Thursday 3 August 2017

donbass

Disconcertingly the Russian prime minister has issued a statement in reaction to Dear Leader’s reluctant signing into law a bill continuing sanctions against Russia, North Korea and Iran (Dear Leader had reservation because he believed that Congress was undermining his executive authority and as a businessman who founded a company worth many billions, he was far more qualified than the legislative branch to negotiate a deal with foreign powers) that characterises the decision as a trade-war.
Dear Leader could have tried vetoing the bill but given almost universal bipartisan support to levy the embargo, which began in 2014 in response to the annexation of the Crimea, but that would have been even more damning confirmation of collusion and there was support enough to overturn any attempts to block its passage. The previous US administration expelled dozens of Russian diplomats and commandeered some of their property holdings that weren’t accorded extraterritorial status, but at the time, the Russian response was not symmetrical or immediate. Instead, Russia barred US citizens from adopting Russian orphans, ostensibly, over gay marriage—with adoption understood as code for sanctions throughout. Just now, the American mission to Moscow is being told to reduce staffing by half and its properties are being seized. The continued embargo foremost jeopardises the profitability of the Russian energy sector by making it harder to seek investors and business partners for its natural gas pipeline to western Europe. The broadly accepted narrative holds that Russia was motivated to interfere with the US presidential election with an aggressive social media campaign of sophistry to make Dear Leader appear to be the more palatable alternative.

Wednesday 2 August 2017

conjuring

It’s always frustrating when I go to download an episode of Fresh Air with Terry Gross and end up summoning a demon. Is anyone else experiencing this? After this opening interlude, the show proceeded as normal—and we suspect that the currently available version has been duly exorcised—and was a really good one, in fact, with a profile of the performer and composer behind the quite timely School House Rock! number “I’m Just a Bill” and a captivating deconstruction of The Doors’ “Light my Fire.”

common parlance or twenty-three and me

My Modern Met shares an engrossing graphical representation from National Geographic’s senior editor that depicts the distribution and relative population size of the world’s twenty-three most spoken languages with a format of immediacy that teases out some interesting demographics and linguistic trivia. The criteria for inclusion was languages whose speakers numbered fifty million or above—and leaves out the over seven thousand extant minority ones. One fact that always strikes me is how a handful of majority languages are self-contained—like Japanese or Telugu—but others have broader representation. Acquaint yourself with more facts about language and the legend of the chart at the link up top.

that’s kind of a downer


Via Waxy, we’re acquainted with Inspirobot, whose purpose is to supply “unlimited amounts of unique inspirational quotes for the endless enrichment of otherwise pointless human existence,” and while the de-motivational posters the algorithm generates are not that dark—at least from a cursory interaction—I think we are privileged witnesses to the moment when the robots just took away the jobs of those seemingly employed to disseminate similarly snarky (or well-intended) content on social media. I’m guessing that the genuinely inspiring might present more of a challenge to construct but possibly not. Hang in there, baby!


Tuesday 1 August 2017

5x5

honest trailer: funny property dedicated to celebrating the archness of paperback cover art, via Messy Nessy Chic

yลkai: imaginative illustrations of demon haunted foods, the same supernatural beings that inform the Pokรฉdex but are distinct from tsukumogami

lollunteer: more profiles of the new activists

i fought the law: interesting photography project representing bizarre laws on the books in each of the fifty United States

bitรฉlรฉphone: Monsieur Ernest Mercadier invented the earbud in 1891

epigenesis or hms ctenophore

ร†on magazine may be sending us the inaugural dispatches from a new frontier in our understanding of life on Earth and beyond having seemingly discovered that “shadow biosphere” that they’ve pondered about before with an in depth look at the unique and alien ctenophore.
Ranging back to the realisation of a marine biologist of Russian extraction at a harbour in Maine in 1995 to the acceptance by the scientific community about how profoundly different that these creatures—once dismissed as weird jellyfish—are. The creatures glide along with the currents, powered by multiple ridges of cilia (the only non-microscopic animal to do so) like a galley propelled by oarsmen and are voracious and efficient hunters with a unique method of capturing prey with comb-like tentacles and though they are part of the part of the same great chain of being and have the same basic DNA structure as other animals, their cobweb-like brains rely on chemical transmitters shared with no others. The fact that evolution on Earth could accommodate such departures and convergence could help inform and guide the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence and not overlook Nature’s resourcefulness.

probationary period or modern day presidential

Though no administration is free of palace intrigues and in-fighting, we don’t believe that America has ever suffered the likes of the court of Dear Leader—especially considering how the Republican party ostensibly holds nominal control of both houses of the US congress and White House but can only boast the passing of one major piece of legislation:
maintaining punitive sanctions against Russia paradoxically for its role in helping Dear Leader. Perhaps the histrionics of the moment are just that—not to accord these times and such deportment as anything approaching normal and not retrograde, and just a periodic aberration—it is notable nonetheless that creatures of the court can elicit some sympathy in the eyes of the public for their ordeals because of the fact they are working (or rather maneuvering since nothing beneficial is getting accomplished) in such a toxic environment and for such a garbage boss.  Their fate, however, is deserved for allying with Dear Leader not with the intent to work to preserve the dignity of the office that serves at the will and pleasure of the people but rather to enrich their own self-interests.