11.30.2024

When fish are fashion

Orcas start wearing dead salmon hats again after ditching the trend for 37 years

This is the first time they've donned the bizarre headgear since the summer of 1987, when a trendsetting female West Coast orca kickstarted the behavior for no apparent reason.

What happened, NYTimes?

 Couldn't get a date.

No, wait…

Couldn't buy a house.

No, just…

Didn't read the right book.

Must be something.

On googling somewhere else

Googling Is for Old People. That’s a Problem for Google.

“Google had this seemingly insurmountable position in search, until AI came around, and now AI is to search what e-commerce was to Walmart,” says Melissa Schilling, a professor of management at New York University’s Stern School of Business.

This is going to take a long, long time to sort out.  

11.29.2024

Marx or MAGA?

This Maverick Thinker Is the Karl Marx of Our Time

"With globalism collapsing under its own contradictions, all serious politics is now populist in one way or another."
Either way…


11.28.2024

And now for a little bad news

It’s Getting Even More Expensive to Buy a European Ski Home



Foiled again.

But plenty to be thankful for nonetheless.

Happy holiday.

Bombing with birds

‘It’s a bird! It’s a plane!’ In Alaska, it’s both, with a pilot tossing turkeys to rural homes

“They were telling me that a squirrel for dinner did not split very far between three people,” Keim recalled. “At that moment, I thought ... ‘I’m going to airdrop them a turkey.’”

Squirrel? 

11.27.2024

Maybe, just maybe…

Trump 2.0 has a Cabinet and executive branch of different ideas and eclectic personalities

The former and incoming president has combined television personalities, former Democrats, a wrestling executive and traditional elected Republicans into a mix that makes clear his intentions to impose tariffs on imported goods and crack down on illegal immigration but leaves open a range of possibilities on other policy pursuits.

…this is a good thing? 

11.26.2024

Tariffs from afar

As fast fashion’s waste pollutes Africa’s environment, designers in Ghana are finding a solution

The volume of secondhand clothing sent to Africa has led to complaints of the continent being used as a dumping ground. In 2018, Rwanda raised tariffs on such imports in defiance of U.S. pressure, citing concerns the West’s refuse undermined efforts to strengthen the domestic textile industry

We're going to be hearing a lot about them in months to come. 

Tariffs, according to this Wikipedia article about the history of tariffs in the U.S., "allow for import substitution industrialization (industrialization of a nation by replacing imports with domestic production) by acting as a protective barrier around infant industries." 

It may seem incongruous to consider U.S. industries infant, but in some cases they definitely need to be reborn.