November 30, 2022

Taking an Abundance Agenda Global

An industrial policy to advance all of America's interests, at home and abroad

https://theliberalpatriot.substack.com/p/taking-an-abundance-agenda-global



Over the past two years, President Biden has pulled together an impressive if largely unheralded national industrial strategy that aims to make the American economy more competitive in the world and shore it up against the likes of China. But a key part of that strategy, last August’s Inflation Reduction Act, has precipitated something of a moderate diplomatic kerfuffle with America’s long-standing allies in Europe and Asia. More than anything else, this rift speaks to the need to tie America’s much-needed public investments at home with its wider geopolitical strategy overseas.

Allies like France, Germany, South Korea, and Japan object to the provisions that encourage American consumers to buy electric vehicles made in the United States. Under the IRA, only electric vehicles that have a certain portion of their batteries made in the North America with a certain portion of critical minerals like nickel, cobalt, and lithium mined or processed in the United States or nations with which America has free trade deals will be eligible for a $7,500 tax break. These governments worry that these requirements will put their own automakers at a competitive disadvantage vis-à-vis American companies.

They’re not wrong to worry about the way these incentives might affect their own domestic economies. Tesla has reportedly scuppered its plan to build a battery factory in Germany in order to take advantage of the IRA’s tax credits, for instance. Making matters worse for European allies, high natural gas prices brought about by the war in Ukraine have convinced many European industrial conglomerates to shutter their operations on the continent and move some of them to the United States.

It's not surprising, then, to see French President Emmanuel Macron call for “Buy European” provisions to protect the continent’s own automakers – or that the German government appears receptive to such a move. Likewise, South Korea’s ambassador to the United States says that his government is in a “very intense conversation” to resolve concerns over the way the IRA might hurt Korean electric vehicle manufacturers. Rumblings of discontent over the allegedly discriminatory nature of these provisions continue among European allies, but these objections are likely overstated in part to gain leverage in talks with the United States.

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November 30, 2022

The Authoritarian Right Is Regrouping

In Moscow, Mar-a-Lago, and beyond, desperate men are mobilizing anyone they can to help them regain power. Events of the past few weeks in Russia, Brazil, and America show the global right in disarray. But these are not signs of defeat, as liberals might hope; they are the disorderly attempt by antidemocratic forces to stage a recovery.

https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2022/11/the-authoritarian-right-is-regrouping/672286/

https://archive.ph/v4WLf



By Tom Nichols

Going to Extremes

It’s been a bad year for authoritarians around the world, and November may have been their worst month yet. The Russian invasion of Ukraine continues to disintegrate into a series of disorderly retreats. Brazil’s far-right president was turned out of office. Millions of American voters kept a collection of antidemocratic candidates away from the levers of government.

We might want to see all this as a turning of the tide; my friend, the writer Jonathan V. Last—perhaps the only person capable of more pessimism than I—said this morning that he cannot resist a feeling of hopefulness. I hate to be the voice of caution here, because I want to believe the optimists will be vindicated. And I do think a collective faith in democracy will prevail. But I worry about the danger of complacency.

Over the past week, the global right has shown signs of trying to regroup after taking a hiding everywhere from the ballot box to the battlefield. Some of it seems little more than disorganized thrashing about, such as Jair Bolsonaro’s election challenge in Brazil and Kari Lake’s refusal to concede in Arizona. Donald Trump, meanwhile, is trying out a bolder version of his 2016 and 2020 race-baiting strategies by hosting a dinner for an anti-Semite and a racist—a pathetic and vulgar event that in a better political environment would be treated as yet another disqualification for participation in our public life.

Overseas, the Russians are not giving up in Ukraine, despite reports that they might quit their occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. (A Ukrainian official says there are signs that the Russians are pulling out; the Russians deny it.) I think it is possible that the Russian commanders have pitched a proposal to the Kremlin that they should withdraw as a matter of necessity. It would be a smart diplomatic move and a prudent strategic choice. But Vladimir Putin has demonstrated that he is a terrible strategist, and that he has no intention of ending this war.

