Facebook takes down Trump ads
entirely up to players, and is very much for play rather than display. Small sections would work for an adult fan of Lego’s display case, but every step of the way this is clearly designed with delight and adventure first.
‘‘The magic of this project is that there is no way to build it right,’’ Bennick said.
But although these are sets primarily for kids, they carry high prices considering the number of blocks included. The Lego Mario starter set will cost A$90 (NZ$96), with the expansions announced so far falling between A$30 (NZ$32) and A$150(NZ$159). There will also be additional power-up costumes for Mario at A$13, and character blind bags at A$6.
Ordinarily I’d gauge a A$100 (NZ$106) set, including 1000 pieces (that is, an average of 10 cents per piece), as good value, but that might not apply here since the playsets have so many large, new and unique pieces, as well as lots of printed tiles (there are no stickers to be found here, which is worth a lot in my book).
Mario’s foot sensor can detect unique elements thanks to tiny barcodes (for example on an enemy’s head), but he can also tell the difference between regular red, yellow, green and blue Lego bricks, so parents may be able to expand on the cheap by just buying standard bricks to help the levels along.
The collection may get more expensive for parents with more than one child, because only one person can play with the levels at a time until a Luigi or other character is released with Mario’s smarts.
Kids can build levels for each other or together, but there’s no way to have a proper competitive mode yet.
Bennick expressed the hope that this might help kids learn to share.
I spent the weekend building the starter set and three expansions, which involved everything from cloud platforms and boss battles to hidden treasure and a moving mine car trapped between two piranha plants (Mario gets extra coins if he can balance the sliding car and avoid hitting either plant).
While I originally cursed the lack of display ability, eventually I got lost in actually playing physical Super Mario Maker, tried unsuccessfully to convince my wife to test out my levels, and vowed to order every single one of the additional sets, characters and costumes. – Sydney Morning Herald
In its online salvo against antifa and ‘‘far-Left mobs’’, United States president Donald Trump’s re-election campaign is displaying a marking once used by the Nazis to designate political prisoners in concentration camps.
The red inverted triangle was first used in the 1930s to identify communists, and was applied as well to social democrats, liberals, freemasons and other members of opposition parties. The badge forced on Jewish political prisoners, by contrast, featured a red inverted triangle superimposed on a yellow triangle.
A spokesman for the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The symbol appeared in Facebook ads run by Trump and vice-president Mike Pence, as well as the ‘‘Team Trump’’ account on Facebook, which has since removed them for violating their rules against ‘‘organised hate’’.
It was featured alongside text warning of ‘‘Dangerous MOBS of far-Left groups’’ and asking users to sign a petition about antifa, a loose collection of anti-fascist activists whom the Trump Administration has sought to tie to recent violence, in spite of arrest records showing their involvement is trivial.
Other variations of the ads use a yield sign, which has the same shape and a similar colour scheme but is notably distinct in only featuring a red outline and a white interior. Some of the material also features a stop sign.
‘‘It’s a highly problematic use of a symbol that the Nazis used to identify their political enemies,’’ said Jacob Eder, a historian of modern Germany at the Barenboim-Said Akademie in Berlin.
‘‘It’s hard to imagine it’s done on purpose, because I’m not sure if the vast majority of Americans know or understand the sign, but it’s very, very careless to say the least.’’
Bend the Arc: Jewish Action, a progressive advocacy group, condemned the use of the notorious symbol in campaign advertising.
‘‘This isn’t just one post,’’ the group wrote on Twitter. ‘‘This is dozens of carefully targeted ads from the official pages of Mike Pence, Donald Trump, and Team Trump. All paid for by Trump and the Republican National Committee. All spreading lies and genocidal imagery.’’
Some of the ads featuring the inverted red triangle, which began running on Wednesday (Thursday, NZ time), were still active on
‘‘I think it’s a highly problematic use of a symbol that the Nazis used to identify their political enemies.’’
Trump’s page on Thursday morning. They had gained as many as 950,000 impressions from the president’s Facebook account alone. Identical ads on Pence’s account, which were also still active, had gained as many as 500,000 impressions.
Trump has made antifa – a label associated with anti-fascist protesters – a centrepiece of his response to recent demonstrations over the killing of George Floyd.
The effort to rally his supporters using the spectre of a marauding horde resembles the emphasis he placed on the threat of a migrant caravan heading to the US border in the lead-up to the midterm elections in 2018.
However, the alleged menace has been mostly nonexistent – a focal point of online alarm not reflected in scenes of mostly peaceful protest across the country.
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment but later removed the ads.
During the 2016 campaign, Trump tweeted, and then deleted, a graphic showing Hillary Clinton alongside $100 bills and a sixpointed Star of David – the type of star that Jews were forced by the Nazis to wear on their clothing.
The then-candidate insisted in a statement that the insignia was not anti-Semitic because it represented a sheriff’s badge, not the stigmatised Star of David.
– Washington Post