Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Photo credit: Pablo Martinez/AP Get a load of these sorry quisling motherfuckers. The reviews are in for insane lying press secretary Sean Spicer’s second performance as the bullhorn of America’s new illegitimate white-nationalist government, and here are Washington Post staffers Chris Cillizza and Karen Tumulty—reporters, at least nominally, for one of the most powerful press…
On inauguration day in DC, the souvenir business was slow. I asked a vendor wearing a huge Bob Marley hoodie while hawking Trump hats and scarves and keychains whether he might not have had better luck selling Obama gear, and he shrugged. “It’s too late.” But he also said: “Tomorrow.” Tomorrow! You lie and I…
Tamper-proof tape used by the CIA to secure envelopes sent to FOIA requestors (Photo: Matt Novak) Today, tech nerds are obsessed with high-tech encryption. But if you ever send snail mail, you might want to take a tip from America’s intelligence community. The CIA sends out letters that are secured with a specific type of…
Peter Thiel giving a speech in July at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) The New Yorker has published a fascinating article about Silicon Valley tech titans who are buying up property in New Zealand as they prepare for the apocalypse. The super rich are worried about the poor…
Carl Sagan in a photo from 1981 (AP Photo/Castaneda, File) Did Carl Sagan really warn about a time in the future when manufacturing jobs would slip away, when the average person would have virtually no control over their political lives, and when we would all cling to superstitions? Yes, Sagan did predict just that. The…
If the very worst happens, it won’t be because we didn’t know that it might happen. We have all been amply warned. We’ve been warned of the many disturbing parallels between Donald Trump and Hitler. We’ve been warned that the rise of Trump resembles the rise of other authoritarian populist demagogues. We’ve been warned—by Donald…
For our physical and mental health, it feels important to create some sort of remove between ourselves and what is happening with the advent of the Trump administration. But to fight autocracy, Russian journalist Masha Gessen recommends that everyone keep panicking. On Wednesday’s episode of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, Gessen destroys every one of…
(Scott Heins / Gothamist) In a move that should surprise no one but outrage everyone (who isn’t getting rich off it), President Donald Trump signed executive orders revisiting both the Keystone XL Pipeline, which President Obama rejected in 2015, and the Dakota Access Pipeline, the construction of which the Army Corps of Engineers…
The decision to advance the pipelines cast aside efforts by President Barack Obama’s administration to block construction of the two pipelines, while making good on one of Trump’s campaign promises. As he signed the documents Tuesday in the Oval Office, Trump also vowed to “renegotiate some of the terms” of the Keystone bill and said…
Hundreds of activists rallied and marched in downtown D.C. this December in a show of solidarity with Dakota Access Pipeline Water Protectors. (Photo by Julie Strupp) Activists are planning a rally tonight in front of the White House to show their opposition to the construction of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines….