Linky Friday: Outrages, Outages, and Outliers Edition

Photo by Photographer unknown; publisher Scott Russell & Co. Art Publishers, Birmingham, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

It’s an insult to say that the Democrats held a real primary. Nobody thinks that. Everyone knew it wasn’t a real primary. Hardly anyone bothered to vote. Florida, the third-biggest and arguably most politically important state in the country, canceled its primary to almost no controversy. The total number of all ballots cast in the primary, in a country with 50 states and more than 330 million people, was equal to half the population of Texas. Biden received less than a third as many votes in the primary as there are registered Democrats in the country, and twenty states don’t require or report partisan affiliation for registered voters! Did you ever turn on CNN and see “Democrats: The Decision 2024” on the chyron? Did you chew your nails waiting for the results from New Hampshire to come in? Were there any debates? Was there any chance, in a million years, that Dean Phillips or Marianne Williamson would even meaningfully challenge in a single state? No! Because it was never a primary! No one ever thought it was a primary! Please don’t insult my intelligence. You can argue that Biden was handed the nomination because he was the president and that’s what parties do, OK. That’s true, parties do that. But please, drop the pretense that there was some sort of rigorous Democratic primary process here. There wasn’t. And for the record, it’s bad that parties just hand sitting presidents the nomination now, because…

Primaries are the immune systems of political parties. You know how we’re in this big terrible mess because Joe Biden looked too infirm and compromised to win a presidential election? You know how everybody’s been freaking out for a month about it? Well, there was one way that we could have averted this disaster: holding an actual fucking primary. Had there been a primary, Biden’s weakness would have been made apparent months ago. Had there been debates, Biden’s vulnerability in that format would have been unmistakable. Had there been a primary, all of these decisions about how to replace Biden could have been made not just with democratic legitimacy but with the added data that a primary provides, with the knowledge of who performed better and who performed worse. I’ve said before, the fact that Harris looked so feeble after she was attacked by Tulsi Gabbard in the last primary cycle – attacked quite effectively, I might add, simply with an accurate representation of her record as a prosecutor – is the kind of thing that primaries reveal. They weed out weakness. They give us more understanding of how candidates perform on the trail and under pressure. We’ve been robbed of that information.

And, if you’re a big Harris partisan, you should be mad that she never got that chance! You should want her to have been given another crack at the primary process so that she could have rewritten the ugly 2020 story and demonstrated that she’s the best woman for the job. You should want her to have had the chance to silence the doubters and prove that she was the choice of ordinary Democrats. Now, win or lose she’ll likely never face a real primary again.

[LF2] Why Is Babydog in All These Famous Artworks?

WV Watch reporter Caity Coyne took to social media as a response to WV Govenor and US Senate candidate Jim Justice’s famous pet bulldog Babydog finding her way onto a mural at the West Virginia State Capital, by placing Babydog in famous works of art. The Washingtonian interviewed her about the fun social media, and the much more serious stonewalling of the Justice Administration to the press.

Jim Justice and Babydog seem headed to the Senate. What would you tell DC journalists?
One thing that I’ve been thinking about a lot is the reactions from national politicos and journalists following Jim Justice’s RNC speech. [Justice brought Babydog onstage, and there were lots of articles about it. I wrote one of them.]

I have covered him for seven years, and it’s not easy. I mean, getting answers to the most innocuous questions is really difficult. And I really, really want to see journalists in DC hold his feet to the fire the same way that we have been trying to do here. It’s really easy to get sucked into, like, “he’s just spitting colloquialisms, maybe he doesn’t know what’s going on.” But Justice is a very smart man, and I think he can handle the fire. I hope to see journalists bring it to him.

Do you have a favorite Babydog photoshop that you’ve made?
My favorite is probably The Birth of Venus, because I think that Babydog looks kind of silly and ridiculous in those goggles.

When you post these, what response do you get?
I think it’s been positive—but positive to an almost disappointing degree, because I feel like the satire has gotten lost. There are people who see it and are like, “Oh man, this is great, I can’t believe Babydog’s going to be in the Senate soon.” And for me, that’s not the point.

I have struggled with whether it’s responsible to keep doing this and bringing more attention to Babydog. I don’t think we need to lose all sense of comedy about what’s going on with the government. And from a journalism perspective, if people are seeing Babydog, maybe they are also seeing some of what I’m writing that is a little bit more—I don’t want to say critical, because I don’t report to be critical—but honest, at least, about what’s going on in our state.

I don’t think that there’s really harm in [the Babydog pictures]. But ask me in two hours and I might change my mind.

