In his new piece, Glenn Greenwald eloquently expresses much about Trump and peoples' reaction to him that I always thought as well:

→ No Matter the Liberal Metric Chosen, the Bush/Cheney Administration Was Far Worse Than Trump

It should go without saying, though I know it does not, that none of this is a defense of these Trump failings or an attempt to mitigate the harms they caused. What this argument is, instead, is a vehement rejection of the grotesque historical revisionism that seeks to erase and whitewash the far worse moral evils, acts of violence and assertions of lawlessness that preceded him, all in order to propagate myths of American Exceptionalism and, worse, to rehabilitate the reputations and careers of the political and media cretins who perpetrated them.

Those who want to insist that Trump’s evils are unprecedented – such that their own service to or support for prior presidents should not exclude them from the realm of the Patriotic, the Decent and the Noble – should be prepared to explain which acts of Trump’s compete with the destruction of Iraq, or the implementation of a global regime of torture, or the “rendition” kidnappings and CIA black sites and illegal domestic eavesdropping under Bush and Obama, or imprisoning people for decades with no due process, and on and on and on.

Observations on today’s US Presidential Election and what it might mean for the media.

“Isernhagen Winter Sunset”

At the beginning of this year, I decided to lose some weight. And when the lockdowns started happening, that really propelled me forward in this respect. Well, I must say at least my fitness project is something that’s been very positive for me this year. I’ve reached my weight loss goal and I’m, so far, managing to hold weight and gain muscles at the same time. And now there’s a second lockdown on the way. So it can only get even better.

Explaining what I think about people who wear face masks. Especially those, who have to tell the world about it. Where they make mistakes and why I think I made similar mistakes in the past.

Springsteen’s new album Letter To You is out. I’d missed it because I’ve been pretty busy. I’m not completely sure what to think of it yet. Well aside from what a shame it is that we have an E Street album and there’s no way for the boys to go on tour with it.

What I can say is that the Song for Orphans is an instant classic. Probably because it was originally written for Born to Run.

Now don’t you grow on empty legends or lonely cradle songs
Billy the Kid was just a bowery boy who made a living twirling his guns
The night she’s long and lanky and she speaks in a mother tongue
She lullabies the refugees with an amplifier’s hum

So break me now big Mama as Old Faithful breaks the day
Believe me my good Linda, the aurora will shine the way
The Confederacy’s in my name now, the hounds are held at bay
The axis needs a stronger arm, do you feel your muscles play

I had originally planned to record – and stream – an episode of The Private Citizen today at 17:00 CET. Sadly, I won’t be able to do this as I’m too busy today with other work. I will try again tomorrow at the same time. I’m sorry if you had planned to watch the stream today. I just couldn’t get the show prepared in time. I hope you’ll be able to watch it tomorrow.

I’m trying something new here. Let’s start off by explaining why I will try and do social and political commentary in video form from now on. And why I think social media doesn’t work right now, what the press has to do with that and how it all came to a head this year with the pandemic.

It’s been ages since I had a fixed IRC channel to hang out in and I was kind of missing it. Just hanging out in botnet C&C channels gets boring after a while. Therefore, on a whim, I’ve created #fabindustries on Freenode. Feel free to drop by if you want to chat about the stuff I’m doing day-to-day.

After a long day of buying and installing furniture and, of course, some writing, I had a nice and relaxed stream last night playing some Outer Worlds. I think I’m starting to make some enemies in that game, though. Well. That’s the way it goes, I guess.

Sounds like Van Morrison has had enough. Good on the man! Let’s put our shoulders to the wheel.

I’ve just received a cute little Cobi brick model: the Trabant 601 with caravan (Cobi 24590). I’m planning to build this live on Twitch this Sunday. I’m thinking of having a relaxed little stream where we build the model and chat. It’s only 218 pieces so the whole thing shouldn’t take that long, really. I’ll start at noon and would be very happy if you come along and hang out for a while.

Full stream schedule → fab.industries/stream

Tomorrow at 19:00 CEST Halefa, Jonathan and me will stream some Elite Dangerous which we had originally tried to do two weeks ago but couldn’t make happen. You can watch us try again tomorrow on Twitch:

→ twitch.tv/FoxtrotAlfaBravo

If you like to watch my streams, you might be interested in a new page I’ve created that lists my stream schedule. It lists all upcoming streams, as much (or as little) as I can plan these things in advance right now.

→ fab.industries/stream

I will try to keep that page updated as best I can, so feel free to bookmark it. I don’t want to stick it in the site navigation at the moment so as not to clutter that up needlessly.