Whatever: It's almost over
Fecal matters
- A Chinese chess champion was stripped of his title for defecating in a hotel bathtub, and investigated for possibly cheating at the game using anal beads equipped with wireless transmitters.
- An Ohio criminal defense attorney was suspended for taking a shit in a Pringles can and leaving it outside a victim advocacy center.
Crime and punishment
- A January 6th rioter's lawyer offered the defense that his client suffered from 'Foxmania' after watching too much FOX News.
- A Taiwanese man was arrested in Thailand for smuggling otters in his underwear. (Living the dream.)
Science
- Racism leads to subtle changes in the brain that lead to increased risk of disease in the Black population.
- Once again, a study found that the best way to help people get out of poverty is to give them money.
Business
- Substack stated that it will continue paying Nazis who produce content for the site.
- If you're thinking of moving to Mailchimp, well, they've been union-busting.
- In 2010, Bill and Melinda French Gates launched "Giving Pledge" along with Warren Buffett, and pledged to give away the majority of their fortunes. Let's see how that's going...
- 23andMe was hacked. For security reasons please change your genome.
- UK National Health Service contracted with Palantir to handle patient data. (They were going to get it anyway, right?)
Technology
- Tesla argued that laws prohibiting it from false advertising are a gross infringement of its First Amendment rights.
- Elon's Hyperloop is dead, having achieved its goal of preventing high speed rail in California.
- Elon's angry at Disney for stopping advertising on Xitter, so he had the Disney+ app removed from people's Teslas.
- Don't worry, though — an app that creates fake nudes for blackmail purposes has been advertised on Xitter, and the company's fine with that.
- Stable Diffusion AI was trained on a dataset that includes ISIS execution videos and Photoshopped porn of celebrities.
- AI is used to create antisemitic memes, which are boosted on Xitter by paid accounts, which are 130x more likely to have their messages promoted to other users.
- Mark Zuckerberg is building a top secret underground lair in Hawaii. (Where he will presumably sit and stroke a fluffy white cat.)
Brexit dividends
- The EU is planning incredible new transit routes across Europe, but for some reason the UK is going to miss out.
- Thanks to Brexit, people in England will be able to buy wine by the pint. (Makes it all worthwhile, eh?)
Environment
- Direct air capture of carbon dioxide is a great idea for battling climate change — except it would cost 4x as much as the US spends on the military, and require twice the country's current total electricity generation capacity. (Which would also need to be entirely from renewable sources.)
- The guy who inspired the world to plant millions of trees said to stop planting trees, because it just gives people a feel-good excuse to do nothing effective.
- Cop28 hosted over 160 climate change deniers as attendees.
- Cop29 will be hosted by Azerbaijan, which has 0.4% of global oil reserves and generates 98% of its energy from fossil fuels.
Education
- A middle school teacher was arrested for allegedly threatening to behead a Muslim student who complained about an Israeli flag being displayed in class.
- Brian Ray published multiple studies claiming that home schooling is better for children. His own daughter says that they were taught almost no math, made to work for his organization during supposed school days, and whipped when they disobeyed.
- Texas rejected science textbooks because they include material about climate change.
- Texas also removed books on slavery from plantation gift shops — including "Roots" by Alex Haley and "Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison.
Politics
- £81.96 to have dinner with former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss. That's £1.67 per day she was in office. (Alternatively, for £0.75 you can have dinner with a Tesco iceberg lettuce.)
- A binder containing highly classified information related to Russian election interference went missing at the end of Donald Trump’s presidency. (Fancy that!)
- A lawyer representing Trump's former lawyer cited three legal cases that don't exist. (It's crooks all the way down.)
Feel-good news
- A gondola in Venice capsized after tourists refused to stop taking selfies and sit down.
- Portland airport deployed therapy llamas.
- A woman took a handgun into an MRI and shot herself in the butt.
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