text:
#171 Account Suspended
This week, we talk to Alex about the chaos on the internet after the January 6th attack on the Capitol. Also, Alex Blumberg Yells at Alex Goldman
PJ VOGT: From Gimlet this is Reply All. I'm PJ VOGT.
ALEX GOLDMAN: And I'm Alex Goldman.
PJ: Hello, Alex Goldman.
ALEX GOLDMAN: Hi, PJ.
PJ: You ok?
ALEX GOLDMAN: No! I mean...
[PJ LAUGHS]
ALEX GOLDMAN: Things are really fucked up, dude. Uh .. I just feel like um .. the state of the world externally is permeating my every thought and like, I try to retreat into things that make me feel comfortable and safe and nothings working.
PJ: Oh you mean to hang out on the internets not helping?
ALEX GOLDMAN: [laughing] yeah strangely reading twitter is not giving me the sense of calm that it usually does.
PJ: Alex Blumberg… you are also here.. I'm also curious how you are doing?
ALEX BLUMBERG: Uh… I'm alright…
PJ: Yeah so basically last week.. we'd had this moment where we were sort of—we were—Alex and I were talking, and it felt like with everything that had happened with the riots at the Capitol, um, it might be nice to do an explainer to you about just sort of how the internet was responding to everything that happened at the Capitol.
ALEX BLUMBERG: Huh huh.
PJ: So, the—we brought you, Alex, in. On Friday, we recorded the thing.
ALEX BLUMBERG: Uh huh.
PJ: That was Friday afternoon. By even like, Friday evening, it felt like just so much had happened that the thing we recorded, instead of feeling five days old, it felt 10 years old.
ALEX GOLDMAN: Right.
PJ: Um, and so, we actually wanted to come back, scrap what we had, and now that it's Monday, just sort of like, talk about what has happened since Friday. Because it feels like there's enough there to just talk about.
ALEX BLUMBERG: That sounds great. My question is like, your listeners never would have known about the Friday thing if we—if you just hadn't just told them about it right now. Like, why, why don't we just like, pretend like we're just doing it? Why are you mentioning—
ALEX GOLDMAN: You know that Wu-Tang Clan album that Martin Shkreli owns that's like two million dollars? There's only one of them?
ALEX BLUMBERG: Uh-huh.
ALEX GOLDMAN: That—this is our two-million-dollar Wu-Tang Clan album. [Laughter] [Crosstalk]
ALEX BLUMBERG: We're gonna send this to one person.
PJ: [Inaudible] Yes, yes, no. It'll be a collector's item. Nobody will ever hear it.
ALEX BLUMBERG: Yeah, we should—yeah, no one will ever hear it.
PJ: We're gonna press it to vinyl. [Laughter] We're putting it up on eBay. We could make tens of dollars off of this.
ALEX BLUMBERG: Are you sure you want to deprive people of the—like, that might've been the best episode you guys ever did.
ALEX GOLDMAN: You know, our continued success is in your best interest professionally, and I feel like you're trying to sabotage us here. [Laughter]
PJ: This is rank capitalism.
ALEX BLUMBERG: No, no. I'm trying, I'm trying to like—I'm trying to boost the price on eBay. Just cut me in.
PJ: Anyway.
ALEX GOLDMAN: Okay, guys.
PJ: We're doing a new one.
ALEX BLUMBERG: Yep, okay. Good.
PJ: Okay. So, today is Monday.
ALEX BLUMBERG: Yeah.
PJ: Let's just talk about literally what has happened since the weekend.
ALEX BLUMBERG: Great.
PJ: So, I would say half an hour after we finished recording—
ALEX BLUMBERG: Okay.
PJ: Uh, Donald Trump was banned from Twitter.
ALEX BLUMBERG: Right. Oh, right. [Laughs]
PJ: Yeah.
ALEX BLUMBERG: Oh, there was that. Right.
PJ: Basically, it launched a series of domino effects that were both, uh, I think, a lot of things that happened because of that were very funny. Um, and also like, very interesting. Like, it, it—for—it sort of felt like if, if the internet in general and Twitter in particular has felt like a really bad TV show that I don't know why I still watch it, this was sort of one of those episodes where you're like, "Oh, this is why I watch it, because sometimes stuff like this happens."
ALEX BLUMBERG: Mm-hmm. All right. So, what's happened? I don't know anything about this.
PJ: Well, you didn't pay any attention?
ALEX BLUMBERG: No, I mean, I know that—
PJ: You know that he was banned.
ALEX BLUMBERG: Here's, here's what I—the basic outlines of it. I knew he got banned, and then he got banned from everything, including Shopify.
PJ: Yes.
ALEX BLUMBERG: I saw Shopify trending on Twitter.
PJ: Okay. Yes.
ALEX GOLDMAN: So does that mean he can't sell Challenge coins?
PJ: I think so.
ALEX GOLDMAN: 'Cause every time I see like, a Donald Trump, anything that is Donald Trump merchandise-related, it's like, the Donald Trump coin. Minted with silver and gold. And it's like—
PJ: He's very into memorabilia of himself. [Laughter]
ALEX BLUMBERG: And then I know that everybody was gonna go to Parler, and then Parler also got in trouble, although I don't exactly know the nature of the trouble.
PJ: You didn't watch the show, but you heard what happened on it.
ALEX GOLDMAN: He has a baby's understanding. That's what I would say.
ALEX BLUMBERG: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes.
PJ: That's a very unkind way to talk to an adult man. [Laughter] I would never insult someone on this podcast, but.
ALEX BLUMBERG: But anyway, yes. Yeah.
PJ: Um, okay. So let me give you—let me just fill in the details, because this is a story where—
ALEX BLUMBERG: Yes.
PJ: … I think the details are very interesting.
PJ: Okay. So, Friday, um, Twitter announces that they suspended Donald Trump permanently. They did it—they, they had a post about the rationale for it. And it was, it was interesting 'cause they cited his most recent tweet, which was, he sort of vaguely intimated that the movement wasn't done, and more stuff was gonna happen, which you could definitely interpret as a call for violence. But it was sort of interesting because, relative to the many things he's done, it was kind of table stakes. But—
ALEX GOLDMAN: Well, well, actually, his last tweet was that he wasn't going to be attending the inauguration, which Twitter said, we take you saying you're not going to be at the inauguration to be like, it's open season. Go ahead and attack.
ALEX BLUMBERG: Oh, I didn't even—I didn't read that tweet that way. I read that as just like, typical sore loser stuff.
ALEX GOLDMAN: That's what I read it as too.
PJ: Yeah, they saw that as an implicit call for people to go fuck shit up again.
ALEX BLUMBERG: Wow.
PJ: So, the tweets they cited were, "The 750 million great American patriots who voted for me, America first, and make America great again"—he's gotta get all his trademarks in there—"will have a giant voice long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape, or form." And then shortly thereafter, said he wasn't going to the inauguration. Which, just relative to every other thing he's done, it's like, you know—
ALEX GOLDMAN: Yeah. That's real small potatoes.
ALEX BLUMBERG: If you were gonna ban Trump from Twitter over one of this tweets, which tweet would you personally choose as [crosstalk]?
PJ: He taunted North Korea with nuclear war. He was like, he was like, I've got—what did he say? Trump, North Korea, nuclear war tweet: "North Korean leader Kim Jong-un just stated that the nuclear button is on his desk at all times. Will someone from his depleted and flood-starved regime please inform him that I too have a nuclear button, and it is a much bigger and more powerful one than his, and my button works."
PJ: That was fine. This isn't.
PJ: But the thing that they said that I think was real was, um, that there were already—there was already on Twitter calls circulating for another riot around the inauguration. And so, they were like, this plus this equals you're dead. So [laughs] I think what everybody assumed was that because the president's addicted to social media and doesn't have great self-control, and doesn't love rules, he would immediately just start trying to tweet from somebody else's account.
ALEX BLUMBERG: Right.
PJ: Which is exactly what happened.
ALEX BLUMBERG: Right. [Laughs]
PJ: First thing he does is, there's like an @potus account, which belongs to whoever's the current president. He starts tweeting from that. He's like, uh, "As I've been saying for a long time, Twitter's, uh, coordinated with the Democrats and the radical left to silence me. We will not be silenced. Twitter's about free speech," blah blah blah. They immediately deleted those tweets.
PJ: And then he tried to tweet the exact same message from the @teamtrump account, which was like, the campaign account.
ALEX BLUMBERG: Mm-hmm.
PJ: Same thing. They deleted the tweets. They suspended the account. And then his digital director, this guy named Gary Coby, tweeted at Dan Scavino, who's like, Trump's Twitter guy, "Hey, you guys can use my login if you want." And it had like, a picture of the president. I don't know if he was joking or incompetent, but they banned his account as well.
PJ: My favorite tweet about it was, there's this Ariana Grande fan whose mom had taken away her internet, and she was tweeting from like, a variety of—I think her mom had taken her cell phone, and she'd found like—she'd found out how to put Twitter on an old Nintendo DS, like, basically like a newer generation Game Boy. She tweeted from that. She got the DS taken away. She then figured out how to tweet from their family's Smart Fridge somehow? [Laughter] And so she's like, tweeting through the whole thing. And somebody had a tweet that was just like, "Donald Trump in five minutes." And it was a retweet of her tweet, which was, "I don't know if this is gonna tweet. I am talking to my fridge. What the heck? My mom confiscated all of my electronics again. Sent from my LG Smart Refrigerator." [Laughter]
ALEX BLUMBERG: Is that true? Can you tweet from a refrigerator?
ALEX GOLDMAN: I think it might've been a hoax.
PJ: It could've been a hoax. It's internet true, and it's in the realm of things I am not going to learn more about because I would have less enjoyment in my life. Um.
ALEX BLUMBERG: You'd like to be in a world where a teenager figured out how to tweet from a fridge.
PJ: Yes. Um, so, okay, so then, so then it was just like, the feeling, which is what you missed out on, was like, it felt—it was just one of the most, like—first of all, it was just like, relief. Like, there were so many people, even people who support Trump, who were like, like—one of the things a lot of his supporters say is like, "I wish he wouldn't tweet." People who have worked in the White House have been like, "I wish they would turn off his Twitter account." Like.
PJ: Everybody felt a jubilation of like, the tweets aren't gonna come anymore?
ALEX GOLDMAN: One of my favorite tweets, honestly, is from an account that I really honestly dislike, is this guy Jeff Tiedrich who responds to every Trump tweet being like, "You, sir, are going to be canceled! You, sir"…
PJ: Oh, the "You, sirs" are terrible. You, sir.
ALEX GOLDMAN: So, he's one of the—he's like, one of those guys. And then Donald Trump got banned, and his, his tweet was, "I guess I'll go read a book." [Laughter]
PJ: There are people whose lives online have been permanently warped around him, who have like, careers out of responding to his tweets.
PJ: I would argue the two worst of all the "you sirs" were the Krassenstein brothers… they were these beefcake-y, identical twin brothers who just said the dumbest stuff in response to every Trump tweet. Twitter banned them after saying that they'd bought followers and account interactions but then a new account popped up that was Mrs. Krassenstiein and that account posted a video of the twins celebrating Trump losing twitter.
Mrs. Krassenstein: Hey, did you guys just hear what happened?
Krassenstein Brother: What happened, hon?
Mrs. Krassenstein: Twitter just permanently banned Trump. [All cheering and high fiving]
PJ: Synchronized high five.
Krassenstein Brother: [Inaudible] time!
Krassenstein Brother: Hey babe, I got this special Twitter Trump ban champagne!
ALex Blumberg: Oh my god.
Krassenstein Brother: You've been saving this. I don't think—
PJ: They, they, they go in—
Krassenstein Brother: Yay Yay!
ALex Blumberg: … to their refrigerator. They pull out a glass of, uh, uh—
ALEX GOLDMAN: It says—
ALex Blumberg: Two glasses and a champagne bottle.
ALEX GOLDMAN: Over which they've crudely taped a piece of, of printer paper that says, "Twitter Trump ban champagne".
Krassenstein Brother: Don't pop your eyeball out. [Popping noise] Uh!
ALEX BLUMBERG: And then they're pouring their champagne into champagne flutes.
Krassenstein Brother: Whoo!
PJ: There's a real vibe like, somehow they did this. [Laughter]
Krassenstein Brother: We knew this was gonna happen. It just took some time.
ALEX BLUMBERG: They are so buff, too. They're like, total like—
PJ: They're ripped bros. It's from all the retweets.
ALEX BLUMBERG: Wow. Okay. [Laughs]
PJ: That was the vibe. Um, but it also felt—the other thing that felt weird about it is like, in a way that I think people knew, but I hadn't understood the extent of, it felt eerie, 'cause we'd been so conditioned to be like, we know everything he's feeling all the time. It's like this bully who runs around the house screaming. And everyone knows how Donald Trump feels about not being able to tweet. And like, the feeling of not hearing him yell about it, but knowing he was mad about it, felt kind of ominous and dreadful.
PJ: So, so then the next thing that happens, which I think you saw, is like, every single platform sort of decides like, okay, fuck it. He's—we're kicking him off too. So it was Facebook, Twitter, Google, Snapchat, Instagram, Shopify, Um, Twitch, YouTube, TikTok, which I don't think he used, and Pinterest, which I'm sure he didn't use—um, there's a very niche like, hipster film review website called Letterboxd, and they were like, "Donald Trump can't post his film opinions here." [Laughter]
ALEX GOLDMAN: Um, I think the thing that probably wounded him the most is that the, the PGA… said they weren't gonna use one of his golf courses for a PGA contest"
ALEX GOLDMAN: There was gonna be like a big champion—I don't know anything about golf, so I'm gonna call it a championship. Please don't correct me. The big championship golf game was gonna be at one of his, one of his courses in 2022. And they were—like, rescinded that. It's not gonna be at his golf course anymore.
ALEX GOLDMAN: Wow.
PJ: You sound like a grandparent talking about a high school mixer that [crosstalk].
ALEX GOLDMAN: He got a touchdown in the hockey goal.
ALEX BLUMBERG: Matt [?Lieber's] gonna come on here and "yes, yes, no" you guys.
PJ: Is Matt Lieber a golf man?
ALEX GOLDMAN: Matt Lieber's a golfer.
ALEX BLUMBERG: Of course, yeah.
ALEX GOLDMAN: That's what business guys do. They go golfing.
PJ: It's just—it's like, it's a… It's like, I don't like sports, and then you add walking, like just walking. [Laughter]
ALEX GOLDMAN: My dad had a midlife crisis, during which he got a motorcycle and started golfing.
PJ: Oh.
ALEX GOLDMAN: And then like 10 years [crosstalk].
PJ: At the same time?
ALEX GOLDMAN: And started listening to world music, like almost exclusively.
PJ: Oh, god. He fully was like, a Paul Simon album.
ALEX BLUMBERG: That's a, that's a, like, a slightly unusual midlife crisis.
PJ: It just feels like he picked a bunch of different midlife crises from different shelves that don't necessarily match each other.
ALEX BLUMBERG: I know. [Laughs] Exactly.
ALEX GOLDMAN: But many years later, I think he still—he, he, his love for motorcycles, even though he does not have one—I don't think that ever died. But he's like, "I don't know what I was doing with golf. That shit sucked." [Laughter]
PJ: Okay, anyway. So, domino—kind of like, domino one is like, because of the riots and because Trump did like, one "I'm so sorry" video, and then immediately started tweeting like, angrily, every tech company was finally like, "Okay, enough's enough. We're not gonna do this." Um, also, probably an awareness that Democrats are coming into power. Um, so then what happens is that all these other conservatives start piping up, and they're not like—no one's saying at the time that it's bad that Donald Trump's been kicked off of anything. But what they are saying is that, while, they're not getting kicked off platforms. Their follower accounts are being attacked. So like, Mike Pompeo had this tweet where he was like, "This is how you create an echo chamber." And he had a list of a bunch of different Republican Twitter accounts that had lost a lot of followers. So, he had lost 36,000. Kevin McCarthy lost 41,000. Tom Cotton lost 15. But what was going on and what people quickly pointed out was that Twitter had also banned pretty much as many QAnon accounts as they could find.
ALEX BLUMBERG: Oh.
PJ: And so, the reason these guys were losing followers is because they have big QAnon followings. And the thing they were accidentally advertising by complaining about this was that a lot of their following is lunatics.
ALEX GOLDMAN: Oh, wow.
ALEX BLUMBERG: Right, so—
ALEX GOLDMAN: So they, they banned the entire—they're, they're trying to basically ban the QAnon conspiracy. [Crosstalk]
PJ: Right. On Friday, when we were talking, they'd just banned some of the big accounts, like the big hubs. But now, if you search QAnon or if you search the QAnon hashtags, very little comes up. It's mostly people making fun of the idea of it. And the very few accounts are accounts with like, 120 followers or whatever. Like, it's really—they have just—
ALEX GOLDMAN: Yeah.
PJ: … scrubbed it.
PJ: It's crazy, 'cause it's like, all the stuff that they said they just couldn't do. Like, all these tech companies, for four years, [snaps] in like, two days. It's just different.
ALEX GOLDMAN: Yeah, it's very different.
ALEX BLUMBERG: I mean, obviously, I know what happened, which was the insurrection by the president at the Capitol. But like, what… but do, do people know like, what was the moment? Like how, how—
PJ: How did this happen?
ALEX BLUMBERG: How did it happen? Yeah.
ALEX GOLDMAN: I've spoken to people at Facebook and Twitter and they don't really know more than we do about why the decision was made now. I do know that internally there has been a lot of criticism about the way this stuff has been handled… in spite of multiple calls to change things… and not much has changed… because honestly, I think that these companies are loathe to ban people and hate being seen as censors.
PJ: Right.
ALEX GOLDMAN: But last week, a lot of these places finally felt emboldened to do something, because there's really never been a straighter line like, violent rhetoric online and violent action in the world, so.…
PJ: Yeah, exactly.
PJ: So the next thing that happens is, um—how much do you know about Parler?
ALEX BLUMBERG: Here's what I know. There was always conservative talk about like, how Twitter was actually sort of like, throttling conservatives and sort of like—
PJ: Shadow banning.
ALEX BLUMBERG: Yeah. So then, somebody, somebody started Parler, which was sort of—which was like, the true platform for free speech, where nothing, nothing would be banned, and there would be no basically rules, essentially.
PJ: Yeah. So there's two, there's two websites that are trying to do this. One is called Gab, which is just like, the Nazi one. It's just fully, fully—it's that far. And then there's Parler, which is sort of—it's a mix of alt right, racist, hardcore QAnon, but then it's also the people who are like, you know, "Cancel culture's gone too far. I don't like big tech."
ALEX BLUMBERG: Gotcha. Okay.
PJ: But even the conservatives have made noise about using it. Nobody does because Twitter's so big, and they want the biggest audience, and they want the biggest platform.
PJ: After this, yeah, there's this mass exodus, where people go to both Parler and Gab, mainly Parler. Both websites immediately crash, [laughs] because they're not actually built for traffic. Um, the stuff that was happening in Parler over the weekend was its own kind of hilarious. There was like, um, what's her name, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who's like the, um, QAnon congresswoman. Like, she just fully believes. She was like, "Big tech is silencing me. Things aren't gonna be safe for long." I don't know what the verb is on Parler. It's not "tweet at me." But like, "Post your phone number and email address so I can contact you if stuff goes bad." Which meant all of her followers were just doxxing themselves across the thread.
PJ: Basically, it was like, highly paranoid but confused people trying to organize very quickly.
PJ: And then, yeah, so what happens with Parler is, first, um, Apple said, "You guys, you can't have a social network without any moderation. You have a day to get a moderation force in effect." Because, again, like, people were using Parler to organize violence. So a day later, Apple and Google both boot Parler out of their store. And then, I don't know of an example of this happening before. So like, every internet service you use—and, you know, you sort of picture that they have a basement with all these servers that are making the thing work. What is actually happening is that a lot of sites just rent those servers from Amazon. And it's called Amazon Web Services. Amazon Web Services was like, "We're not gonna host Parler. You guys are done."
