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Posts by Jim Hammerand

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ICE detained more than 70 Minnesota children, data reveals Immigration officials detained more than 70 Minnesota children between Dec. 1 and March 10, a Sahan analysis of court records and federal deportation data shows.

70 Minnesota children.

Delta Air Lines, who likely flew nearly all of these kiddos out of MSP, could publicly condemn this and end the practice tomorrow, as the airlines did in 2018 with family separation, but it’s easier to stay silent.

2 days ago 424 244 3 11

Ben Collins before and after taking over InfoWars

2 days ago 3920 310 51 7
“It’s a couple of things that work beautifully in concert. First: no music. Audiences are so sophisticated, but what they’re not accustomed to is not being told how to feel,” Wyle says. “You take all that out and it forces a level of engagement where you’re now looking for clues within the frame of the screen, which forces you to look up from your phone. And I think that is extremely engaging, especially to young viewers who aren’t accustomed to being asked to participate in a nonpassive way in the viewing experience.

“It’s a couple of things that work beautifully in concert. First: no music. Audiences are so sophisticated, but what they’re not accustomed to is not being told how to feel,” Wyle says. “You take all that out and it forces a level of engagement where you’re now looking for clues within the frame of the screen, which forces you to look up from your phone. And I think that is extremely engaging, especially to young viewers who aren’t accustomed to being asked to participate in a nonpassive way in the viewing experience.

“Second point, shooting it with almost exclusively 50-millimeter or 65-millimeter lenses, which is the most comparable to the human eye—and only shooting from the point of view of a human being that’s present in this space. There are no cameras on gurney wheels going in the hallway. There’s no cameras on the ceiling looking down from a God point of view. You are limited to the perspective of a participant. You can look away, but you can’t leave, and it becomes an endurance test for you to stay on your feet as long as we’re on our feet. Which [brings me to my] third point: real time. Real time has an aggregate sense of tension that you don’t get in any other form of storytelling. What happened before is happening now, and these two things are going to add up to the next thing. And if we throw more ingredients into this cooker and keep ratcheting it up, it’s going to pop.”

“Second point, shooting it with almost exclusively 50-millimeter or 65-millimeter lenses, which is the most comparable to the human eye—and only shooting from the point of view of a human being that’s present in this space. There are no cameras on gurney wheels going in the hallway. There’s no cameras on the ceiling looking down from a God point of view. You are limited to the perspective of a participant. You can look away, but you can’t leave, and it becomes an endurance test for you to stay on your feet as long as we’re on our feet. Which [brings me to my] third point: real time. Real time has an aggregate sense of tension that you don’t get in any other form of storytelling. What happened before is happening now, and these two things are going to add up to the next thing. And if we throw more ingredients into this cooker and keep ratcheting it up, it’s going to pop.”

Wyle makes eye contact for his next point, delivering it with a Robby-esque matter-of-factness. “Fourth point: The election went the other way,” he says with a shrug. “We could have been a really good show with a lot of nice things to say in a perfectly normal Kamala Harris universe. And instead we became almost a beacon of hope and humanity in an alternative universe. But in the midst of that, fifth point—this is essentially competence porn. You’re watching really smart, dedicated people do what only they know how to do at a level that you don’t know how to do it, and you’re so fucking glad that they’re there doing it, and compartmentalizing their own stuff to put your broken pieces back together. You’re so reassured by knowing that there are people out there that laugh and joke and have the ability to lock in like that.”

Wyle makes eye contact for his next point, delivering it with a Robby-esque matter-of-factness. “Fourth point: The election went the other way,” he says with a shrug. “We could have been a really good show with a lot of nice things to say in a perfectly normal Kamala Harris universe. And instead we became almost a beacon of hope and humanity in an alternative universe. But in the midst of that, fifth point—this is essentially competence porn. You’re watching really smart, dedicated people do what only they know how to do at a level that you don’t know how to do it, and you’re so fucking glad that they’re there doing it, and compartmentalizing their own stuff to put your broken pieces back together. You’re so reassured by knowing that there are people out there that laugh and joke and have the ability to lock in like that.”

this is fucking unreal stuff from Noah Wyle on the magic of The Pitt. www.gq.com/story/noah-w...

6 days ago 7066 1679 12 276

Handing @dbrauer.net a bazooka aimed at STrib HQ was exactly what the doctor ordered. I might call in sick tomorrow if I was a Star Trib OpEd writer.

6 days ago 104 19 3 0
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Joel was a legendary journalist who did important shoe-leather reporting. We didn’t always agree, but that’s not how he’d ever have wanted it—he knew his top job was to hold our leaders accountable.

