Archive for 2024

KEVIN DOWNEY JR: The United States of Allah: It Happened in My Neighborhood, Yours Is Next. “Many of the churches are gone. So are most of the bars. All of the Polish businesses have long since vacated. The once omnipotent Kowalski sausage has been replaced by halal meat. If you want to buy paczki today, you need to head to Sterling Heights.”

IT SHOULD BE SERVED AT TACO BELL: Tomato Juice Effectively Kills Salmonella and Other Harmful Bacteria. “A study reveals that tomato juice effectively kills Salmonella Typhi and other harmful bacteria, thanks to specific antimicrobial peptides found in tomatoes.”

I wonder about ketchup, salsa, and cocktail sauce on oysters.

THEY WILL DECIDE MAYORKAS’ IMPEACHMENT: Three of those 14 House Democrats who voted to condemn Biden’s open border now say they will oppose those two Articles of Impeachment against the President’s chief border host.

WHY ARE BLUE CITIES SUCH CESSPITS OF HATRED, RACISM, AND BIGOTRY?

FREDDY DE BOER ON FEAR AND ENVY AT THE ATLANTIC: The New World Struggles to be Born, The Old World Struggles to Keep Padding Its Resume.

I found this little item in The Atlantic from a few weeks ago to be an amusing volley in an old war. It’s part of a long lineage of establishment publications working to guard whatever lingering sense of superiority they have left, from a writer named Kaitlyn Tiffany.

First, this appears to contains a flat factual inaccuracy: it’s simply historical incorrect to say that Substack “got its start by offering mainstream journalists lucrative profit-sharing arrangements.” Substack’s core financial arrangement is to host newsletters and handle payment integration, in return for which Substack takes a percentage of subscription revenues; this is only “profit-sharing” in the loosest and least-accurate sense. (Am I also “profit-sharing” with Stripe? Are grocery stores profit-sharing with Mastercard? Am I profit-sharing with the government when I pay income taxes?)

Well, The Atlantic.

INFORMATION WANTS TO BE FREE BUT FACEBOOK WANTS TO MEDDLE: ‘A Starting Point’: Meta Oversight Board Member Says 2020 Election Interference Was ‘Not Enough.’

In an interview with Wired published Friday, board member Pamela San Martín claimed that as the tech platform enters 2024, “even though we’re addressing the problems that arose in prior elections as a starting point, it is not enough.”

“Between the U.S. election [in 2020] to the Brazilian election [in 2022], Meta had not done enough to address the potential misuse of its platforms through coordinated campaigns, people organizing, or using bots on the platforms to convey a message to destabilize a country, to create a lack of trust or confidence on electoral processes,” she added.

Really? With the encouragement of intel agencies, Facebook engaged in plenty of election interference in 2020.

Much more at the link.

DISPATCHES FROM THE BLUE ZONES: Former Trump official critically wounded by gunman in deadly DC carjacking spree. “Mike Gill, who served as chief operating officer of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission while Donald Trump was president, was critically injured in the shooting and remained in the hospital Tuesday night, his family told Fox5 Washington DC.”