Happy Friday the 13th! [DOT 13/5/22]

It’s Friday the 13th AND (almost) a full moon, so stay safe out there Deadsplinters!


Ukraine Updates:

Kremlin threatens retaliation after Finland leaders say it must join Nato
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/12/finland-apply-join-nato-without-delay-president-pm

Gosh I hope Rand Paul’s neighbor is doing well.

Senator Rand Paul single-handedly holds up $40bn US aid for Ukraine
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/12/us-ukraine-aid-rand-paul-senate


Interesting…

Jan. 6 committee subpoenas five House Republicans, including Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/12/jan6-committee-subpoenas-mccarthy/


I really want Jose Andres to put some amazing restaurant in there now.

‘Sinkhole of corruption’: Trump Organization sells Washington hotel
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/12/sinkhole-corruption-trump-organization-closes-sale-washington-hotel


Bears! (Yikes)

Soldier killed and another injured in bear attack in Alaska
https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/12/us/alaska-army-soldier-bear-attack/index.html


Some good Friday Tweets:


NGL, I want to know what all is going on here with the Duck! and The MOM! LOL


Have a great Friday!

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44 Comments

  1. And as for José Andrés putting in a restaurant at the now-haunted Old Post Office Building, you already have Jaleo a couple of blocks away, so that would be simple enough! I believe Jaleo is where Andrés got his real start, because in the 90s I had this friend who lived in DC and he couldn’t rave enough about Jaleo, and every time I’d visit him we’d eat there at least once. He was such an uberfan that he somehow wormed his way into Café Atlántico, which I think was Andrés’s next restaurant, I think he DJ’d there? Who can remember, and sadly that friend is no longer around to ask.

    • I went to Jaleo once long ago — it was a lot of fun.

      I can see why restaurant owners find small plate style dining tempting — it’s an easy way to get people to keep adding to the bill while they’re in a chair. But it takes a lot more organization and training to keep everything moving and meeting demand, and it’s obvious that Andres is an exceedingly good logistical thinker.

      • According to reddit, the pet duck is part of his schtick, and he also raises (?) ducks. I never heard of this guy before I saw the video on reddit last night, so that’s about all I know about it!

         

    • Wouldn’t be surprised if people point to that, and it might be true! I suspect it’s a lot more that other financial markets are hitting a rough patch, so the big players cashed in and as there are no regulations to stop a run, once the shit ball starts rolling downhill, there’s absolutely nothing to slow it down.

      • Yeah, investors are fleeing to cash and cash equivalents right now. It’s going to take some time for regular investments to recover, much less crypto. My guess is that the crypto crash is making Musk flinch, rather than Musk’s bullshit affecting crypto. To which I say great! Anything that keeps Trump’s tiny orange fingers off a keyboard is a win.

    • …I didn’t have time earlier…& pretty much still don’t have anything like a complete answer…but I think the two are connected but not exactly a direct link?

      …the “stablecoin” that went into freefall & sank below its “pegged” baseline isn’t one musk/tesla is directly connected to…but between them musk & tesla have some of the biggest exposure to crypto out there…so a day when $200billion+ just fell clear out of the market will have put a dent in his stake…but the stablecoin collapse also seems to indicate that some of the crypto pillars of faith might have some very not-solid foundations…which might be a serious turning point

      …things like bitcoin have rallied from pretty extreme losses…like down 80% for a while before drifting back up…but if we-guarantee-it-will-never-be-worth-less-than-a-buck coins have now been shown to go below 50¢…could be all bets are off

      …speaking of which…oh, look

      …I believe his commitment is about as reliable as that “justification” for hitting pause?

        • …kinda does, too…though I think his implication is that he’d be more interested in following through on the deal if there were more of those?

          …in that I think his tenuous pretext is that if there are actually less of them than expected he can’t quickly make a big sudden change before patting himself on the back for being disruptive…that would then be interpreted as a reason twitter should suddenly be worth more…of course it appears that information isn’t as new as the crypto crash thing…so the fact he’s supposedly just now doing what some might call due diligence on what might make his $44billion purchase profitable is doubtless being cited somewhere online by his brigades of totally-not-fake-or-trolling-100%-genuine-admirers as further evidence of his visionary business genius ways

          • That’s my take. Musky was looking to make a big splash by eliminating millions of bots, and then he’d get lauded as a genius and Twitter would … soar? I dunno. Now that he’s found out there aren’t that many his “business plan” is a nonstarter.

            • …it’s sort of an odd pairing…musk says he’ll buy twitter…while trump didn’t even pretend he could afford that & instead pretended to intend to make his own with all the other-people’s-money he could grift off the idea & just sulked about being banned…rather than thanking his lucky stars he’s not in actual fucking jail

              …then musk says trump shouldn’t be banned from twitter…& then apparently trump says something about elon being an idiot to overpay for twitter when it has so many bots on it

              …then a not-as-rich-as-he-was-last-week elon says,”well, actually I think you’ll find there aren’t enough bots so I’m having second thoughts about this whole deal”

              …it sounds like a bunch of petulant nonsense…but if you think along what-thiel-did-to-kinja lines where profitability is synonymous with driving any users who make the platform valuable clear off the thing while you try to wring cash out of its corpse for good measure but probably take a bath investment-wise…making a big song & dance over removing a sizable chunk of “undesirable” users from twitter (& saying a big proprtion of it was bots & fakes not real people who think musk’s era of twitter is a dystopia they want no part of) seems like it might carry a lot of very useful water for the narrative you’re looking to shape…almost more so if it’s all hot air

              …&…ironically…it would handily clear the way very nicely for the huge contingent of not-fake-at-all accounts that the plan seems to be to “welcome back” to twitter once trump is reinstalled as its permanent main character

              …that sounds almost as convenient as russia found things in ’16

              …it sure is curious how certain interests seem to dovetail so naturally?

  2. Interesting article on Lauren Boebert’s business “success.” No wonder she worships Trump. She’s basically him, running a failing business, propped up by shady practices and a husband handing her money like Putin did for Trump.

  3. Ralph Nader (88) is on Twitter! And he’s right, the Times hasn’t covered non-political New York in decades except to run tone-deaf and often factually incorrect lifestyle puff pieces, and the fawning coverage it gives to whoever holds any kind of power in New York would make Stalin-era editors of Pravda cringe.

    The @nytimes sports page thinks its readers are more interested, by far, in Real Madrid than in the Real Yankees in New York City. Yankees and Mets baseball games are almost invisible. Not even the scores are printed in the Times suburban sports edition anymore. Go figure. -R

    Ralph Nader @RalphNader

  4. Sigh…I had to Google what OnlyFans was…I wondered what type of work paid that much. He does have pretty eyes. This post is by your friend with poor current cultural awareness, Elliecoo.

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