.com/polish-president-compares-putin-to-hitler-slams-france-germany-for-talking-to-him/
Electric vehicles
Joe Biden’s order requiring public, as in really public, charging stations every fifty miles is good news but it apparently only applies to the Interstate Highway system,[11] and thus omits cities like Fresno, California, which, believe it or not, is not served by an Interstate Highway.
There remain two problems: First, it takes time to recharge a battery, much longer than filling a gas tank. And second, because of that time requirement, even with high availability of charging stations, an electric car’s daily range remains practically constrained to far less than that of a gasoline-powered car.
Biden’s order is important. But it’s still not a substitute for improvements, which I’m reasonably confident are forthcoming, in battery technology.
Michael Collins, “Biden to require electric vehicle charging stations every 50 miles on federal highways,” USA Today, June 9, 2022, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/06/09/electric-vehicles-biden-charging-stations-every-50-miles/7561566001/
White Christian nationalism (Trumpism)
Megan Guza, “Mt. Lebanon mothers sue school district, teacher over gender identity lessons,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, https://triblive.com/local/mt-lebanon-mothers-sue-school-district-teacher-over-gender-identity-lessons/
Pittsburgh
Unauthorized violence
Megan Guza, “Pittsburgh leaders brace for busy weekend amid ongoing violence,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, June 10, 2022, https://triblive.com/local/pittsburgh-leaders-brace-for-busy-weekend-amid-ongoing-violence/
Megan Tomasic, “Police: Man shot to death in Pittsburgh’s Knoxville neighborhood during dispute,” Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, June 10, 2022, https://triblive.com/local/police-man-shot-to-death-in-pittsburghs-knoxville-neighborhood-during-a-dispute/
Inflation
I don’t know if we’re going into a recession or not. What I can say is that since worries about the economy kicked into overdrive, I’d say about three weeks ago, I’ve seen a marked change and decrease in my business as an Uber driver. I don’t know how much inflation is really hurting people but I think I am seeing decreased business especially, but not exclusively, in poor neighborhoods. In some ways, it’s feeling like it’s back to what it was like pre-pandemic: There are often intervals between the orders I receive; I may wait quite some time for my first order of the day.
I can’t say it’s killing me yet, but it is impacting the progress I’d hoped to make financially this year.
- [1]Corin Faife, “Firefox and Chrome are squaring off over ad-blocker extensions,” Verge, June 10, 2022, https://www.theverge.com/2022/6/10/23131029/mozilla-ad-blocking-firefox-google-chrome-privacy-manifest-v3-web-request↩
- [2]Times of Israel, “Polish president compares Putin to Hitler, slams France, Germany for talking to him,” June 10, 2022, https://www.timesofisrael.com/polish-president-compares-putin-to-hitler-slams-france-germany-for-talking-to-him/↩
- [3]Times of Israel, “Polish president compares Putin to Hitler, slams France, Germany for talking to him,” June 10, 2022, https://www.timesofisrael.com/polish-president-compares-putin-to-hitler-slams-france-germany-for-talking-to-him/↩
- [4]Julia Ioffe, “The Case Against Appeasement,” Puck News, June 7, 2022, https://puck.news/the-case-against-appeasement/↩
- [5]Julia Ioffe, “The Case Against Appeasement,” Puck News, June 7, 2022, https://puck.news/the-case-against-appeasement/↩
- [6]Times of Israel, “Polish president compares Putin to Hitler, slams France, Germany for talking to him,” June 10, 2022, https://www.timesofisrael.com/polish-president-compares-putin-to-hitler-slams-france-germany-for-talking-to-him/↩
- [7]Julian O’Shaughnessy, “I’m reconquering just like Peter the Great, insists Vladimir Putin,” Times, June 10, 2022, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/president-putin-creates-police-department-to-impose-martial-law-xqhlt79fn; Reuters, “Hailing Peter the Great, Putin draws parallel with mission to ‘return’ Russian lands,” June 9, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/hailing-peter-great-putin-draws-parallel-with-mission-return-russian-lands-2022-06-09/↩
- [8]David Benfell, “Vladimir Putin is a fool,” Not Housebroken, May 18, 2022, https://disunitedstates.org/2022/01/24/vladimir-putin-is-a-fool/↩
- [9]Times of Israel, “Polish president compares Putin to Hitler, slams France, Germany for talking to him,” June 10, 2022, https://www.timesofisrael.com/polish-president-compares-putin-to-hitler-slams-france-germany-for-talking-to-him/↩
- [10]Julia Ioffe, “About a Boy: The Roots of Putin’s Evil,” Puck News, May 10, 2022, https://puck.news/about-a-boy-the-roots-of-putins-evil/↩
- [11]Michael Collins, “Biden to require electric vehicle charging stations every 50 miles on federal highways,” USA Today, June 9, 2022, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2022/06/09/electric-vehicles-biden-charging-stations-every-50-miles/7561566001/↩