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November 30, 2022

Johan Sundberg Arkitektur designs "accessible yet exceptional" housing blocks in Sweden

https://www.dezeen.com/2022/11/23/johan-sundberg-arkitektur-accessible-housing-blocks-sweden-residential-architecture/









Swedish practice Johan Sundberg Arkitektur has completed a cluster of timber-clad housing blocks in Ystad, Sweden, with facades of folding glass screens that allow their balconies to be turned into sheltered winter gardens. Called Hygrometern, the cluster of four blocks provides a mixture of 20 two and three-bedroom mid-budget apartments on a sloping site overlooking the Baltic Sea.









The project marks a change in scale for Lund-based Johan Sundberg Arkitektur, which is better known for designing luxurious villas and holiday homes, often in close collaboration with their owners. "We are proud and happy about the acknowledgment we receive for our luxury villas. But as we believe that good spaces can change people's lives for the better, we're expanding our practice to multi-family housing projects," said founder Johan Sundberg. "[Our] take on mid-budget, multi-family housing resulted in accessible yet exceptional dwellings proving that outstanding architecture can be achieved with modest means," he continued.







Hygrometern is organised into two square blocks at the east of the site and two long, rectilinear blocks at its centre, with the space in between each used to create planting and shared outdoor spaces overlooked by the apartments. Raised on a stepped concrete plinth, each two-storey block features a dedicated entrance into each apartment, with walled gardens for those on the ground floor and deeply recessed balconies for the first-floor dwellings.







While the entrance to the ground-floor apartments is through their front gardens, the first-floor spaces are accessed via galvanised steel staircases at the rear, which lead to a small area of deck access with additional seating. "The programme is spread across four distinct volumes, where the interstices form human-scaled outdoor spaces," said the practice. "A diverse range of sight lines, outdoor spaces and view contribute to the spatial qualities within the apartments," it continued.

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November 30, 2022

New York City to Remove Mentally Ill People From Streets Against Their Will

Mayor Eric Adams directed the police and emergency medical workers to hospitalize people they deemed too mentally ill to care for themselves, even if they posed no threat to others.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/29/nyregion/nyc-mentally-ill-involuntary-custody.html

https://web.archive.org/web/20221130031541/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/29/nyregion/nyc-mentally-ill-involuntary-custody.html



Acting to address “a crisis we see all around us” toward the end of a year that has seen a string of high-profile crimes involving homeless people, Mayor Eric Adams announced a major push on Tuesday to remove people with severe, untreated mental illness from the city’s streets and subways.

Mr. Adams, who has made clearing homeless encampments a priority since taking office in January, said the effort would require involuntarily hospitalizing people who were a danger to themselves, even if they posed no risk of harm to others, arguing the city had a “moral obligation” to help them.

“The common misunderstanding persists that we cannot provide involuntary assistance unless the person is violent,” Mr. Adams said in an address at City Hall. “Going forward, we will make every effort to assist those who are suffering from mental illness.”

The mayor’s announcement comes at a heated moment in the national debate about rising crime and the role of the police, especially in dealing with people who are already in fragile mental health. Republicans, as well as tough-on-crime Democrats like Mr. Adams, a former police captain, have argued that growing disorder calls for more aggressive measures. Left-leaning advocates and officials who dominate New York politics say that deploying the police as auxiliary social workers may do more harm than good.

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November 30, 2022

Jacinda Ardern and Sanna Marin dismiss suggestion their age and gender was reason for meeting

Finland’s PM says she met Ardern in New Zealand because they are both ‘prime ministers’ after journalist asks whether it was due to similar age and gender

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/30/jacinda-ardern-and-sanna-marin-dismiss-suggestion-their-age-and-gender-was-reason-for-meeting



The prime ministers of Finland and New Zealand have taken a swipe at suggestions their first face-to-face meeting in New Zealand happened because they are both young female leaders. “We’re meeting because we are prime ministers,” Finland’s Sanna Marin said at a joint press conference at Auckland’s Government House on Wednesday morning, after a journalist suggested some people may have thought they were meeting because they share a similar demographic.

Responding to the suggestion, Ardern said, “I wonder whether or not anyone ever asked Barack Obama and John Key if they met because they were of similar age.” “We, of course, have a higher proportion of men in politics – it’s reality – because two women meet, it is not simply because of their gender,” Ardern said.

