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Celerity
Celerity's Journal
Celerity's Journal
December 24, 2021
It remains wild that there is still, to this day, a concerted effort to suggest that the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 was somehow not directly a function of President Donald Trump and his supporters. It’s not as though there were four guys wearing generic street clothes who snuck into the Capitol. There were hundreds from a sea of thousands, people bedecked in gear with Trump’s name and slogans all over it. Those subsequently arrested for their involvement in the violence have repeatedly identified Trump’s rhetoric as the impetus, in case anyone might somehow not have connected the then-president’s false claims about the election and his exhortations to show up in Washington that day to what followed.
Yet Trump and his allies still try. They still lift up small pieces of the day and declare them to be suspicious, from unidentified individuals mentioned in court filings to people later revealed to be exactly who they appeared to be. The idea isn’t to inform but to mislead and to distract. The idea is to distance Trump from the violence by suggesting that it had some non-obvious catalyst, like trying to argue that it was the metal used in the mooring tower that caused the Hindenburg to explode and not the combination of location and hydrogen. In the past week or two, Trumpworld has coalesced around a different element of the day’s events as a way to blame outside influence for what followed: the pipe bombs left outside of the Democratic and Republican Party headquarters the night before.
There was Tucker Carlson on his Fox News show last week, suggesting that the House select committee investigating the violence that day was somehow avoiding looking at the attempting bombing, insisting that they — “They” — had “stopped talking about this person.” There was Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), tweeting something similar on Wednesday evening. “A person placing pipe bombs at the RNC and the DNC was targeting both political parties the night before the J6 Capitol riot,” she wrote, elevating a tweet from right-wing activist Jack Posobiec echoing Carlson’s claim. “Those should be the phone records subpoenaed. Why don’t they care about the pipe bomber?”
https://twitter.com/mtgreenee/status/1473870312093720577
And then there was Trump himself, speaking to right-wing media personality Candace Owens. She began the interview by raising the same idea. “Everybody talks about January 6th,” Owens said. “I actually want to talk about January 5th.” She claimed that the FBI “has showed us a couple of stills of those individuals” and that Carlson and podcast host Joe Rogan had proven that the FBI was involved in encouraging violence on Jan. 6, which is not true both in the senses that no such thing was proven and that there’s no evidence that it’s provable. But Trump, obviously understanding the utility of having others be blamed for the violence, took the bait. ....
snip
Trumpland has a new favorite Jan. 6 conspiracy theory (pipe bomber)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/12/23/trumpland-has-new-favorite-jan-6-conspiracy-theory/It remains wild that there is still, to this day, a concerted effort to suggest that the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6 was somehow not directly a function of President Donald Trump and his supporters. It’s not as though there were four guys wearing generic street clothes who snuck into the Capitol. There were hundreds from a sea of thousands, people bedecked in gear with Trump’s name and slogans all over it. Those subsequently arrested for their involvement in the violence have repeatedly identified Trump’s rhetoric as the impetus, in case anyone might somehow not have connected the then-president’s false claims about the election and his exhortations to show up in Washington that day to what followed.
Yet Trump and his allies still try. They still lift up small pieces of the day and declare them to be suspicious, from unidentified individuals mentioned in court filings to people later revealed to be exactly who they appeared to be. The idea isn’t to inform but to mislead and to distract. The idea is to distance Trump from the violence by suggesting that it had some non-obvious catalyst, like trying to argue that it was the metal used in the mooring tower that caused the Hindenburg to explode and not the combination of location and hydrogen. In the past week or two, Trumpworld has coalesced around a different element of the day’s events as a way to blame outside influence for what followed: the pipe bombs left outside of the Democratic and Republican Party headquarters the night before.
