person:stephen colbert

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Message to the Democratic Party | The New Yorker
▻https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/alexandria-ocasio-cortezs-message-to-the-democratic-party

https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5b362623fc303575bf710801/16:9/w_1200,h_630,c_limit/Cassidy-DemocratsFuture-2a.jpg

After winning the Democratic primary in New York’s Fourteenth Congressional District, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is now a national political figure. On Wednesday, she made a series of media appearances, including spots on CNN and MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” Later in the day, Stephen Colbert hailed her win, joking that when he was twenty-eight he got his first can opener. On Thursday, she appeared on Colbert’s show, and an article in the Times described her as “an instant political rock star.”

Ocasio-Cortez deserves all the attention she’s getting, but it’s important not to focus only on her personal traits: her age, her gender, her ethnicity, and her inspiring life story. As she pointed out in her post-victory interviews, she ran on a platform that transcended these things. “Our campaign was focussed on just a laser-focussed message of economic, social, and racial dignity for working-class Americans, especially those in Queens and the Bronx,” she told Mika Brzezinski, of “Morning Joe.”

Listen to the speeches of Senator Sherrod Brown, of Ohio; or of Stacey Abrams, who is running for governor in Georgia; or of Beto O’Rourke, who is challenging Ted Cruz in Texas; or of Conor Lamb, who won a special election in western Pennsylvania earlier this year; or of Mikie Sherrill, a former Navy pilot who recently won the Democratic primary in New Jersey’s Republican-held Eleventh Congressional District. To be sure, these Democrats are attacking Trump and talking about immigration and the Supreme Court. But their main focus is on promoting social and economic empowerment for people living in their districts.

That is the traditional Democratic Party message, and it is one that never grows old. Every so often, however, it needs to be renewed and adapted to new circumstances. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just demonstrated how to do this.

#Politique_USA

Liberal icon Stephen Colbert: «We miss» right-wing fanatic Ronald Reagan, a «good man» (oh yes, and war criminal) | Ben Norton
▻https://bennorton.com/liberal-stephen-colbert-ronald-reagan-war-criminal

Colbert, a highly influential liberal pundit and erstwhile satirical presidential candidate, has decided to rewrite Reagan’s ultra-reactionary and grotesquely violent legacy in order to score easy political points against far-right President Donald Trump.

This phenomenon is part of a much larger trend, in which Democrats have systematically rehabilitated past right-wing figures — like fellow blood-soaked war criminal George Bush and arch-neoconservative John McCain — in order to portray the billionaire bigot-in-chief as somehow uniquely “un-American.”

Ah la vache, ce «we miss you Ronny, we miss you» larmoyant de Colbert est à gerber.

Gene Editing for ‘Designer Babies’? Highly Unlikely, Scientists Say - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/04/science/gene-editing-embryos-designer-babies.html

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/08/05/science/05GENE1/05GENE1-facebookJumbo.jpg

Here is what science is highly unlikely to be able to do: genetically predestine a child’s Ivy League acceptance letter, front-load a kid with Stephen Colbert’s one-liners, or bake Beyonce’s vocal range into a baby.

That’s because none of those talents arise from a single gene mutation, or even from an easily identifiable number of genes. Most human traits are nowhere near that simple.

“Right now, we know nothing about genetic enhancement,” said Hank Greely, director of the Center for Law and the Biosciences at Stanford. “We’re never going to be able to say, honestly, ‘This embryo looks like a 1550 on the two-part SAT.’”

Even with an apparently straightforward physical characteristic like height, genetic manipulation would be a tall order. Some scientists estimate height is influenced by as many as 93,000 genetic variations. A recent study identified 697 of them.

Talents and traits aren’t the only thing that are genetically complex. So are most physical diseases and psychiatric disorders. The genetic message is not carried in a 140-character tweet — it resembles a shelf full of books with chapters, subsections and footnotes.

So embryonic editing is unlikely to prevent most medical problems.

But about 10,000 medical conditions are linked to specific mutations, including Huntington’s disease, cancers caused by BRCA genes, Tay-Sachs disease, cystic fibrosis, sickle cell anemia, and some cases of early-onset Alzheimer’s. Repairing the responsible mutations in theory could eradicate these diseases from the so-called germline, the genetic material passed from one generation to the next. No future family members would inherit them.

