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Sunday 28th of April 2024

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2020 Presidential election The committee understood that for people who care about January 6 — for people to take an interest in the  greatest coup attempt in American history — the violence and treason had to be translated into that universal American language: a good show. Megan Garber, The Atlantic, March 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
2022 modterm election Plausible theories about why Republicans fared so badly in 2022 abound. … The economy? … Abortion? … Attacks on democracy? … All of these factors clearly played a role. But don't under-weight the impact of the performative obnoxiousness that now pervades Republican messaging. Conservatives have built career paths for young people that start on extremist message boards and lead to jobs on Republican campaigns, then jobs in state and federal offices, and then jobs in conservative media. Dsvid Frum, The Atlantic, March 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Books The proper study of mankind is books. Aldous Huxley, Chrome Yellow © 2023 Kwiple.com
Bullshitters say  » All federal legislation sunsets in 5 years with specific exceptions of Social Security,  Medicare, national security, veterans benefits, and other essential services. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again. Note to President Biden, Sen. Schumer, and Sen. McConnell — As you know, this was never intended to apply to Social Security, Medicare, or the US Navy. A subpoint of Point 6 of Rick Scott's “12 Point Plan,” a post-speech update of his “An 11 Point Plan to Rescue America”, which  was published long before the 2023 State of the  Union Address and included only the 1st, 5th, and 6th lines above, thereby justifying Biden's claim  that “some” Republicans supported sunsetting © 2023 Kwiple.com
Design Build a little, test a little, fix a little.  Motto of iterative designers © 2023 Kwiple.com
Energy According to congressional testimony by Armond Cohen of the Clean Air Task Force, meeting all of the eastern United States' energy needs might require 100,000 square miles of solar panels (an area greater than New England) or more than 800,000 square miles of onshore windmills (Alaska plus California), versus only a bit over 500 square miles of nuclear power plants (the city of Phoenix, Arizona). Given the amount of real estate that solar and wind farms usurp, efforts to place them are running into entirely predictable local resistance, which will only increase as the easiet and cheapest sites are picked off. Jonathan Rauch, The Atlantic, March 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Facts Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.  Aldous Huxley © 2023 Kwiple.com
Higher education Using detailed data on companies and workers from the US and Denmark, we looked at the effects when a chief executive with an MBA or undergraduate business degree takes over from one without such qualifications. We found no evidence that CEOs with such degrees increase sales, productivity, investment or exports relative to the levels the company achieved before. The biggest shift when a chief executive with a business degree takes charge is a decline in  wages and the share of revenues going to labour, even in countries with different cultures. In the  US, wages under business-degree holding CEOs  were 6 per cent lower than they would otherwise  have been after five years, and labour's share  of revenues was down five percentage points.  FT Business Education Global MBA Ranking 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
History In 2020, the United Kingdom's culture secretary asked Netflix to add a disclosure to the show [The Crown ] making it clear that it is, fundamentally, a work of fiction. Netflix declined, saying it was confident that viewers knew the show was fiction. Yet its executives surely understood that the series is appealing precisely because it presents its fictions with the swagger of settled fact. Megan Garber, “We're Already Living In the Metsverse”, The Atlantic, March 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Count votes in Congress by: 1. Calculating a Member's Proportional Vote (MPV) for each member, as follows: MPV = SPNP / NLRS where: SPNP = State's Percentage of the National Population NLRS = Number of Legislators Representing the State (in that legislature) 2. Totaling “yes” MPVs and “no” MPVs 3. Passing if total MPV is more than 50 OTHERWISE Abolish the Senate © 2019 Kwiple.com