There was Tucker Carlson on his Fox News show last week, suggesting that the House select committee investigating the violence that day was somehow avoiding looking at the attempting bombing, insisting that they — “They” — had “stopped talking about this person.” There was Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), tweeting something similar on Wednesday evening. “A person placing pipe bombs at the RNC and the DNC was targeting both political parties the night before the J6 Capitol riot,” she wrote, elevating a tweet from right-wing activist Jack Posobiec echoing Carlson’s claim. “Those should be the phone records subpoenaed. Why don’t they care about the pipe bomber?”
https://twitter.com/mtgreenee/status/1473870312093720577
And then there was Trump himself, speaking to right-wing media personality Candace Owens. She began the interview by raising the same idea. “Everybody talks about January 6th,” Owens said. “I actually want to talk about January 5th.” She claimed that the FBI “has showed us a couple of stills of those individuals” and that Carlson and podcast host Joe Rogan had proven that the FBI was involved in encouraging violence on Jan. 6, which is not true both in the senses that no such thing was proven and that there’s no evidence that it’s provable. But Trump, obviously understanding the utility of having others be blamed for the violence, took the bait. ....
snip
December 24, 2021
In basically every major institution in America, there are powerful figures who I doubt voted for Donald Trump but nonetheless play down the radicalism of the Republican Party, belittle those who speak honestly about it or otherwise act in ways that make it harder to combat that radicalism. That needs to change. Americans desperately need leaders and institutions that are fully grappling with Republicans’ dangerous anti-democratic drift.
In tech, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg have fought efforts to get right-wing misinformation and conspiracy theories off their platform. On the Supreme Court, Justice Stephen G. Breyer dismisses the (accurate) contention that the court has been captured by a group of conservative justices who are essentially Republican partisans. In the legal world, Harvard Law professor Noah Feldman and former acting Obama solicitor general Neal Katyal wrote fawning articles during the confirmations of Trump Supreme Court nominees who have since helped gut the Voting Rights Act and defend GOP moves to make it harder to vote.
example:
On Capitol Hill, Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) have cast liberal critics of the filibuster as overly partisan even as state-level Republicans pass voting restrictions that Democrats can’t override without ending the filibuster. In the media, journalists like NBC’s Chuck Todd and outlets such as Politico at times treat calls to rethink how the media covers politics as demands for it to cheerlead for Democrats.
It’s entirely possible for someone to like the legal positions of Trump’s Supreme Court nominees or think that Republican lawmakers were correct to vote to disqualify the election results in certain states. But there is no indication that those I list above actually hold those views. So why this posture? Some of it is probably about career and financial incentives. Since the media prizes neutrality and counterintuitive views, Democrats who defend Republicans or cast other Democrats as alarmists get op-eds published in major papers and land on big news shows. Facebook won’t make as much money if Republicans abandon the platform, creating obvious incentives to appease the right.
snip
The problem with performative centrism
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/23/problem-with-performance-centrism/In basically every major institution in America, there are powerful figures who I doubt voted for Donald Trump but nonetheless play down the radicalism of the Republican Party, belittle those who speak honestly about it or otherwise act in ways that make it harder to combat that radicalism. That needs to change. Americans desperately need leaders and institutions that are fully grappling with Republicans’ dangerous anti-democratic drift.
In tech, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg have fought efforts to get right-wing misinformation and conspiracy theories off their platform. On the Supreme Court, Justice Stephen G. Breyer dismisses the (accurate) contention that the court has been captured by a group of conservative justices who are essentially Republican partisans. In the legal world, Harvard Law professor Noah Feldman and former acting Obama solicitor general Neal Katyal wrote fawning articles during the confirmations of Trump Supreme Court nominees who have since helped gut the Voting Rights Act and defend GOP moves to make it harder to vote.
example:
On Capitol Hill, Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.) have cast liberal critics of the filibuster as overly partisan even as state-level Republicans pass voting restrictions that Democrats can’t override without ending the filibuster. In the media, journalists like NBC’s Chuck Todd and outlets such as Politico at times treat calls to rethink how the media covers politics as demands for it to cheerlead for Democrats.
