Finland – Where Goat Santa Claus sit on his throne of skulls

Finland ends their experiment in universal basic income that wasn’t an experiment in universal basic income because it wasn’t universal or basic or, really, income, if you think about it.

Finland has decided not to extend its trial in universal basic income, the first welfare experiment of its kind by a European government that gave citizens an unconditional monthly payment.

The government rejected a request from Kela, the country’s social security agency, for additional funding to expand the innovative two-year pilot program, meaning it will come to an end in January 2019, the Guardian reports.

The program, which Finland inaugurated in January 2017, saw 2,000 jobless people receive €560 ($685) per month without requiring them to work or seek employment. Recipients who found a job continued to receive the payments. In 2015, Finland’s unemployment rate had hit a 17-year high of 10%, prompting calls for welfare reform.

I guess “unemployment benefits with no requirement to look for work or that ends when you find work” isn’t as hip a name as UBI. The article notes that Holland, Canada, and Kenya have tried this nonsense. They forgot about the thriving metropolis of Stockton, California.

Dreary Partisan Dolt Ed Gilmore

Nuance is for losers. Everyone knows that: How They Do ‘Journalism’ at New York Magazine

In my recent Wall Street Journal essay on the politics of Twitter mobs, I noted that the episode was accompanied by a great deal of sloppy journalism—remarkably lazy journalism. Of all the mostly denunciatory articles about me that appeared in the big-name press (at least four in the New York Times alone) not a single writer of any of them bothered to ask me about my views on the subjects in question: abortion and capital punishment. Naturally, practically all of them got it wrong (see the corrections) never having bothered to perform the characteristic act of journalism and, you know, ask a question or two.

Ed Kilgore, a dreary partisan dolt in the employ of New York magazine, thought he saw an opening, and sent me a one-question inquiry: “What is your ‘public policy recommendation’ on appropriate punishment for women having abortions in a hypothetical criminalized abortion regime?” As any reasonably intelligent person will immediately detect, that question isn’t actually a question; it is a rhetorical stratagem in the shape of a question, deployed for the purpose of lame partisan point-scoring in the form of blocks of texts shaped like journalism. It isn’t discourse, but a facsimile of it, the journalistic equivalent of the Gemütlichkeit Spamwich created by Lisa Dziadulewicz of Sheboygan, Wisconsin: Just not quite right.

It is, as I have noted, a dishonest strategy, because the question cannot be intelligently answered in a single sentence or two. (The French law on the subject, for example, runs quite a bit longer than that.) Try to summarize it in sound-bite form and you’ll produce something that is easy to caricature—which is, of course, the point of asking the question.

Why Kanye’s Rightward Turn Matters

The episode is yet another example of how far we are through the looking glass: a man who criticized the then-sitting president by saying he “doesn’t care” about black people on national television in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is, in the topsy-turvy world of 2018, a cheerleader for a pundit who thinks black people ought to quit whining. This has been distressing to many of his fans. It has thrilled all the wrong people. “It is hard to put into words how significant and powerful this endorsement from Kanye is!!” a weekend email from TPUSA read. “When pop icons like Kayne start to compliment leaders like Candace, you know there is a sea change happening in America. Please consider a tax deductible gift today to help us WIN THE FIGHT!!!”

There are as many fronts in The War on Creeping Uncle Tomism as there are people who need to be put back in their place. The time has come for you, Kayne. Denounce Taylor Swift or get in the back of the bus.

Where have you gone, Mr. Barfman?
A nation turns its lonely eyes to you…

Our dear friend, author and former Jezebel staffer Lindy West, is having her best-selling memoir, Shrill: Notes From a Loud Woman, adapted into a Hulu series with another woman we love, Aidy Bryant.

In late 2016, seven months after its release, Elizabeth Banks optioned Shrill with the aim of adapting it for television. Two years (and two additional book deals) later, the Shrill TV show has been sold and is currently being developed for Hulu by Saturday Night Live’s Lorne Michaels and Aidy Bryant.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Hulu take is “the story of a fat young woman who wants to change her life, but not her body.” Bryant will star as West in the single-camera comedy. West, Bryant and Ali Rushfield penned the screenplay. No date is set for its release yet, but it’s safe to say we’re FREAKING OUT!