A composite image showing the development of embryos after injection of a gene-correcting enzyme and sperm from a donor with a genetic mutation known to cause hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Credit Oregon Health & Science University

But testing editing approaches on each mutation will require scientists to find the right genetic signpost, often an RNA molecule, to guide the gene-snipping tool.

#génomique #designer_baby #thérapeutique_génique #CRISPR

Octobre 2016, préparation à la recherche d’emploi pour Barack H. Obama
The Late Show, Stephen Colbert
▻https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRQLU3IwNYs

This Is Why We Love Satire
▻http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/this-is-why-we-love-satire

While major news networks have struggled to figure out the right way to cover the Trump administration, political satirists like Samantha Bee, John Oliver, Stephen Colbert, and Seth Meyers have...

The Christian Right’s Origins of Fake News and ’Alternative Facts’ | Alternet
▻http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/christian-rights-origins-fake-news-and-alternative-facts

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As we’ve moved from an election dominated by fake news to a new Trump administration run on the principle of “alternative facts,” it’s worth taking some time to ponder what seems to be contemporary conservative credulity. We should certainly be reminded of the term “truthiness” that Stephen Colbert invented in October 2005 to capture some of the pronouncements of the George W. Bush administration. As he explained then, truthiness was the truth that “comes from the gut,” not from actual facts—“the truth we want to exist,” that feels right.

And the way fake news tends to get better reception among conservatives than liberals, even by a two-to-one margin, has also been recognized. (When one fake news creator was interviewed, he explained, “We’ve tried to do similar things to liberals. It just has never worked, it never takes off. You’ll get debunked within the first two comments, and then the whole thing just kind of fizzles out.”)

To see this connection, it bears recalling what it meant to be a Christian “fundamentalist” in the early 20th century. Christian fundamentalism was characterized in particular by its rejection of two theologically disturbing bodies of knowledge that emerged from the 19th century: the theory of evolution, and the historical-critical method of Bible scholarship. While mainstream Protestant and Catholic churches have had considerable success in coming to terms with these expert knowledge consensuses, Christian fundamentalism is defined primarily by its rejection of them.

The historical-critical method of Bible scholarship meanwhile threatened the idea of scripture as the inerrant, uniform word of God. [...]Fundamentalist Christians rejected these accounts. But more importantly, fundamentalists critiqued the methods, assumptions, and institutions of the expert elites. Fundamentalists questioned the biologists’ and Bible scholars’ suspension of the question of God’s supernatural intervention.

This alternative knowledge—the forerunner of today’s alternative facts— took the form of creationism and an alternative Bible scholarship demonstrating the Bible’s inerrancy and traditional authorship.

This alternative educational and media ecosystem of knowledge was galvanized and mobilized when the Christian Right emerged in the late 1970s to influence the Republican Party. There were two long-term consequences for our fake news world. First, theologically and politically conservative Christians learned to distrust the proclamations of the supposedly neutral media establishment, just as they had grown to suspect the methods and conclusions of elite experts like scientists or historians. And second, they learned to seek the truth from alternative sources—whether a church sermon, Christian media (newspapers, books, radio or television shows), or a classroom in a Christian college.

In the following years, the areas of rejected expert knowledge has grown to include climate change, the efficacy of abstinence-only sex education, and even the supposed link between vaccinations and autism. One could make the argument that even issues that don’t appear to have any religious resonance at all—such as the efficacy of supply-side economic policies, or the idea that Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction and ties to Al Qaeda—are likewise successful partly because of this conservative cognitive training in the rejection of mainstream media and the cultivation of other sources of information, like Fox News at first, but also now websites like Breitbart, 4chan, Infowars, and others.

The goal of “fake news” and “alternative facts” goes beyond providing different data. Their purpose is actually to destroy the notion that there could be impartial news and objective facts. Maria Bustillos calls this endgame “dismediation,” “a form of propaganda that seeks to undermine the medium by which it travels.”

The biggest problem for Trump’s border wall isn’t money. It’s getting the land.