It’s entirely possible for someone to like the legal positions of Trump’s Supreme Court nominees or think that Republican lawmakers were correct to vote to disqualify the election results in certain states. But there is no indication that those I list above actually hold those views. So why this posture? Some of it is probably about career and financial incentives. Since the media prizes neutrality and counterintuitive views, Democrats who defend Republicans or cast other Democrats as alarmists get op-eds published in major papers and land on big news shows. Facebook won’t make as much money if Republicans abandon the platform, creating obvious incentives to appease the right.
snip
December 24, 2021
Benjamin Mendy, Man City footballer charged w/ another rape now faces 7 rape counts, 1 sex assault
https://twitter.com/BBCNWT/status/1473612864158113801
December 24, 2021
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/23/world/canada/indigenous-water-lawsuit.html
https://archive.ph/OWOnT
TORONTO — The Federal Court of Canada approved a multi-billion-dollar legal settlement that requires the government to take swifter action to clean up contaminated drinking water on Indigenous reserves and to compensate First Nations for the decades they have gone without access to clean water.
Under the settlement, released by the court late Wednesday, the government will commit to spend at least 6 billion Canadian dollars over nine years to fund water infrastructure and operations on hundreds of reserves, and will pay 1.5 billion dollars in damages to about 140,000 Indigenous people.
In a year that has seen the discoveries of hundreds of unmarked graves of Indigenous children on the grounds of former residential schools, the approval of the settlement is another episode in Canada’s reckoning with the vestiges of colonialism.
Since 1977, the government has been promising to provide Indigenous reserves with water and wastewater systems equal to those enjoyed by most Canadians, but has fallen short of the goal and, in March, missed a deadline imposed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
snip
Canada to Pay Billions to Indigenous Groups for Tainted Drinking Water
A court-approved settlement will compensate Indigenous people for the decades that many have lived with dirty water, and will also fund the clean up.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/23/world/canada/indigenous-water-lawsuit.html
https://archive.ph/OWOnT
TORONTO — The Federal Court of Canada approved a multi-billion-dollar legal settlement that requires the government to take swifter action to clean up contaminated drinking water on Indigenous reserves and to compensate First Nations for the decades they have gone without access to clean water.
Under the settlement, released by the court late Wednesday, the government will commit to spend at least 6 billion Canadian dollars over nine years to fund water infrastructure and operations on hundreds of reserves, and will pay 1.5 billion dollars in damages to about 140,000 Indigenous people.
In a year that has seen the discoveries of hundreds of unmarked graves of Indigenous children on the grounds of former residential schools, the approval of the settlement is another episode in Canada’s reckoning with the vestiges of colonialism.
Since 1977, the government has been promising to provide Indigenous reserves with water and wastewater systems equal to those enjoyed by most Canadians, but has fallen short of the goal and, in March, missed a deadline imposed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
snip
December 24, 2021
Sydney Powell is under federal criminal investigation for her role in January 6th. Merry Christmas!
https://twitter.com/JillWineBanks/status/1474285235571511302
December 24, 2021
280 years ago, two Georgia dynasties, the forebears of Governor Brian Kemp and (defeated) Senator David Perdue, overcame George’s prohibition of slavery and convinced King George to grant them powers to bring Africans in chains to establish the plantation system.
Georgia is still a plantation state. But instead of the hanging rope, it’s lynching by laptop; though Brian Kemp has introduced much more direct means of terror, using the Georgia Bureau of investigation as a new voting KGB. I’m not exaggerating. Just give me two minutes and watch this: a preview of our new investigation and film series for 2022.
As CNN says, “Once again, it’s all down to Georgia.“ But we knew that eight years ago. That’s when Martin Luther King III asked me to investigate, “Why isn’t Georgia ‘blue’?“
The result: two Pulitzer Prize-nominated reports – and now this film and series of print, radio and web reports that will blow open the hidden, most vicious vote suppression tactics yet. Join us. Support us. Produce this film and reports. Keep our investigators on voting ground zero—and keep them safe.
snip
Georgia's Original Sin & the 2022 Secret Vote-Crushing Scheme: My Most Important Investigation Ever
https://www.gregpalast.com/georgias-original-sin-and-the-2022-secret-vote-crushing-scheme/280 years ago, two Georgia dynasties, the forebears of Governor Brian Kemp and (defeated) Senator David Perdue, overcame George’s prohibition of slavery and convinced King George to grant them powers to bring Africans in chains to establish the plantation system.
