- The misplaced praise for Jagmeet Singh.
#The mainstream media response suggests that the onus is on people of colour to perform the emotional labour of deftly handling racists. The praise for the way Singh “handled racism†reinforces a notion that people of colour are expected to “deal†with racism in an amiable way that white people deem acceptable: to fight hate with love, thereby requiring a response that is inherently pacifist. A response like this negates the pain, anger and hurt that is inherent in racial attacks, and it negates the overwhelming hopelessness and defeat of that moment. People of colour are expected to “transcend their race.†They are expected to adhere to notions of propriety that are predetermined by the white majority who have never had to deal with racism as an accepted feature of being non-white in Canada. There is an arrogance in this way of thinking: to suppose that white people have the experience, education and understanding of the nuance of racism, so much so that they can critique the behaviour of people of colour who live it every day.
- Google Sued by 3 Female Ex-Employees Who Say It Pays Women Less Than Men.
> At a hearing this year, a department official said the audit had found “systemic compensation disparities against women pretty much across the entire work force,†although Google has not officially been accused of any wrongdoing.
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- Facebook Enabled Advertisers to Reach ‘Jew Haters’.
Of course they did. Facebook is bad and you should feel bad for using it.
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- "This was the moment when it really started to feel insane."
#An oral history of the Era of the Mooch — condensed and edited for clarity — as told by senators, Boy Scouts, soldiers, journalists, parents, talking heads, Wall Street traders and the CEO of an arcade-game company in Florida.
- We Are Living in the Coen Brothers’ Darkest Comedy.
Jeet Heer on Trump and America.
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- Warhammer 40,000 is Predicting the Present.
A discussion about the rise and fall of Games Workshop and its parallels to British politics. (Coincidently, I recently picked up the new Warhammer 40,000 starter set. It’s amazing.)
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- Trump has put America’s image into the toilet.
Israel and Russia the only two countries that are positive now? Maximum LOLs.
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- Terror’s Lawfare.
Fathima Cader of Run Like The Wind writes about Canada’s and Sri Lanka’s markedly similar anti-terror laws.
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- Trump themed cards for Secret Hitler
What will do you do first? An unconstitutional Muslim ban? Withdraw from popular environmental treaties? Fire the FBI director? The only limit is your imagination!
Secret Hitler is an amazing (and shockingly topical) game.
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- Notes From An Emergency
#The good part about naming a talk in 2017 ‘Notes from an Emergency’ is that there are so many directions to take it. The emergency I want to talk about is the rise of a vigorous ethnic nationalism in Europe and America. This nationalism makes skillful use of online tools, tools that we believed inherently promoted freedom, to advance an authoritarian agenda.
- Bee-Brained by Vauhini Vara.
Inside the competitive Indian-American spelling community.
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- What the world’s strongest man eats in one day.
A lot of food. (It’s funny how soft spoke and mild mannered Shaw seems. It’s incongruent with all his giant frame and muscles.)
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- A Story of Slavery in Modern America - The Atlantic
#The ashes filled a black plastic box about the size of a toaster. It weighed three and a half pounds. I put it in a canvas tote bag and packed it in my suitcase this past July for the transpacific flight to Manila. From there I would travel by car to a rural village. When I arrived, I would hand over all that was left of the woman who had spent 56 years as a slave in my family’s household.
- Blindingly fast data entry.
The video about hard core Japanese calculator nerds is exactly what I expected from a video about hard core Japanese calculator nerds.
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- Starting Over: How FreshBooks Reinvented Its Online Accounting Service On The Fly.
This is really interesting, with a cool plot twist mid way through the story.
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- Behind Comey’s firing: An enraged Trump, fuming about Russia.
He had grown enraged by the Russia investigation, two advisers said, frustrated by his inability to control the mushrooming narrative around Russia. He repeatedly asked aides why the Russia investigation wouldn’t disappear and demanded they speak out for him. He would sometimes scream at television clips about the probe, one adviser said.
This is crazy. Not particularly surprising, though.
But the fallout seemed to take the White House by surprise. Trump made a round of calls around 5 p.m., asking for support from senators. White House officials believed it would be a “win-win” because Republicans and Democrats alike have problems with the FBI director, one person briefed on their deliberations said.
This guy is a fucking idiot.
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