1 week ago 1740 244 39 11
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‘Hiding in plain sight’: Video shows UW student, child escorted onto passenger flight for removal New footage raises questions about whether removals involving families are quietly happening on regular passenger airlines.

I believe this is the first video we’ve seen of a family getting deported on a commercial flight - Delta Air Lines out of Seattle, in this case.

1 week ago 119 78 5 1
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Illinois Becomes First State To Require Haircut Leave While Bob Grows Out SPRINGFIELD, IL—As the landmark bipartisan legislation passed into law Thursday, Illinois became the first state in the union to mandate paid haircut leave while an employee’s new bob grows out. “Effe...

This is more than legislation. This work is personal to me.
theonion.com/illinois-bec...

1 week ago 5774 660 84 64
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Whistleblower says Trump officials thought USAID did 'just abortions,' asked for 'Barney-style' slides before gutting agency, per new book Read an exclusive excerpt from Nicholas Enrich's "Into the Wood Chipper"

NEW—I got an exclusive excerpt from a USAID whistleblower's new book that made me gasp multiple times. It details Trump's dismantling of the humanitarian aid agency & his team/DOGE's shocking ignorance to public health.

'Into the Wood Chipper' by Nicholas Enrich is out tomorrow. Read excerpt here:

1 week ago 9614 4176 153 387

i will vote for any candidate who offers up this slogan

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one day of this and i’d start talking like barrett in ff7

1 week ago 3446 984 26 5
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A Syrian man buries his wife and 4 children killed in Israeli strikes on Beirut A Syrian man has buried his wife and four of his five children after Israeli strikes hit Beirut earlier this week.

A Syrian man has buried his wife and four of his five children after Israeli strikes hit Beirut earlier this week.

1 week ago 887 371 39 25
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Premium: The Hater's Guide to OpenAI Soundtrack: The Dillinger Escape Plan — Setting Fire To Sleeping Giants In what The New Yorker’s Andrew Marantz and Ronan Farrow called a “tense call” after his brief ouster from OpenAI in 2023, Sam Altman seemed unable to reckon with a “pattern of deception” across his time at the company:

Premium Newsletter: The Hater's Guide To OpenAI, a 17k word guide to Sam Altman's decade-long con built on lies about the capabilities and economics of AI, helped by the media, analysts and the magnificent 7.

OpenAI's IPO poses huge risks to retail investors.

www.wheresyoured.at/hatersguide-...

1 week ago 637 140 12 5
A photo of a sea lion barking at a boy on the beach.

A photo of a sea lion barking at a boy on the beach.

It’s sea lion season in Seattle - lots of barking by the beach!

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Washington state’s ‘historic’ millionaire tax takes aim at super-rich – will it succeed? As living costs rise, the state where Gates and Bezos made billions is targeting top earners – could other states follow?

"When a hedge-fund billionaire named Brian Heywood, working hand in glove with the state Republican party, sought to overturn a state capital gains tax introduced three years earlier... the voters upheld the tax, by a resounding margin."

This is great coverage of how we got a Millionaires Tax in WA

1 week ago 18 7 0 0
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For a sense of the scale of the federal occupation of the Twin Cities metro this winter...

Chicago and LA were too big so they tried picking on somewhere smaller.

They were thick on the ground here but they still left in disgrace.
www.axios.com/local/twin-c...

3 weeks ago 219 85 7 7
1980 BMW M1 Procar

1980 BMW M1 Procar

wedges and fire, actually

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Nightmare blunt rotation...

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It's literally what NYT asked for when it got rid of the public editor position!

www.politico.com/story/2017/0...

2 weeks ago 1754 249 23 8
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Refusing to accept big tech's AI-poisoned 'future of journalism' Humans, however flawed, are

New — I wrote about how journalists proudly using AI to help them write their stories obscures the deeply human process that makes journalism a societal necessity, and one that feeds the soul of those who create it.

Hope you’ll give it a read. I promise I wrote the whole thing.

2 weeks ago 1947 537 33 69
Italian Elon Musk tweet saying "I send a the canzone into space!! I don't pay a the taxes!! Ohhh!!"

Italian Elon Musk tweet saying "I send a the canzone into space!! I don't pay a the taxes!! Ohhh!!"

Shoot i forgot this one.

3 weeks ago 34 4 2 0

that's right

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Inside TurboTax’s 20-Year Fight to Stop Americans From Filing Their Taxes for Free Using lobbying, the revolving door and “dark pattern” customer tricks, Intuit fended off the government’s attempts to make tax filing free and easy, and created its multi-billion-dollar franchise.

