Get well Marcus Ranum

Marcus Ranum is offline due to a health issue – he has written about it on his blog. I wish him a speedy recovery.

Offline

Even though the hospital visit seems to have futile, I am glad that Marcus Ranum didn’t ignore the symptoms, but instead got medical attention.

This hits rather close to home, as one of my close friends is currently in hospital due to a blood clot in his brain. He fortunately recognized the symptoms, and called an ambulance, which took him to the hospital straight away. Now, he is recovering, but he will have to relearn some motor skills. If he hadn’t recognized the symptoms and called the ambulance, the outcome would have been completely different.

A bit of humor

A rather brutal review of an Australian Netflix reality show which I had never heard about, but which I definitely will avoid at all cost

Knowing your limits

Yesterday, I feel down a hole of watching clips from past episodes of Masterchef Canada. I like the Canadian version of the show, because the people in it are truly skilled, and the judges are not assholes (unlike the US version). While watching those clips, I came across this clip

The setting is that contestants are split into two teams, who have to make the food for the customers at one of the judge’s restaurants.

The video is focused on the eventual winner of that season of Masterchef Canada, Beccy Stables, but I wanted to share the clip not because of her performance, which was outstanding, but because of the great example of the team captain, Kaegan Donnelly. He realized that he was out of his dept, and instead of trying to cling on to this position, he stepped aside, and let Beccy Stables take over the role, allowing their team to win.

I have worked with many great people over the years, and this is one of the rare skills that set them aside – the ability to look beyond their ego, realize what is needed while knowing their limits, and then step aside, and let other do the job.

Rammstein – Angst

Rammstein has release their new album Zeit on April 29th, and at the same time they released their first single/music video Angst (fear), which I interpretate to be a comment on racist fears of “black men”.

I based my interpretation on both the lyrics and the video (especially the ending). You can see both the German lyrics and the English translations at Loudwire, which somehow completely misses the references to racism, and thinks that:

Here “Angst” tackles the age-old fictional monster the bogeyman, which is known as “The Black Man” in other cultural depictions around the world, including Germanic folklore.

Read More: Read English Translation of Lyrics to Rammstein’s ‘Angst’ | https://loudwire.com/rammstein-angst-english-translation-lyrics/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral

It is extremely rare that you should only think of the naïve interpretation of a Rammstein song – they usually have layers and layers, often quite critical of the society they live in.

 

Congratulations France

The projection is in, and Emmanuel Macron has secured a clear victory over Marine Le Pen.

It s scary that Marine Le Pen was a runner-up, but this is the first time in 20 years that a French president has been elected to a second term, and the 1st time ever, it has happened, when the president had a majority in Parliament.

Macron could not have won, if the left had not voted for him over Le Pen. Many stayed home, but luckily, many understood the importance of voting against Le Pen, and her ultra-right party.

Gorillaz 20 year anniversary mini series

I guess most people have some kind of weird hobby, and I am no exception – I collect vinyl mini figures. Not funko pops, but a lot of different others.

Recently, I received a package from the US that I was quite happy to get. It contained this:

Boxes of Gorillaz figures

Two boxes of Gorillaz vinyl figures

Those two boxes are display boxes with 12 blind boxes of figures from the Superplastic X Gorillaz Mini Series. As a Gorillaz fan, and as a collector of vinyl figures, this was something I could not pass on getting.

Mystery boxes of Gorillaz figures

Mystery boxes of Gorillaz figures

Close-up of figure

The collection of figures were pretty cool. Very few duplicates, and some chase versions (different color variations) of different figures.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom is a farce

Orrin Hatch has died This is hardly something I feel sad about, and I pretty much concur with PZ Myers. Reading his obituary, I noticed that he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Trump.

Wikipedia explains the purpose and history of the medal:

The Presidential Medal of Freedom is an award bestowed by the president of the United States to recognize people who have made “an especially meritorious contribution to the security or national interests of the United States, world peace, cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.” The Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal are the highest civilian awards of the United States. The award is not limited to U.S. citizens and, while it is a civilian award, it can also be awarded to military personnel and worn on the uniform. It was established in 1963 by President John F. Kennedy, superseding the Medal of Freedom that was established by President Harry S. Truman in 1945 to honor civilian service during World War II.

Until Biden there has been handed out 656 Presidential Medals of Freedom, spread out across 11 presidents.

John F. Kennedy 31
Lyndon B. Johnson 58
Richard Nixon 28
Gerald Ford 26
Jimmy Carter 34
Ronald Reagan 86
George H. W. Bush 42
Bill Clinton 110
George W. Bush 85
Barack Obama 132
Donald Trump 24

Until Trump, the Presidential Medal of Freedom was given to sport and cultural personalities, as well as noteworthy public servants and politicians across the political spectrum. Under Obama, a lot of the recipients were people involved in Civil Rights, less so under other presidents. Unsurprisingly, Trump used the Medal of Freedom as a political tool.

I took a look at the list of recipients under Trump, and tried to categorize them:

As you can see from the figure, more than half of the recipients are sports people, a couple of which were foreign. Most of the rest were Republicans, all of which supported Trump.

