This speedy revolution, a Stanford economist says, will be driven by technology, not climate policies — and while his timing may be off a few years, there is little doubt about the direction
This makes me happy
It really has been quite a ride
Or Aphex Twin track names?
as Chicago’s bikeway network grew over the last decade or so (135 percent between 2005 and 2015), crashes per 100,000 trips fell by more than half (54 percent) and fatalities and serious injuries per 100,000 trips dropped 60 percent. And that’s as more and more people started bicycling in the city: bicycle trips grew by a whopping 167 percent within those ten formative years.
It is as if, after having an unrelated disagreement over movie trivia in a bar, Trump has challenged Usain Bolt to a 100-yard dash or John Cena to a cage match to the death.
Important stuff in here. Note that what Russia is accused of doing sounds very similar to what Cambridge Analytica does, and what many advertisers do. To quote at length:
Russia plays in every social media space. The intelligence officials have found that Moscow’s agents bought ads on Facebook to target specific populations with propaganda. “They buy the ads, where it says sponsored by–they do that just as much as anybody else does,” says the senior intelligence official. (A Facebook official says the company has no evidence of that occurring.) The ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Mark Warner of Virginia, has said he is looking into why, for example, four of the top five Google search results the day the U.S. released a report on the 2016 operation were links to Russia’s TV propaganda arm, RT. (Google says it saw no meddling in this case.) Researchers at the University of Southern California, meanwhile, found that nearly 20% of political tweets in 2016 between Sept. 16 and Oct. 21 were generated by bots of unknown origin; investigators are trying to figure out how many were Russian.
As they dig into the viralizing of such stories, congressional investigations are probing not just Russia’s role but whether Moscow had help from the Trump campaign. Sources familiar with the investigations say they are probing two Trump-linked organizations: Cambridge Analytica, a data-analytics company hired by the campaign that is partly owned by deep-pocketed Trump backer Robert Mercer; and Breitbart News, the right-wing website formerly run by Trump’s top political adviser Stephen Bannon.
I’m no big fan of Google these days but I have to admit their AI stuff looks pretty impressive.
•Good news! Rosenstein has a conscience!
On the proposed replacement for the not well-loved Ontario Municipal Board
Seems impossible to keep up with the scandal firehose that is the White House these days. But a promising sign is that Congressional Republicans are now calling for some sort of independent investigation.
This is an article from January about Cambridge Analytica using psychometrics for the Trump in 2016 – the same company that worked for the Brexit campaign, and is tied to both Bannon and Robert Mercer.
WTF
Lookee here, Bell launched an over-the-top TV service and it’s not terrible. (Full disclosure: I work for Bell Media.) It’s bundled with Fibe Internet which is too bad, but the low end is a $15 skinny basic, and the “good” package for $43/mo is most of the channels most people might want. Sucks that they’re still charging $25 for HBO though.
Since being sworn in, Donald Trump has lost 50 pounds and gained 17 inches of height. He’s the longest president who has ever lived. His livers are both functioning flawlessly. His blood sets an all-time record for the state of New York for “most” and his blood pressure was rated “excellent” by seven different Fox News Twitter polls. He doesn’t even have one cholesterol.
My favourite park is coming along nicely
•
In short, what if Trump is exactly as he appears: a hopeless narcissist with the attention span of a fruit fly, unable to maintain consistent beliefs or commitments from moment to moment, acting on base instinct, entirely situationally, to bolster his terrifyingly fragile ego.
That number is 84 percent, Trump’s job approval rating among Republicans in the most recent weekly average from Gallup.
This will keep Hill Republicans behind him until those numbers start to sag.
From yesterday – really chilling testimony that slipped under the radar what with all the other crazy news. (Thanks, y)
•He could be disbarred for being involved in the Comey firing after he refused himself.
Impeachable offence
If Trump fired Comey to impede the Russia investigation, he possibly engaged in obstruction of justice. That is a crime. That is a case for impeachment. In fact, the first of the three articles of impeachment filed by the House judiciary committee against Richard Nixon in 1974 was for obstruction of justice.
While the city tests for E. coli at Toronto’s beaches, a few kilometres away, in the city’s inner harbour — home to boating clubs, windsurfers and paddleboarders — elevated E. coli levels are considered so common, no government agency is even routinely testing.