[LF3] If You Like ‘Lord Of The Rings’ You Must Be An Alt-Right Troll Or Something from Erik Kain

Erik Kain reading Rachael Maddow quotes with an English accent is just the fun appetizer to the culture discussion to follow

[LF4] Why the Olympics’ Parade of Nations Is the World’s Costume Party from the NY Times

The modern Games are a French invention, after all: a projection of Panhellenic manhood onto contemporary Europe by a romantic educator and “fanatical colonialist” (as Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Games, called himself). The opening ceremony, especially, plunges the world’s athletes into the nationalist structures of the late 19th century. The flag-waving of the Olympics, the it’s-a-small-world amusements of the universal exhibition, or the repellent human zoos at colonial fairs: there have been many ways to bring the whole world to Paris.

A rendering of many colorful boats on the Seine, with athletes standing upon them in costumes.
This year’s parade of nations will be on the water. Teams will process through the city center on nearly 100 boats before arriving at the Trocadéro.Credit…Florian Hulleu/Paris 2024, Agence France-Presse, via Getty Images

A pastel-colored illustration with soldiers in blue uniforms gathered below many French flags.
An earlier episode of Parisian flag-waving: the celebration of Napoleon Bonaparte’s coronation in 1804 on the Champ de Mars, now the site of the Eiffel Tower.Credit…Musée Carnavalet
The heart of the ceremony remains the parade of nations: the world shrunk to an hourlong cortège, when athletic prowess takes a back seat to country-by-country voguing. It dates back to the 1908 Games in London. Among the innovations of Friday’s fluvial festival is a rethought approach to the athletes’ arrivals: With no stadium to enter, the participants will be mixed into the larger ceremony, floating in throughout rather than entering en masse.

An earth-toned illustration of a riverside party with fireworks above.
Another Napoleonic Seine-side party, this time to celebrate the emperor’s second marriage in 1810. Fireworks explode over the Trocadéro, where the 2024 opening ceremony will culminate.Credit…Musée Carnavalet
The organizers of the 1908 parade proclaimed that “every athlete taking part will be in the athletic costume of his country,” and that decree has stuck. The national committees call in their local designers; the United States is reliably in Ralph Lauren, Sweden wears H&M, while the Canadians this year will be athleisured out in Vancouver’s own Lululemon. A homegrown fashion industry does not guarantee chic, though. The Italians look reliably tacky, and showed up in Beijing two years ago in green-white-red ponchos.

At recent parades of nations women on the Indian team have worn saris, and on the Nigerian one geles. Caribbean contingents can be relied on for color. There is usually that guy from Tonga with oil-slicked pecs. Somehow we still have a taste for these kitschy motions of peace and brotherhood, especially when they come with a little geopolitical frisson, as when the two Koreas marched under a single flag at Pyeongchang 2018. The clash of civilizations becomes a costume party, and with the right fits the formerly colonized world can outclass the great powers.

[LF5] Cat Ladies for Kamala by Merrie Soltis

From our friends at The Racket News:

Let the record reflect that I didn’t end up childless because I listened to Democrats. No, I’m childless because I listened to REPUBLICANS. See, I actually believe that a child needs a mother and a father. That’s the way I was raised. I know that my adopted parents are the reason I’m not currently living under a bridge somewhere. I’ve seen the difference having a good father has made in the lives of others. Vance was right the first time in his book when he pointed out that the endless string of broken relationships, stepparents and step siblings wreak havoc on a child. Almost all the stress my friends with second marriages experience are a direct result of the children from the FIRST marriage. My own brother once advised me “Don’t ever marry anyone with children.” Our mother didn’t think that was fair, until I pointed out that she JUST TOLD US that she left her husband alone every Christmas because he dared to criticize her grandchildren. I have half-siblings, who have half-siblings, who probably have half-siblings. I’m probably related to half the state of South Carolina through birth, adoption, or divorce. You think sibling rivalry is bad? Half sibling rivalry is worse. Especially if one kid has a father and the other doesn’t. We’re still dealing with THAT 3 generations later, long after the parents are all dead.

I was also lectured by Republicans that I wasn’t supposed to have children I couldn’t afford. Agreed! No use bringing a child into this world and then relying on the government to feed and clothe it. That’s the parents’ responsibility! And since I was barely able to feed myself, children were not an option.

By the time I found a decent man to marry me, and we both had steady jobs, a savings account, and a roof over our heads – it was too late. We were both over 40. My eggs had probably expired. And my husband said he didn’t want to pursue adoption at our advanced age. Being a dutiful wife, I deferred to his wishes. Then he left me after 10 years of marriage.

So, being childless was not exactly a choice. I once read it described as “creeping non-choice.” Many women find themselves in this bind. You don’t make a conscious choice to go childless. You just keep postponing childbirth until it’s no longer a choice. Being single wasn’t my choice either.

