“Why Are Gen Xers Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley Running Like Grumpy Old Boomers?”
“Americans in former Confederate states more likely to say violent protest against government is justified, 160 years after Gettysburg”.
I love this picture I found on Reddit of Manhattan as seen from Staten Island in 1974. The Twin Towers were brand new then. I’m pretty sure this view is from Victory Boulevard, a main north-south street that ran down to the northern shoreline, ending near the ferry terminal.
“If you did not see it, I posted about one of my favorite conspiracies. The conspiracy goes like this: in 2016 the folks in charge at Disney, much like large swaths of the country, believed Hillary Clinton would win, and even before she was elected were hard at work on a Hillary animatronic for the Walt Disney World Hall of Presidents attraction. When they were surprised by a donald trump victory, they were forced to hastily repurpose the Hillary animatronic as a Donald Trump one, to comedically grotesque effect.”
“[Amazon] could deploy some easy fixes to make Goodreads genuinely enjoyable. Instead, the platform is now actively hurting the community it was designed to uplift.”
“A movement to weaken American child labor protections at the state level began in 2022. By June 2023, Arkansas, Iowa, New Jersey and New Hampshire had enacted this kind of legislation, and lawmakers in at least another eight states had introduced similar measures. The laws generally make it easier for kids from 14 to 17 years old to work longer and later – and in occupations that were previously off-limits for minors.”
“AIRPLANE! was released 43 years ago today. Still one of the most beloved comedies ever made decades later, the story of how it came to the screen is pretty unexpected…”
“In my will, I am leaving Auburn $5 million. I’m going to change it to be just for scholarships for Black students. That’s just my way of trying to make sure Auburn stays diverse.”
“I’ve decided to forbid bigots and homophobes from watching ‘The Sopranos,’ ‘The White Lotus,’ ‘Goodfellas’ or any movie or TV show I’ve been in. Thank you Supreme Court for allowing me to discriminate and exclude those who I don’t agree with and am opposed to. USA! USA!”
“Until June 18th, a manned deep-ocean submersible had never imploded. But, to McCallum, Lahey, and other experts, the OceanGate disaster did not come as a surprise—they had been warning of the submersible’s design flaws for more than five years, filing complaints to the U.S. government and to OceanGate itself, and pleading with Rush to abandon his aspirations. As they mourned Nargeolet and the other passengers, they decided to reveal OceanGate’s history of knowingly shoddy design and construction.”
“The Price Is Right aired its final episode from Television City on Monday.” They’re moving to a new location in Glendale after taping at that one since the show’s debut in 1972.
Twitter’s Death Spiral, part one.
Twitter’s Death Spiral, part two.
Twitter’s Death Spiral, part three.
“Why Instagram is taking on Twitter with Threads”.
“Meta’s New Threads App Is Terrible. It Just Might Bury Twitter.”
“Don’t believe the data: This is the most conservative Supreme Court we’ve known”.
RIP, Tamoria Jones, Texas legislative staffer and education advocate.
RIP, Nikki McCray-Penson, basketball Hall of Famer, WNBA All Star, two-time Olympic gold medalist.
RIP, Jack Rains, local politico and sports dude who helped bring the NFL back to Houston and created the funding for the Toyota Center and what was once known as Enron Field.
I did not have Victor Wembanyama’s security guard slaps Britney Spears on my 2023 bingo card, but here we are.
“Still … I hate it! I’m a women’s-college-alum, sex-positive certified Swiftie. But I think she should have kept the original mattress line. By changing it, Taylor has slipped back in time, shaken her finger at her 18-year-old self, and weaponized a magical musical eraser against her own work.”
“Twitter has threatened to sue Meta Platforms (META.O) over its new Threads platform in a letter sent to the Facebook parent’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg by Twitter’s lawyer Alex Spiro.”
“Elon Musk has sued the elite law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to recover most of a $90 million fee it received from Twitter for defeating his bid to walk away from his $44 billion buyout of the social media company.”
Megan Rapinoe has announced her retirement at the end of the current NWSL season, which will be after the 2023 World Cup. I still get goosebumps watching her make that pass to Abby Wambach in the 2011 Cup game against Brazil. Best of luck to a transcendental player.
Musk has a common flaw of the oligarchs- the assumption that being knowledgeable about / successful in one field of endeavor automatically makes you an expert in something completely different. There is nothing he’s done with his stewardship of Twitter that is consistent with a desire to make it profitable or even to break even. He’s also not even close to consistent in his role as a self proclaimed champion of free speech.