With Tax Day coming up, here's our reminder that TurboTax owner Intuit spent two decades fighting to prevent Americans from filing their taxes online for free.

(Published 2019)

3 weeks ago 1027 455 21 18
Highlighted section of the Copilot ToS which says "Copilot is for entertainment purposes only"

Highlighted section of the Copilot ToS which says "Copilot is for entertainment purposes only"

www.microsoft.com/en-us/micros... is it good to build an entire economy and software infrastructure on this

3 weeks ago 7803 2046 188 578
Text from a Rick Steves post on Facebook:
"A Millionaires Tax? Let’s Try Shared Prosperity! 
A new tax on fat paychecks like mine was just signed into law in my home state — and I like it. In 2029, Washington state will start collecting a 9.9% tax on income over $1 million. The 8,000,000 Washingtonians whose households make less than a million dollars a year will pay zero under this new tax and enjoy all the benefits of a better-funded state. And for the wealthy (like me and an estimated 30,000 others), every million dollars in taxable income that our households earn after the first million will cost us about $100,000.
It takes a lot of money to run a state that’s as livable as ours. Yet Washington is one of only nine states that don’t currently levy a traditional income tax. Our state is still funded by consumption taxes, such as sales and excise taxes, giving us the second-most regressive tax code in the country. (Only Florida has us beat.) And it’s time for Washington millionaires to pay our fair share.
Right about now, Republicans reading this are queuing up in the comments to holler their well-worn excuses: A state income tax will penalize, and therefore demoralize, Washington state’s job creators! Letting the rich get richer results in more wealth trickling down! Wealthy people will flee your state for those with more regressive taxation! (Since California and Oregon already have a comparable tax, that would be distant lands like Texas, Tennessee, and Nevada.) 
As a wealthy person myself, I see this tax as essentially free money for all Washingtonians. Everybody in my state gains. And speaking from personal experience, I know that anyone who earns enough to be subject to this tax is beyond the point where consuming more adds to their security, their well-being, or even, arguably, their happiness — meaning there will be basically zero human cost."

Text from a Rick Steves post on Facebook: "A Millionaires Tax? Let’s Try Shared Prosperity! A new tax on fat paychecks like mine was just signed into law in my home state — and I like it. In 2029, Washington state will start collecting a 9.9% tax on income over $1 million. The 8,000,000 Washingtonians whose households make less than a million dollars a year will pay zero under this new tax and enjoy all the benefits of a better-funded state. And for the wealthy (like me and an estimated 30,000 others), every million dollars in taxable income that our households earn after the first million will cost us about $100,000. It takes a lot of money to run a state that’s as livable as ours. Yet Washington is one of only nine states that don’t currently levy a traditional income tax. Our state is still funded by consumption taxes, such as sales and excise taxes, giving us the second-most regressive tax code in the country. (Only Florida has us beat.) And it’s time for Washington millionaires to pay our fair share. Right about now, Republicans reading this are queuing up in the comments to holler their well-worn excuses: A state income tax will penalize, and therefore demoralize, Washington state’s job creators! Letting the rich get richer results in more wealth trickling down! Wealthy people will flee your state for those with more regressive taxation! (Since California and Oregon already have a comparable tax, that would be distant lands like Texas, Tennessee, and Nevada.) As a wealthy person myself, I see this tax as essentially free money for all Washingtonians. Everybody in my state gains. And speaking from personal experience, I know that anyone who earns enough to be subject to this tax is beyond the point where consuming more adds to their security, their well-being, or even, arguably, their happiness — meaning there will be basically zero human cost."

Text from Rick Steves Facebook post:
"If you disagree, consider the minuscule impact this tax will have on my state’s millionaires. Now, contrast that with the value of close to $4 billion a year in tax revenue once it’s smartly invested in programs that will help the roughly one-third of Washington households living paycheck to paycheck. 
For those who still aren’t convinced, here’s a lesson I’ve learned in my travels: Even if you’re motivated only by greed, if you know what’s good for you, you don’t want to be filthy rich in a society with a huge gap between rich and poor. It’s just not a nice place to raise your kids. And remember: Shrouds have no pockets…especially if you’re a multimillionaire with no heart for your neighbors.
Plus, helping build a better community for you and your neighbors just…feels good. I learned this firsthand back in 2011, when — after years of receiving a Bush-era tax break for the wealthy that I didn’t need — I noticed that to pay for that tax cut, public funding for community programs and institutions was being decimated. Recognizing the practical value of investing my tax savings in my community, I’ve donated $100,000 a year to our local arts center and symphony ever since, covering concert hall rental costs for our volunteer orchestra and much more. Paying a “self-imposed wealth tax” and knowing I’m helping my entire community has brought me great joy for 15 years and counting. It’s far from heroic…but it is a little lonely."

