August 2018 Archives


With serendipitous timing we learn that Brian Amerige, a senior Facebook engineer, has written an internal post about the company's lack of political diversity. Of course we all remember the outcry when Google engineer James Damore wrote a similar thesis a year ago and was quickly fired, but this time the writing was leaked just as President Trump has been denouncing the company and barely a week before Facebook's COO is scheduled to testify before the Senate.

The dispute over employees' political ideology arose a week before Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, is scheduled to testify at a Senate hearing about social media manipulation in elections. A team helping Ms. Sandberg get ready for the hearing next Wednesday has warned her that some Republican lawmakers may raise questions about Facebook and biases, according to two people involved in the preparations.

On Tuesday, Mr. Trump again brought up the issue of bias by tech companies with tweets attacking Google. In remarks later in the day, he widened his focus to include Twitter and Facebook.

Those companies "better be careful because you can't do that to people," Mr. Trump said. "I think that Google, and Twitter and Facebook, they are really treading on very, very troubled territory and they have to be careful. It is not fair to large portions of the population."

So will Amerige be fired? I predict not, but oh the wailing and gnashing of teeth.


Legal euthanasia is a slippery slope, as Canadian Roger Foley has demonstrated by releasing tapes of hospital staff seeming to urge him to take his own life.

"You have already violated my preferences...So what is the plan that you know of?" Foley asks the man.

"Roger, this is not my show," the man replies. "I told you my piece of this was to talk to you about if you had interest in assisted dying."

In a separate audio recording from January 2018, another man is heard asking Foley how he's doing and whether he feels like he wants to harm himself.

Foley tells the man that he's "always thinking I want to end my life" because of the way he's being treated at the hospital and because his requests for self-directed care have been denied.

The man is then heard telling Foley that he can "just apply to get an assisted, if you want to end your life, like you know what I mean?"

When Foley says that he is being forced to end his life, the man protests and says that's not the case.

"Oh, no, no, no," the man is heard saying. "I'm saying if you feel that way...You know what I mean? Don't get me wrong. I'm saying I don't want you to be in here and wanting to take your life."

Euthanasia is much cheaper than medical treatment, so it shouldn't be a surprise that the incentives in a government-run system line up in that direction.


New York Times has hired Sarah Jeong, who apparently doesn't like white people very much.

Jeong.jpg

Jeong can like or hate anyone she wants, and the NYT can hire anyone it wants... but this is an example of why trust in the mainstream media is at an all-time low.

The NYT says that Jeong "regrets" her previous "approach" to social media but... does she still think the same things that she thought from 2013 to 2015? There's no indication that she has changed her mind, only that from now on she intends to write hateful things in a less forthright manner.


Trump's support among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents remains remarkably high -- higher than Obama's support among Democrats was at this time in his presidency.

The media has focused on the strong support that Trump voters have for their president and Pew verified it.

Over Trump's time in the White House, Pew said that he has received the support of 84 percent of Republicans. That is more than Obama had or former President George W. Bush had and the last president to reach that level was John F. Kennedy. What's more, their numbers fluctuates but Trump's has held steady no matter what.

It's really interesting to consider how immense negativity from the media has affected the public's view of Trump. I'd guess that Trump's media opponents intend for their negativity to drive down his approval among everyone, but Trump gets a lot of mileage from the feud among his base. The feud (which both Trump and the media are responsible for, natch) is strengthening feelings on both sides but not actually changing anyone's mind at this point.


John Hinderaker points out a great example of AP reporters Ken Thomas and Jill Colvin intentionally missing the point Trump is trying to make.

Tuesday night's freewheeling rally lasted more than an hour and included numerous attacks on the media, as well as one glaring false claim. Trump was railing against the idea of noncitizens voting and advocating stricter voting laws when he claimed that IDs are required for everything else, including shopping.

"If you go out and you want to buy groceries, you need a picture on a card, you need ID," he said at the event at the Florida State Fairgrounds in Tampa. "You go out and you want to buy anything, you need ID and you need your picture."

A White House spokesman did not immediately respond to questions about when the billionaire president last bought groceries or anything else himself. Photo IDs are required for certain purchases, such as alcohol, cigarettes or cold medicine.

Is the point about groceries? Is the point about who does Trump's shopping (or Hillary's, or Obama's)? Obviously the argument Trump is making is that requiring identification to vote is reasonable, since identification is already required for many mundane transactions (like buying groceries with a credit card or check). Journalists may or may not agree with his proposal, but they should at least engage with the President's proposal in good faith rather than pretending that it's incomprehensible.

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