Sweet! [DOT 29/4/22]

29/4/22 MegMegMcGee 33

It’s finally Friday…

Ukraine Updates:

Missiles hit Kyiv on day of U.N. leader’s visit
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/04/28/russia-ukraine-war-news-putin-live-updates/

This freaking dude.

Madison Cawthorn implicated in potential insider trading scheme, experts say
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/house/madison-cawthorn-implicated-in-potential-insider-trading-scheme-experts-say

Sprots!

Stonks!

Amazon stock plunges as company reports nearly $4 billion loss
https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/28/tech/amazon-earnings-loss/index.html

What was it? The Lottery?

What was his plan?

Have a great day!

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33 Comments

  1. The tweet about the short story that will haunt students for the rest of their lives would make for a good NOT topic. For me it was being assigned Johnny Tremain in elementary school. Early on

    *** SPOILER ALERT ***

    young Johnny the apprentice silversmith pours molten silver onto one of his hands, which cripples him for life. Lots more happens, but that’s all I remember (vividly) from having read it almost half a century ago. Somewhat recently I learned that it was written and published during WWII and is a good example of wartime morale- and patriotism-boosting.

    In sixth grade we were assigned the then uber-trendy Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and I remember asking the teacher in all seriousness whether this was meant to be taken seriously. So I guess I’m kind of haunted by that. My mother was a voracious reader and left books lying around everywhere, which I would pick up and attempt. That teacher was amused by my question and asked me what book I would take seriously. “Well, my mother and I are reading The Brothers Karamazov right now and I [whatever].” I think the teacher was a big fan of JLS, like a lot of people were, and didn’t enjoy being questioned about her pop-culture middlebrow taste by an earnest 11-year-old.

    • …I always preferred (the?) an(?)other book by the jonathan livingston seagull guy called “illusions: the adventures of a reluctant messiah”…in which after losing his job as “a mechanic of automobiles” due to the multitude getting in the way…& after checking it over with the almighty…the messiah announces that he’s quitting?

  2. Did you understand Brothers, at that age?

    • With my mother’s help I did, kind of. One of the things that made that book so memorable to me was it spurred my desire to learn Russian. My parents were inveterate flea market-goers (that’s where all the books came from, that and the library) so in the course of our outings I picked up a set of Living Language Russian LPs and an Intro to Russian textbook. I got into college early admission to my first choice, but my second choice would have been to go to Brandeis and major in Soviet Studies.

      • The Grand Inquisitor section of Brothers sure explains a lot about how things work.

        • That came back to haunt me in college as part of a philosophy course.

  3. I would like to know what the line suspending that birdfeeder was made of. That’s a lot of bear for a little bitty line.

  4. What is it with Republicans and crypto? Oh, yeah, it’s largely unregulated and therefore can be used to steal with impunity.

    Less facetiously, this article goes into the Republican/Democrat crypto divide. I do find it interesting that a group know for swallowing conspiracy theories gravitates to a financial instrument they don’t understand.

    • The front runner for the Conservative Party is little shit who’s touting Crypto to replace the Bank of Canada.  Yeah, I don’t see that working out.

      He’s also a loathsome shit, too, trying to get the social cons (Jeebus freaks) and the libertaridan bros (freedumbz) together.

  5. Finally, some bear content.

  6. Hey BryIs — when you said were doing NOTs the next few days, should I hold off on loading one for tonight? Don’t want to double up if so.

    • He’s doing Fri-Sat-Sun. If you have one lined up, you can schedule it for Monday. That would be my slot and I have nothing planned yet.

      • I hadn’t written anything yet but can easily throw one together for Monday.

  7. Here in the Empire State (Excelsior!) we are, once again, grappling with all kinds of fallout from the rules and norms we live under, principles that would make citizens of fledgeling developing world democracies scratch their heads in confusion.

