WE NEED A COMPLETE AND TOTAL SHUTDOWN OF THE WASHINGTON POST UNTIL WE CAN FIGURE OUT WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON THERE: Alert: Taylor Lorenz Tries To Murder Trans Activist Who Tanked Bud Light Sales.
Why it matters: If Taylor Lorenz is going to denounce others for spreading death and disease, she should stop posting photographic evidence of her own efforts to spread death and disease. Her reckless actions are bound to get someone killed.
Bottom line: We are literally shaking right now.
Same.
IF YOU’RE A TWITTER* USER AND ARE SO INCLINED, PLEASE “LIKE” AND RETWEET THIS: I’ll be sending targeted “quote tweets” to California legislators after this underlying tweet starts getting a decent number of “hearts” and retweets. Yes, I wish we lived in a day that Twitter was not the most effective way of getting a state legislator’s attention. But … well … times being what they are …
*X. I’m quite fond of the illustrious Mr. Musk, but I wish the name were still Twitter.
By the way, the underlying WSJ editorial is great.
Red Alert—The Cal Legislature’s ACA7 purports to create an “exception” to Prop 209, but in fact it guts it.
The voters already rejected this kind of race discrimination in 2020 with Prop 16. Don’t make us do it again.https://t.co/nLMt6HHhET
— Gail Heriot (@GailHeriot) August 31, 2023
DISPATCHES FROM WEIMAR AMERICA: NYC Pride: ‘We’re Coming For Your Children.’
GOOD LUCK: Can AI prevent a US recession?
UPDATE NEWSPEAK DICTIONARIES ACCORDINGLY, COMRADES! Tracking Orwellian Change: New Meanings of “Deep State” and “Working Class.”
COMPARISON: Comparison Test: 2023 Honda Pilot vs. 2024 Toyota Grand Highlander.
I loved my Highlander Hybrid; I have a friend who loves his Pilot. Though I assume the Grand Highlander is . . . grander. And I do love it that SUVs now have 0-60 times (5.6 in the case of the Grand Highlander) that only upper level Porsches and Ferraris, etc., had in my youth.
OUR SPACE INFRASTRUCTURE IS LACKING: NASA officials sound alarm over future of the Deep Space Network.
Dodd doesn’t take a starry-eyed view of the challenges operating the Deep Space Network. She said there are currently around 40 missions that rely on the DSN’s antennas to stay in communication with controllers and scientists back on Earth. Another 40-plus missions will join the roster over the next decade or so, and many of the 40 missions currently using time on the network will likely still be operating over that time.
“We have more missions coming than we currently are flying,” Dodd said. “We’re nearly doubling the load on the DSN. A lot of those are either lunar exploration or Artemis missions, and a lot of Artemis precursor missions with commercial vendors. So the load is increasing, and it’s very stressful to us.”
“It’s oversubscribed, yet it’s vital to anything the agency wants to do,” she said.
Vint Cerf, an Internet pioneer who is now an executive at Google, sits on the committee Dodd met with Tuesday. After hearing from Dodd and other NASA managers, Cerf said: “The deep space communications system is in deep—well, let me use a better word, deficit. There’s a four-letter word that occurs to me, too.”
Plus: “The agency’s internal watchdog said a project to upgrade the three DSN sites with more 34-meter antennas and higher-power transmitters is five years behind schedule, and the cost of the upgrades has increased to $706 million.”
Infrastructure isn’t nearly as sexy as a moonshot, but you don’t get there without it.
“Bro Culture in the C-Suite (Redux)”: Investigative reporter (and dear pal Susan Antilla, a prize-winning journalist) published a marvelous series in The Insider proving what we all knew: “Bro” Boys are More Often Than Not Scum.
The douchenozzle at center is Arias Organization CEO Simon Arias, III.
Let’s start with the gross part, shall we?
“Women say they were fed date rape drugs, compared to dog puke, and forced to watch a boss masturbate […] One former agent told Insider she was worried she’d made a big mistake early on, when her boss commented about her large breasts in front of colleagues, calling her “Jugs.” Another woman who worked there told Insider she was compared to dog puke. Senior managers called men in the office “studs” and “stallions,” according to the lawsuit; women were called “sluts,” “bitches,” and “whores.”
This is not some mom-and-dad strip mall insurance agency. It’s part of a nested series of companies that lead up to Globe Life Inc., an S&P top 500 company. It has 3,543 employees nationwide, and annual revenue of…wait for it…$5.2 billion.
