“The universal symptoms of withdrawal from any addictive substance are extreme anxiety, irritability, insomnia, depression and cravings – and people who are addicted to TikTok, if they stop using it abruptly, may experience any or all of these symptoms,” said Stanford psychiatrist Dr. Anna Lembke.
Now that everything else is at an end there's only TikTok left to worry about.
TikTok says its U.S. site generates billions for businesses selling candies, beauty products, clothes and other consumer goods. But now, that economy is under threat. The Supreme Court on Friday unanimously upheld the law banning TikTok in the United States on national security grounds ahead of a blackout this weekend.
–Reuters
For the record (this furnished by an AI called Perplexity)…
As of January 2025, six countries have fully banned TikTok: Afghanistan, India, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, and Somalia. The largest among them is India, which imposed a permanent ban in 2020 due to national security concerns following a border clash with China. Additionally, over 30 countries, including the United States, European Union nations, and Australia, have implemented partial bans or restrictions, primarily on government devices, citing data privacy and security concerns.
“Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex warning gave language to an idea that has been referenced ever since,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. “Biden’s warning about oligarchs, calling on Americans to stand guard, is a call to action that will be felt for years.”
“Most people would probably prefer a meteor,” said Ben Freedman, a die-hard fan raised by two Michigan professors in Ann Arbor. Alternative outcomes he’s seen suggested online include infinite overtimes or mass toilet malfunction at the stadium.
Something about an inauguration on Monday will not be the most important event of the day. Everybody knows how the inauguration will turn out (well, probably). This one, however, is still very much in doubt.
In a statement later Thursday, SpaceX said initial data indicates a fire occurred in the rocket, "leading to a rapid unscheduled disassembly."
In the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, Harris signed the drawer of a desk that has been used by each subsequent vice president since Lloyd B. Johnson in the 1960s, though the tradition goes back to the 1940s.
Many tried, but no one ever escaped.
I didn't watch them. The hearings. So all I know is what I read in the newspapers. And random video clips on the net.
And what concerned me was not what I heard or read, but what I didn't.
What I didn't read was anything about:
Turns out I've spent 98% of my life living in blue dots.
At least, according to this precinct-level map of the 2024 election appearing in today's New York Times.
What have I been missing?
PS. My subscription to the Times expires tomorrow, and seeing I don't expect anything newsworthy to happen in the next few years </snark> I do not plan to renew.
"[A] study, published Monday in Nature Medicine, found that adults over 55 had a 42 percent lifetime risk of developing dementia."
– New York Times
