🐘 The cops are having to debunk conspiracy theories about the attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, because of course they are. Just for the record, a right wing terrorist who intended to seriously harm and possibly assassinate Pelosi broke into her house. When the terrorist didn’t find Pelosi, he attacked her husband instead. Anything else is just right wingers throwing chaff in the air to confuse people and give their base justifications to continue ignoring the problem of right wing terrorism.
📖 Today marks the start of NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. It’s a challenge – write 50,000 words in a month. I’ve tried it in past years with no particular success. Kicking around the idea of giving it another go this year. We’ll see.
📧 I have subscribed to roughly 16,000 newsletters since Musk bought Twitter. Pity my inbox, y’all.
🙄 For some reason, after being screwed absolutely raw, made to risk their lives during the pandemic in some cases, forced to return to hated offices too soon in others, and while watching their dollars buy less and less while their employers bank record profits, US employees are getting way less productive. And no one knows why. It’s a mystery. An enigma. We shall never learn the cause.
🗳️ Biden’s preparing a re-election bid and for some reason, this is considered news. Like, barring some kind of serious health issue they can’t hide, he was always definitely going to run again. Nobody ever only wants one term as president. That’s not a thing.
😆 IPG is Interpublic Group, a massive global marketing company. This is not a great sign for Twitter. If Musk has any sense at all, he’s sweating bullets right now.
💸 Y’know, I was actually kicking around the idea of buying Twitter Blue awhile ago – the paid tier gets you access to an edit feature that I coveted – but I hadn’t quite talked myself into it yet. Sure as hell ain’t gonna get it now, though. Musk’s apparently tying verification to Twitter Blue, which is not a great idea in all sorts of ways, plus promising “half the ads” and longer posts and videos and whatnot. If you’re still on Twitter, and you aren’t already using an ad blocker, may I aggressively suggest adding one to your browser? uBlock Origin is the one you want.
🦠 I’m not the only one who thinks that Vanity Fair/ProPublica COVID lab leak article was dodgy as fuck, by the way. A whole pile of experts thinks so, too, and they have much better reasons than my “I dunno, feels hinky, guys” thoughts. The reports the article was based on were full of mistranslations and misunderstandings, the whole thing was put together by Trump-appointed Republicans (a concerning sign I noted, too), as well as a lot of weaselly shit like avoiding mentioning that the scientific consensus is against the lab leak idea.
-fin-
Notes & Thoughts 