Monday, July 20, 2015

Where I comment on stuff: Misogynistic Trolls as Losers, Which Words We Avoid in Newspapers And Who Gets The Money in Wisconsin


1.  The Washington Post has published a summary of the "why some men bully women in computer games.  It's important that you also read my post on that study.  It's more nuanced as they say.

2.  If you have followed the conspiracy theories about the Jade Helm military operation you have probably had fun.  Here's an interview with one of the men who keeps his eagle eye on the government plans to put all of us into concentration camps.  The whole story is fun to read, but this sentence is worth thinking about:

The leader of a volunteer group formed as a “watchdog” over Jade Helm 15 military exercises dismissed 90 percent of Americans as useless and said “he can’t wait to kill thousands of these f*cks.”
Notice the placement of the asterisk.  It's not in the word "kill."

That's meant to start you thinking why we don't regard m*rdering, k*lling and tort*ring people as worthy of a few asterisks.  Nothing about the story itself, and of course I know that "f*ck" lacks the "u" because of journalistic rules.

3.  A wonderful Wisconsin story (remember the Ringwraith governor Scott Walker):

The Wisconsin Senate voted 21-10 to approve $250 million in public financing for a new arena for the Milwaukee Bucks. The bill will now be sent to the state Assembly for approval. Though the Assembly is likely to pass it, there is still some backroom negotiating and deals to be completed beforehand. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel has exhaustive detail on the compromises struck to pass the Senate version of the bill.
Just a few days ago, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed a state budget that includes cuts of $250 million to the University of Wisconsin system, among other cuts to public education funding. Marc Lasry, a Bucks co-owner, is estimated by Forbes to be worth $1.87 billion, while co-owner Wesley Edens was worth $2.5 billion in 2007 before suffering a downturn (though not so big of one to prevent him from owning an NBA team) in the Great Recession. Together, they will pay just $150 million towards the arena.
 As an aside, Walker just signed into law the banning of abortion after twenty weeks of pregnancy.