Georgia is still a plantation state. But instead of the hanging rope, it’s lynching by laptop; though Brian Kemp has introduced much more direct means of terror, using the Georgia Bureau of investigation as a new voting KGB. I’m not exaggerating. Just give me two minutes and watch this: a preview of our new investigation and film series for 2022.
As CNN says, “Once again, it’s all down to Georgia.“ But we knew that eight years ago. That’s when Martin Luther King III asked me to investigate, “Why isn’t Georgia ‘blue’?“
The result: two Pulitzer Prize-nominated reports – and now this film and series of print, radio and web reports that will blow open the hidden, most vicious vote suppression tactics yet. Join us. Support us. Produce this film and reports. Keep our investigators on voting ground zero—and keep them safe.
snip
December 24, 2021
A 10-metre-tall ficus tree grows through the centre of the living space in The Greenery, a farmhouse renovation and extension by studio Carlo Ratti Associati and architect Italo Rota in Italy. Located in the countryside outside Parma, the home was designed by Carlo Ratti Associati (CRA) and Italo Rota for Francesco Mutti, the CEO of tomato company Mutti.
Having already won an international competition in 2017 to redesign the Mutti factory, the architects were invited to design the CEO's "forever home" in a nearby farmhouse and granary. Named The Greenery – a combination of the words green and granary – the house is intended to "blur the boundaries between the natural and artificial". This led to the large ficus tree, named Alma, being installed in the farmhouse's new open-plan living space and kitchen.
"The 2oth-century Italian architect Carlo Scarpa once said, 'between a tree and a house, choose the tree'," explained CRA founder Carlo Ratti. "While I resonate with his sentiment, I think we can go a step further and put the two together," he continued. "The tree stands in a new weathered steel-topped extension that abuts the original farmhouse, sunk slightly into the ground and featuring a fully-glazed, south-facing wall and skylights."
Inside the living space, a weathered steel staircase leads around the tree to a series of landings above, which are enclosed by screens that create a play of light and views. Windows covered by perforated brick walls on either side of this room create a dappled pattern of light and shadow similar to that of the tree.
Carlo Ratti and Italo Rota design Italian home around ten-metre-tall tree
https://www.dezeen.com/2021/12/19/carlo-ratti-italo-rota-the-greenery-tree/A 10-metre-tall ficus tree grows through the centre of the living space in The Greenery, a farmhouse renovation and extension by studio Carlo Ratti Associati and architect Italo Rota in Italy. Located in the countryside outside Parma, the home was designed by Carlo Ratti Associati (CRA) and Italo Rota for Francesco Mutti, the CEO of tomato company Mutti.
Having already won an international competition in 2017 to redesign the Mutti factory, the architects were invited to design the CEO's "forever home" in a nearby farmhouse and granary. Named The Greenery – a combination of the words green and granary – the house is intended to "blur the boundaries between the natural and artificial". This led to the large ficus tree, named Alma, being installed in the farmhouse's new open-plan living space and kitchen.
"The 2oth-century Italian architect Carlo Scarpa once said, 'between a tree and a house, choose the tree'," explained CRA founder Carlo Ratti. "While I resonate with his sentiment, I think we can go a step further and put the two together," he continued. "The tree stands in a new weathered steel-topped extension that abuts the original farmhouse, sunk slightly into the ground and featuring a fully-glazed, south-facing wall and skylights."
Inside the living space, a weathered steel staircase leads around the tree to a series of landings above, which are enclosed by screens that create a play of light and views. Windows covered by perforated brick walls on either side of this room create a dappled pattern of light and shadow similar to that of the tree.
