Oliver BurkemanOvjeren akaunt

Has anyone ever been to Iowa to confirm that it's really there? Have you ever met an "Iowan"? Exactly.

Any of these "how the Iowa caucuses work" articles could be totally made up and nobody would know

My issue here is that it's not a real explanation. "It's happening very quickly" isn't a thing!

It's not at all clear to me that the Brexiteer punditocracy wouldn't have vastly preferred the energizing surge of indignation that would have resulted from Brexit being stopped.

Behold the winning side, magnanimously stepping forward and offering, as a measure of their commitment to the common good, to do absolutely nothinghttps://twitter.com/JuliaHB1/status/1223614317020504068 …

More generally there is an interesting question lurking here for anyone pursuing any political goal, which is can you define the stopping rule? Can you clearly articulate what the world would look like at the point at which you had completely succeeded in your aims?

It’s pretty eye opening, in the replies to this, to see how swiftly people are ready to abandon the idea that a prominent woman alleging threats to her safety ought to be taken seriously, when it suits their purposes to assume she’s lying instead.https://twitter.com/mikiebarb/status/1222621718918901761 …

Compare the "harm" approach to the claim that this book's prominence is to some extent a *symptom* of racism – that's a much more credible claim, which could then be justified with ref to the book's contents, publishing industry demographics, etc etc.

There may be some! I don't think it's conceptually impossible that a novel could inflict harm. But it seems to me like another case of "if the charge is serious enough you don't need to provide evidence for it."

Not too surprisingly, there's no elucidation in the open letter of "the harm this book can and will do"; that's just asserted, as if it would be plainly ludicrous to ask how this might actually occur.https://twitter.com/jennyschuessler/status/1222529129427480577 …

An impotent fact at this point in time, sure, and maybe you even want to say it was just the ordinary dishonesty of politics, or no worse than the other side – I would disagree, but putting that all aside, the basic point seems incontestable to me, and kind of dizzying to recall.

It is kind of mind-bending to remember that, given the closeness of the referendum, there's zero chance that Brexit would be happening this week if the Leave campaign had been honestly fought.

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Relatedly I've noticed that when the 3yo's about to spill some water, I and many others unthinkingly react like he's about to stick his fingers in a flame, when in almost all cases it doesn't matter at all. I think I'm getting better about it, a bit, though.https://twitter.com/MWStory/status/1221968589957165057 …