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News round up...
1. Box Office: Marvel made “Shang-Chi” with the Chinese market in mind. The government won’t allow it in theaters. [ LOL!] I should provide a link, shouldn't I? Warm Reception From Asians Everywhere - Except China
Marvel released “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” with China in mind. Simu Liu, the film’s Canadian lead actor, was born in China. Much of its dialogue is in Mandarin. The cast includes Tony Leung, one of the biggest Chinese-speaking movie stars in history.
The studio’s first Asian superhero movie is a hit, drawing praise and ticket sales in East Asia and other global markets. Perhaps the only place where the movie has not been well received — in fact, it has not been received there at all — is mainland China.
Disney, which owns Marvel, has yet to receive clearance from Beijing’s regulators to show the film in the vast but heavily censored movie market. While the reasons aren’t clear, “Shang-Chi” may be a victim of the low point in U.S.-China relations.
Yes, China. Proof you can be capitalistic and a fascist dictatorship at the same time.
2. Advice from Wirecutter: Consider pet insurance - Geeze, owning a pet is an expensive and stressful proposition nowadays, isn't it? love the people telling me to adopt a pet - for $250 or $1000 bucks. Folks that's not adopting, that's purchasing. There's a financial transaction involved. Granted depending on the agency that does include all the shots, neutering, and papers. Actually that's probably why you need pet insurance. My co-worker bought a bulldog for his daughters for about $1,000, and the dog died within two weeks. (Apparently it had cancer or something.) Which is horrible, but also expensive. See? This is why I don't have a pet - well that and I'm allergic.
3.Last week’s recall landslide in California suggests the stolen-election myth is hurting Republicans, says Rich Lowry in Politico. [ If only. I'll believe it when it happens. I'm still waiting for the Republican Party to crawl back into the cesspit from which it erupted. It's not happened yet. I'm almost resigned to the fact that it never will. We're stuck with the bloody bastards.]
4. The U.S. needs a uniform system to verify vaccination status, Dr. Tom Frieden, a former C.D.C. director, argues. [ Well, yeah. Kind of figured that out several months ago. Also, the flimsy paper cards aren't good enough. NY put in apps - two of them, the NY State Excelsior Pass, and NYC COVID Pass. You just upload your information to the app on your phone, and voila. I've also uploaded it to my doctor and my company's portal. If this was more uniform - I wouldn't have had to upload it so many times.]
5. Middle-aged sadness is behind the cancel culture panic, Michelle Goldberg argues. [ Okay. I think what's behind it is idiotic twenty-somethings cancelling professors on Twitter, Tik Tok, Facebook, and other social media platforms that I don't know the name of. Which is actually the problematic nature of Twitter in action. Cat Sebastian, LGBTA romance novelist, recently tweeted that part of the problem with this site (platform) is that it bullies people into speaking out about things. "We Know who hasn't Spoke out about this! Shame on you!" - they did that with the whole Joss Whedon thing, the actors, writers, etc who chose not to tweet about Whedon or speak out against him on Twitter and Instagram - got harassed for not doing so. (Poor Alyson Hannigan who was promoting a movie at the time - had her publicist handle Twitter. And her husband, Alexis Denisof just jumped off it completely.)
6.Justin Trudeau will stay prime minister of Canada, but his party failed to secure a majority in Parliament, according to unofficial election results. [ Is this good news? I think it is. But I also don't know who the opposition was.]
7. The S&P 500 index saw its biggest one-day slide since May. One reason: A Chinese real estate giant is in trouble. [Sigh. After I added money to my investments...ugh. Stupid China - they've put the damper on everything.]
8. Biden will address the U.N.’s General Assembly today. Yesterday, the boy band BTS took center stage. [ Okay, why is a boy band playing at the general assembly of the UN? I should provide a link... Boy Band BTS speaks in front of the UN General Assembly]
They apparently even performed there. But this was a speech about Corona Virus vaccines saving young adults.
9. Pfizer says its Covid vaccine is safe and effective in children from 5 to 11. It could be available to them in October. [ Yay!]
10. The U.S. will allow fully vaccinated foreigners to visit starting in November.[ Finally? ]
11. The Labor Department will draft standards to protect outdoor workers from extreme heat. [ Why wasn't this done before now?]
12. Two men from other states seem to be the first to use Texas’ new abortion law to sue a doctor for performing an abortion. [ This is a weird case - the two men are disbarred lawyers. So it could reveal the problematic nature of the law.]
13. The Department of Homeland Security is investigating the border patrol’s treatment of Haitian immigrants. [The immigrants were detained in San Rio, Texas. Border patrol hunted them down on horseback and decided to deport them back to Haiti without warning. This is after they worked for years to get to the US. ]
14. The Biden administration will raise the cap on refugee admissions to 125,000 for the coming 12 months. [ They kind of have to - considering we left a bit of a crisis in Afghanistan.]