Text from Rick Steves Facebook post: "If you disagree, consider the minuscule impact this tax will have on my state’s millionaires. Now, contrast that with the value of close to $4 billion a year in tax revenue once it’s smartly invested in programs that will help the roughly one-third of Washington households living paycheck to paycheck. For those who still aren’t convinced, here’s a lesson I’ve learned in my travels: Even if you’re motivated only by greed, if you know what’s good for you, you don’t want to be filthy rich in a society with a huge gap between rich and poor. It’s just not a nice place to raise your kids. And remember: Shrouds have no pockets…especially if you’re a multimillionaire with no heart for your neighbors. Plus, helping build a better community for you and your neighbors just…feels good. I learned this firsthand back in 2011, when — after years of receiving a Bush-era tax break for the wealthy that I didn’t need — I noticed that to pay for that tax cut, public funding for community programs and institutions was being decimated. Recognizing the practical value of investing my tax savings in my community, I’ve donated $100,000 a year to our local arts center and symphony ever since, covering concert hall rental costs for our volunteer orchestra and much more. Paying a “self-imposed wealth tax” and knowing I’m helping my entire community has brought me great joy for 15 years and counting. It’s far from heroic…but it is a little lonely."

Text from Rick Steves Facebook post:
"The “millionaires tax” that Governor Bob Ferguson signed into law today will make our state better than ever — not just for the working class and poor, but for everyone who values a healthy and sustainable future. And for us millionaires who are enlightened enough to realize that we’ve reached a point where consuming more won’t make us genuinely happier, it just feels right to pay a little extra. For me, it’s biblical (“To whom much is given, much will be required”)… It’s European (after all, societies that are equitably funded are much more “content” than ours)… And — for those of us with a heart for the public good — it’s simply common sense. 
Sign me up!"

Text from Rick Steves Facebook post: "The “millionaires tax” that Governor Bob Ferguson signed into law today will make our state better than ever — not just for the working class and poor, but for everyone who values a healthy and sustainable future. And for us millionaires who are enlightened enough to realize that we’ve reached a point where consuming more won’t make us genuinely happier, it just feels right to pay a little extra. For me, it’s biblical (“To whom much is given, much will be required”)… It’s European (after all, societies that are equitably funded are much more “content” than ours)… And — for those of us with a heart for the public good — it’s simply common sense. Sign me up!"

Travel writer Rick Steves on Washington's newly signed "Millionaires Tax"

3 weeks ago 2496 658 43 190
A Daihatsu HiJet Deck Van GX

A Daihatsu HiJet Deck Van GX

A Daihatsu HiJet Deck Van GX

A Daihatsu HiJet Deck Van GX

Spotted a Daihatsu HiJet Deck Van GX in Edmonds last night and felt a little MPG envy

3 weeks ago 3 0 0 0
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The AI Boom Wasn’t Built for the Polycrisis “There are too many ways for it to fail for it not to fail.”

The AI economy looks...really precarious. So @matteowong.bsky.social & I did a bunch of reporting to try to figure out what happens when a potential bubble collides with a war in Iran and a potential resource shortage. The answer is...arguably the most dire stuff i've heard from smart ppl in a while

3 weeks ago 2195 787 66 142
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The AI Industry Is Lying To You Hi! If you like this piece and want to support my independent reporting and analysis, why not subscribe to my premium newsletter? It’s $70 a year, or $7 a month, and in return you get a weekly newslet...

Free newsletter: The AI industry is lying to you about progress. Only 5GW of data centers are under construction, it takes 6 months to bring online a single quarter's worth of NVIDIA GPU sales, and LLM code is actively breaking big tech.
www.wheresyoured.at/the-ai-industry-is-lying-to-you/

4 weeks ago 1371 407 34 33
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Why I Just Resigned From The Los Angeles Times By Harry Litman

Don’t blame me— I left them both!

“Jeff Bezos’ The WaPo saw the largest print circulation decline among the top 25 newspapers, plunging some 21% last year, followed by Patrick Soon-Shiong’s Los Angeles Times, dropping 20%.”

open.substack.com/pub/harrylit...

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A screengrab from Rachel Maddow’s show, showing footage of an ICE flight loading at MSP.

A screengrab from Rachel Maddow’s show, showing footage of an ICE flight loading at MSP.

The work we’ve been doing at the airport is some of the most important I’ll ever have a chance to participate in; thank you for covering it so eloquently, @maddow.bsky.social.

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