Various and Sundry, 8/2/23
Posted on August 2, 2023 Posted by John Scalzi 24 Comments
Welcome to Wednesday. Here are some things I’m thinking about today.
The Absolutely Unsurprising Freak-Out Of The Right at the New Trump Indictments: Jack Smith, knowing what was coming, clearly delineated between Donald Trump lying out of his ass about having won the last election, which was his right as an American under the First Amendment, and actively trying to change the result of the election after he lost, which, to put it charitably and patiently, was not his right, under any part of the US Constitution, or any other part of it laws of governance. This, however, has not stopped (most) of the right in the US from desperately trying to pretend there is no difference, and otherwise trying to obfuscate the issues under consideration here.
Ken White, aka Popehat, a lawyer with a not inconsiderable knowledge of the issues at hand, takes the National Review to task for just such obfuscation, in an article entitled People Are Lying To You About The Trump Indictment, which, naturally, I encourage you to read. On one hand, it is not at all surprising the right is lying out its ass about the indictments; when you’ve yoked yourself to a conman, your options are to help perpetrate the con, or to admit you’ve been conned all this time, and no one likes to publicly admit they’ve been conned. On the other hand, fuck these guys, they all know it’s a lie, and we all deserve better.
But also, they don’t want the con to stop. The right wing machine has spent a whole lot of time cultivating a class of mostly old, mostly white, mostly scared people, and there’s still cash to be bilked out of them; Trump hardly waited for the indictments to come out before sending out solicitations. Scaring old white people is where the money is; if that means lying to them, well, eggs and omelets.
X Now Letting Suckers Subscribers Hide Their Checks: It’s hardly an endorsement of your business model when the icon that you previously touted as an exclusive sign of membership has become so generally derided that you have to give people the option to remove it from their profiles. But here we are! Bear in mind that prior to the Musk takeover of the former Twitter I had both a blue check and a Twitter Blue subscription, but one was not associated with the other. I opined a while back that I might have kept the Blue subscription if the blue checks had been kept independent of the subscription (being able to edit tweets was nice). So one might think this new development could be seen as a step in the right direction. But there’s a difference between having the check and the subscription be two different things, and simply having the option of hiding the check to avoid mockery. And anyway, if you hide your check but still have a 10,000 character rant as a post, you’ve given yourself away.
AMPTP and WGA Going Back To Bargaining Table This Friday: Well, good. I think it would be precipitate to get too excited about this development, but inasmuch as the previous stated plan by the AMPTP was to try to starve the writers to the point of homelessness, any possible forward movement is good news. I’m mildly surprised the studios are talking to the writers before the actors, who are also on strike, as the actors are the bigger union and have the potential to cause more pain overall. But, again: better than nothing, let’s see where it goes.
Scamperbeasts on Instagram: You may recall that my cats have an account on the former Twitter, but now that I’m ramping down my participation there, I’ll likely cut back my updating on that account as well. Fortunately for those of you who can’t live without my cats, there’s a second option: The Scamperbeasts are now on Instagram as well, and for the short term at least I’m making the effort to update there daily in order to bump up the number of total posts. So go there for your cat-based social media posts. Also, don’t worry, the cats will still show up here on a regular basis. In fact, here’s Spice now:
She’s clearly thrilled to be photographed.
Speaking of photographs: You may have noticed that I’ve updated the author photos here for me and Athena. The previous ones were more than a year old and, in my case at least, a bit dour. The new ones are friendlier and also in color, for a change of pace. This month also marks Athena’s third(!) anniversary as an official contributor, so I thought switching out the pictures at the change of the month made sense. I’m not expecting to make any more major changes to the look and feel of the site at the moment, in part because those are a real pain in the butt to do, but you may see tweaks around the edges. We’ll see! In the meantime, enjoy these updated versions of us looking back at you.
— JS
Your analysis of the WGA talks is all wet.
writer’s before actors makes sense for the studios. The actors may include contract riders around writers for scripts.
But the writers can’t include contract riders about who acts.. and only a limited set of riders around AI acting (one of SAG’s rightful complaints).
I like the new byline portraits for Athena and you!
They look good, friendly and professional.
Gawain Lavers:
I’m perfectly happy to admit that I’m an outsider looking in.
Love the new photo!
Scalzi:
Just a little humor for your words choice!
Nice pictures!
Gawain Lavers:
Aaaaaah, now I get it!
Happy Third Athenaversary! Many more to come!
In addition to Popehat/Ken White, I also highly recommend Teri Kanefield. I read her blog and follow her on Mastodon, and find the two of them nicely complement each other. Teri also has a good FAQ and writes very clearly (she was an English prof before she went to law school).
https://terikanefield.com/trump-january-6-indictment-over-the-cliff-notes/
And here I thought the new smiley face was because of the Trump indictment.
Spice’s curly toes are adorable!
Skritches, Spice.
[Deleted for nonsense – JS]
For those unaware, Popehat has a weekly podcast with Josh Barro in which he examines the legal issues of Trump and his orbit (and sometimes other legal issues in the news). It’s called “Serious Trouble” and is a continuation of their NPR show “All the Presidents’ Lawyers”. Big stories are usually free, then there are longer or bonus episodes for subscribers.
As Bebe said.
John,
This is not related but it I couldn’t help think of Old Man’s War. Question for you, did you ever have any contact or get any ideas from anyone who worked at Sandia National Laboratories? https://www.gaia.com/video/hybrid-creatures-and-secret-bases?fullplayer=feature
Hey, Mister! Your cat melted!
It just shows how intentionally cruel some of the MAGA people are.
They are claiming Biden is guilty of something when he was a bereaved man reaching for a lifeline by calling his surviving son.
Meanwhile Trump hasn’t given a damn about the thousands of lives he ruined after his loss.
Also notice how far in the dark they want you to be about Jared, as a white House employee made billions of dollar deals with Saudi Arabia to help his step fathers failing golf courses.
Great picture!
I really like Various and Sundry in this form than Twitter (or X I guess).
Haha so I wasn’t the only one that noticed the new photo. Great look John!
I’m enjoying these Various and Sundry posts.
It’s nice to see a bit of old school blogging again.
FJG: That would be prima facie evidence of Trump’s incompetence. How can you mange to take one of the most profitable businesses (gambling) and some of the most historic golf courses (Doral) and fail miserably at both?
I am hoping that “Everything Trump touches dies” won’t apply to the United States government.
This new show (https://twitter.com/TristanSnell/status/1687235737928785920) sounds intriguing.