    In our latest Marx Brothers-esque comic turn, the Democratic Party has to deal with our disgraced former Lt. Governor, who is under five Federal indictments and resigned his coat-holding position. However, when the Democratic State Convention met he was the nominee, along with acting Governor/former Lt. Governor Kathy Hochul-rhymes-with-yokel. That means he can only be removed from the ticket if he dies (unlikely), moves out of state (he doesn’t want to) or runs for or is appointed to another position. This happens more often than you would think: a hack is appointed to a judgeship/early retirement, and it clears the way for another more palatable machine hack.

    However, under State law a judge has to have a law degree and be admitted to the state bar, and hardscrabble former Lt. Governor Brian Benjamin, child of the mean streets of Harlem, does not have a JD, only a measly BA from Brown and MBA from Harvard.

    Salvation may have arrived though. The NY State Court of Appeals, which is our version of the Supreme Court, has, as all the lower courts have already ruled, thrown out the 2020 redistricting plans. All those judges, the vast majority appointed Democrats, found the new lines so gerrymandered in favor of the Democrats that even they couldn’t go along with it.

    Here’s an explainer of what could happen next.

    • Which is weird, because I thought new redistricting lines could only be contested if it was deemed race was the deciding factor, ala DeSantis and Florida (just that they are in fact drawn on race lines, not that Florida is being rightfully called out).

      • As I understand it these new lines were deemed unconstitutional at the State level, which forbids gerrymandering in such a painfully obvious way. The racial disparity law is at the Federal level, I believe. The Feds don’t really care about other gerrymandering.

  9. I never would have guessed that Madison Cawthorn would be the whistleblower that took the lid off DC’s sicko culture, but I gotta say that the blowback he’s taken after making a pretty anodyne comment about orgies sure suggests there’s something there!

    • It’s hilarious that he’s finding out what happens when you break the first rule of Geriatric Orgy Patron club.

      • It’s also like, guys, you realize this makes you look MORE guilty, right? It’s one thing to watch a rich, privileged moron crash daddy’s car without a license or forget to unpack his arsenal at the airport — whomst among us, there but for the grace of God go I, etc. etc. ad nauseum — but gay-adjacent photos suddenly floating around and being accused of insider trading, a thing that people in the club have NEVER considered a crime if they’re doing it? They might as well take out an ad in the Post for the next meetup.

         

        • Ya I was going to make some comment about how they were throwing him under the bus obviously

  10. It’s interesting to me that Amazon’s stock dropped due to $7.8 billion in losses from an investment in electric car startup Rivian, not its core retail and IT businesses.

    Every major trader handling the large majority of Amazon stock sales already knew that Rivian has been gasping and that Amazon has a huge investment in it. These underlying financials would have been priced in already, except traders were obviously working on an understanding that nobody would revalue Amazon until the actual announcement was made.

    What’s also interesting is Rivian is supposed to supply Amazon with a ton of electric delivery vehicles, so in effect it was all a paper investment by Amazon in the first place. But I’m sure this ends up reflecting on Tesla’s stock value, which to be clear, is largely an illusion too — their actual sales and revenue are barely tethered to their stock value.

  12. Pretty much any short story by John Cheever ….

  13. Books that scarred me for life? Tuck Everlasting (6th grade), Z For Zachariah (9th), and Lord of the Flies (10th). Those were all school assignments. As far as personal reading, Bridge to Terabithia (4th), which I will never forgive for making me cry in school during silent reading period, was a whole lot for a 10 year old to process.

  15. chinas covid response is insane

    i also dont get the long game here…like in the unlikely event their measures work and china becomes completely covid free…then what? never allow anyone to travel into or out of the country again?

  16. In Clive Barker’s Books of Blood there is a story about the Messiah of Hands, who convinces all the hands to liberate themselves from their human keepers.  Hilarity ensues as the hands drag their reluctant owners across the floor into the kitchen and to the knife drawer, etc.  Soon there are all these hands running all over the place like an army of Things from the Addams Family.

    • Americans gotta ‘MERICA so hard!!

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