Marco Rubio attempted to overthrow Venezuela today and failed.
Some of his constituents reminded him that he is a legislator from Florida and really doesn't have time to help the US steal natural resources from a country in South America.
around the web
the funniest night
Belatedly came across a SNL sketch from a week after the 2016 election: [hooktube]
Set in a NY apartment on election night, the bit features David Chappelle and Chris Rock yucking it up and rolling their eyes while smug Clinton-believers watch the dismaying election results come in.
Amazing that the show could go from this kind of blasé humor to singing Christmas carols to Robert Mueller.
"no webp" logo
Eric Schmidt's company bought a little company that makes a crappy "new" image file format that is apparently no better than jpg or png.
Using its monopoly power, Eric Schmidt's company is persuading more and more websites to use it, instead of jpg and png.
Most image programs need an additional plugin to convert this new format to jpg or png.
Who needs that hassle? Who needs a monopolist telling you what to do?
Therefore...
journalists' funny names for Thomas Heatherwick buildings
...oft-derided shawarma shaped bucket..." (The "Vessel" at Hudson Yards, NYC)
"Truman Show-style nightmare" (Google HQ, Mountain View, CA)
"...something that looks like a titanic xylophone..." (Bund Finance Center, Shanghai)
blue mob vs facts
Matt Taibbi points out that the Assange arrest has nothing to do with the discredited Russians-hacked-the-US-election theories:
Not only [does the US's unsealed indictment of Assange] have nothing to do with Russiagate, but in one of the odder unreported details of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, he never interviewed or attempted to interview Assange. In fact, it appears none of the 2800 subpoenas, 500 witness interviews, and 500 search warrants in the Mueller probe targeted Assange or WikiLeaks.
According to WikiLeaks, no one from Mueller’s office ever attempted to get a statement from Assange, any WikiLeaks employee, or any of Assange’s lawyers (the Office of Special Counsel declined comment for this story). A Senate committee did [contact] Assange last year about the possibility of testifying, but never followed up.
But don't let reality interfere with the opinions of disappointed Clinton voters. As James Howard Kunstler puts it:
It was interesting to scan the Comments section of The Times’s stories about the Assange arrest: Times readers uniformly presented themselves as a lynch mob out for Mr. Assange’s blood. So much for the spirit of liberalism and The Old Gray Lady who had published The Pentagon Papers purloined by Daniel Ellsberg lo so many years ago. Reading between the lines in that once-venerable newspaper — by which I mean gleaning their slant on the news — one surmises that The Times has actually come out against freedom of the press, a curious attitude, but consistent with the neo-Jacobin zeitgeist in “blue” America these days.