Tamez fought the government in federal court. During seven years of litigation and negotiation, she became famous for resisting the border fence. The government eventually paid her $56,000 for a quarter-acre the fence sits on and gave her a code to open a gate so she can access her land to its south.

Imagine this playing out over and over again along the 1,300 miles of borderlands that President Trump wants to wall up. “We will soon begin the construction of a great wall along our southern border,” Trump promised Tuesday night in an address to Congress. “It will be started ahead of schedule, and, when finished, it will be a very effective weapon against drugs and crime.”

▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/03/03/the-biggest-problem-with-trumps-border-wall-isnt-money-its-getting-the-land/?postshare=2361488659805129&tid=ss_tw
#aménagement_du_territoire #terres #murs #barrières_frontalières #résistance #frontières #USA #Etats-Unis
cc @daphne @albertocampiphoto @marty @reka

Science Is Not Constantly Being Proved Right - Facts So Romantic
▻http://nautil.us/blog/science-is-not-constantly-being-proved-right

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It’s a subtle point, but the British comedian Ricky Gervais was not quite right when he told Stephen Colbert on The Late Show yesterday, “Science is constantly being proved all the time.” Perhaps he misspoke. He was put on the defensive. Colbert, an idiosyncratic but sincere Catholic, was not really playing devil’s advocate when he challenged Gervais to an argument about the existence of God on his show. Gervais is outspoken about his disbelief and is fond of tweeting the reductio ad absurdum of various religious arguments, yet initially he seemed at a loss for how to deflect Colbert’s skepticism of the Big Bang. When Gervais began to evoke the awe of the idea that the universe was once smaller than an atom, Colbert retorted, “But you don’t know that.” Sigh. “Well, but…” “You’re just (...)

Meet the World’s Most Notorious Taxonomist - Facts So Romantic
▻http://nautil.us/blog/meet-the-worlds-most-notorious-taxonomist

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Quentin Wheeler speaking at the History of Science Society in 2009, in Phoenix, Arizona.Sage RossIn 2005, the taxonomist Quentin Wheeler named a trio of newly discovered slime-mold beetles after George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney. He believed the names could increase public interest in the discovery and classification of new species, and help combat the quickening pace of extinction. (Species go extinct three times faster than we can name them.) He knew he was onto something when, having received a call from the White House, it was Bush on the other end, thanking him for the honor. Wheeler, now the president of SUNY’s College of Environmental Science and Forestry, began attributing all sorts of provocative names to his bugs, including Darth Vader, Stephen Colbert, Roy (...)

Rumsfeld et le “vrai” “unknown-unknown”
▻http://www.dedefensa.org/article/rumsfeldet-levrai-unknown-unknown

Rumsfeld et le “vrai” “unknown-unknown”

Donald Rusmfeld a 83 ans et il vient de prêter main forte et rémunérée au lancement d’un jeu-vidéo, Churchill solitaire. Grand chambardement, tournée médiatique, et enfin un talk-show avec le fameux Stephen Colbert, dans son Late Show. C’est de cette dernière occurrence que nous voulons parler, où l’on put entendre Rumsfeld dire une phrase mémorable, qui fut aussitôt happée par les internautes aux aguets et qui, comme on dit, “fit le buzz”. C’est au cours de la partie de l’entretien où Colbert interrogeait Rumsfeld sur les causes de la guerre en Irak de 2003, et précisément à propos du renseignement qui la détermina, et plus précisément encore des armes de destruction massives qui motivèrent l’attaque et qu’on ne trouva jamais parce qu’elles n’existaient pas.

RT a fait un (...)

Thomas #Piketty riposte aux critiques du « Financial Times »
▻http://abonnes.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2014/05/24/le-financial-times-fait-la-lecon-a-thomas-piketty_4425046_3234.html

Mis en cause par le Financial Times, l’économiste français Thomas Piketty a maintenu les conclusions de son ouvrage « Le Capital au XXIe siècle » sur l’accroissement des inégalités dans le monde. Dans son édition de samedi, le quotidien britannique épingle les erreurs de calcul commises par l’économiste, admiré par les milieux intellectuels américains. Son ouvrage monumental est devenu un véritable phénomène d’édition.