She added that the two of them were focused on the responsibility they, as female leaders, had to women in countries who are facing “dire circumstances, where we are seeing the most basic of human rights being repressed and violated”. Ardern cited Iran specifically as a “good example” of those dire circumstances. Marin said they both wanted to stand together over equality “to make sure every woman and girl all across the world will have the same rights and the same opportunities as men”.

Marin is in New Zealand for her first official tour, marking the first visit to the country by a Finnish prime minister. After a bilateral meeting on Wednesday morning, the two leaders affirmed the warm relationship between New Zealand and Finland and their commitment to boosting trade opportunities, tackling climate change and deepening ties. Ardern said: “Our countries are aligned on incredibly important issues – we share a strong commitment to democratic values as the basis for open, tolerant, resilient, equal societies, and to multilateralism and a rules-based order that has underpinned global peace and prosperity since 1945.”

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November 30, 2022

Racist YouTuber Joins Kanye West's Campaign

The controversial streamer known as “Sneako” is known for his deliberately offensive prank videos.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/racist-youtuber-joins-kanye-wests-campaign



A racist YouTuber—who achieved internet infamy by urging pedestrians to say the N-word—has joined the ranks of Kanye West’s expanding, informal 2024 presidential campaign. Nico Kenn De Balinthazy, better known as “Sneako,” said on Monday night that he’s taking a hiatus from live-streaming to focus on his new role with the antisemitic rapper. “I met Ye, and then I ended up working with Ye,” the provocative YouTuber said while calling West his “childhood hero.”



The controversial streamer added he’s been working for West behind the scenes and producing videos for the rapper’s Twitter page. “I feel like this is the last opportunity America has,” De Balinthazy continued, indirectly speaking to West’s presidential candidacy. De Balinthazy didn't specify his exact role on the campaign, which has yet to be made official with the FEC, but said the gig could consume two years of his life (in the unlikely event the campaign lasts until the 2024 general presidential election).

While De Balinthazy insisted that it’s a career move to “fight the new world order,” he admitted that he would be “subservient” in his new role. So far, West has also enlisted the help of far-right internet troll Milo Yiannopoulos and white nationalist Nick Fuentes in his presidential endeavors. In West’s Mar-a-Lago “debrief” video posted on Twitter last week, following West and Fuentes meeting with Donald Trump at his Florida club, De Balinthazy was seated in the background.

https://twitter.com/Rap/status/1596170803543883781
The YouTuber—who in October was banned from the streaming platform—couldn’t be reached for comment on Tuesday. Yiannopoulos declined to comment when reached by The Daily Beast. Like Yiannopoulos and Fuentes, De Balinthazy traffics in misogyny and hate. He also has made violent threats online. For example, after his Twitter account was temporarily suspended in September, De Balinthazy threatened to “break” the face of fellow YouTube streamer Hasan Piker. The Daily Beast reported on Monday that Fuentes had joined West’s haphazard campaign, followed by a Tim Pool interview that quickly devolved into a train wreck after the rapper was met with mild pushback to his blatant antisemitism.




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November 30, 2022

Help Black Farmers, Who Know Hyperlocal Doesn't Mean Fancy

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/29/opinion/charity-holiday-gift-black-farmers-fund.html

https://archive.ph/z8DSV



I have food on my mind. The few weeks between Thanksgiving and the end-of-year holidays are a time when eating becomes something more than a utilitarian need or even a personal pleasure. Now is the time of year when food’s cultural significance takes center stage in our overscheduled lives. We may eat standing at a desk most of the year, but during the holidays we are reconnected to food’s deeper meaning.

My grandmother died 10 years ago. The last Thanksgiving I had with her was also the last time I ate her sweet potato pudding. She made it just for me, once a year. I have no idea where the recipe came from or even if there was one. I have tried versions since she died. Online recipes have different names. Custard. Casserole. None of the recipes are quite right. Some add flour. I am sure that she did not. Others insist on coconut. She would never.