The cats were a choice. But they’ve been a good one!

[LF6] Top Sinaloa cartel leader taken into U.S. custody alongside son of ‘El Chapo’ from Washington Post

The old Joe Biden would be correct in calling this a BFD!

A longtime senior leader of the Sinaloa cartel, Ismael Zambada Garcia, or “El Mayo,” and a son of famed drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán were taken into custody Thursday by U.S. authorities in Texas, according to senior Mexican and U.S. officials. It was a major blow to the Sinaloa federation, a global drug-trafficking syndicate considered the No. 1 supplier of fentanyl to the United States.

A Department of Homeland Security official with knowledge of the arrest said Zambada was fooled into boarding a private plane bound for the United States with the former drug lord’s son, also named Joaquin Guzmán. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the operation. The elder Guzmán and his son Ovidio are imprisoned in the United States.

The two men detained Thursday are among the U.S. government’s most wanted drug traffickers, and the State Department had offered $15 million for information leading to Zambada’s capture.

The news of Zambada’s arrest was first reported by the Reuters news agency.

The elder Guzmán was arrested in 2016 and convicted of multiple drug charges in the United States. He is serving a life sentence in a Colorado maximum-security prison. He and Zambada were considered co-founders of the Sinaloa cartel.

“This is huge,” said John Callery, a 30-year veteran of the Drug Enforcement Administration who retired in 2022 and pursued “El Mayo” and other Sinaloa cartel chiefs as the head of the San Diego field division.

[LF7] The billion dollar business of gambling addiction from DW Documentary

[LF8] Microsoft calls for Windows changes and resilience after CrowdStrike outage the Verge

Microsoft is still helping CrowdStrike clean up the mess that kicked off a week ago when 8.5 million PCs went offline due to a buggy CrowdStrike update. Now, the software giant is calling for changes to Windows, and has dropped some subtle hints that it’s prioritizing making Windows more resilient and willing to push security vendors like CrowdStrike to stop accessing the Windows kernel.

While CrowdStrike has blamed a bug in its testing software for its botched update, its software runs at the kernel level — the core part of an operating system that has unrestricted access to system memory and hardware — so if something goes wrong with CrowdStrike’s app then it can take down Windows machines with a Blue Screen of Death.

CrowdStrike’s Falcon software uses a special driver that allows it to run at a lower level than most apps so it can detect threats across a Windows system. Microsoft tried to restrict third parties from accessing the kernel in Windows Vista in 2006, but was met with pushback from cybersecurity vendors and EU regulators. However, Apple was able to lock down its macOS operating system in 2020 so that developers could no longer get access to the kernel.

Now, it looks like Microsoft wants to reopen the conversations around restricting kernel level access inside Windows.

“This incident shows clearly that Windows must prioritize change and innovation in the area of end-to-end resilience,” says John Cable, vice president of program management for Windows servicing and delivery, in a blog post titled “the path forward.” Cable calls for closer cooperation between Microsoft and its partners “who also care deeply about the security of the Windows ecosystem” to make security improvements.

[LF9] Southwest Airlines says ‘assigned and premium seating’ will replace open seating plan from NPR

The end of the cattle call?

An unofficial motto of Southwest Airlines’ open seating process for its people boarding its planes was once, “You can sit anywhere you want — just like at church.”

But after some 50 years, Southwest passengers will soon encounter a different process when they book and board a flight. The airline will offer assigned and premium seats and a revamped boarding model, it announced on Thursday.

Adopting a system of “assigned and premium seating is part of an ongoing and comprehensive upgrade” for customers, Southwest President and CEO Bob Jordan said, adding that research shows passengers “overwhelmingly prefer” an assigned-seat system like that used by other carriers.

In another change, Southwest also said it would introduce redeye flights. It did not say when the new policies would be enacted.

The company unveiled the dramatic shifts in how it does business as it announced financial results for the second quarter, showing net income of $367 million on record operating revenues of $7.4 billion. In the previous quarter, Southwest lost $231 million. The airline has $11 billion in liquid funds, but it also has $8 billion in debt and is affected by the ongoing struggles at Boeing, its longtime partner.

“We are taking urgent and deliberate steps to mitigate near-term revenue challenges and implement longer-term transformational initiatives that are designed to drive meaningful top and bottom-line growth,” Jordan said.

The Southwest CEO said in April that delivery delays of new planes from Boeing, which has been embroiled in regulators’ concernsover safety issues, “presents significant challenges for both 2024 and 2025.”

[LF10] Billy Joel’s performs final Madison Square Garden residency show Thursday

10 years, 150 shows, over 2 million paying fans singing along