Stanislav Petrov died. Not sure how well known he is in the US, but he's the bloke who basically prevented a thermo-nuclear war in '83.

Is there additional background to this?

To me, three cops says regular "visit", but the application of a battering ram kinda screams "we expect violence/resistence". Over here, three cops would sit on the house until a locksmith arrives, not bust the door like barbarians. Or there would be a dozen of them, masked, guns drawn and at the ready.

http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/worldtoday/british-colonialism-impact-india-shashi-tharoor/8863792

Walter Becker died today, so...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JkS8WB94ME

*promote

The Hummingbird Whisperer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IP_3mAJpZVE

https://twitter.com/UberFacts/status/901644688805027840

5 months after giving Google/YT the finger with regards to ads and monetisation, Karl of InRangeTV published a short update on how this transition went for them in terms of funding, etc. Good stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TB8NmJGenyc

Topic is not particularly interesting, but that's how you handle someone peddling BS during an interview on the telly:

https://twitter.com/Breznican/status/898586524874186753

Interesting piece in the LA Review of Books: The Supermanagerial Reich

It's a tad long, so I suggest the last two paragraphs to get a taste, see if it's to your liking.

Small bit:

If there is going to be a politics that overcomes the new fascist threat, it must address the fact that the crisis is not now, the crisis has already been for some time. By focusing only on the threat of our homegrown Hitler caricature we have failed to notice the facts right in front of our faces: the uniquely parallel structures, the same winners, the similar losers, the crimes, the human degradation. We are already living in our very own, cruel 21st-century Supermanagerial Reich.

It was a gathering of white people in pastel clothes doing ritual autofellatio to the tune of how woke they are.

That's a good line. The entire thread is rather interesting as well.

https://twitter.com/democracynow/status/897161123706933248

The Nation and Bloomberg ran with it. Two weeks late, but hey, it's something.

That's a Hoplite (Mi-2), our nearby helicopter museum has one. Paint job is neither Polish nor East German though, so I'll go with Ukraine or maybe Belarus.

https://twitter.com/TZhongg/status/894301617524047872