Interesting factoids

My blog is now mostly links. But that doesn't mean I'm not thinking. I feel like I'm thinking as much as before. So I can't really explain why my writing has changed to these collections of short, link-based reflections.

Here are a bunch of lighter link that are still interesting.

Energy promise fulfilled? In Australia, a huge battery system is providing backup for when renewables faulty and storage for when the energy output is abundant. This is such an important step in making renewables primary in large-scale energy production.

Kick him when he's down. We can laugh and/or sneer at formerly famous alt-right jerk Milo Y__(whatever). Here's an article on his unpublished books and the editor's comments.

Hackable votes. This one is heavier: an article about how Georgia has very poor security for its electronic voting machines. It contains first-hand reports of problems and officials trying to cover them up.

Good news/bad news. A funny conundrum. Media has done very well under the Trump campaign and presidency. Viewership is up, profits are up. It could be very nasty (in financial terms) if Trump doesn't win in 2020.

Trump's mental condition. Hahahaha. Nearly everyone has an opinion, but this is the opinion of a trained neurologist.  I've had some training in neurology, so I notice many of the behaviors the neurologist mentions. I would add this: look for changes, particularly diminishing ability. As far as I can tell, Trump hasn't deteriorated, but we should be alert for the signs. This is a reasonable place for a bookmark to a lawyerly explanation for why impeachment hearings are warranted. I don't agree, but the case is well argued.

A journalist on our side. Maybe Trump, Bannon, or whoever thought Michael Wolff could be trusted to write positive fluff pieces, and they found out otherwise when he wrote Fire and Fury. This is the kind of piece that might have given them false hope. It's a sympathetic view of Roger Ailes. It also sounds like he flattered people's egos, basically conning the con men that staff the White House. I don't trust him to be fair and scrupulously accurate. However, he claims to have tapes of some interviews. Added fun!

Image: newsday.com

Left-leaning fake news: Found one. Sort of.

I see lots of fake news from the right, less from the left. The MSM media employs a different approach to its bias. It will not report on issues (bias by omission), downplay the importance, not follow up, or latch onto a convenient explanation when they should be digging deeper. They rarely do the outright lie. When they do and they're caught, they have standard procedures: correction, apology, and if the lie was bad enough, someone gets fired. So outright lies are much more the province of the conservative media.

This is one rare article where a lazy reader could be left believing a clear lie. Start with the headline:

Did Yiannopoulos secretly send more than 100 thugs to Berkeley to break up his own speech?

(By the way, if you don't know who Milo Yiannopoulos is, it's my displeasure to tell you he enjoys being a provocateur at Breitbart who somewhat admires the alt-right and 4chan types. So, well paid scum. Also gay.)

The headline is nice use of a question to imply the incorrect info, but still allow the author to deny lying. "I am only asking a question" -- I think that was a standard line of Glenn Beck as he drew his infamous charts showing the evil machinations of whomever.

Then I had to scroll down through the equivalent of about five screens before the author casts doubt on this speculation. Up till that point, it's a description of what's known about the event that supports this conspiratorial speculation.

However, this article is generally better than the conservative media because the impression is corrected if you read far enough down. So, it's not like the rest of the fake news I complain about, like Clinton going to Pedophile Island and lies like that.

So even when I see something that looks like fake news in the MSM, it isn't. Conservative media still has a near monopoly of this particularly form of despicable behavior.

Image: forward.com

Extra. More reporting on the campus police's weak response to the rioting. Compare these two responses to the riots.

Update 8/29/19. A MSNBC host rushed a poorly-source scoop (about backing of loans to Trump) onto the air. A day later, he's apologizing, correcting, and explaining what he did wrong. Funny, but Fox News doesn't behave this way when they muck up their reporting... cough ... Seth Rich... cough ... MI6 bugging Trump Tower.

How bad is the alt-right?

I'm only going to tackle a small piece of this question.

To start, here is David French on the threats he and his wife get daily because he was against Trump. I guess a specialty of some alt-right creeps is to Photoshop his wife's face onto the most disgusting pornographic image they can find and then send her the resulting artwork.

Next, it was instructive to read what Breitbart had to say about the alt-right. Basically, they are currently noisy frat boys, but they're also right:

"In short, they want what every people fighting for self-determination in history have ever wanted, ... — to come out of the woodwork and stand up for their values and culture."

This at the end of an article about the white nationalism, xenophobia, misogyny, and hate in the movement.

A related question is how much Steve Bannon, Trump's chief strategist and adviser, is a fellow of the alt-right. Ben Shapiro, formerly of Breitbart and thus a colleague of Steve Bannon, drops a lot of stories on him. The charges seem fairly specific, but I can't be an unbiased judge.

However, the press isn't finding very horrendous quotes attached to Bannon. Maybe this will change because he had a radio show, and people may need to listen to a lot of it to find the nastiest bits. Stay tuned.

Image: gotnews.com

Update 2/21/17. Milo Yiannopoulos, author of that article in Breitbart about the alt-right, was invited and then disinvited from this year's CPAC conference. He's been a popular guest on college campuses, invited by conservative groups because he infuriates liberals. But evidently he went too far in talking about sex with underage teens, so his fame and welcome are drying up extremely quickly. Ah, a bit of justice.

Update 3/14/17. I don't generally read The Daily Kos, but this very long article has a surprising number of well-made points, with many links. Not your typical conspiracy theory.