Publié en septembre aux éditions du Seuil en France, le livre s’était déjà vendu fin avril à plus de 200 000 exemplaires aux Etats-Unis et au Royaume-Uni alors que l’ouvrage n’était pas encore sorti dans les librairies britanniques. La presse parle même d’une véritable « Piketty-mania ».

L’article du Financial Times, journal des milieux d’affaires, critique durement le contenu du livre :

« Les données sous-tendant les 577 pages de la somme du professeur Piketty, qui a dominé la liste des meilleures ventes au cours des dernières semaines, contiennent une série d’erreurs qui ont faussé ses conclusions. »
LE FT ÉVOQUE DES ERREURS DE CALCUL

La thèse centrale de l’économiste français, selon laquelle les inégalités n’ont jamais été aussi fortes depuis les années qui ont précédé le premier conflit mondial en 1914, reposerait donc sur des calculs erronés :

« Dans ses feuilles de calcul, (...), il y a des erreurs de transcription à partir des sources originales et des formules incorrectes. (...) l apparaît également que certaines données sont sélectionnées ou construites sans source originale. »
Le FT va même jusqu’à évoquer les deux économistes de Harvard, Carmen Reinhart et Kenneth Rogoff, contraints l’an passé de publier une correction à leur étude controversée sur l’impact de la dette publique sur la croissance, après la mise au jour d’erreurs.

« Les données qu’on a sur les patrimoines sont imparfaites mais d’autres comme les déclarations de succession sont plus fiables. Je fais cela en toute transparence, je mets tout en ligne », a réagi samedi l’économiste interrogé par l’AFP. « Là où le Financial Times est malhonnête, c’est qu’il laisse entendre que cela change des choses aux conclusions alors que cela ne change rien. Des études plus récentes ne font que conforter mes conclusions, en utilisant des sources différentes », a-t-il ajouté.

LES ÉLOGES DE KRUGMAN

Reçu mi-avril à la Maison Blanche et au ministère américain des finances, M. Piketty a écumé colloques et conférences aux Etats-Unis et en Europe, afin de dénoncer l’extrême concentration des richesses et de plaider pour une plus forte taxation du capital via un impôt mondial. Dans l’article du Financial Times, il explique avoir utilisé « de nombreuses sources différentes » qui seront « enrichies dans le futur ». « Mais je serai surpris que cela change les données sur l’évolution à long-terme de la redistribution de la richesse », déclare le français.

S’il a pu être qualifié de nouveau marxisme, son imposant ouvrage (près de 1 000 pages dans l’édition française) a notamment reçu les éloges de Paul Krugman, Prix Nobel d’économie et influent chroniqueur du New York Times, qui a assuré que ce livre « changeait la manière de réfléchir sur la société et de faire de l’économie ».

#FInancial_Times #Capital_au_XXIe_siècle

Hachette Says Amazon Is Delaying Delivery of Some Books - NYTimes.com

▻http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/09/technology/hachette-says-amazon-is-delaying-delivery-of-some-books.html?emc=edit_th_20

Quand un monstre se plaint d’un autre monstre

Amazon has begun discouraging customers from buying books by Malcolm Gladwell, Stephen Colbert, J. D. Salinger and other popular writers, a flexing of its muscle as a battle with a publisher spills into the open.

The Internet retailer, which controls more than a third of the book trade in the United States, is marking many books published by Hachette Book Group as not available for at least two or three weeks.

A Hachette spokeswoman said on Thursday that the publisher was striving to keep Amazon supplied but that the Internet giant was delaying shipments “for reasons of their own.” Hachette is one of the largest New York houses, publishing under the Little, Brown and Grand Central imprints, among many others.

#presse #édition #distribution #librairie #amazon #hachette

New Memo: #Kissinger Gave the “Green Light” for Argentina’s Dirty War
▻http://m.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/01/new-memo-kissinger-gave-green-light-argentina-dirty-war

Only a few months ago, Henry Kissinger was dancing with Stephen Colbert in a funny bit on the latter’s Comedy Central show. But for years, the former secretary of state has sidestepped judgment for his complicity in horrific human rights abuses abroad, and a new memo has emerged that provides clear evidence that in 1976 Kissinger gave Argentina’s neo-fascist military junta the “green light” for the dirty war it was conducting against civilian and militant leftists that resulted in the disappearance—that is, deaths—of an estimated 30,000 people.