None of the recipes I have tried match the texture or depth of the dish my grandmother made: layers of buttery, grated sweet potato soaked in spices and baked until crispy on the outside and mushy in the center. I started thinking that maybe what didn’t work about these other dishes I tried was not the recipe but the ingredients.

My grandmother usually bought small sweet potatoes from a local grower. She had her favorite sources. A distant cousin, Eugene, grew some of the best sweet potatoes, by her standard. He put aside some for her over the holidays. If he was busy, there were other local suppliers: a roadside pickup truck and stand with fresh vegetables sold by the bucket, for example. In a pinch, she would go to a local “country food store” that sold food not fancy enough to be sold at the local chain grocery stores. Something about my normal store-bought sweet potatoes does not measure up. They’re too big, too tough, too sweet or not sweet enough. The last time I ate my grandmother’s sweet potato pudding was the last time I tasted the culture that made that pudding possible. I wish I had known it was the last time.

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related



Eating While Black Explores How Food Shaming and Race Are Related

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/eating-while-black-food-shaming

Humiliating others about what they eat should never be okay.



Most everyone in America, has or quite possibly will experience food shaming at some point in their lifetime. The experience might be intentional or accidental, but it is bound to happen because we often violate people’s social, cultural, and racial boundaries without giving it a second thought. Sadly, many young people will experience this level of embarrassment early in life and most often it will be inflicted by a relative, a friend, or an authority figure. Many of us who came of age during the Presidential Fitness Test will recall both the horror and shame of being labeled unfit and unhealthy because we could not climb the dreaded rope in less than a minute or perform the flex-arm hang for more than two seconds. Imagine going from having been embarrassed in gym class by the lack of ability to perform military-style exercises to then being told you are overweight and will die soon from obesity. Or imagine leaving gym class and heading to lunch where your “friends” criticize your rice, egusi, and goat sauce or sambusas, or other foods with different aromas and smells. The horror. While food shaming alone is commonplace, its more insidious version is undergirded by racial ideologies and beliefs that often lead us to dismiss and even demonize the cultural practices of those unlike ourselves and most often this includes the food habits and behaviors of Black, Indigenous, Latina/o, and Asian Americans.

Eating While Black: Food Shaming and Race in America calls attention to these instances and points out how racial animus and disdain toward Black people in America often underlies this behavior. The problem is exacerbated when one racial group assumes itself to be the norm, so our public and social policies are crafted in ways that privilege this group’s norms over all others. Nowhere is this more apparent than in tying food cultures and food consumption to body shape and size. There are countless studies attesting to obesity as one of most prevalent diseases in the United States. However, for some time now, there has been an equally large number of studies that argue for a consideration of the ways that our Body Mass Index (BMI), which measures body fat based on height and weight needs to be considered for its variation among racial and ethnic groups. Yet the average person does not understand the complexities of obesity and thus tends to rely upon visual evidence alone thinking that all larger people are unhealthy and all smaller people are not. Most people seem not to realize that even those who are smaller and appear to have a “normal” BMI can have high percentages of body fat and a low amount of muscle. Unbeknownst to the observer, diabetes and hypertension can and do affect even those who “look” healthy.

Sadly, from academic discourse to popular culture, the BMI of Black people who are on the heavier side is assumed to be out of control because it does not conform to European standards of beauty, (think about all of the ridiculous criticism and negativity heaped upon musical artist Lizzo). And to this end, the foods consumed by Black people tend to be vilified as the culprit for bodies that appear to be obese. This is so much the case that many of us go to dangerous lengths to lose weight and/or to insist that we eat healthy diets, even when these trends are not necessarily good for our body types. But, the truth of the matter is that there are any number of reasons that people’s bodies have extra weight — from genetics and body makeup, to medication consumption, pregnancy, and yes, overeating and lack of exercise. For many people of color there is also the daily stress of living with race and class aggressions, including lack of generational wealth, traumas from gun and police violence, and so many other factors that it is much too convenient to place the lion’s share of the blame for the appearance of people’s varying larger body shapes on eating alone.

