Afternoon Tea 2.8.21 - Glass Houses

Don't piss on my leg, tell me it's raining, then try to sell me new jeans.

February 08, 2021

Executions in the USA are superspreader events, Cuomo stonewalls the most basic requests for information & transparency, ICE in open defiance of the Biden administration, Professor Wang Dong was on mute, and researchers at the University of Maryland made wood that is essentially transparent. It’s Monday, February 8th, 2021, and this is the Tea.

Associated Press Analysis: Federal executions likely a COVID-19 superspreader (AP) We love killing people so much, the institutional events of 13 killing people over six months became superspreader events, leading to many more people infected. We are a society with morality in utter freefall.

Cuomo administration’s stonewalling goes far beyond nursing home deaths (Times Union) Cuomo won’t even respond to Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests to confirm whether he followed state ethics laws when he got his “Mission Accomplished” book deal. Cuomo is not your friend, he probably got nana killed.

‘There is real teeth to this’: Legal Experts weigh in on Smartmatic’s $2.7 billion lawsuit against Fox News (CNN Business) Talking shit about the president, especially Obama who wouldn’t fight back to a fault, is very different than talking shit about a company’s banner product. Smartmatic’s legal team is corporate, not activist, so this gon’ hurt.

American unequal jobs recovery in 7 charts (Vox) Are you wondering why rich people seem to think we’re in “Post-COVID-19” while everyone you know that’s struggling hasn’t actually seen their life get any better? Vox tries its best to explain.

ICE defies Biden, deports El Paso massacre witness, hundreds of others (NBC News) #AbolishICE completely and entirely. INS didn’t need to exist either. You remember INS, the thing that was created the last time this argument came up? CBP is right there, and has to play by actual DOJ rules.

The Republican Party Is Radicalizing Against Democracy (The Atlantic) & The March Of The American Kooks (Defector) Chris Hayes gives us the serious, short-term history and concerns with how the GOP is slowly radicalizing. David Roth gives us the depressingly funny history of how this grift went using sportsball. His takes a little more time to understand, but is absolutely worth it.

Put all that weirdly superior, gleefully expansive, relentlessly aggrieved incoherence into action and you have what we’ve got—not just people blasting their friends and family with weird corrosive bullshit nonstop, but people preventing strangers from getting a vaccine during a time of plague, because they wanted those people to have to see them, and to have to deal with them. As it happened, many of the people at the Dodger Stadium action wore their Trump shit anyway. The strange fidelities of this movement are tragic, but they are also very deeply held.

50 years of tax cuts for the rich failed to trickle down, economics study says (CBS News) That thing we’ve known was wrong since the Reagan administration, has now been proven wrong, since a bit before the Reagan administration.

Internet access restored as Myanmar coup protests grow (Associated Press) The easiest way to spike protest head count numbers is to shut off the internet. As an Egyptian man said during the Arab Spring a decade ago, “no porn and no twitter, how do they expect me to spend my time?”

Haiti’s president alleges coup conspiracy, says 20 arrested (Associated Press) Haitian president announced a potential coup, with almost two dozen arrested. A Supreme Court judge who supported opposition leaders was one of those arrested. This comes as arguments about when the president’s five year term actually should end. I really hope it doesn’t get worse, but that’s hard when it comes to Haiti.

NUS professor realises at the end of Zoom lecture that he was muted for 2 hours (Mothership.SG) Professor out of the National University of Singapore spent the entire lecture muted. Included for the description of the students trying to get the attention of the associate professor of mathematics, named Wang Dong. Clearly, I’m twelve.

How knitters are making their favorite garments from pop culture (Daily Dot) Reverse engineering knitting patterns from TV? This is exactly my shit even though I wouldn’t trust myself around knitting needles unsupervised for more than five minutes.

Scientists develop transparent wood that is stronger and lighter than glass (CBC - Study Link) Someone tell the Three Little Pigs. The 2nd one might not get away, but at least he’ll see the Wolf coming.

Song of the Tea: Ren educates, illustrates, and elucidates, in this amazing UK hip hop track. There is an entire section about how to corporatize tongue twisters.

It’s weird to have actual weather again in NYC. Almost a throw back to the times before climate change turned the tri-state area into a corporate facsimile of the SeaTac region of Washington.

Yours,t