In April 1977, Patt Derian, a onetime civil rights activist whom President Jimmy Carter had recently appointed assistant secretary of state for human rights, met with the US ambassador in Buenos Aires, Robert Hill. A memo recording that conversation has been unearthed by Martin Edwin Andersen, who in 1987 first reported that Kissinger had told the Argentine generals to proceed with their terror campaign against leftists (whom the junta routinely referred to as “terrorists”). The memo notes that Hill told Derian about a meeting Kissinger held with Argentine Foreign Minister Cesar Augusto Guzzetti the previous June. What the two men discussed was revealed in 2004 when the National Security Archive obtained and released the secret memorandum of conversation for that get-together. Guzzetti, according to that document, told Kissinger, “our main problem in Argentina is terrorism.” Kissinger replied, “If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly. But you must get back quickly to normal procedures.” In other words, go ahead with your killing crusade against the leftists.

The new document shows that Kissinger was even more explicit in encouraging the Argentine junta. The memo recounts Hill describing the Kissinger-Guzzetti discussion this way:

The Argentines were very worried that Kissinger would lecture to them on human rights. Guzzetti and Kissinger had a very long breakfast but the Secretary did not raise the subject. Finally Guzzetti did. Kissinger asked how long will it take you (the Argentines) to clean up the problem. Guzzetti replied that it would be done by the end of the year. Kissinger approved.

In other words, Ambassador Hill explained, Kissinger gave the Argentines the green light.

That’s a damning statement: a US ambassador saying a secretary of state had egged on a repressive regime that was engaged in a killing spree.

#Criminel #Argentine #dictature_militaire #États-Unis “#nos_valeurs”

Internet Entreprise Digital Index

The Digital 100 Power Index - The Daily Beast

►http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/06/24/the-digital-100-power-index.html

Jun 25, 2012

To paraphrase Gandhi: First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. And then—when you black out the sixth-largest website on the planet for an entire day—you win.

This is what Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales learned about power on Jan. 18, 2012. The online encyclopedia had once been a novelty: written by everyone, it could contain errors from anyone, as when Stephen Colbert doctored the entry for George Washington in 2006, asserting falsely that he had not owned slaves. But the idea behind Wikipedia was powerful enough to survive pranks, as the service grew to become an essential reference tool for hundreds of millions of users. And late last year, when two bills working their way through the U.S. Congress threatened the site’s ability to function, Wales knew it was time to flex his digital muscles. In coordination with other web giants, Wikipedia went dark in protest, a blunt demonstration to lawmakers of just how dependent the wired world had become on its model. Less than 48 hours later, the legislation was dead.

Stephen Colbert’s PAC Is More Than a Gag - NYTimes.com
►http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/22/business/media/stephen-colberts-pac-is-more-than-a-gag.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2

“He is taking advantage of loopholes to set up an organization that is not a legitimate political action committee, if there is such a thing, to make the point that the current system is a form of legalized bribery. Try making that point as a member of the mainstream media and holding on to your objectivity.”

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Et un tout petit article qui résume bien le sujet :
►http://franceusamedia.com/2011/07/le-super-pac-de-stephen-colbert-approuve

« On a longtemps dit que la FEC était vouée à l’échec. C’est maintenant le cas. », a commenté l’avocat Brett Kappel, spécialiste du droit en matière de financement de campagnes. « Un très petit nombre de personnes extrêmement riches peuvent avoir un impact inouï sur les élections sans être identifiées. », a-t-il ajouté. Drôle dans la forme mais sérieux sur le fond, Colbert a réussi à mettre en lumière un inquiétant dysfonctionnement.

Excellent : Stephen Colbert démonte la fascination des conservateurs pour Atlas Shrugged d’Ayn Rand :
►http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/221335/march-11-2009/the-word---rand-illusion

I think I can speak for everyone out there: advocating following the advice of a 50 years old novel, set in an America that never existed, that when millions are loosing jobs, homes, and loosing hope, there is nothing more important than putting yourself first.

New Huckleberry Finn edition censors ’n-word’ | Books | guardian.co.uk
►http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/05/huckleberry-finn-edition-censors-n-word