A brief history of 80 years of radio station ID jingles. “We pack in so many earworms, you’re going to need an exterminator.” On the Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast.
Instead of defending American consumers and small businesses, Trump and his allies are going after the imaginary threats of “wokeness” and DEI.
Trump will prosecute predatory businesses, but only those who oppose him. Businesses that support Trump will be free to lie, cheat and steal.
Cory Doctorow has more.
Washington Democrats feel like they need to be less antagonistic to Trump this time around, lest they appear “shrill” and “cringe.”
Are you fucking kidding me?
Democats say they need a better messaging strategy. They think they should have more moments like a viral video during the pandemic of Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) making a tuna melt.
Are you fucking kidding me? Tuna melt?
Washington Democrats don’t need a messaging strategy. They need spines.
Me clicking on a restaurant website: I wonder when they’re open and what they serve
Restaurant website: O U R M I S S I O N
Glad to hear that ActivityPub support is still in the pipeline for Tumblr. It’s a little thing, but it’s a bright spot in an otherwise shit week.
AI business leaders are talking about “AI workers” and “AI employees.” But artificial intelligences aren’t people — they’re machines. Calling them workers or employees sets up further exploitation of actual, human workers.
Also:
Across America, CEOs are ordering their workers to experiment with AI, while workers are googling “how do I turn Copilot off?”
Save your outrage: Elon Musk’s inauguration salute is just another distracting meme . The new administration will bring four years of far more important battles.
Jan. 20 was a day as historic as the fall of the USSR. As Ezra Klein says: It wasn’t just a change of administration — it was a regime change.
Now what?
The national Democratic Party is still playing by the pre-2025 rules. Bipartisanship, coalition-building, winning the votes of persuadable Republicans. That won’t work anymore. The national Democratic Party needs to wake the fuck up.
Being a person with deadly, incurable cancer who is nonetheless still alive for an indefinite timeframe gives me an interesting metaphor that helps me deal with things like large-scale corruption in government or commerce.
So, there are times when I need to pay attention to the cancer, like, when I have to go to doctor’s appointments, take a medication on time, or make choices regarding self-care to increase my quality of life. But when I am not doing those things, thinking about the cancer is actively harmful.
There are moments when I feel okay, and my daughter wants to play a video game with me. Or I have the chance to see a cool movie, or the urge to write a story. I cannot do these things if I am paralyzed with horror and dismay thinking in detail about what’s happening in my body.
I am blessed with good health, but this is how I think about Trump 2.0. I do a bit of volunteer work for the local Democratic Party. I try to spend an appropriate amount of time on news and social media — but no more than appropriate. And otherwise, I get on with life.
Rebuilding the U.S. is going to be a long process. I probably will not live to see the end of it. Outrage is exhausting, and exhaustion is another form of defeat.
Jeff Bezos is the autocrat of trade that John Sherman warned us about, 135 years ago. And Kier Starmer just abdicated in his favour.