December 24, 2021
Receipts.
https://twitter.com/donwinslow/status/1474187727625097220
So after a three and a half year investigation Cyrus Vance leaves office without ever charging
Donald Trump. I dug this 2016 letter up from Vance to Trump. Pretty nice letter.Receipts.
https://twitter.com/donwinslow/status/1474187727625097220
December 23, 2021
A decade before Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, a tiny team of renegades imagined and tried to build the modern smartphone. Nearly forgotten by history, a little start-up called Handspring tried to make the future before it was ready. This is the story of the Treo.
Springboard: the secret history of the first real smartphone (Full Documentary)
A decade before Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, a tiny team of renegades imagined and tried to build the modern smartphone. Nearly forgotten by history, a little start-up called Handspring tried to make the future before it was ready. This is the story of the Treo.
December 22, 2021
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/21/health/covid-monoclonal-antibodies-omicron.html
Hospitals, drug companies and Biden administration officials are racing to address one of the Omicron variant’s biggest threats: Two of the three monoclonal antibody treatments that doctors have depended on to keep Covid-19 patients from becoming seriously ill do not appear to thwart the latest version of the coronavirus. The one such treatment that is still likely to work against Omicron is now so scarce that many doctors and hospitals have already run through their supplies.
Monoclonal antibodies have become a mainstay of Covid treatment, shown to be highly effective in keeping high-risk patients from being hospitalized. But even as infections surge and Omicron becomes the dominant form of new cases in the United States, some hospitals have begun scaling back the treatments, fearing they have become suddenly useless.
In New York, hospital administrators at NewYork-Presbyterian, N.Y.U. Langone and Mount Sinai all said in recent days that they would stop giving patients the two most commonly used antibody treatments, made by Eli Lilly and Regeneron, according to memos obtained by The Times and officials at the health systems.
“This is a dramatic change just in the last week or so,” said Dr. Daniel Griffin, an infectious disease specialist at Columbia University in New York. “And I think it makes sense.” The Omicron variant accounted for an estimated 73 percent of new cases in the United States last week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s up from just over 12 percent the week before.
snip
Sotrovimab, made by GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology is the only one that works
Eli Lilly and Regeneron are fails
DeathSentence's big FL Regeneron play is now in the dirt
Hospitals Scramble as Antibody Treatments Fail Against Omicron
The single remaining monoclonal antibody therapy effective against the variant is now in short supply in the U.S., imperiling an option that doctors and hospitals have relied on.https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/21/health/covid-monoclonal-antibodies-omicron.html
Hospitals, drug companies and Biden administration officials are racing to address one of the Omicron variant’s biggest threats: Two of the three monoclonal antibody treatments that doctors have depended on to keep Covid-19 patients from becoming seriously ill do not appear to thwart the latest version of the coronavirus. The one such treatment that is still likely to work against Omicron is now so scarce that many doctors and hospitals have already run through their supplies.
Monoclonal antibodies have become a mainstay of Covid treatment, shown to be highly effective in keeping high-risk patients from being hospitalized. But even as infections surge and Omicron becomes the dominant form of new cases in the United States, some hospitals have begun scaling back the treatments, fearing they have become suddenly useless.
In New York, hospital administrators at NewYork-Presbyterian, N.Y.U. Langone and Mount Sinai all said in recent days that they would stop giving patients the two most commonly used antibody treatments, made by Eli Lilly and Regeneron, according to memos obtained by The Times and officials at the health systems.
“This is a dramatic change just in the last week or so,” said Dr. Daniel Griffin, an infectious disease specialist at Columbia University in New York. “And I think it makes sense.” The Omicron variant accounted for an estimated 73 percent of new cases in the United States last week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s up from just over 12 percent the week before.
snip
Sotrovimab, made by GlaxoSmithKline and Vir Biotechnology is the only one that works
Eli Lilly and Regeneron are fails
DeathSentence's big FL Regeneron play is now in the dirt
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Gender: FemaleHometown: London
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Current location: Stockholm, Sweden
Member since: Sun Jul 1, 2018, 07:25 PM
Number of posts: 43,344