Middle class In 1985, an American man working the typical full-time job could support a family of four on 48 weeks of income, and be able to afford a range of nutritious foods, a three-bedroom house, a compre- hensive health insurance plan, a family car, even saving to put both kids through the state university. In 2022, paying for all that would require 62 weeks of his income, which is a problem, there being only 52 weeks in a year.  These figures come from the Cost-of-Thriving Index (Coti), which compares the rate at which wages are rising to the  rate of cost increases for middle-class staples. Oren Cass, Financial Times, February 13, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Post-2022 Senate shituation 15 states (Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming) 2020 population: 40,737,128 Senators: 30 Republicans 1 Senator per 1,357,904 people — 1 state (California) 2022 population: 39,995,077 Senators: 2 Democrats 1 Senator per 19,997,539 people 19,997,539 / 1,357,904 = 14.7, therefore: average 15er's vote is worth nearly 15 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth less than 7% of an average 15er's — 1 state (Wyoming) 2022 population = 579,495, therefore: 1 Senator per 289,748 Wyomians, a Wyomian's vote is worth 69 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth 1.4% of a Wyomian's  © 2023 Kwiple.com
Public discourse It's a fitting irony that under Richard Nixon, “launder” became a dirty word. William Zinsser, On Writing Well © 2023 Kwiple.com
Public discourse The propagandist's purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human. Aldous Huxley, “Words and Behaviour”  © 2023 Kwiple.com
Punt returners say Only when Christ comes again. Billy Graham, response when asked, after King's "I Have a Dream" speech, when he thought “little white children … will walk hand in hand with little Black children” © 2023 Kwiple.com
Reich wingers say This is Auschwitz. They are coming for you. Webb Kline, born-again Christian and owner of a Pennsnylaania trucking company, comparing Democrats to Nazis at a rally for Doug Mastriano, Christian nationalist, insurrectionist, election denier, and 2022 Republican gubernatorial candidate in Pennsylvania © 2022 Kwiple.com
Republicans say  » All federal legislation sunsets in 5 years. If a law is worth keeping, Congress can pass it again. A subpoint of Point 6 of Rick Scott's “An 11 Point Plan to Rescue America”, written, he said, because “Americans deserve to know what we [Republicans] will do when given the chance to govern” after the 2022 midterm elections  [Social Security, Medicare, and veterans benefits are all federal legislation they would sunset/end, most likely forever] © 2023 Kwiple.com
Snapshot Why is this chick so hyperactive? She looks like Cocaine Bear. If she actually were four years old and acted out this much, they'd arrest her stepfather. Honey, sit down. This is Congress, not the Waffle House at 3 o'clock in the morning. Marjorie Taylor Greene portrayed by Bill Maher, after her outbursts during Biden's 2023 State of the Union Address while draped in a white fur boa © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say Trump is fucking crazy, but I'll vote for him. The whole system is fucked. Why not vote for the craziest guy, to see the craziest shit happen? Jason Molina, an ex-Obama voter quoted by Politico in 2016 explaining why he'll vote for Trump © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say We got ISIS, we got Zika, we got this, we got that. At least Trump is fun to watch. Jason Molina, an ex-Obama voter quoted by Politico in 2016 explaining why he'll vote for Trump © 2023 Kwiple.com
Ukraine From now on, every history textbook will have a new section, “When Ukraine united the world”. When democracy grew teeth again. When tyranny received an answer in the language it understands. Volodymyr Zelensky, August 24, 2022 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Ukraine Good morning, everyone. We are all here. Our soldiers are here. Civil society is here. We defend our independence. And this is how it will always be from now on. Volodymyr Zelensky, surrounded by government officials outside a government building in Kyiv, in a video message to the nation 38 hours after Russia's invasion began at 4:30 a.m. on February 24, 2022 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Ukraine History is unfair. We are not the ones who started this war. But we are the ones who must finish it. And we are ready for dialogue to do so. Volodymyr Zelensky, May 20, 2019, five years after Russia "annexed" Crimea and invaded Donbas and three years before deciding that victory is more useful than dialog with people who want you dead  © 2023 Kwiple.com
Ukraine I need ammo, not a ride. Volodymyr Zelensky, rejecting American offers to airlift him out of Ukraine following Russia's invasion © 2023 Kwiple.com
Ukraine This is not merely Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It is the beginning of a war aganst Europe. A war against the unity of Europe,  against elementary human rights in Europe, against the peaceful coexistence of the countries of Europe — and against the fact that European states refuse to settle border disputes by force. Volodymyr Zelensky, February 25, 2022, the day after Russia's invasion began © 2023 Kwiple.com
Ukraine What will bring the end of the war? We used to say “peace”. Now we say "victory". Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukrainian Independence Day, August 24, 2022 six months after Russia's invasion © 2023 Kwiple.com
 
Work Employees have to assume that everything they say can be recorded. What does it mean when all the words, and the tone of those words, might be replayed? Whispering has lost its power. Zephyr Teachout, New York Review of Books, Augsut 18, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com