We know that big companies collect vast amounts of data on us based on our online presence and know our likes and dislikes in the minutest detail. So it is not surprising when we get emails recommending products for us to buy. But I was struck by an email I got from Amazon recently that said “Hello, Mano Singham, We have found something you might like.”
And the recommendation was … my own book.
Although the official election day is November 3, in practice the election began on Friday when in-person early voting began in four states, Minnesota, Virginia, South Dakota and Wyoming.
Lines of voters stretched from polling places in Virginia and Minnesota as early voting started in four states, the first of the 2020 presidential election.
The longest lines were found in Virginia, where voters previously needed a reason to cast an early ballot. In the state’s Fairfax County, where reports showed lines stretching for hours, election workers scrambled to open an additional voting room at the county government centre.
As the election nears, there are more and more media attempts to gauge the mood of the electorate. Polls of course are one indicator but given how people got burned by polls in 2016, people are a little skeptical of putting too much faith in them. Another popular reporting staple is to go out to various communities and talk to the people and then report on what they are saying, often quoting specific individuals. These vox pop pieces (short of vox populi or ‘voice of the people’) are interesting but how seriously can you take these people in the street interviews?
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She was resolute in her determination to uphold liberal and humane values on the US Supreme Court and her death today will be felt keenly. There is really nothing that I can say in praise of this magnificent jurist that will not be said much better by people who knew her well and have studied her career closely.
The only thing I can say is how saddened I am by the news.
Trump has said that a vaccine for covid-19 will be available in October, a wildly unrealistic scenario. It is clearly an election vote-grabbing strategy As the clock ticks down to the election on November 3, we can expect Trump to make more and more extravagant promises in an effort to convince his supporters that his presidency has not been a colossal failure in pretty much every area other than making the wealthy much wealthier.
Between now and election day, we can expect him to promise that by election day he will end the wars Afghanistan and Iraq, produce a comprehensive new health care plan, solve the immigration issue, find a cure for cancer, and send astronauts to Mars and have them come back. Unrealistic, you say? Don’t you realize that you have to believe for good things to come true?
Samantha Bee takes on his promise that a vaccine will be found within the next few weeks.
Jerry Falwell, Jr., who had to resign as president of Liberty University after revelations about the swinging sexual lifestyle of him and his wife Becki, turns out to have even more hypocrisies. Falwell’s father, the founder of the university, had instituted extremely harsh restrictions on the student body when it came to dress, behavior, and alcohol, with a strict no-use policy for the last item. His son vigorously implemented these policies when he took over as president. But it now appears that Falwell is an alcoholic.
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I have of course heard of the Miss America and Miss USA pageants and recall having seen bits of either or both (it was hard for me to tell the difference) on TV many years ago. To me they seemed to be two sides of the same coin, an opportunity to parade attractive young women in swim suits before a large TV audience. But in the August 31, 2020 issue of The New Yorker magazine, Lauren Collins says there are differences between the two, in that the Miss America organization insists that its contest is about more than looks.
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You know that Trump must feel desperate when he goes outside his bubble of sycophantic right wing interviewers that fawn over him. He agreed to a town hall hosted by ABC News two days ago that featured ordinary people asking him questions and he was clearly rattled by their directness. One questioner even shut him down when he interrupted her while she was asking it. The problem for Trump is that it is easy for him to insult reporters and political opponents when they challenge him. His fans love it. But he cannot do that with ordinary people though he must have been sorely tempted to do so. The event went so badly that one of his biggest sycophants Laura Ingraham of Fox News called it an ‘ambush’ by ABC.
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Another woman has come forward and charged that back in 1997 when she was a model, Trump sexually assaulted her.
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Amy Dorris alleged that Trump accosted her outside the bathroom in his VIP box at the tournament in New York on 5 September 1997.
Dorris, who was 24 at the time, accuses Trump of forcing his tongue down her throat, assaulting her all over her body and holding her in a grip she was unable to escape from.
“He just shoved his tongue down my throat and I was pushing him off. And then that’s when his grip became tighter and his hands were very gropey and all over my butt, my breasts, my back, everything.
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We are currently awash in fake news and conspiracy theories. From reader Jason, I received this 2018 article that discussed what effect cognitive abilities have on people’s vulnerability to fake news. It highlights a particularly significant risk factor, that people they identified as having low cognitive ability have a particularly hard time rejecting misinformation.
What do they mean by ‘cognitive ability’?
First proposed by the cognitive psychologists Lynn Hasher and Rose Zacks, this theory holds that some people are more prone to “mental clutter” than other people. In other words, some people are less able to discard (or “inhibit”) information from their working memory that is no longer relevant to the task at hand—or, as in the case of Nathalie, information that has been discredited. Research on cognitive aging indicates that, in adulthood, this ability declines considerably with advancing age, suggesting that older adults may also be especially vulnerable to fake news. Another reason why cognitive ability may predict vulnerability to fake news is that it correlates highly with education. Through education, people may develop meta-cognitive skills—strategies for monitoring and regulating one’s own thinking—that can be used to combat the effects of misinformation.