2021

we are bellingcat author: eliot higgins ISBN: 978-1526615756 overview higgins provides a nice and reasonably chronological account of what led to the creation of bellingcat. from his days lurking on the guardian and various message boards while working a standard office job to the creation of his brown moses blog and eventually the creation of the bellingcat project. notable escapades/investigations include: detailing the acquisition of expertise in identifying war crimes during the civil war in syria as well as chemical attacks on the part of the assad regime....

20211001 Opinion | Our constitutional crisis is already here - The Washington Post They put their trust in family, tribe, religion and race. Although zealous in defense of their own rights and freedoms, they are less concerned about the rights and freedoms of those who are not like them. That, too, is not unusual. What is unnatural is to value the rights of others who are unlike you as much as you value your own....

20210902 modern tools (xkcd) this is totally worth it for the alt-text. 20210903 Oh My Fucking God, Get the Fucking Vaccine Already, You Fucking Fucks - McSweeney’s Internet Tendency appropriately captures my feelings on the topic. 20210904 States That Cut Unemployment Benefits Saw Limited Impact on Job Growth - WSJ will the DFL hang this around the necks of the GOP in these states? somehow, i doubt it. Why Hospitals and Health Insurers Didn’t Want You to See Their Prices - The New York Times...

20210801 A Warning Ignored | by Jelani Cobb | The New York Review of Books What the US Could Learn About College Admissions from the USSR | by Anastasia Edel | The New York Review of Books The Color Line | by Annette Gordon-Reed | The New York Review of Books COVID Anti-Vaxxers Aren’t a MAGA Death Cult — It’s Worse Than That | by Tim Wise | Aug, 2021 | Medium...

given the density of the news surrounding the IPCC report and the dire implications of a report that leaves little/nothing to question as to the state of things this nugget from NNT, et al was a wry bit of commentary. We have only one planet. This fact radically constrains the kinds of risks that are appropriate to take at a large scale. Even a risk with a very low probability becomes unacceptable when it affects all of us – there is no reversing mistakes of that magnitude....