ALEX BLUMBERG: Oh wow.
PJ: So they kicked them out.
ALEX BLUMBERG: Wow!
PJ: Yeah. So like, the two places where QAnon people move, like sort of—the flank that is sticking with Trump, basically, that wants its own place to post, they want it to be Parler, but in this moment, at least, Parler's so dysfunctional, they actually have, as far as I can tell, no home on the internet.
PJ: And, as you might expect, um, conservatives are not taking that well. This was like, the, um, the common reasonable reaction on, uh, Fox News to the fact that the, this non-moderated social network Parler has been taken out of Apple's App Store until it has moderation.
Female Speaker: Let's bring in Judge Jeanine Pirro, host of Justice With Judge Jeanine. Good morning, Judge.
JEANINE PIRRO: Good morning.
Female Speaker: Good morning. What's your reaction to that? Parler, shut down?
JEANINE PIRRO: Uch. Well, look. They gave us a taste of this pre-election when they suppressed the Hunter Biden story. And now that they've won, what we're seeing is the kind of censorship that is akin to a Kristallnacht, where they decide—
JEANINE PIRRO: … what we can communicate about.
ALEX BLUMBERG: She said Kristallnacht, and Brian Kilmeade, looked down in a way that I took to be like…
PJ: A sign of shame?
ALEX BLUMBERG: [Laughs] Yes. Like, wow.
ALEX GOLDMAN: I mean, the thing that you have to—the thing that—the, the real subtle thing there is that Jeanine Pirro says, "This is akin to a kind of Kristallnock." Like, if you're gonna fuckin' invoke one of the most horrific nights of, of ethnic violence in history, try to get the fuckin' name right. Like, it's really—I'm levitating with rage watching it.
ALEX BLUMBERG: It's interesting that like, you're, you're focusing on the mispronunciation as the thing to be angry about. [Laughter]
PJ: Yeah. For me, it's the fact that [crosstalk].
ALEX BLUMBERG: It's a totally inappropriate metaphor.
ALEX GOLDMAN: Okay, okay, okay. It's just, to me, is just, it's like an icing on a shit cake.
ALEX BLUMBERG: [Laughs] Yes, that's—
ALEX GOLDMAN: It's turd icing on a shit cake.
PJ: But that's been—the general vibe has been like—I, I think people on the right are like, a couple ticks away from where Jeanine Pirro is. But the, the reaction is like, the great censoring has begun.
ALEX GOLDMAN: Mm-hmm.
ALEX BLUMBERG: Right. Wow. Yeah.
ALEX GOLDMAN: And on top of Parler losing its server, and being kicked off the app store…it has this entirely different, totally self inflicted problem that it's dealing with…
PJ: Which is?
ALEX GOLDMAN: Basically, it got hacked in like, a major way. So, when you post a, a picture or a video to Twitter or Instagram, two things happen. One is that it scrubs it of all the metadata about when it was taken, where it was taken, what kind of device took it.
ALEX GOLDMAN: And when it uploads it, it gives it a random file name—
PJ: Oh, that makes sense.
ALEX GOLDMAN: So that, so that you can't just make—you can't just look sequentially and see like, okay, well, this, this file's named 160. I wonder what file 161 is and 162. You can't just make those replacements to look at every file that's ever been posted to, to Twitter or Instagram.
ALEX GOLDMAN: Uh, Parler did neither of those things. So, an enterprising hacker whose name is Donk Enby was like, "Hey guys, I just figured out they sequentially, uh—you can just look at the—their stuff sequentially. I'm downloading everything now."
PJ: So, it was like the equivalent of if you just went to Parler.com/images, and just downloaded all the images?
ALEX GOLDMAN: But it's not just that. Like, when you delete a tweet, it no longer shows up on the website, but it's still in their database sequentially. So, every deleted tweet was still there too. So, they downloaded every tweet, every image, every video, including all the videos and, and images that people desperately deleted after they realized the gravity of the thing they were doing at the Capitol.
PJ: Oh, like all the planning stuff, all the like, "I was inside the Capitol. Look how cool I am" stuff.
ALEX GOLDMAN: Right. So now there are more than 50 terabytes of every tweet, both deleted and not deleted, every image, and every video, just waiting for the government, first of all, and just, just like, you know average schmoes to, to pore over.
ALEX GOLDMAN: Also, I should say, I was calling them tweets. I guess they're called—
PJ: What do they call them? Parleys?
ALEX GOLDMAN: So, parleys, I think.
PJ: Really?
ALEX GOLDMAN: Yeah, I think they're called parleys. And I think you're supposed to pronounce the name of it Parler, but come on.
PJ: I'm not doing that.
ALEX GOLDMAN: I'm not doing that. [Laughs]
ALEX BLUMBERG: Interesting. Anyway.
PJ: Okay. So, I mean, I think part of the lesson is just, you know, you think of—I mean, I often think of Twitter as like, a dumb website anybody could make. But it, it's like, they've spent a long time building a big platform that works, and protects peoples' privacy, and doesn't crash most of the time. And, and like, I think it's hard to build that stuff for real overnight. It's easy to say you're building it and raise some money, and get some clout, but I think really doing it is a much longer project.
ALEX GOLDMAN: I have to say, I'm of two minds about this particular moment.
PJ: Me too. Uh, how do you feel?
ALEX GOLDMAN: I guess I just have to say that the idea of Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg being the people who decide who stays up and who goes down doesn't sit very well with me. It makes me feel pretty uncomfortable. [Laughs]
ALEX GOLDMAN: It just gives them such a massive amount of power to like, strip people of the ability to communicate.
PJ: Yeah.There's been people, like, um, Alexei Navalny, the Russian opposition leader who Putin's always trying to kill, he said he didn't like this. Angela Merkel said she didn't like it.
ALEX BLUMBERG: Yeah
ALEX GOLDMAN: And I totally get why they're coming out and saying that. On the other hand… I'm really glad that they took this step. I think it long overdue, that they should've banned a lot of these accounts, because it's been obvious to pretty much everybody watching that like, radicalization through like, social media is a real thing.
PJ: Yeah and you know removing all those Qanon accounts from places like Twitter, it's not just symbolism or ceremony, like it can actually have an effect. Like, there have been examples of people who behaved badly enough that they got kicked off the platform. And then they perished. Like without, without having attention and oxygen, they went away. instances of fringe right wing people, who behaved badly enough to get kicked off platforms, the mainstream platforms, and they perished without oxygen. Like Milo Yiannopoulos.
ALEX GOLDMAN: Oh yeah like... he's said he's millions of dollars in debt.
PJ: Yeah. He's, he's been reduced to—he's having people pay him to fly to meet him for dinner. He auctioned off his giant gaudy throne chair on eBay. Like, when people, when people like him lose the ability to access, access an audience, they starve for oxygen, they do actually go away.
PJ: So, I don't miss Milo, I'm not gonna miss QAnon accounts, but, it doesn't fit with the rest of my beliefs to be like, it's good that the tech companies are banning speech. Like, it feels like this is, this is, this is a thing that will have effects that are bigger than this moment.
PJ: I guess the way I feel is… It's easy to make fun of conservatives who are saying that getting kicked off Twitter is censorship because, obviously Twitter is not the government, they're a private company, they can do whatever they want. But I get why getting kicked off Twitter is a huge deal. Like Twitter hasn't moderated anyone meaningfully for years because they wanted to be the biggest website in the world. They want to be a monopoly. And they're pretty close to being a monopoly for what they do, and so now, if you're not on there, it is being silenced in a way that's real. And so Parler has not followed any rules, their getting kicked off the internet doesn't bother me. But what I want to happen out of this is people to build more websites that can have their own rules, they can have the viewpoints they want or don't want on them, so that losing your account on one website isn't such a big deal. That's what I'm hoping will happen.
ALEX GOLDMAN: So, in this moment... do you feel hopeful? Because it seems like there's some reasons to feel hopeful...
PJ: I don't know. I don't know. To me, what's interesting is like, I felt good—it was really nice to wake up and QAnon be off of Twitter, and not, not to be able to find it. That felt really good. It would be different if they'd done it earlier. Those people and their beliefs still exist.
PJ: But I, I don't know. This sounds dire. I feel hopeful that something is changing. Like, I feel hopeful that—I'm not saying these are the right decisions. I don't know. But I'm just like, oh, you know, the, the thing that all these companies were saying was impossible, they did overnight. Now we're gonna find out what the world is like after that. And I want to find out what that world's like. 'Cause this one sucks.
ALEX GOLDMAN: [Laughter] I'm laughing, but not because I thought—not because I'm happy.
PJ: In the meantime, we have, we have a power that the President of the United States doesn't have. [Laughter] We're allowed to post online. [Laughter]
ALEX BLUMBERG: That is crazy. That is crazy.
PJ: Yeah. He's not responsible enough to do that. He can only be president.
PJ: After the break, Alex Blumberg's potent rage
PJ: Alex Goldman.
PJ: You're not in trouble yet. [Laughter]
ALEX GOLDMAN: All right.
PJ: So, we—our last episode we published, "A Song of Impotent Rage"—
PJ: … uh, which was about your—the emotional experience of being Alex Goldman, [laughter] how you, uh, struggle with the, the, the feeling of climate apocalypse and, uh, how your solution for that was to write a, a punk rock anthem.
ALEX GOLDMAN: The song whipped.
PJ: The song whipped, according to you. Um.
ALEX GOLDMAN: It was good. Everybody should stream it.
PJ: Oh yeah, it's available on Spotify, if you want to support Alex's habit.
ALEX GOLDMAN: It's available on Spotify. You should go get, get into it.
PJ: Um, but we did hear from one listener who was upset with the segment. [Laughter] Uh, and because that listener's our boss, we thought we should put him on to hear his grievances. [Laughter] Alex Blumberg, what would you like to say?
ALEX BLUMBERG: Uhh.
ALEX GOLDMAN: You, you can't deny it whipped.
ALEX BLUMBERG: I mean, whatever. The song was fine.
ALEX GOLDMAN: You can't deny the music whipped.
ALEX BLUMBERG: Um, I, I—it, is exactly the, the stance that, that I find most enraging. There's this like, climate nihilism that's just wrong. I think it just makes people feel like there's no, there's no hope and there's no future and um and and …
ALEX GOLDMAN: I guess, I guess that I feel that. I feel like there's no hope...
ALEX BLUMBERG: I know, I know you feel that... that's fine. But it's not true. And so you shouldn't be telling people that. Trump feels that the election was stolen from him - it's not true and so you shouldn't be telling people that. Cause you do have a platform and lots of people listen to you. There is this like "all is lost so fuck it" mentality which I think is - that I think is incredibly damaging. And especially from people who actually, people um I hate to say this but... I respect [laughs] and admire [laughs] and follow.
ALEX GOLMAN: Oh nooo [laughs]
PJ: So, part of the reason that Alex Blumberg might have a problem with it is, well, you listeners may know him as an old man who's confused about the internet. [Laughter] Uh, he's also the host of a new Gimlet show called How to Save the Planet. The premise of the show is that, rather than climate change feeling like homework the world's collectively decided not to do, that like, there's a story going on right now about the things people are doing to make things better, and the things that people can do to make things better.
PJ: And so, perhaps it felt like you were ignoring that work. I'm just trying to moderate here. Am I right?
ALEX BLUMBERG: Yes. [Laughs]
PJ: Can you guys tell my parents are divorced? [Laughter]
ALEX BLUMBERG: I'm just saying this is… this is part of the problem. I've been working for a year and a half on a climate show and I have this cohost named Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson. And she's like, she's a marine biologist who studied coral reefs. That was her sort of area of study. And coral reefs are like, basically, you know, gonna disappear because of climate change. That's one of the things that's like, real, and is probably baked in, and there might not be much we can do about that. Um, and so, of all the people who would be like, "Oh, I'm gonna throw up my hands," you know, here it is, the thing that like, she loves and that she does on a day-to-day basis, and that she has like, devoted her life to doing is gonna disappear because of climate change. And she did not go to her basement and write like, a, a post punk anthem.
ALEX GOLDMAN: My attic!
ALEX BLUMBERG: She instead was like, "I'm gonna try to like, actually sort of do some things about it and learn about it, and try to become a, a person who talks to people about this stuff, and like, actually focus on what we can do." And so, and so, I was—and so, she does this—she does a whole bunch of things. And then, and then I met her, and we started this podcast together. We've hired this team of like, the incredible environmental reporters. Like, we have this woman, Kendra Pierre Louis, who is a, who is a, an amazing climate reporter at The New York Times; Rachel Waldotz, who's like a, a climate reporter from public radio. We have this like, incredibly knowledgeable team of people. And like, and we're, and we're like, instead of just like, diving into the like, doomsday of it, we're just talking about like, what should we do? It's here. It's happening. What do we do? And like, the minute you start talking about what you should do, it's actually sort of exciting.
PJ: Do you want to tell Alex about some of the stories he may not have heard on How to Save the Planet that, you know, can be reflected in his art?
ALEX GOLDMAN: Yeah. Give me reasons to be cheerful!
ALEX BLUMBERG: The single most exciting thing is that renewable energy is now as cheap or cheaper than fossil fuel energy… and solar in particular is now being called the cheapest electricity in history. So like, there's all these like, market forces now that are like, speeding the transition. Um, so this gigantic, huge blocker that was the oil industry, that had—that was incredibly powerful and had this super cheap, super efficient energy source, they are rapidly losing their power.
ALEX GOLDMAN: How rapidly are we talking?
ALEX BLUMBERG: Pretty rapidly. Like, Exxon was one of the most powerful, most profitable companies in history...you know... just like a little over 10 years ago. And it was just recently kicked off of the exchange that it was on. It's still a publicly traded company, but it got kicked off, um, the Dow Jones, uh, which is like just the list of the 30 biggest companies, because it wasn't big enough anymore. There's just so many other good things that come out of that. Like, all the things—you know like how the—you know how you're not supposed to eat fish because of mercury?
ALEX BLUMBERG: You know where the mercury comes from?
ALEX GOLDMAN: fossil fuels?
ALEX BLUMBERG: Coal plants.
ALEX BLUMBERG: It comes from coal plants. It's all from coal plants. So like, once you start getting rid of coal plants, like, you can eat fish again, and eat—people won't die of asthma.
PJ: Jeremy Piven wouldn't have to leave that play.
ALEX BLUMBERG: It's just—exactly. [Laughs]
ALEX GOLDMAN: Yeah, I know. Jeremy Piven could stay, could stay in his next—his forthcoming play.
ALEX BLUMBERG: And the biggest car company in the world right now, the most valuable car company in the world, um—
PJ: Electric car company.
PJ: Run by a guy who's just like a crazy schmuck all the time for no reason. [laughs]
ALEX BLUMBERG: [Laughs] Run by like, seriously. A very flawed, flawed individual.
PJ: It's—one of my favorite things about the future —that we live in, where this guy perfected the electric car and then he just spends all of his time on Twitter picking fights for no reason.
ALEX BLUMBERG: For no reason whatever. [Laughs]
ALEX GOLDMAN: Um, all that stuff is very exciting, but like, every fuckin' paper that comes out says we're gonna miss the mark on like, the 2 degrees Celsius that we have eight years or less to fix, and, and shit's gonna get real bad in the next hundred years.
ALEX BLUMBERG: No, shit is gonna get bad. There's no question about it. Like, we have changed the climate. That's actually happening for sure. And a lot of people are worried about that. But like, there is a huge wide range of like, how bad it gets. Water Wars: Mad Max is, is not baked in. Like, alarm is fine. I believe there's a crisis. But this, whole—you know, there's this like, essay by Jonathan Franzen that this reminded me of, where it was just sort of like, "Everything is so bleak. We should just give up." He literally—that was sort of basically the argument, was just sort of like, "Let's not do anything."
ALEX GOLDMAN: Well, I don't like that guy.
ALEX BLUMBERG: And like, and I think that attitude of just sort of like, "It's too depressing. There's nothing to do about it, right?" adolescent—
ALEX GOLDMAN: Good songs. Good songs.
ALEX BLUMBERG: [Laughs] The adolescent punk ballads about it is like, I think it's the pro… a big part of the problem.
ALEX GOLDMAN: Uh, okay. So, are you saying that the way that I express myself is not valid? [Laughter]
PJ: Oh my god.
ALEX BLUMBERG: I'm not saying your feelings aren't valid.
PJ: Oh my god. Dude goes to therapy one time. [Laughter]
ALEX BLUMBERG: I'm just saying, I don't know. I'm just saying like when you do things like that, you're actually hurting the thing that you actually want to help, like, to me, one of the biggest threats to like, actually getting to where we need to go as a world is, um, the way we feel about it. [Laughs] Like, honestly. And if we feel like there's nothing to be done, and it's hopeless, and the fossil fuel companies always win anyway, like, something about that is self-fulfilling. It's scary, but it's not like, hopeless.
ALEX GOLDMAN: All right. I tell you what.
ALEX GOLDMAN: I will listen to the entire series.
ALEX GOLDMAN: And if I become a climate optimist, I'll write a, I'll write a song about how I was wrong. [Laughter]
PJ: The wolf's at the door, but he's actually a cute dog, and he just wants some scraps.
ALEX GOLDMAN: Yeah. It'll be called, it'll be called, "The Puppy's in Your Lap." [Laughter]
ALEX BLUMBERG: I mean, the wolf's at the door. You're not wrong about that.
ALEX GOLDMAN: The wolf's at the door. But I've got my musket.
ALEX BLUMBERG: Here's all the wolf miti… mitigation strategies that we have at our disposal.
PJ: "Wolf Mitigation Strategies" is actually, I think, a much better song title.
ALEX BLUMBERG: It writes itself. It really does.
PJ: It sounds like a [crosstalk]
ALEX GOLDMAN: I mean, I kind of want to write a song called "Wolf Mitigation Strategies" [laughter] regardless now.
PJ: Okay. So, Alex is gonna write an apology song to the climate, to Gaia.
ALEX BLUMBERG: Okay. If it works, yes.
ALEX BLUMBERG: And now I feel like there's a lot riding on us. I gotta tell the team. [Crosstalk]
PJ: He's gonna listen to all of How to Save the Planet, which people can listen to on Spotify. Um, do you think, Alex Blumberg, next time Alex Goldman does a story, could you come back and criticize him about it? 'Cause I really enjoyed this. [Laughter]
ALEX BLUMBERG: No. But, you know, if you ever feel this way about anything that I do, just let me know.
PJ: Oh, we'll be on. [Laughter]
Reply All is hosted by PJ Vogt, Emmanuel Dzotsi and me, Alex Goldman.
Our show's produced by Sruthi Pinnamaneni, Phia Bennin, Damiano Marchetti, Anna Foley, Jessica Yung, and Lisa Wang. Our executive producer is Tim Howard. We were mixed by Rick Kwan. Our intern is Navani Otero. Our show is fact checked by Michelle Harris. This is her last week with us after fact checking our show for many years. Michelle, thank you so much for saving our butts so many times. We are going to miss you terribly. Congratulations on your new gig.
Our theme song is by the Mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder. Special thanks this week to Rusty Foster. Matt Lieber is the stillness of the woods in winter. You can listen to our show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks so much for listening. We'll see you in a couple of weeks.


