Whatever: The second time as farce
So once again the buttocks of fascism descend, and press down upon the chocolate cake of democracy with a loud Trump.
Like a kidney stone, this too shall pass. But this time, I'm not going to watch it. Like most people I'm planning to disconnect more, so this list will likely go dormant. See you in 2029, if an asteroid doesn't get us first.
#TeamAsteroid
Environment
- More than 140 banks worldwide pledged to cut the emissions associated with their lending and investments to almost zero by 2050. Let's see how that's going…
Thinking outside the box
- Colorado wildfires to be mitigated via 1,200 hungry goats.
- An Ohio funeral home applies for a liquor license.
- Plane grounded for four days after 132 hamsters escape from their boxes on board.
AI
- Arizona charter school starts replacing teachers with AI chatbots.
- Chatbots allegedly encouraged teenagers to self-harm and to murder their parents.
- Facebook and Instagram will deploy AI-generated fake users to increase engagement.
- Waymo cars don't follow traffic laws; the company explains that yielding to pedestrians is an issue of "politeness" and not a legal obligation they feel the need to follow.
- A self-driving race car plows backwards into a wall during the practice lap, because it doesn't know how to warm the car's tires.
The Adjuster
- UnitedHealth files bogus DMCA claims to try to get Luigi Mangione merch removed from the Internet.
- Congress introduces bills to do the absolute minimum possible and break up UnitedHealth.
- The Luigi Mangione defense fund reaches $215,000.
Science
- Scientists discover an entirely new kind of life in the human gut.
- Missing any vaccines? Hurry up and get them, RFK Jr's lawyer hopes to get the polio vaccine made illegal.
- Voyager 2's data about Uranus may have been misleading because of a "rare intense wind event".
Celebrity
- Rod Stewart plans to upgrade his enormous model railway.
Capitalism
- Robots made for autistic kids will die when the company goes bust.
- US police have been illegally selling restricted weapons to criminals in order to make money.
- McDonalds introduces the Squid Game meal.
- Walmart makes communities poorer, even after taking account of its low prices.
- An Amazon worker ended up with multiple fractures and a bullet in her foot as a result of the New Orleans truck attack. The company refused her request for medical leave.
- Spotify is trying to pay musicians even less, by filling playlists with stock music.
Miscellany
- Jawbreaker candy lives up to its name.
- People aren't chatting in online multiplayer games the way they used to.
- Tesla named deadliest car brand in America according to NHTSA statistics.
- Texas woman gets up in the middle of the night to go to the toilet, is bitten by a toilet snake.
And finally…
Don't miss what's next. Subscribe to The Whatever: