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June 29, 2016

Media Failure to Examine Brexit Thoughtfully

This will make fnord12 happy - a Brexit discussion that doesn't oversimplify the argument to "ignorant xenophobia". But it's Glenn Greenwald, so in the end, no one will be happy.

Media reaction to the Brexit vote falls into two general categories: (1) earnest, candid attempts to understand what motivated voters to make this choice, even if that means indicting their own establishment circles, and (2) petulant, self-serving, simple-minded attacks on disobedient pro-Leave voters for being primitive, xenophobic bigots (and stupid to boot), all to evade any reckoning with their own responsibility. Virtually every reaction that falls into the former category emphasizes the profound failures of Western establishment factions; these institutions have spawned pervasive misery and inequality, only to spew condescending scorn at their victims when they object.

The Los Angeles Times's Vincent Bevins, in an outstanding and concise analysis, wrote that "both Brexit and Trumpism are the very, very wrong answers to legitimate questions that urban elites have refused to ask for 30 years"; in particular, "since the 1980s the elites in rich countries have overplayed their hand, taking all the gains for themselves and just covering their ears when anyone else talks, and now they are watching in horror as voters revolt." The British journalist Tom Ewing, in a comprehensive Brexit explanation, said the same dynamic driving the U.K. vote prevails in Europe and North America as well: "the arrogance of neoliberal elites in constructing a politics designed to sideline and work around democracy while leaving democracy formally intact."

In an interview with the New Statesman, the political philosopher Michael Sandel also said that the dynamics driving the pro-Brexit sentiment were now dominant throughout the West generally: "A large constituency of working-class voters feel that not only has the economy left them behind, but so has the culture, that the sources of their dignity, the dignity of labor, have been eroded and mocked by developments with globalization, the rise of finance, the attention that is lavished by parties across the political spectrum on economic and financial elites, the technocratic emphasis of the established political parties." After the market-venerating radicalism of Reagan and Thatcher, he said, "the center left" -- Blair and Clinton and various European parties -- "managed to regain political office but failed to reimagine the mission and purpose of social democracy, which ­became empty and obsolete."


By min | June 29, 2016, 12:56 PM | Liberal Outrage | Comments (6) | Link



Yeah, that's what we mean by "rocks"

Well then you suddenly got a lot less interesting, Mr. Joe Cool Dinosaur. And what's with the bait and switch? You're obviously eating some kind of actual rock thing in the first two panels, and then suddenly you're handing out poor man's gummie fruit candies. In 5 awesome fruit flavors, all distinguishable only by the finest of palates, since they're all apparently purple.

One thing that is historically accurate is that in the 90s there were so many dinosaurs going around in letter jackets that they were only interesting if they had unusual diets and/or handed out candy.


By fnord12 | June 29, 2016, 10:53 AM | Comics | Comments (2) | Link



June 28, 2016

Who Would You Choose to Save?

Link

A self-driving car carrying a family of four on a rural two-lane highway spots a bouncing ball ahead. As the vehicle approaches a child runs out to retrieve the ball. Should the car risk its passengers' lives by swerving to the side--where the edge of the road meets a steep cliff? Or should the car continue on its path, ensuring its passengers' safety at the child's expense? This scenario and many others pose moral and ethical dilemmas that carmakers, car buyers and regulators must address before vehicles should be given full autonomy, according to a study published Thursday in Science.

The study highlights paradoxes facing carmakers, car buyers and regulators as driverless technology accelerates. Most of the 1,928 research participants in the Science report indicated that they believed vehicles should be programmed to crash into something rather than run over pedestrians, even if that meant killing the vehicle's passengers.

...

Yet many of the same study participants balked at the idea of buying such a vehicle, preferring to ride in a driverless car that prioritizes their own safety above that of pedestrians.

Ofc. "Who cares about some random kid? Save me!" People are great.


By min | June 28, 2016, 9:45 AM | Science | Comments (6) | Link



Autochthonous

autochthonous [aw-tok-thuh-nuhs]


-adj


  1. aboriginal; indigenous
  2. of or relating to ideas that arise independently of the individual's own train of thought and seem instead to have some alien or external agency as their source
  3. (of rocks, minerals, etc.) formed in the region where found



By min | June 28, 2016, 9:21 AM | Good Words| Link



June 21, 2016

Oh... it's over?

We enjoyed Netflix's Voltron despite the fact that they only say "And I'll form... the head!" once the entire season (and mostly as a joke). But i do agree with this from IGN's review (warning: video will autoplay):

It's also worth mentioning that Legendary Defender is tailor-made for binge-watching, and feels less like a TV show and more like one, big movie. Like a lot of Netflix Original Series, Voltron's episodes don't really have "endings"; they just kind of stop and go into the next one, which really makes the season fly by. Unfortunately, that's also a byproduct of the finale, which cuts off right in the middle of a big action scene. The ending is so jarring, in fact, that I had to double-check to make sure it was the last episode...

I've been thinking a lot about how decompression has increasingly affected television the way it's already affected comic books, and we now seem to be a post-season finale society, where the final episode of a season doesn't necessarily have to result in a climax or, in this case, even really feel like an ending at all. Unlike, say, Walking Dead, the Voltron series did have an actual plot each episode, so the fact that the season ends on a cliffhanger doesn't feel like as much of a cheat as shows like, again, Walking Dead, where things only seem to happen in the first and last episodes and things still end on a cliffhanger.


By fnord12 | June 21, 2016, 9:58 AM | TeeVee | Comments (1) | Link



Cheese 3-PO

C-3PO's tell-all memoir about the prequels is out:


By fnord12 | June 21, 2016, 9:45 AM | Star Wars| Link



Feminist Frequency - Lingerie is Not Armor

Just yes to all of this.

And not just in video games. Fnord12 and i just watched the Batman: Assault on Arkham animated movie and the outfits for Harley Quinn and Killer Frost were ridiculous when compared to what the male team members were wearing. An acquaintance tried to make the argument that they needed to be half undressed for ease of movement. Right. Because Deadshot and the Black Spider didn't also rely on agility. And that's in addition to the plan that for some reason required Killer Frost to be nude from the waist up and the various shots of both women from behind as they employed extra hip movement to their walk. There's a FemFreq video on that, too, btw.


By min | June 21, 2016, 8:52 AM | Comics & TeeVee & Video Games | Comments (3) | Link



Action Figures Nobody Wanted

They made a special edition Walking Dead 2-pack of Negan and Glenn which includes a "Smashed Glenn head".

Why? WHY???


By min | June 21, 2016, 8:47 AM | Comics| Link



June 8, 2016

Thank you Bernie


By fnord12 | June 8, 2016, 11:10 AM | Liberal Outrage| Link



June 3, 2016

Hoorayyyyyyy!!!


By fnord12 | June 3, 2016, 12:28 PM | My stupid life & TeeVee| Link



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