text:
Jeff Bezos and Amazon are nearing a super-villain level of rich
Exciting news for Jeff Bezos.
Image: chip somodelivva/Getty Images
By Emma Hinchliffe 2017-03-30 15:26:49 UTC
What's cooler than a few billion dollars? A trillion dollars.
And for Amazon, that milestone is in sight. The tech giant will eventually be worth $1 trillion, the financial services firm Barclays predicted.
"AMZN is likely to be one of the first trillion-dollar market cap companies; it's just a question of when, not if, in our view," analyst Ross Sandler wrote in a note to Barclays' clients.
SEE ALSO: Glimpse into Amazon's futuristic living spheres
The prediction came about because Barclays advised its investors to buy more of Amazon stock. In the near term, the firm predicted that Amazon would earn more than expected this year.
Amazon's insane growth isn't due to people ordering books and diapers online. Prime has been a huge boost for Amazon, but quieter offerings like Amazon Web Services are key to Amazon's money-making potential.
SEE ALSO: Amazon's Alexa has mad skills. 10,000 of them, to be exact.
In the long term, that means trillions. Amazon could be "one of the first" companies to reach the trillion-dollar milestone — maybe even beating Apple, Alphabet and Facebook.
That's good news for the world's second richest person, who happens to be Amazon's CEO.
WATCH: This spinach leaf is actually a tiny, beating human heart
Topics: amazon, barclays, Business, jeff bezos

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Prince William was reportedly surprised with a £25,000 portrait by wife Kate Middleton on his 30th birthday last week, which sounded pretty good to us. But now it seems the Queen has gone one better.
According to insiders, the monarch gave Prince William a cottage at her sprawling Sandringham estate for his big 3-0, which will be ready for use later this year.
It's not known exactly which cottage thePrince was give on the 20,000-acre Sandringham estate.
But insiders say a property at one of the Queen's favourite residences is 'definitely being made ready' for Prince William and Kate Middleton this summer.
'A property is definitely being made available to William and Kate this year and a plan is in place for William to have his own place on the estate,' one insider told the Mail.
Sandringham Castle is thought to hold special memories for Prince William and Kate Middleton, who spent their first Christmas together there, with the rest of the Royal Family last year.
It's thought William and Katehave often visited Sandringham's Wood Farm Cottage, used as an informal country retreat by the royals – for romantic weekends away.


Do you feel like your life is on the shelf? Do you feel like you are not living the life you were designed to live? Do you feel like a big question mark, sitting on the sidelines of life?
If you have this awareness, it is actually a good thing. Somehow, you are in the wilderness, in some aspect of your life. The wilderness is a common motif in the Bible.
Life on the shelf is where you suffer the loss of something. You lose your job, you lose relationships, or you lose your place. You go from active to in active.
Now what? On the shelf, things shift from outer to inner. Rather that doing things going outward, God shifts you to intensive inner work.
When we get put on the shelf, there is a dying that occurs, so that God can form Christ's life in you. God teaches us to live in his love and be accepted by him, and not live for the applause of people. A purging happens that can not happen when we are constantly engaged in activities with people.
When we go through a stripping where things are taken away that gave us esteem, it is time to embrace God and find our whole worth in him. We get to and have to decide how we will spend our time on the shelf. Will we exercise faith and press into God, even if God seems distant or absent; or will we misbehave?
The choice is ours, bitter or better. Waiting on God, when there seems to be no tangible reward, because the reward is not immediate, is the test we face. If we lean into the experience that God puts before us and learn what lessons he is wanting us to learn, then we will be able to say that we were refined and when we come out on the other side, the gold was left.
The time on the shelf is a time to grow in loving God. It is a time to discover God's relationship with you: who God wants to be to you and who you are to him. When we first get put on the shelf, we might view it as punishment or disfavor or failure. Actually, it is a blessing.


