Interesting Links for 27-06-2024

[andrewducker]

1. Frequent misconceptions about Assange

(tags:rape espionage JulianAssange )

2. Denmark to charge $100 per cow in world's first carbon tax on farming

(tags:co2 globalwarming tax farming cows )

3. One Year Since Germany's Nuclear Exit: Renewable Capacity Expands, Electricity from Fossil Fuels Significantly Reduced

(tags:nuclearpower germany electricity renewables )

4. Supreme Court wipes out anti-corruption law that bars officials from taking gifts for past favors

(tags:corruption USA )

5. Joe Biden pardons 1000s of veterans convicted under gay sex ban

(tags:LGBT gay USA politics law democrats )

Comments

[mountainkiss]

My first thought was “how will the cows raise the funds?”

[andrewducker]

I'm sure they can get hold of some moolah.

[mountainkiss]

👏👏👏

[andrewducker]

Thank you. I wracked my brains, sure that there was a good pun in there somewhere!

[danieldwilliam]

They'll find a way to cream some off the top I'm sure.

#4 Well!

[lsanderson]

You certainly can't expect publish officials to live n our modern society on the paltry salary public officials are paid! Why, Supreme Court judges only make a couple hundred thousand a year, which is chump change to a good corporate lawyer. Take Judge Thomas, for example, where would he be without a few trips a year? In his free motor home?

[fanf]

Do they get a tax rebate if they feed the cows seaweed to reduce their emissions? 🤔

[andrewducker]

An excellent plan

[calimac]

I trust you've seen John Oliver's new piece on the UK election and 14 years of Toryism. There was little in it that was new to me - even less to you, of course - but the way he puts it was hilariously straightforward.

I have just one question about it: in the clip of Cameron's speech, who is this guy? I don't recognize him, and Oliver doesn't say.

[andrewducker]

Not available in this country, because of the election.

(I'm sure I could find it if I went looking, but I already loathe the Tories, and watching things about how awful they are, even when done with wit and charm, just raises my blood pressure.)

[mountainkiss]

Your entire journal is about how awful the Tories are.

This is a serious point actually. If this raises your blood pressure then why is it so much of your life? Or alternatively why are videos different from links in their impact on your blood pressure?

[andrewducker]

It's definitely more the video aspect. I can get cognitive distance from text more easily.

(And still, I don't go on Twitter in the evenings, because that does cause me to feel upset)

I just did a quick look at my last 20 entries (the first page, going back 2 weeks, to the 13th).

There are 3 links specifically talking about the Tories. 2 more talking about trans stuff more generally (for which I almost entirely blame the Tories). So say 5 in total.

Also, 6 about how rubbish Labour are.

That's out of 67 links total. So I'm about 10% "The Conservatives are the worst", 10% "Labour are also not good", about another 10% other politics. And the rest of it isn't politics at all, as far as I can see.

I try to manage a mixture of "keeping informed" with "not immersing myself in things that are just upsetting and which I can do nothing about". So I already know I'm not in favour of anything going on in Gaza right now, and I don't click through on that.

The things that catch my eye are either unusual (The Tories had their campaign manager resign mid-campaign??? Are there no depths to their incompetence???), don't seem to getting much attention, or personal (Like the trans links. It's hard to ignore when it's your friends who are being targetted for awfulness, so it's just being talked about generally if I'm online at all.)

[mountainkiss]

Thank you! Makes lots of sense.

I suppose this makes me interested in why collecting and posting links has become a thing you do with such rigour, but that might be conversational territory rather than comments.

[andrewducker]

Oh, I don't spend much time posting the links. I mostly just read stuff, and if I think other people might be interested (or should be!) then I'll spend 30 seconds saving it off. So most days it only takes up about 5 minutes total.

(Other than the time I spent writing the script that posts it in the first place, and the time I've spent debugging it when it goes wrong.)