Pay to play // What's Good: Mar. 8, 2024
Race cars, rocket parts, and jalapeños.
Hello, good evening, happy Sunday. I have come to reckon with the combination of my job + after-work commitments on Fridays meaning that we might teeter back and forth between Friday and Saturday releases for a while. Maybe the occasional Sunday. Still a weekly newsletter!
Start your engines
This article is so good that it got pulled from its original publication:
Most of us have the distinct pleasure of going throughout our lives bereft of the physical presence of those who rule over us. Were we peasants instead of spreadsheet jockeys, warehouse workers, and baristas, we would toil in our fields in the shadow of some overbearing castle from which the lord or his steward would ride down on his thunderous charger demanding our fealty and our tithes. Now, though, the real high end of the income inequality curve – the 0.01 percenters – remains elusive. To their great advantage, they can buy their way out of public life. However, if you want to catch a glimpse of them, all you need to do is attend a single day of Formula 1 racing.
Just desserts
Surprise! Turns out Temu is shady:
Flanked by a wall of vivid orange packages, YouTuber Hope Allen was uncertain about the phenomenon they represented. “Temu has been taking over, and I don’t know how I feel about it.”
The ecommerce firm’s “shop like a billionaire” ad campaign to promote its online flea market was ubiquitous. Allen’s response was to buy a job-lot of undeliverable parcels that disgorged a sample of Americans’ experiment with Temu.
The greater good
Actually crazy that a judge named Burke was the one to rule against the Bring Chicago Home ordinance at the trial level, but the appellate opinion is appropriately scathing:
An Illinois appellate court ruled Wednesday that Chicago voters will be able to decide whether the city should raise a one-time tax on high end properties to fund homelessness prevention.
The unanimous decision from a three-judge panel reverses Cook County Circuit Court Judge Kathleen Burke’s ruling, who last month sided in favor of real estate groups and properties owners opposed to the tax and invalidated the ballot measure. The reversal is a major win for organizers behind the so-called Bring Chicago Home campaign and Mayor Brandon Johnson, but it may not be the end of the legal fight if real estate groups appeal the decision. The March 19th primary election is less than two weeks away.
The lesser good
What’s the point of a charity you’re not actually going to try:
Before March 2021, Elon Musk’s charitable foundation had never announced any donations to Cameron County, an impoverished region at the southern tip of Texas that is home to his SpaceX launch site and local officials who help regulate it.
Then, at 8:05 one morning that month, a SpaceX rocket blew up, showering the area with a rain of twisted metal.
The Musk Foundation began giving at 9:27 a.m. local time.
It’s money time
There’s a lot of class action lawsuits in crypto. We mostly don’t note these — they so rarely go anywhere — but a consolidated class action against FTX’s various enablers has turned up some interesting allegations concerning everyone’s favorite stablecoin, Tether, and its remaining US dollar banker, Deltec Bank of the Bahamas.
Tether has banked with Deltec since 2018. Deltec was one of the few banks in the world that would have anything to do with Tether after their deal with Crypto Capital led to $850 million of the Tether reserve being frozen.
On the inside
I don’t know, sorry, this was completely frightening but I felt obligated to include it:
A secret, men-only right-wing society with members in influential positions around the country is on a crusade: to recruit a Christian government that will form after the right achieves regime change in the United States, potentially via a “national divorce.”
It sounds like the stuff of fantasy, but it’s real. The group is called the Society for American Civic Renewal (the acronym is pronounced “sacker” by its members). It is open to new recruits, provided you meet a few criteria: you are male, a “trinitarian” Christian, heterosexual, an “un-hyphenated American,” and can answer questions about Trump, the Republican Party, and Christian Nationalism in the right way. One chapter leader wrote to a prospective member that the group aimed to “secure a future for Christian families.”
The spice must flow
Bring back my hoppin jalapeños, goddamnit:
It’s not just you: jalapeño peppers are less spicy and less predictable than ever before. As heat-seekers chase ever-fiercer varieties of pepper—Carolina reapers, scorpions, ghosts—the classic jalapeño is going in the opposite direction. And the long-term “de-spicification” of the jalapeño is a deliberate choice, not the product of a bad season of weather.
You deserve some good animal content
https://twitter.com/capybarahp/status/1764410421145182216
https://twitter.com/raccoonhourly/status/1766954707807793318
https://twitter.com/twaniimals/status/1766948095193956804
https://twitter.com/hopes_revenge/status/1766878383840092246
https://twitter.com/raccoonhourly/status/1766894310744535291
https://twitter.com/GoldretrieverUS/status/1766863610284806284
https://twitter.com/twaniimals/status/1766835907234075086
Have a good weekend.
Addendums
Mapping the Indian Manosphere. Love Lies Bleeding Lets Kristen Stewart Be Gay, Do Crime. We should make the Monday after daylight-saving time a federal holiday. 600 Activision QA workers unionize, Microsoft voluntarily recognizes. TikTokers are enthusiastically joining the app's call to wage war on Congress over a potential ban. Donald Trump Is Poised to Pocket Billions in a Meme Stock Media Merger. Katie Britt’s Strange Speech. Chicago area named best spot for corporate investment for 11th year in a row.