text:
The Bad Seed Recap
Rowena casts a spell and addresses three members of the Grand Coven, offering them membership in her new Mega Coven. They point out that the head of the Grand Coven disappeared, and figure that Rowena just needs backup against the Winchesters. Rowena points out that she compelled an angel to kill the King of heaven, and one of the angels says that her friend recently cut a deal with Crowley. When they dismiss Rowena as delusional, she casts a sell and they burst into dust. Furious, Rowena takes in the fact that her son lives.
In the Bunker, Dean remembers his encounter with the Darkness. Sam interrupts his chain of thought, and Dean insists that he's fine. Castiel warns that the missing baby is a time bomb rather than a baby, and the Darkness has infinite power. The brothers point out that God defeated the Darkness once before, but Castiel warns them not to count on Him. The angel confirms that he's still manacled to the wall, and Dean points out that they're still not sure what's going on with him. Sam suggests that they need Metatron to deal with the Darkness, as Castiel has a sudden seizure from Rowena's spell. Dean points out that they're trying to find her, but Sam warns that Castiel's condition is getting worse.
A demon tells Crowley that his mother has been found. Young Amara is watching video on a laptop, and Crowley tells the demon to eliminate Rowena. The nanny tells Crowley that Amara is making amazing progress, and Crowley tells her to keep an eye on her. He then goes over to Amara and tells her that she can take a break if she wants. Crowley insists that she can have anything want, and Amara says that she wants Crowley to save her from God. He wonders how God sealed her away, but Amara refuses to discuss it.
Rowena meets with two witches at a restaurant in Denver. She accuses the Grand Coven of being cowards, and explains that she wants the best of the best to join her Mega Coven. The witches are less than enthused, and Rowena says that she has the Book of the Damned. She warns that she's a force of nature and is willing to share the secrets with her Mega Coven. A demon takes over a nearby waiter and kills one witch, and Rowena walks out, telekinetically blocking her retreat with furniture.
At the bunker, Dean leaves another voice mail with Crowley. He figures Crowley is up to something, and Sam has no luck finding Metatron. Castiel spaces off momentarily and then suggests that they try waffle places since Metatron likes those. The angel has another seizure and collapses. When he recovers, Castiel explains that he feels like his soul is being pureed. He warns that he can't control what is consuming him and there are angel voices in his head. Castiel explains that the angels have been scouring the world for Metatron. Sam checks the Internet and finds a reference to the attack at the restaurant.
In Hell, Amara brings up photos of disasters. She then looks at herself in the mirror and sees a reflection of her adult self. The adult Amara says that her younger self must stay fixed on their purpose because they can't undo what is already done. As the young Amara grows stronger, her destiny will become clear. Crowley comes in and Amara says that she thinks she's learning interesting things.
An angel meets a demon at a bar. The angel flashes his demon-killing knife, and the demon's eyes briefly turn black. They then sit down together and complain about something big emerging. Nobody is admitting that anything is wrong, and it's the grunts like them that get squeezed. They worry that they could be out of work and figure that someone has to do something. They drink to the little guys and order another.
Sam and Dean arrive in Denver and question the surviving witch. They tell her that they know all about demons, witches, Rowena, and Crowley. The witch is so scared that she doesn't want to leave the situation, and Dean warns her that Crowley will kill every witch that associates with Rowena. Sam checks her handbag and confirms that she has spell components. The witch starts to cast a spell against them, but Dean warns that they're her only defense. Sam tells her to scrye for Rowena, and once she's out of the picture then Crowley will stop hunting witches. She says that she doesn't have her crystals, and Dean offer her the compact from her purse. The witch starts scrying and conjures an image of Rowena packing a bag.
Crowley returns to Amara and offers her two gifts. One is a bloodstained dress and the other is a pop-up book. Amara shows him the book that Nanny gave her: Dante's Inferno. She says that she will do things differently but refuses to give specifics. Nanny brings cupcakes over, and Amara grabs the demon and sucks her soul out.
Rowena has put on a blonde big and calls a taxi. Dean arrives as the driver and Rowena slams him into a wall. She reminds him that she removed the Mark, and Sam grabs her arm and manacles her. He explains that they don't have to hold her for long and take her away.
At the bunker, Castiel does a web search for his car that Metatron stole. He finds one of Dean's bookmarked porn sites and quickly shuts the computer down. The angel has another seizure and relives his attempt to kill Crowley.
In Hell, Amara feeds on another demon's soul. Once she's done, Crowley returns to the topic of God screwing up humanity. Amara says that God created a world where humans suffer and die, and Crowley agrees that God's plan is flawed. He suggests that they reshape the world and eradicate virtue. She asks if he would be happy if everyone was evil, and Crowley concedes that it wouldn't be much of a challenge if everyone was evil. He prefers humans fighting against the darkness and giving in, and Amara says that it's all unimportant. When Crowley disagrees, Amara says that she's hungry and Crowley summons another demon.
The brothers chain Rowena up in a bunker cell, and Sam confirms that she has the Codex but not the Book. Rowena admits that she hid it, and Dean tells Sam to bring Castiel in. Once they're alone, Rowena reminds Dean of their deal. He points out that they need the Book back, and now she's going to play by their rules or he'll call Crowley. Rowena dares him to do it, pointing out that if she's dead than the Winchesters have nothing and Castiel goes mad and dies. She asks what happened when she removed the Mark, and realizes that he's unleashed some new hell on the world. Sam comes back and says that Castiel escaped.
Castiel staggers through the streets of the nearby city.
Sam and Dean drive out with Rowena to look for their friend, tracking his phone's GPS. She's offended that they don't consider her part of the team.
Crowley summons his aide who is now working as Amara's nanny. He points out that the demon failed to kill Rowena, and he wants the aide to stop overfeeding Amara in case she runs out of control. The aide realizes that Crowley wants to give Amara the news, and Crowley makes it clear that he doesn't have a choice.
Rowena complains that the Winchesters aren't holding up their bargain, and she tells Dean about the deal she made with Sam to kill Crowley in return for removing the Mark. Sam says that he was going to tell Dean until he realized that there was no point. However, Dean isn't happy that Sam is keeping another secret. Sam notices that Castiel has spotted nearby.
A woman is walking down the street and Castiel sneaks up on her. The Winchesters pull up and take Rowena with them. The brothers split up and Sam takes Rowena with her.
The woman runs and hides in a warehouse just before Castiel rounds the corner. He pounds on the door sand the woman runs further in and hides among the shelves. Outside, Dean hears Castiel rummaging through the building and goes to investigate.
Crowley finds the woman and starts choking her. Dean arrives and calls to Castiel, telling him not to do it. The angel growls and then releases the woman, who runs out. Castiel then grabs Castiel and beats him. Sam arrives, holding a gun to Rowena's head, and threatens to shoot her if she doesn't finish the negation spell. The witch finishes the spell and Castiel collapses, convulsing. Dean helps him up, while Rowena casts a spell to knock first Sam's gun and then Sam away. She magically slams a gate down, blocking Dean from getting to her, and walks away.
The next day at the bunker, Dean recovers from his wounds and drinks beer. Castiel thanks Dean for his help and Dean assures him that there's no need. Sam points out that since they have the Codex, it will slow Rowena down. If they had killed her then the Book would have been lost. Castiel offers to heal Dean, but Dean refuses and says that he had it coming.
Crowley goes to Amara's room and finds the demon aide dead in the hallway. He goes in and discovers that Amara is now a teenager... and wants more food.
Written by Gadfly on Oct 22, 2015
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Donald L. Bitzer received a BS in 1955, an MS in 1956, and a PhD in 1960, all in Electrical Engineering from UIUC. He became an Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at UIUC in 1960, and Professor in 1967. He became the Director of the University's Computer-based Education Research Lab (CERL) in 1967.
Dr. Bitzer is the inventor of the PLATO (Programmed Logic for Automatic Teaching Operations) system and the coinventor of the plasma display panel which received the Industrial Research 100 Award in 1966. He holds other patents in the electronics field, including patents for an image selector and an audio device for the PLATO IV terminal.
He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of the Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers, and a Fellow of the Association for Development of Computer-based Instructional Systems. He received the Laureate of the Lincoln Academy of Illinois in 1982.
Dr. Bitzer retired from UIUC in 1989 and is currently teaching and doing research at North Carolina State University.
Gene Slottow received an undergraduate degree in physics from the University of Chicago, a master's degree in electrical engineering from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and a doctorate in electrical engineering from Illinois.
In 1964 while working for the University of Illinois as a Senior Research Engineer, Dr. Slottow, Donald Bitzer, and Robert Wilson co-invented the AC plasma display panel for the PLATO computer terminal. The patent on the plasma display panel has been the most lucrative in the history of the University, bringing in millions of dollars. Dr. Slottow became an Associate Professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering at UIUC in 1968.
In 1973, Dr. Slottow received the Frances Rice Darne Memorial Award from the Society for Information Display for technical achievement. In April 1975 he was elected as a fellow to the Society for Information Display for his outstanding contributions to the advancement of display technology. In January 1986 he was elected a Fellow of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
Dr. Slottow retired from the University of Illinois in 1986. He passed away March 11, 1989.
In early Ocober 2002, three U of I ECE alumni received an Emmy Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. Donald Bitzer (BSEE '55, MSEE '56, PhD '60), H. Gene Slottow (PhD '64), and Robert Willson (PhD '66) received the prestigious award for inventing the flat-panel plasma display, the forerunner of today's high-definition flat-panel television monitors. They shared the 2002 Scientific and Technological Emmy with Fujitsu General America Inc., which played a lead role in commercializing the technology.
The award was set up using donations by Prof. Donald L. Bitzer and H. Gene Slottow out of some of the funds they received from the development of the AC-plasma display panel. The award is to be presented to the student or students who demonstrate the most creativity and inventiveness in a design project.
The design must have been demonstrated in a public setting.
The design must show creativity and inventiveness.
The recipient should be an undergraduate.
Each semester the faculty are asked to nominate students for this award. The committee will review the nominations and select the recipient.
The award carries a stipend of $2000. The recipient is recognized at the annual ECE Award Banquet in April.