Now lets get to the “comeuppance” part. After the women sued everybody in sight, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway slashed its stake in Globe Life from 6.35 million to 2.52 million shares. And when Warren Buffett makes a move like that, regulators take notice:
“Insider has spoken with four former Arias agents who said a Pennsylvania Department of Insurance investigator questioned them about the company’s culture and indicated that the department was looking into whether the company had defrauded its customers. One said the investigator, Michelle Billotte, asked about “company culture and sexual harassment.”
It goes to show you that people who act like @ssholes often disrespect the law as much as they disrespect other people:
“Two sources told Insider that a representative of the Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General was also asking questions about Arias. One, a former agent, said he spoke with William McKee, an investigator in the office’s insurance-fraud section, about Arias agents who had increased customers’ premiums by adding coverage without their knowledge. The former agent said he also shared information about colleagues who would drum up extra commissions by using phony names to write policies for people who didn’t exist.”
Although civil suits are pending, no criminal charges have been filed against Arias or any of the Globe entities.
Nonetheless, good investigative reporting teaches us that Justice Brandeis was right: “Sunlight is the best disinfectant.”
READER FAVORITE: Alimens & Gentle Men’s Long Sleeve Plaid Flannel Casual Shirts. #CommissionEarned
BIDENOMICS, IT’S WORKING! Poor Americans Skip Meals, Can’t Afford Power Bills, Miss Rent Payments, In Era Of ‘Bidenomics.’
This leaves us with a Bloomberg report citing fintech startup Propel, an app aimed at Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients, that reveals an increasing number of Americans are struggling to pay rent and put food on the table.
Among households using the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program’s boosted pandemic benefits, 42% skipped meals in August and 55% ate less because they couldn’t afford food, more than double last year’s share, according to a Wednesday report from Propel Inc., a benefits software developer.
Bloomberg said:
The data also highlight that households were worse off in August from just a month ago. Since July, an increasing share of low-income households had utilities shut off, couldn’t afford the prior month’s utility bill or couldn’t afford rent. More than two-thirds of those surveyed who were receiving boosted SNAP payments said they had some form of debt.
Propel’s alarming report is an eye-opener, considering we’ve pointed out that mid/low tier consumers have depleted savings and racked up insurmountable credit card debt to make ends meet in the era of ‘Bidenomics’ inflation.
It isn’t so easy for the middle class, either.
GEORGE MARTIN’S LOST ISLAND STUDIO: Documentary Explores How Over-the-Top Eighties MTV Superstars Recorded Their Biggest Hits ‘Under the Volcano.’
WELL, GOOD: New study reveals a way to help prevent childhood stunting. “A relatively small intervention could have a huge impact on a damaging condition that stalks children in the developing world. A new Stanford-led study shows that adding zinc to farmland soil can help prevent childhood stunting, a condition due to chronic undernutrition that is associated with poor brain development and long-lasting harmful consequences, such as reduced school performance and increased disease risks.”
THERE’S NO WAY THIS COULD BE ABUSED, RIGHT? I Tracked an NYC Subway Rider’s Movements with an MTA ‘Feature.’
MY NEW YORK POST COLUMN: Why establishment knives are out for Elon Musk.
MISSISSIPPI: ‘Never Going Back’: Governor Refuses to Implement COVID Mask Mandates. “Amid chatter about the possible return of COVID-19 mask mandates, at least one governor said that they will not return to his state under any circumstances.”
MR. JIMMY: New Documentary Studies the Man Who Would Be Jimmy Page.
My latest, over at Ed Driscoll.com.
OUTPERFORMING SPECS: Ingenuity, the tiny Mars helicopter that could, will keep flying. Now this is more like the 21st Century I was hoping for.
PUBLISHING IN THE AGE OF CENSORSHIP: Here’s This Month’s Trove of Censored COVID Articles.
THE 21ST CENTURY ISN’T TURNING OUT AS I’D HOPED: Over-the-counter Narcan to hit drugstore shelves next week.
THANKS, BUT NO: X Plans to Collect Biometric Data, Job and School History.
“Based on your consent, we may collect and use your biometric information for safety, security, and identification purposes,” the company said in its new policy. X doesn’t define what it considers biometric, though other companies have used the term to describe data gleaned from a person’s face, eyes and fingerprints.
A representative of San Francisco-based X confirmed the new policy change, but didn’t elaborate further.
I deleted Twitter’s tablet app last week, even though I don’t use it much, because it incessantly forces users back to the For You tab that I don’t use at all. With today’s news, I’d recommend anyone still on Twitter not use either the phone or tablet apps at all. With most browsers (and certain extensions) you’ll gain more control over what Twitter can collect.
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