This pretty much demonstrates why the Medal of Freedom is a farce. It is completely up to the president to decide who gets it, and it is frequently used to award political allies. Also, I find it curios, how someone like the Swedish golfer, Annika Sörenstam, is qualified to get the medal – she was the last recipients of Trump’s Medals, which I used her as an example, but I could use any number of the Trump recipients.

Anyway, the Presidential Medal of Freedom might have meant something in the past, but like everything else he touched as a President, Trump has shown how it can be used for political purposes, and that it is a farce, like everything else that the US Presidential position has the full control over.

Lazy linking

A few interesting links.

There is no “Putin wing” of the GOP: Why almost no Republican backs Ukraine over Russia by Amanda Marcotte

Republicans may say they oppose Putin, but they keep siding with the Russian dictator over Democrats and democracy

Amanda Marcotte explains very well why the Putin Wing of the Republican Party is almost the whole party, and that the only time that most Republicans will speak out against Russia and Putin is when they are forced to by public opinion, or, more likely, when they can use it against President Biden in one way or another.

Preparing for Defeat by Francis Fukuyama

I’m writing this from Skopje, North Macedonia, where I’ve been for the last week teaching one of our Leadership Academy for Development courses. Following the Ukraine war is no different here in terms of available information, except that I’m in an adjacent time zone, and the fact that there is more support for Putin in the Balkans than in other parts of Europe. A lot of the latter is due to Serbia, and Serbia’s hosting of Sputnik.

As a general rule, don’t expect me to link to stuff by Fukuyama, but this was an interesting list of predictions by him – even if some of predictions would be better characterized as wishful thinking.

Spectacularly Colorful Fish Is First New Species Ever Described By A Scientist From The Maldives by GrrlScientist

An international team of scientists discovered a new species of mesophotic coral reef-dwelling fish in the Indian Ocean

It’s always interesting when new species are discovered, and it is great that science is getting decolonized.

Atheists for Liberty are anti-vax

There are a number of Atheist organizations out there, working to promote atheism and try to protect the rights of atheists. Some of them are good, such as the Freedom From Religion Foundation, others are more problematic, and some are outright horrible.

In the latter group, falls Atheists for Liberty, a right-winged organization which participates in CPAC, and have David P. Silverman as the advisory board chair.

Atheists for Liberty at CPAC tweet

As their pinned tweet shows, they are proud of both of these things.

If there is any doubt about how horrible, the organization is, on the whole, just take a look at the books they promote, and the words they use to sell them.

This is nearly a literal who’s who of horrible people connected to atheism (some more of these can be found in the organization’s board of advisors)

Looking at the Atheists for Liberty’s website, I was not surprised to see that their major cause right now, is to allow atheist to get exemptions from the vaccine mandate. They couch it in the argument that allowing religious exemptions only, is discriminatory towards atheists, but instead of trying to get the religious exemptions removed, they are instead trying to get them expanded, showing that they are supporting the anti-vaxers.

Atheists for Liberty writes on their website:

Vaccine Mandate Equality Project

Atheists for Liberty has a firm stance on vaccine mandates:  Atheists musts be treated equally.  Across this nation, atheists, like our client/member Patrick Wilmers who are opposed to the Covid Vaccine, are being fired, while their religious counterparts are being allowed to stay because of “religious exemptions”.  This policy writ large, as promoted by the US Government, effectively thins atheists from the workforce while allowing religious people to stay.  It’s religious discrimination and it’s illegal.

Left unchallenged, it would set nationwide precedent – we would effectively lose a right – the right to equal treatment – and it would surely be used against us in the future as precedent for even more erosion.

We simply cannot stand and let our rights be reduced under the guise of safety.  Civil rights still count, even and especially in difficult times.  Atheists for Liberty ALONE (so far) is working to defend equal protection under the law for atheists with regards to vaccine mandates. We seek plaintiffs, lawyers, and your financial support for this important effort.

Read the full letter >

On the surface, it might seem like a reasonable stance that it is discriminatory to allow for religious exemptions, but not secular ones, but the right remedy would be to work for the removal of religious exemptions, not for allowing atheists to not be vaccinated when holding jobs as nurses or working together with other people in large companies. This probably explains why Atheists for Liberty are “ALONE” in working for this.

One of the Atheists for Liberty people at CPAC, was transbigot and Trump-fan Arielle Scarcella, who is actively promoting anti-vax propaganda by retweeting it

All in all, it is pretty clear that Atheists for Liberty are anti-vax, but I guess that is hardly surprising for a group that have notorious bigot and anti-vax promoter, James Lindsay on it’s board of advisors.

Movie recommendation: April and the Extraordinary World Official Trailer

Yesterday I watched the steampunk cartoon April and the Extraordinary World Official Trailer, which I didn’t know anything about, except for the briefest description (approximately the same as the trailer shows). It was a great movie, which not only had an interesting plot and universe, but also didn’t spoon-feed you the plot, but instead trusted you to draw the relevant connections.

One interesting fact about the movie, is that the art-style is based on Jacques Tardi, who is a brilliant artist, but whose style tend to turn me off when it comes to graphic novels. This wasn’t the case for this movie, however – perhaps because the lines are more clean that if they had actually been drawn by Tardi.