text:
Walmart is giving nearly a million employees Samsung phones in exchange for their free will
Walmart employees can use their new Samsung phones at work and home.
Derrek Lee
Walmart has announced the new Me@Walmart app for employees to complete work tasks.
The company is providing its employees with Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro smartphones for work and personal use.
While clocked in, employees will only be able to use the Me@Walmart app.
Walmart has announced that it is launching a new Me@Walmart app for its associates and will provide new Samsung Galaxy smartphones to more than 740,000 employees.
The Me@Walmart will allow associates to perform daily work tasks such as clocking in, scheduling, and quick communication with push-to-talk. The app even includes voice assistant features with Ask Sam so employees can ask various questions about merchandise or metrics.
Employees will be limited to the Me@Walmart app and related work functions while clocked in, and it will use geofencing so that employees will only be able to clock in while physically at work.
The capabilities within the Me@Walmart app are built in-house by our product, technology and design teams and apply best-in-class technology, like machine learning, augmented reality, camera vision and artificial intelligence to tackle complex problems.
The Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro will be provided to employees, along with a case and protection plan. The phone was released in the U.S. in early 2020, and while it may not be as powerful as a Samsung Galaxy S21 on the inside, it makes up for it on the outside with its rugged built.
The Galaxy XCover Pro features IP68 water and dust resistance and MIL-STD-810G certification, which are ideal when used in working situations. It has a 6.3-inch FHD+ display with a hole-punch selfie camera, dual cameras at the rear and is powered by an Exynos processor. It's an otherwise average smartphone but is one of the best rugged Android phones available.
Walmart employees will be able to use the XCover Pro as their personal devices as well, and Walmart states that employee privacy will be protected so it won't have access to their personal data.
As the world's largest public employer, Walmart hopes that the move will help the company make better use of some of the latest tech to empower its employees and help them be more efficient.
As retail continues to evolve — and quickly — it's more critical than ever to equip our people with the tools and technology they need for success.
Built tough
The Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro may not be the most powerful smartphone on the inside, but sometimes it's what's on the outside that counts. The XCover Pro features a tough build that should handle users with the most active lifestyles.
Stay online longer
The Galaxy S21 Ultra is the best phone you can buy for long battery life
Battery life is one of the most important factors to consider when buying a phone. However, it's also important to remember that even though most manufacturers claim "all day" battery life, only a few live up to it. That's why we came up with a trusted list of the best Android phones you can buy with the best battery life.


text:
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|altitudine=489
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|populație=8434
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|fus_orar=CET
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|camp1_gol_nume=Număr de înmatriculare (auto)
|camp1_gol_info=GZ
|cod_poștal=89335
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|website=www.ichenhausen.de
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Ichenhausen este un oraș din districtul Günzburg, regiunea administrativă Șvabia, landul Bavaria, Germania.

Vezi și
 Lista orașelor și comunelor din Bavaria
 Lista orașelor din Bavaria

Legături externe

Orașe din Bavaria

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


Ultracross R Spec 14" kit with tires mounted on your choice of 14 inch wheels.
Non-directional tread design enhances traction and control on smooth and slippery surfaces while the super deep rim guard offers the best wheel/lip protection in the business!
ULTRA CROSS R SPEC has proven itself as the radial tire of choice for extreme desert riding.
More openly spaced tread pattern makes the Ultra Cross R Spec tire a superb option for desert and slick rock conditions.


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La cathédrale Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul de Mdina (couramment appelée « cathédrale Saint-Paul ») est une cathédrale catholique, église principale de l'archidiocèse catholique de Malte (l'un des deux diocèses de Malte) avec la co-cathédrale Saint-Jean de .

L'église est construite là où le gouverneur Publius, premier évêque maltais et futur saint, est supposé avoir rencontré saint Paul.

Historique
Conçue par l'architecte Lorenzo Gafa, elle est construite entre 1697 et 1702 pour remplacer l'ancienne cathédrale de style normand, détruite par le tremblement de terre du . Malgré cela, plusieurs éléments ont pu être conservés parmi lesquels la peinture de la conversion de saint Paul de l'artiste calabrais Mattia Preti, une peinture toscane du  de la Vierge à l'Enfant, et des fresques de l'abside représentant le voyage de Paul.

De nombreux éléments de mobilier de la cathédrale, dont les fonts baptismaux et le portail, sont sculptés dans du bois d'Irlande.

La cathédrale présente également une collection importante d'assiettes et pièces de monnaie en argent, et des gravures de l'artiste allemand Albrecht Dürer.

Galerie d'images

Notes et références

Mdina
Mdina
L-Imdina


THE circulation declines of American newspapers continued over the spring and summer, as sales across the industry fell almost 3 percent compared with the year before, according to figures released yesterday.
The drop, reported by the Audit Bureau of Circulations, reflects the growing shift of readers to the Internet, where newspaper readership has climbed, and also a strategy by many major papers to shed unprofitable or marginally profitable print circulation.
Among the nation's largest newspapers, only a handful held their own or registered slight increases in overall paid circulation for the period from April 1 to Sept. 30: USA Today, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Houston Chronicle and The St. Petersburg Times. Most papers showed significant declines, both weekday and Sunday.
For the first time, the audit bureau released, along with the traditional circulation figures, numbers produced by Scarborough Reports that reflected the total number of readers, both in print and online, for more than 200 newspapers in their home markets. For many of those papers, this marks the first time that such an independent analysis has been done, providing a benchmark for future reports.
Industry executives said they hoped the new numbers would put a more positive cast on newspapers' prospects than the routinely gloomy paid circulation reports have done.
An analysis of 88 major papers showed that in the last two years, about half had seen no significant change in combined print and online readership, or showed an increase, said Bob Cohen, president and chief executive officer of Scarborough.
The industry also hopes that the new readership figures will make an impression on advertisers, who have broken with historical patterns by retreating from newspapers despite an expanding economy. Executives noted that newspaper Web sites — unlike their print counterparts — drew a lot of young adults, who are sought by advertisers.
But advertisers have generally not considered an online reader to be as valuable as a print reader, so it remains to be seen what effect the numbers will have.
The audit bureau report showed a 2.6 percent decline in paid weekday circulation from the year-earlier period for more than 500 newspapers whose figures were available, and a 3.5 percent drop on Sundays for more than 600 newspapers.
USA Today, the top-selling weekday newspaper in the country — it does not publish on weekends — had a 1 percent increase in circulation, to about 2.3 million.
Sales of The Wall Street Journal, which does not publish on Sundays, fell 1.5 percent, to about 2 million. The Journal charges for access to most of its Web site, and the paper said yesterday that online subscriptions, which are included in the paid circulation figures, were about 350,000.
The New York Times, which shed less-profitable circulation and increased some prices in the last year, lost 4.5 percent of its weekday circulation (to less than 1.04 million) and 7.6 percent of its Sunday circulation (to 1.5 million).
The circulation of The Los Angeles Times, which reached 1.1 million daily early in this decade, may have bottomed out after several years of steep declines. For the second straight six-month period, weekday sales held steady, at 780,000, but Sunday circulation dropped 5 percent, to about 1.1 million.
In New York City's tabloid war, The New York Post fell slightly behind The Daily News in weekday circulation, 667,000 to 681,000, and The News continued to lead in Sunday sales by a wide margin. But both papers lost circulation, after topping 700,000 in the six-month period that ended March 31.
An article in Business Day on Tuesday about circulation declines in the newspaper industry misstated the number of subscribers to The Wall Street Journal Online who are counted in the newspaper's print circulation. About 350,000 online customers — not all 1 million — also pay for a print subscription and are counted in the weekday print circulation of 2 million.


When it comes to protein sources, most people always think of meat, fish, eggs, and dairy products. Sure, those mainstream foods not only taste good but also provide lots of proteins for us. However, meat production consumes lots of our resources and creates a large amount of wasting materials such as fossil fuel and water and land consumption. Moreover, it harms the environment and pollutes the air and water.
Thus, an environment-friendly protein source-worm is getting noticed. The amount of proteins, amino, and vitamins of the worm is similar to meat, but the breeding of edible worm requires much fewer resources and greener. The idea of eating worms may not appeal to most of the people. However, some countries such as Thailand and Indonesia have been doing it for centuries. To them, eating worms is as normal as eating meat. Worms are nothing but delicacies.
In order to advocate the environment-friendly food source, and eliminate the pollution of food production. Designers Katharina Unger and Julia Kaisinger have developed LIVIN Farms Hive. A desktop farm can automatically supply edible mealworms for home consumption for good.
With Living farms, customers can breed mealworms at home and add this high-protein food into their recipes to reduce the need of meat.
How does LIVIN Farms Hive work? Pupa in the top compartment will hatch into beetles, which will mate and lay eggs that fall into a lower compartment, which subsequently grow into mealworms and are harvested into a bottom compartment. The user then freezes the mealworms to put them into hibernation, before cooking.
Designers say that about 200-500 grams of mealworms will be yielded per week. Mealworms can be cooked with various methods including frying, baking, roasting, etc. It can also be added to hamburgers and salad, enriching the flavor and nutrients.
Maybe in the future, the environment-friendly food- worms can be mainstream food and reduce the need for meat. Providing us an environmental solution and stop us from harming and polluting our world. Furthermore, this rapid production food can provide a solution to eliminate world hunger and food crisis, preventing starvation from drought and flood.


There is nothing more troublesome than keeping track of your stuff on a boat full of friends and their gear, too. Keep your gear up and out of the way when you're taking a break from catching the waves with wakeboard tower racks from OnlyInboards. Adding one (or more) of these wakeboard tower racks or clamps to your watercraft will ensure you have more room to relax and move around during that precious down time between runs.
OnlyInboards.com wakeboard tower racks come in many different sizes, models, and finishes for boats with towers and towerless boats, so you're sure to find the exact model for your watercraft. Quick release options keep your equipment safe, but can be easily removed to keep gear secure or when it's time to store the boat for the season. For a more secure fit, bolt-fittings keep the rack secured until you're ready to remove it. Another safety feature is the bungee cord that secures each board while it's on the rack.
Most models also come with inserts made out of rubber material or the like to make sure your boards are safely and securely protected while in the wakeboard racks. These handy storage helpers are made to hold from 1 board up to 3 boards, so if you've got a lot of waves to catch and a lot of friends, you can optimize the valuable space on your boat by upgrading to a multiple-board storage system. Why not tidy up the floor space of the boat? Think of all the stubbed toes you'll avoid and the lounging space you'll gain. Not to mention, those precious boards won't be at risk of getting bumped and scratched.
Let OnlyInboards help you find the perfect wakeboard tower racks for your watercraft setup. With brands like Razor, Skylon, Monster, and Roswell you know you're getting high-quality equipment. With over eight years in the ski and wakeboard boat industry, our friendly customer service team is dedicated to helping you find the best for your watercraft. Our passion for excellence on the water and our desire to share our aquatic know-how is what makes our customer service like none other.


text:
Diplodonta globosa is een tweekleppigensoort uit de familie van de Ungulinidae. De wetenschappelijke naam van de soort is voor het eerst geldig gepubliceerd in 1775 door Forsskål.

Ungulinidae


SHATTUCK, Okla. - Velda Mardene Broyles Lowell Royal, 79, of Shattuck died Monday, March 26, 2012.
Services will be at 10:30 a.m. Thursday in First Baptist Church in Shattuck with the Rev. Joe Jernigan of Calvary Christian Fellowship Church of Shamrock, Texas, officiating. Burial will follow in Fairmont Cemetery in Follett, Texas. Arrangements are by Mason Funeral Home of Shattuck.
Mrs. Royal was born Sept. 23, 1932, to Vernon Taylor and Lydia Kathryn Shatto Broyles on a farm southwest of Follett. She loved to play maracas with the Golden Girls Band.
Survivors include three sisters, Vada Kraft of Slapout and Judy Travis and Kathy Jones, both of Shattuck; three brothers, Vernon Broyles of Mesquite, Texas, J.D. Broyles of Shattuck and Gene Broyles of Amarillo.


text:
Q: Hard code Id problem on home page component in salesforce?

I have created a home page component Image type. I have selected  image from document folder, and now it is showing as a hard coded id, How I can avoid this   hard code id .

A: Go to Setup / Develop / Static Resources. You can upload image files here and refer to them by name (e.g. /resource/myImage). You can also migrate these files as part of a change set.

A: Are you are asking on how to hide the Body tag inside the Home Page Component?
then the answer is you cannot edit the layout of Home Page Component
You can only edit the Home Page Layout using the Number of Home page components
You can only assign links, image, etc and can add them to Home Page....

A: The image you have posted is of the Home Page Component's detail page which is defined by SFDC. If you want to add this component to the home page layout, you have to go
Setup-->Customize-->Home-->Home Page Layout

and add the component to the layout(Check the checkbox against the component).
In case, you want to view what the image is, you can directly go the image URL which is specified in src and see it.
Hope this helps.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


1. Log-in to your account using your login and password in the left side panel "Your Account".
2. In the page "My Order History" please Click on "View".
3. In the page "Order Information".
You will see the details of all your previous orders including the badge details and cost.
4. The system will open a page with your design ready to be edited.
Please see the print screen bellow.


text:
The Danger Girl – film del 1916 diretto da Clarence G. Badger
The Danger Girl – film del 1926 diretto da Edward Dillon


text:
D - Dg
Dh - Dn
Do - Du
Dv - Dz
Dadaism
Author(s): Jürgens-Kirchhoff, Annegret
Dadaism Protest movement led by artists, writers, and intellectuals who first spoke up from their Swiss exile in 1916 with the foundation of the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. "Dada" was a term denoting anything that no longer wished to be associated with the World War and its devastating consequences, and with an arts and culture movement that had been unable to prevent the disaster. Hugo Ball, Hans Arp, Marcel Janco, Tristan Tzara, Richard Huelsenbeck, Hans Richter, and others were among the first…
Daniels, Josephus
Author(s): Showalter, Dennis E.
Daniels, Josephus (May 18, 1862, Washington NC – January 15, 1948, Raleigh NC), American Secretary of the Navy during World War I, his appointment to the post in 1913 seemed straight from the plot of HMS Pinafore. A journalist from North Carolina, Daniels had no background or interest in naval affairs. His primary qualification was his contribution to Woodrow Wilson's election. Daniels disliked naval officers as a class. He was indifferent to naval traditions. His banning of alcohol from shipboard messes did nothing to improve his…
Danilov, Yuri Nikiforovich
Author(s): Dahlmann, Dittmar
Danilov, Yuri Nikiforovich (August 25, 1866 – November 3, 1937), Russian general and military historian. Graduated from the School of Artillery at Mikhailovskoe in 1886, and from the General Staff academy in 1892. From 1908 to 1909 he was quartermaster-general, then senior quartermaster-general. From 1914 he was a general of infantry. Danilov took the leading role in drafting the Russian army's plan of attack in case of war, entitled "Plan 19." The plan envisaged a concentration of Russian forces f…
D'Annunzio, Gabriele
Author(s): Isnenghi, Mario
D'Annunzio, Gabriele (March 12, 1863, Pescara – March 1, 1938, Cargnacco [Lake Garda]; from 1924 Prince of Montenevoso), Italian writer. The chief correspondent of the newspaper Corriere della Sera was a significant figure in public life in Italy. He was celebrated by his supporters in May 1915 as the most important exponent of interventionist "spectacle politics" when, on several occasions, he delivered exhortations for war at sites of Italian "national memory," among them the Capitol in Rome. His speeches at these events…
Author(s): Prior, Robin | Wilson, Trevor
Dardanelles Straits between the Aegean Sea and the Sea of Marmara. After the outbreak of war in Europe, the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire had envisioned joining the war on the side of the Central Powers. The arrival of two German warships, the Goeben and the Breslau, at Constantinople on August 10, 1914, reinforced this decision. For Turkey joining the war meant territorial gains at Russia's expense; in the Caucasus, at British expense; as well as in Egypt. On October 27, the Turkish fleet put to sea against the Russian Black Sea base, thereby triggering war with the Entente. Mean…
Death in Freiburg, 1914–1918
Author(s): Chickering, Roger
Chickering, Roger - Death in Freiburg, 1914–1918 Keywords: Germany | Home fronts | Society | Politics | Aviation | Religion 'Endangered Cities' Marcus Funck and Roger Chickering, Publication Editor: Brill, The Netherlands, 2004 e-ISBN: 9789047409812 DOI: 10.1163/9789047409812.009 © 2004 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands Chickering, Roger
Declarations of War
Author(s): Pöhlmann, Markus
Declarations of War 1914 July 28 Austria-Hungary on Serbia August 1 Germany on Russia August 2 German invasion of Luxembourg1 August 3 Germany on France August 4 German invasion of Belgium* August 4 Great Britain enters the war* August 6 Serbia on Germany August 6 Austria-Hungary on Russia August 7 Montenegro on Austria-Hungary August 11 France on Austria-Hungary August 12 Great Britain on Austria-Hungary August 12 Montenegro on Germany August 23 Japan on Germany August 23 Austria-Hungary on Japan August 28 Austria-Hungary on Belgium October 15 Montenegro on Bulgaria October 29 the …
Defending the Heimat: The Germans in South-West Africa and East Africa During the First World War
Author(s): Rouven Steinbach, Daniel
Rouven Steinbach, Daniel - Defending the Heimat: The Germans in South-West Africa and East Africa During the First World War Keywords: First World War | German East Africa | German Schutzgebiete | Heimat | South-West Africa ISFWWS-Keywords: Africa | East Africa | Germany | Society | Pre-war period | Culture | Home fronts Abstract: This chapter examines wartime mobilization of German settlers in Africa with particular reference to the German concept of Heimat. It focuses on the two German Schutzgebiete which had the largest white populations and that experienced the mo…
Dehmel, Richard
Dehmel, Richard (November 18, 1863, Wendisch-Hermsdorf [near Sagan] – February 8, 1920, Blankenese [now part of Hamburg]), German writer. As poet and dramatist, Dehmel was one of the most influential German-speaking writers of the turn of the century. An opponent of naturalism, and the antithesis of Stefan George and Arno Holz, he was seen by his contemporaries as the only writer capable of adequately translating Nietzsche's philosophy of life into poetry, and, with his emphasis on human sensualit…
Delbrück, Hans
Author(s): Cornelissen, Christoph
Delbrück, Hans (November 11, 1848, Bergen [Rügen] – July 14, 1929, Berlin), German historian and political commentator. Delbrück had become known before 1914 as an advocate both of Germany's world role, and of internal and socio-political reform. Politically, the historian was identified with the Free Conservative Party. Appointed to Berlin University as successor to Heinrich von Treitschke in 1896, he achieved particular distinction with his four-volume History of Warfare in the Context of Political History 1900–1920 ( Geschichte der Kriegskunst im Rahmen der politische…
Delcassé, Théophile
Author(s): Becker, Jean-Jacques
Delcassé, Théophile (March 1, 1852, Pamiers [Ariège] – February 22, 1923, Nice), French politician (foreign minister). Delcassé was a journalist who entered politics as a disciple of Léon Gambetta. He remained deputy for his home department of Ariège from 1889 until 1919. His uninterrupted seven years' service as foreign minister, from 1898 to 1905, was the most important period of his political career. Although his stance was for a long time anti-British rather than anti-German, it was during his…
Demobilization
Author(s): Bessel, Richard
Demobilization The task of bringing a society out of a state of war into one of peace is incomparably more difficult than that of releasing soldiers from war service. The term "demobilization" is used for both processes. When the Armistice came into force on November 11, 1918, some six million German soldiers stood under arms. The German economy was almost entirely geared to the requirements of the war; demobilization now had to be implemented in the middle of a political revolution that had shaken a defeated Germany. The German Army returns to Germany after the Ar…
Denikin, Anton Ivanovich
Denikin, Anton Ivanovich (December 16, 1872, near Warsaw – August 8, 1947, Ann Arbor), Russian general. Denikin trained as an officer from 1895 at the General Staff Academy in St. Petersburg, and was appointed to the general staff in 1902. After the outbreak of the World War, he served on the southwest front. For two years he was commander of the 4th Brigade of Fusiliers (called the "Iron Brigade," from 1915 on a division). From September 1916 he was commanding general of the VIIIth Army Corps. The…
Author(s): Bohn, Robert
Denmark Constitutional monarchy, ruler Christian X (ruled 1912–1947). Since the annexation of Schleswig-Holstein (1867) by the Prussian State, and the measures of Germanization in North Schleswig, the mood in Denmark had been decidedly anti-German. The army and navy were mobilized at the outbreak of war, owing to fears that, because of its control of access to routes to the Baltic, the country might become the target of British or German military operations. The Royal Navy, however, exercised res…
Deployment Plans
Author(s): Bourne, John
Deployment Plans Deployment plans were plans for readying the mobilized units of a land army. To what degree the warring states of World War I actually sought after this conflict is one of the most intensively researched, and most sharply contended subjects of 20th century historiography. It is agreed, however, that most powers had worked out detailed mobilization and attack plans in case of war. These, they also realized to a greater or lesser degree when war broke out in August 1914. The war plans of the German Reich are customarily referred to as the Schlieffen Plan, even …
Deportations Forcible expulsions were practised for various reasons, and by all sides, during the First World War. Initially, they were a means of securing zones of conflict and occupation. During the German invasion in the West alone, at least 10,000 French citizens were deported to Germany and interned in barracks that stood vacant. The number of Belgians deported in 1914 is unknown, but may have amounted to several thousands. These first deportations, which included women and children, were in…
1917: Deserters, Politics and Religion
Author(s): Wolf, Susanne
Wolf, Susanne - 1917: Deserters, Politics and Religion Keywords: Belgium | churches | Dutch government | Dutch neutrality | German deserters | Netherlands Abstract: It is clear from the differing concerns of the Dutch government in 1917 compared to 1914, that the attitude and requirements of the internees has now changed. The issues being dealt with are no longer the basics, food, shelter and clothing; but more complicated matters that have greater potential to compromise Dutch neutrality.The numbe…
Author(s): Jahr, Christoph
Desertion Denotes a soldier's unauthorized absence from his unit, without the permission of his superior officers. Related offences are "unauthorized absence" and "defection to the enemy." In common with all other legal offenses, desertion does not necessarily reflect objective circumstances, but depends on national legal provisions and their interpretation on a particular occasion, that is to say their practical application. In particular, the distinction between desertion, unauthorized absence, defection, refusal of wa…


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The Global Failure of Neoliberalism: Privatize Profits; Socialize Losses
November 6, 2008|Volume2 |Issue3
Michael A. Peters
A groundswell discourse of 'the end of neoliberalism' is jamming the Left blogosphere. It has been building for some time. The Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz (July 7, 2008)1 in Project Syndicate begins his column with the assertion that the ideology of 'market fundamentalism' has failed:
The world has not been kind to neo-liberalism, that grab-bag of ideas based on the fundamentalist notion that markets are self-correcting, allocate resources efficiently, and serve the public interest well. It was this market fundamentalism that underlay Thatcherism, Reaganomics, and the so-called "Washington Consensus" in favor of privatization, liberalization, and independent central banks focusing single-mindedly on inflation.
Writing before the collapse of Wall Street's investment banks—the bankruptcy of Lehmann Brothers, the sell off of Merryl Lynch, the Federal bridging loan of $85 billion to AIG, and the massive $700 billion assistance to the U.S. financial sector —Stiglitz criticized neoliberal policies and their costs to developing economies.2 He faulted the financial market allocation of resources to housing in the 1990s and the sub-prime crisis that has precipitated a global financial crisis and credit squeeze he thinks will be prolonged and widespread. He criticized the selective use of free-market rhetoric used to support special interests and the way that Bush's policies have served the military-industrial complex. He concluded:
Neo-liberal market fundamentalism was always a political doctrine serving certain interests. It was never supported by economic theory. Nor, it should now be clear, is it supported by historical experience. Learning this lesson may be the silver lining in the cloud now hanging over the global economy.
John Quiggin (September 8, 2008),3 the Australian social-democrat, following Stiglitz's lead and spurred by the nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac (that between them held some 5$ trillion of mortgages), under the same banner 'The End of Neoliberalism?' remarks:
The fact that the credit crisis has reached this point marks the failure of the central claim of the neoliberal program, namely that private capital markets, free from intrusive government regulation, can enable individuals and households to handle the risks they face more flexibly and efficiently than a social-democratic welfare state.
Others made similar claims and raised similar doubts concerning the march of neoliberalism after the Federal Reserve's bailout of Bear Stearns. Thus, Lance Freeman (18 March, 2008),4 for instance, comments:
The Federal Reserve's bailout (arranged liquidation to some) of Bear Stearns over the weekend seriously calls into question the headlong march toward neoliberalism that has been ascendant for the past few decades. Roughly speaking, neoliberalism called for a retrenchment of the state in favor of deregulated markets. As an ideological force neoliberalism held great sway in trade policy, the overall management of the economy and even at the local level where most planners operate.
Once a government lifeline is thrown to Wall Street the whole philosophical underpinnings of neoliberalism would have to be called into question, even among the most faithful adherents of neoliberalism. The question of government intervention becomes a matter of degree rather than kind. That is, a strong central authority is needed to guide the economy. Left to its own devices the "free market" can run off the rails. Critics of neoliberalism have pointed this out for years. But as long as most of the pain was confined to the more disadvantaged members of the world proponents of neoliberalism could wave the misfortunes off as the forces of creative destruction, etc. With the whole system under strain, that is no longer the case. The notion that reducing government and deregulation is the answer to all our problems seems laughable now.
The world has not been kind to neo-liberalism, that grab-bag of ideas based on the fundamentalist notion that markets are self-correcting, allocate resources efficiently, and serve the public interest well.
In some sense the current series of crises that have rocked Wall Street to its foundations and threatened to destabilize the world financial system and its major banking and insurance institutions is just the latest round of failure for the global justice movement that has coordinated worldwide demonstrations against neoliberalism, 'the American imperialist project', the Iraq War, and strands referred to since the early 1980s as 'Monetarism,' 'Supply-Side Economics,' 'Reaganism/Thatcherism.' Longtime critics of neoliberalism and its policies of privatization, state non-interference and deregulation summed up in the so-called 'Washington consensus'5 such as the economists Stiglitz, and Robert Polin (2003), sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1998), geographer David Harvey (2005), philosopher/linguist Noam Chomsky (1999), as well as the anti-globalization movement in general,6 have consistently argued that neoliberalism is a class project that benefits the rich and leads to ever-increasing inequalities both within and between states.
One of the most objectionable and inconsistent aspects of the neoliberal doctrine was the way in which market fundamentalism was imposed on developing nations as part of structural adjustment loans or simply forced through political and military measures, starting with the CIA-backed coup against a democratically elected government in Chile in 1973 (supported strongly by Milton Friedman) and becoming the policy stable for World Bank loans and prescriptions especially in Latin America during the 1980s. The imposition of market fundamentalism runs in complete opposition to neoliberalism's own libertarian premises and emphasis on negative freedom.
The U.S. economy's plight driven by the insurance and banking failures on Wall Street has excited the Obama-McCain debate for the U.S. presidency with McCain glossing over his support of Bush's policies and trying to play down the statement that the 'fundamentals of the economy are strong' while Obama plans to strengthen the economy through tax breaks to the middle classes, emphasis on 'fair trade,' job creation through investment in manufacturing and protection of home ownership. The issue of the economy seems likely to take pride of place in the election and to dislodge the Republican emphasis on 'character' and 'leadership' that has now degenerated into a series of scurrilous attacks on Obama as 'terrorist,' 'secret Muslim,' and 'Marxist.'
The Wall Street fiasco has already adversely affected world stock markets in Asia, Europe and Russia (which experienced the largest one-day fall in ten years). There are network effects in terms of the global economy. Robert Reich (15 September, 2008),7 former Secretary of Labor under Clinton, remarked that
Ironically, a free-market-loving Republican administration is presiding over the most ambitious intrusion of government into the market in almost anyone's memory.
And he added that although 'The sub-prime mortgage mess triggered it, but the problem lies much deeper.' He argued Wall Street is facing a crisis of trust based on promises that weren't worth the paper they were written on and he concluded:
If what's lacking is trust rather than capital, the most important steps policymakers can take are to rebuild trust. And the best way to rebuild trust is through regulations that require financial players to stand behind their promises and tell the truth, along with strict oversight to make sure they do.
Irrespective of who wins the presidential race it seems clear that some major overhaul of the international financial system is required; that government regulation needs to be established, minimally, to ensure transparency and full disclosure, to spell out capital requirements and to avoid conflicts of interest; and that some new order is required with the participation of both China and India.
The move to state-centric policies and to forms of Federal regulation in the U.S. and elsewhere now seem almost inevitable. Government intervention is now suddenly back in fashion and on the books at the IMF and World Bank. The move to Federal regulation and a reform of the financial system seems to chime with the development of state capitalism elsewhere, especially in East Asia,8 and other forms of state-centrism seen as necessary for job creation and national reinvestment in infrastructure.
The political balance is swinging back. Neoliberal globalization will be written about ten years from now as a cyclical swing in the history of the capitalist world-economy.
Immanuel Wallerstein (2008),9 the prominent world-systems theorist, also talked of the 'demise' of neoliberalism. He explained that 'non-interference' is actually an old idea that cyclically comes into fashion and that its counterview summed up in Keynesianism (mixed economies, protection of citizens from foreign monopolies, equalization and redistribution through taxation) has also prevailed in most western countries. He suggested that:
The political balance is swinging back. Neoliberal globalization will be written about ten years from now as a cyclical swing in the history of the capitalist world-economy. The real question is not whether this phase is over but whether the swing back will be able, as in the past, to restore a state of relative equilibrium in the world-system. Or has too much damage been done? And are we now in for more violent chaos in the world-economy and therefore in the world-system as a whole?
As the center of economic gravity shifts to East Asia it is not clear whether new Keynesianism will be embraced or whether in face of such intensive global competition and fierce economic nationalism whether Western economies can ever afford to reestablish it. There is never the option of an innocent return historically or a return to the golden days of the welfare state in Scandinavia or New Zealand, or to the 'social model' in Europe, especially as new costly environmental and energy contingencies begin to bite. What is required is a change of ethos—not 'confidence' and 'trust' of the market but rather the development of trust that comes with the radically decentered democratic participation, collaboration and co-production that epitomizes the creation of public goods and distributed political, knowledge, and energy systems.
1 See Stiglitz's commentary at http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/stiglitz101.
2 The global credit crunch started with the subprime mortgage problems in the U.S. in the three year lead-up to 2007 and the faltering of Bear Sterns which is acquired by JP Morgan Chase for $240m backed by $30b of central bank loans (March, 2008). In the UK the Government rescued Northern Rock (Feb, 2008) and Lloyds buys out HBOS. IMF warns that the credit crunch could be higher than 1 trillion dollars (April). Indymac collapses in July and U.S. government steps in to assist Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (guarantors of $5 trillion in mortgages) and later provides the largest bailout in U.S. history. Major European banks falter. UK nationalizes much of its banking sector; other countries follow suit. U.S. passes $700b financial rescue plan (3rd October). World stock markets volatility with largest one-day gains and losses. See the BBC credit crunch timeline: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7521250.stm. World-wide network effects of credit crunch become evident, not well understood by economists because of the unregulated financial derivatives and complexity of credit default-swaps. Decoupling hypothesis (e.g., China and India insulated) seems disproven. Bank of England estimates 25% decline in value of global stock markets and $2.7 trillion in credit crunch.
3 See his blog at http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2008/09/08/the-end-of-neoliberalism/.
4 See his blog at http://www.planetizen.com/node/30187.
5 The original consensus was based around the following tenants: 1. Fiscal discipline; 2. Reorientation of public expenditures; 3. Tax reform; 4. Financial liberalization; 5. Unified and competitive exchange rates; 6. Trade liberalization; 7. Openness to DFI; 8. Privatization; 9. Deregulation; 10.Secure Property Rights.
6 I take Susan George's 'A Short History of Neoliberalism' as emblematic of this movement, see http://www.zmag.org/CrisesCurEvts/Globalism/george.htm.
7 See Robert Reich's Blog at http://robertreich.blogspot.com/.
8 In this regard see, in particular, Parag Khana's (2008) The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order.
9 See Wallerstein (2008) 'The Demise of Neoliberal Globalization' at http://www.monthlyreview.org/mrzine/wallerstein010208.html.
Bourdieu, Pierre. (1998) 'L'essence du néolibéralisme,' Le Monde diplomatique Mars 1998.
Chomsky, N. (1999) Profit over People – Neoliberalism and Global Order. New York: Seven Stories Press.
Harvey, D. (2005) A Brief History of Neoliberalism. New York: Oxford University Press.
Khana, P. (2008) The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order. New York: Random House.
Pollin, R. (2003) Contours of Descent: U.S. Economic Fractures and the Landscape of Global Austerity. New York: Verso.
Michael Peters is Professor of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.