losing your children and spouse and dealing with that and trying to move on with life.

How white supremacists wield environmentalism to mask racism

Fascists like Brenton Tarrant weaponise environmentalism in service of white supremacism and the strategy is gaining popularity in mainstream politics.

“I am an Ethno-nationalist Eco-fascist.”

https://www.trtworld.com/opinion/how-white-supremacists-wield-environmentalism-to-mask-racism-25376

Or at least, we should keep this handy to fight Repukes who try to caricature environmentalists as left wing nutjobs.

Ted Cruz is a walking cliche, a flaccid mush of indecipherable ignorance.

To his point, I can only think of one feature film with a "rabid environmentalist" who is a villain, and practically nobody saw it. It is Night Moves, a low-budget film starring Jesse Eisenberg and Dakota Fanning.

It is actually a good movie with rookie mistakes (the camera is always too far away from the actors' faces--or the director doesn't like close-ups for some aesthetic philosophical reason) that suffers from the limitations of that low budget and a third act that goes a little bit haywire. But it is a movie that I've recommended to people who like offbeat movies.

into something big and profitable, whereas it seems the Republican way is to reward cruder manifestations of success, like net worth (through tax cuts and loopholes), allocating more money to corporations and individuals already at the top of the list hoping they will expand and employ, when they move towards automation and financial strategies that don't result in expansion.

I think it's Thomas Piketty in his book "On Capital" argues that the wealthiest among us don't actually spend much money. That capital often sits and accumulates more capital. Or worse, incestuous schemes like share buybacks...

spent a huge amount of time devoted to this subject (CBC Radio One).

For whatever reason, there was a period where you would hear a report or a mini-documentary about this every day. It was really fascinating and some of the interviews actually made me sympathetic towards the nurses. In Canada they are (or were, two weeks ago) trying to decide whether or not to make vaccination of health workers mandatory.

Anyway, I just wanted to post this because when you dig down into the reasons and listen to them it's kind of a poignant debate. They are totally exhausted, have sacrificed any normalcy in their lives and feel they have given everything they have to the COVID fight, and they spend most of their days following guidelines and obeying orders and feel they have no control over their lives, and they are using the vaccine debate to try to assert some little measure of control.

So people can call it stupid or ignorant or whatever, but that is one of the major reasons they are hesitating or resisting. It is not an anti-science issue; deep down it is a personal and psychological issue having to do with exhaustion and a sense of powerlessness.

Personally, I think the answer is to make it voluntary and then a lot of these people will get the shot, but if you tell them they have no choice in the matter, they are going to resist and feel aggrieved.

Unlike Manchin, she just got into office in 2018 and some of us are still watching to see if she finds her sea legs. She has been more assertive since this time last year at Impeachment #1. It looked like she was beginning to come out of her shell, so to speak.

She has done other things too. At a time when no public officials, not even our governor, were giving advice or helping with COVID, she set up her own personal website to get people help, she sent out emails every few days or once a week, and she is easy to access and get responses from.

Arizona is not California or Massachusetts. We shouldn't put a senate seat at risk so capriciously. Let's see if she makes good on her threat re: the filibuster. Don't forget all the times she has voted with us when the stakes were high, when she could have done the safe thing and voted with Repukes without it actually changing the outcome.

I think Epstein committed suicide.

And my opinion is based on the nonstop flurry of legal activity he engaged in the weeks prior, and that he redrafted and deliberately restructured his will to shield his fortune from his victims ever recovering any of it, and signed it two days before he committed suicide... or whatever happened to him.

Witness and anecdotal reports are that he was in a much better mood those last days than he had been prior to that, when he was said to be a broken, inconsolable mess. That last week or so he seemed in better spirits, talkative with his lawyers etc... (i.e., his plan was in place). It is not uncommon for people who decide to end their lives to have a burst of euphoria in the days prior to suicide. It's a strange thing, but it's like a weight has been lifted off of them, because they know what they will do, they have a plan, and they are happy with their decision. From their point of view, their misery is about to come to an end.

And also, I reflect on the kind of life he lived and how he was looking at spending the rest of his life in prison, and how humiliating his trial would have been.

Narcissists do commit suicide sometimes, especially if it is a way to screw over their "enemies." It is usually an act of anger, and a way of "having the last laugh."