15. A glitch revealed the ballot choices of hundreds of voters in New York City’s mayoral primary — including the mayor’s son’s. [ Woopsie.]
16. Oh, there's also 31 new television shows premiering this fall, after the pandemic glut. (I disagree, there were some great shows that popped up during the pandemic. Queen's Gambit, Bridgerton...both come to mind.)
31 Television Shows to Watch - depending on what your service is of course
IDK - I am nostalgic for the days in which there were just 10. Actually, I'm guessing there's more than 31, but the critics gave up and just list the ones they managed to see. Well that, and the networks/streaming services pretty much greenlit every single pilot they saw. So.. I mean who has time to watch over 100 television shows, sixty percent of which are real clunkers?
Not to be outdone, there's also More than 125 movies to watch - basically every movie that was put on hold since 2020, that they did not want to release on streaming channels and felt needed to be seen in movie theaters. So we have a backlog of a year and a half of movies coming out. Blame the pandemic.
Marvel released “Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings” with China in mind. Simu Liu, the film’s Canadian lead actor, was born in China. Much of its dialogue is in Mandarin. The cast includes Tony Leung, one of the biggest Chinese-speaking movie stars in history.
The studio’s first Asian superhero movie is a hit, drawing praise and ticket sales in East Asia and other global markets. Perhaps the only place where the movie has not been well received — in fact, it has not been received there at all — is mainland China.
Disney, which owns Marvel, has yet to receive clearance from Beijing’s regulators to show the film in the vast but heavily censored movie market. While the reasons aren’t clear, “Shang-Chi” may be a victim of the low point in U.S.-China relations.
Yes, China. Proof you can be capitalistic and a fascist dictatorship at the same time.
2. Advice from Wirecutter: Consider pet insurance - Geeze, owning a pet is an expensive and stressful proposition nowadays, isn't it? love the people telling me to adopt a pet - for $250 or $1000 bucks. Folks that's not adopting, that's purchasing. There's a financial transaction involved. Granted depending on the agency that does include all the shots, neutering, and papers. Actually that's probably why you need pet insurance. My co-worker bought a bulldog for his daughters for about $1,000, and the dog died within two weeks. (Apparently it had cancer or something.) Which is horrible, but also expensive. See? This is why I don't have a pet - well that and I'm allergic.
3.Last week’s recall landslide in California suggests the stolen-election myth is hurting Republicans, says Rich Lowry in Politico. [ If only. I'll believe it when it happens. I'm still waiting for the Republican Party to crawl back into the cesspit from which it erupted. It's not happened yet. I'm almost resigned to the fact that it never will. We're stuck with the bloody bastards.]
4. The U.S. needs a uniform system to verify vaccination status, Dr. Tom Frieden, a former C.D.C. director, argues. [ Well, yeah. Kind of figured that out several months ago. Also, the flimsy paper cards aren't good enough. NY put in apps - two of them, the NY State Excelsior Pass, and NYC COVID Pass. You just upload your information to the app on your phone, and voila. I've also uploaded it to my doctor and my company's portal. If this was more uniform - I wouldn't have had to upload it so many times.]
5. Middle-aged sadness is behind the cancel culture panic, Michelle Goldberg argues. [ Okay. I think what's behind it is idiotic twenty-somethings cancelling professors on Twitter, Tik Tok, Facebook, and other social media platforms that I don't know the name of. Which is actually the problematic nature of Twitter in action. Cat Sebastian, LGBTA romance novelist, recently tweeted that part of the problem with this site (platform) is that it bullies people into speaking out about things. "We Know who hasn't Spoke out about this! Shame on you!" - they did that with the whole Joss Whedon thing, the actors, writers, etc who chose not to tweet about Whedon or speak out against him on Twitter and Instagram - got harassed for not doing so. (Poor Alyson Hannigan who was promoting a movie at the time - had her publicist handle Twitter. And her husband, Alexis Denisof just jumped off it completely.)
6.Justin Trudeau will stay prime minister of Canada, but his party failed to secure a majority in Parliament, according to unofficial election results. [ Is this good news? I think it is. But I also don't know who the opposition was.]
7. The S&P 500 index saw its biggest one-day slide since May. One reason: A Chinese real estate giant is in trouble. [Sigh. After I added money to my investments...ugh. Stupid China - they've put the damper on everything.]
8. Biden will address the U.N.’s General Assembly today. Yesterday, the boy band BTS took center stage. [ Okay, why is a boy band playing at the general assembly of the UN? I should provide a link... Boy Band BTS speaks in front of the UN General Assembly]
They apparently even performed there. But this was a speech about Corona Virus vaccines saving young adults.