It’s all quite sad, really. America was founded on the ethereal concept of freedom and liberty. But far too often we find that others want to define what these ideas mean for us. One would think that adults would help young people to appreciate rather than ridicule social, cultural, physical, and sexual differences. And nowhere is this more the case than in schools and institutions of learning. Modeling is especially important because young people are learning how to comport themselves in the world; in middle and high schools, they’re learning who they are or will be in this life. Shaming and humiliating others using food — especially children — should never be okay. Having one’s food cultures and body shamed by an adult can also make it difficult for a young person to feel comfortable confiding in their authority figures at a time when they often most need to do so. Not only can such actions have deleterious effects leading to eating disorders, low self-esteem, and much worse. But also, it is just not a good way to be a human.

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November 30, 2022

Here's Why Trump Went Full Nazi

Trump invited two rabid antisemites to the White House (my add, I think the author means Mar-A-Lardo), Kanye West and Nick Fuentes. Why? The answer is bleak.

https://thebanter.substack.com/p/heres-why-trump-went-full-nazi

by Ben Cohen

In The Banter Roundtable Podcast, we have long discussed the need to talk about Holocaust denying, White Supremacist Nick Fuentes. I argued recently that Fuentes would become a big MAGA star and would in time be totally normalized by the GOP. As Justin has often reminded me, what is considered extreme on the right today will almost always be normalized tomorrow. Fuentes, I figured, fit this formula exactly. The rabid Jew hater is young, incredibly stupid, and extraordinarily confident. In the MAGA world, this combination of traits is a perfect recipe for stardom. Figures like Milo Yiannopolous, Candace Owens, and Marjorie Taylor Greene have paved the way for the rise of Fuentes, and he only needed the Orange stamp of approval to become a bonafide MAGA star. This, I figured, would only be a matter of time.

So when the news broke that Donald Trump had invited America’s most prominent anti-semite Kanye West and none other than Nick Fuentes to Mar-a-Lago, I wasn’t surprised at all. I was in fact, kind of relieved. Why? Because I have always known that anti-semitism is one of the major driving forces behind the MAGA movement, and that Trump was almost certainly an anti-semite himself. Trump has flirted with borderline antisemitic statements in the past, but has always been quite careful (at least for him) about openly hating Jewish people. Now he is openly palling around with virulent Jew haters just as he begins his ‘Make America Great Again, Again’ campaign.

This is a good thing in my opinion, just so we can be clear about what we are facing this time around. A more serious question though, is why Trump decided to invite two of the most repellent political/cultural figures in America to Mar-a-Lago for a chinwag? I spent a good deal of time thinking about this over the holiday and have come to quite an unnerving conclusion.

Trump’s skills

When thinking about this question, we have to look at the bigger picture in order to assess Trump’s motives. One mistake Trump’s opponents have made over the years is underestimating his intelligence — or at least his unique skill set. I do not operate on the assumption that Trump is an idiot, and I think there are often unseen calculations he makes that the left doesn’t latch onto until it is too late. I have learned over the years of watching Trump that he has two key skills: The first is understanding his base, and the second is understanding the innate weakness of Republican politicians. This admittedly narrow set of talents has allowed Trump to do truly extraordinary things. He might have the attention span of a flea and have no intellectual interests outside of making money, but he has bent the GOP to his will and created a cult like movement completely impervious to logic, reason, or basic morality.

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November 29, 2022

One day of Warren Buffett wealth gains could cover rail workers' paid sick leave

https://ble-t.org/news/one-day-of-warren-buffett-wealth-gains-could-cover-rail-workers-paid-sick-leave/

Billionaire Warren Buffett, one of the wealthiest men in the world and the CEO of BNSF Railway’s parent company, saw his wealth jump by nearly $1.4 billion in a single day earlier this week, a sum that could easily fund 15 days of paid sick leave for every rail worker in the United States. BNSF is one of the major railroad giants refusing to budge in contract negotiations with rail unions as they fight for 15 days of paid sick leave.

Full story: Truthout

November 29, 2022

peak mid noughties.................. expand

Label:
Parlophone ?– 12RDJ 6668X
Format:
Vinyl, 12", Single Sided, White Label, Stamped
Country:
UK
Released:
Aug 2005
Genre:
Electronic
Style:
Leftfield, Tech House, Electro