Another week, another inexplicable sequence of events in Trump’s hellworld America.
Here are some things to think about when it comes to the president: Trump will probably be impeached, but that might not matter. Trump is really stupid, but if you want to get rid of him, it’s going to cost you.
One other point. Is it resonating with anyone else that storied U.S. publications like the New Yorker are writing ledes of this nature now on a somewhat regular basis?
At a time like this, it is important to express things plainly. On Tuesday evening, Donald Trump acted like a despot.
There seems to be a growing disconnect between what sane people see as a rapid and terrible erosion of basic checks and balances in the U.S. government, and what those on the Right see as acceptable behavior. If I were a member of any part of the GOP that legitimately gives a shit about America (do they exist?), I would be speaking out loudly and clearly against all of this rot. But it’s obvious now that most Republicans care about only one thing — at the expense of our democracy I guess — which is staying in power.
Here’s a good example of how totally backwards the Right is at this moment: a march (with torches and all) held this weekend by neo-nazis who were chanting in support of racist Confederate monuments... and Russia (the uninspired “Russia is our friend” mating call is wonderful evidence of their deep lack of creativity).
Is this what Trump’s “populist base” voted for? I doubt it. How we doing on those steel mill jobs?
Elsewhere
This week also brought a wave of “WannaCrypt” ransomware attacks to systems worldwide, including (but not limited to) many hospital computers in England’s NHS network. The attack was thwarted in an ingenious manner by a single researcher, and reading his play-by-play of how this discovery and “sinkholing” of the malware went down is nothing short of thrilling.
.@malwareunicorn This is the reason infections are dropping off - it contained a kill switch, that was activated before US woke up. NEW propagation = dead. pic.twitter.com/l4VKZ45kq7
— Kevin Beaumont (@GossiTheDog) May 12, 2017
For the first time ever, The New York Times has done a print-only kids edition... and it’s fresh as hell. As far as I’m concerned, the paper (and its website) would be greatly improved by applying a similar aesthetic across the board. But that’s one man’s opinion.
Be sure to pick up the @nytimes tomorrow for our first-ever print only KIDS SECTION. Here's a sneak preview: pic.twitter.com/zyWIRToWk6
— NYT Magazine (@NYTmag) May 13, 2017
This story from Gizmodo about how we talk and think about bodies in relation to scientific progress is a really great read. People have made a habit of conflating the functions of digital systems and physical systems, even though the reality is that the two are disparate and highly incompatible in most cases. Don’t believe the hype.
GQ keeps talking about how The Rock should be president. But that’s probably because The Rock keeps talking about how he should be president. It’s been going on a while now. Guess what? He’s probably going to run.
Finally
This video is incredible.
And here are two wonderful images I discovered on Tumblr recently:
And hey! Happy Mother’s Day!