9. Pfizer says its Covid vaccine is safe and effective in children from 5 to 11. It could be available to them in October. [ Yay!]
10. The U.S. will allow fully vaccinated foreigners to visit starting in November.[ Finally? ]
11. The Labor Department will draft standards to protect outdoor workers from extreme heat. [ Why wasn't this done before now?]
12. Two men from other states seem to be the first to use Texas’ new abortion law to sue a doctor for performing an abortion. [ This is a weird case - the two men are disbarred lawyers. So it could reveal the problematic nature of the law.]
13. The Department of Homeland Security is investigating the border patrol’s treatment of Haitian immigrants. [The immigrants were detained in San Rio, Texas. Border patrol hunted them down on horseback and decided to deport them back to Haiti without warning. This is after they worked for years to get to the US. ]
14. The Biden administration will raise the cap on refugee admissions to 125,000 for the coming 12 months. [ They kind of have to - considering we left a bit of a crisis in Afghanistan.]
15. A glitch revealed the ballot choices of hundreds of voters in New York City’s mayoral primary — including the mayor’s son’s. [ Woopsie.]
16. Oh, there's also 31 new television shows premiering this fall, after the pandemic glut. (I disagree, there were some great shows that popped up during the pandemic. Queen's Gambit, Bridgerton...both come to mind.)
31 Television Shows to Watch - depending on what your service is of course
IDK - I am nostalgic for the days in which there were just 10. Actually, I'm guessing there's more than 31, but the critics gave up and just list the ones they managed to see. Well that, and the networks/streaming services pretty much greenlit every single pilot they saw. So.. I mean who has time to watch over 100 television shows, sixty percent of which are real clunkers?
Not to be outdone, there's also More than 125 movies to watch - basically every movie that was put on hold since 2020, that they did not want to release on streaming channels and felt needed to be seen in movie theaters. So we have a backlog of a year and a half of movies coming out. Blame the pandemic.
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At any rate it has free market capitalism under a dictatorship. So it's unlikely to bail out the scumbag real estate company. Free market would let it fail. I'm not entirely certain it's definition of Communism is the same as ours.
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It's about as good as that news gets.
Canada has four major parties and some number of minor/fringe parties. Trudeau's Liberals are the squishy centrist party; since 2015 they've been the majority partner in a coalition government with the actual-lefty New Democratic Party. The official opposition are the Conservative party, who are less batshit insane than US Republicans but that's a matter of degree not kind. And then there's the Bloc Quebecois who most Canadians kind of ignore because their whole thing is Quebecois sovereignty/separatism. The BQ have more seats than the NDP but (obviously) they're entirely in Quebec, so the NDP polls substantially higher.
So: a good thing in that it kept the Conservatives out of power. The NDP gained a couple of seats, which is also good news. The Green Party I think lost one of their two seats, which I consider to be good news but I am still scarred by the 2000 US Presidential election. The People's Party of Canada, aka "an attempt at an actual US-Republican-style racist-conservative party," won zero seats, which is excellent news... but they're polling at upwards of five percent, which is at least five percent higher than I want to see them. And I'm told the Conservatives ran a kinder gentler centrist-y campaign that resulted in them losing a couple of seats, so I expect we'll see a hard right turn there as well.
In conclusion, screw Justin Trudeau for his 2015 "this will be the last federal election to use first-past-the-post voting" slogan that he abandoned as soon as he got elected.
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Sigh, humans. It would be nice if we did something in a uniform fashion - well, besides marching.
I think we like to complicate things, and make them chaotic. We'd get bored otherwise.
At any rate - it sounds like the lesser of four evils won?
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And yeah, it's about as good as it was going to get. The 2011 election was better for the NDP: the Bloc utterly collapsed, most of its seats went orange, and a bunch of other seats flipped to the NDP as well. But then the super-charismatic NDP leader died of cancer shortly after and the guy they brought in to replace him was just awful. Jagmeet Singh, the current NDP leader, is fantastic and engaging but FOR SOME TOTALLY INEXPLICABLE REASON he just hasn't been able to make inroads in racist-af Quebec, or much of slightly-less-racist anywhere else in Canada. So, barring a replay of the good parts of 2011, "Liberal minority supported by the NDP" is the best of a bunch of potentially really bad options.
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When working for evil library company - I had to inform them to remove all of Time Warner's content from databases being sold to China, because China has no intellectual property law to speak of. They don't. It's a complete free market society. We have a dictatorship with free market capitalism. See? Weird. Also problematic - since no environmental regulations or food or drug regulations - hence the reason we ended up with a pandemic coming from China (that was always a possibility.) If we were smart we'd disallow any travel to and from China until it put some hefty regs in place.
Makes Russia look like a picnic in comparison.