How is it that Pamela Anderson (yes, that one) has a better take on the gilet jaunes movement than nearly all journalists and pundits?

Don’t get me wrong — I was under no illusion she was stupid. But we have tons of “educated” journalists and commentators who have no understanding at all of what’s happening and why, and who are all getting schooled by Anderson here. She even cites Philippe Bourgois to make her points. It’s just embarrassing what our corporatized press has become. It’s their job and they largely are clueless.

If the world really were based on merit, those Ivy League numbskulls would be cleaning the toilets and Anderson would be reporting from France officially.

So the narrative about the gilets jaunes has shifted from the idea that it was just about some fuel taxes to that the Russians and Putin (obligatory maniacal laugh) are behind it all. This of course is being used by neolibs to deny the movement has any legitimacy or real grievances.

Though the grievances are very real, the movement will run into the same problems as Occupy Wall Street did. Especially as it’s up against people like Kevin Drum and worse. It’s essentially leaderless, without real goals, and doesn’t have a chance of using power well even if it takes any. This is not totally its fault; the entire world is structured to make anyone but the rich having possession of power and political understanding impossible.

It's genuinely astonishing how these days any time a Google product gets an update you can rely on the update being:
* Theoretically good for Google's product metrics
* Extremely good for Nazis
* Fucking awful for 90% of users

— Katelyn Gadd (@antumbral) November 27, 2018

Going to be true a lot more in the future. Showing a boob scares advertisers away. Nazis and white supremacy? Not so much! So you’re going to get a lot more of the latter and none of the former.

Also, America is an extremely puritan, prudish nation — even 95% of “liberals” — so it makes even more sense when that is considered.

I wanted to write something longer about Kevin Drum’s latest bout of economic deceit and stupidity, but I just don’t have the energy.

I mean, this dude is very bold. He actually links to the report he lies about. That’s true bravery there. And the reason I don’t have the energy to write about it because I read the whole damn thing because of Kevin Drumbass. Yep, all 54 pages of it. There’s 30 minutes of my life I’ll never get back. But there is this bit from the report, contra Drum, that I wanted to highlight.

Turning to net worth, which puts together the asset and debt comparisons described above, we find that millennials in 2016 have substantially lower real net worth than earlier cohorts when they were young. In 2016, the average real net worth of millennial households was about $92,000, around 20 percent less than baby boomer households in 1989 and nearly 40 percent less than Generation X households in 2001.

I can’t even find most of the numbers Drum lies about in the report, so I have no idea where he got those from. They just aren’t in there as far as I can tell and appear to be made up or extrapolations.

Also, this, from the report.

As shown in column 1, average real labor earnings for young male household heads working full time are 18 percent and 27 percent higher for Generation X and baby boomers, respectively, than for millennials after controlling for age, work status, and a number of demographic variables. For young female heads of household working full time, these generational gaps in labor earnings are in the same direction but somewhat smaller—12 percent and 24 percent, respectively. For family income, the regression shows that Generation X and baby boomer households have a family income that is 11 percent and 14 percent higher, respectively, than that of demographically comparable millennial households.

Drum, being a Boomer (who got free college and other benefits), simply must believe the younger generations are doing a-ok or he might be forced to do something about it. Can’t have that, can we?

I am sending Kevin Drum an invoice for making me read that damn report to show that he was lying, at my standard rate of $200 per hour, one hour minimum.

I am so not kidding. I am sending him an official invoice tomorrow. He better pay it so something comes of this waste of time.

Leave No Trace
Can You Ever Forgive Me
The Rider
You Were Never Really Here
Madeline’s Madeline
Blockers
A Wrinkle in Time
RBG
Skate Kitchen
The Miseducation of Cameron Post
High Life

To name just a FEW https://t.co/5aMWncDo8Z

— rachel syme (@rachsyme) December 6, 2018

I agree with the sentiment, but A Wrinkle In Time was an insultingly terrible movie. It’s one of the few movies where I was so affronted and enraged by how bad it was I wished I could’ve gotten my money back. We should’ve walked out of the theater, but I kept thinking, Surely it must get better….?

But no. It did not. What an utter failure of a movie.

In Hong Kong because of space shortage the buildings are so narrow and high that many restaurants are not on the ground floor, but high up in the building.

— Emanuel Derman (@EmanuelDerman) December 7, 2018

Can confirm. When I was in Hong Kong, the “budget” restaurant was on the 15th floor and the fancy one on the 27th. I ate at the fancy one because I’d never eaten at a posh non-American restaurant before that time (but plenty of budget ones).

I ordered a physical book because it was available in no other format.

And I can’t read it. This is why I hate physical books. The font is too small. It’s not because I am getting old. The font would’ve been too small when I was 18. I refuse to use a magnifying glass like some palsied pensioner to read it so it’ll just sit on the shelf, I guess.

I do not understand why anyone thinks six point type is acceptable.