- You Shall Not Pass
- Autopen: Now in Manual
- Time heals all wounds (money helps, too)
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This week, San Francisco School District Superintendent Maria Su quietly tried to slip “Grading For Equity” into classrooms, a controversial practice that abolishes penalties for late assignments, omits behavior from grading criteria, and allows students to retake exams indefinitely until they pass. Parents of sound mind naturally freaked out, and quickly uncovered accompanying plans for a juicy $172k contract with an “outside consultant” (a Saruman-like grifter of great power doubtless whispering dark spells into the district’s ear). But at the 11th hour, when all hope seemed lost, Mayor Lurie The White rode in to pressure the District into not burning down the school system, and… holy Gandalf, it actually worked? Su backtracked within hours, an inspiring moment of sanity for a kind of famously not sane town, and a sign that The Golden City, of all places, might no longer be interested in
self-destruction. Amazing! And also… damn? Now what do we write about?
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Trump pardoned 26 people this week — a pack of “criminals with MAGA credentials or big money,” reported Axios, where journalists had somehow not yet figured out presidential pardons by definition forgive federal crimes. The list includes: a married couple who swindled ~$30m from their bank; a congressman who effed up his taxes; a former Army lieutenant who refused to WFH during Covid (I get it); and two divers who (valiantly?) freed 19 sharks from a commercial fishing rig. Essentially, everyday fraudsters and a few based freedom fighters. Terrible? Maybe, though that probably depends on how you feel about the concept of the pardon. Still, contrast this with what we saw six months ago, when a shadow cabinet of unelected family members tiptoeing around Biden’s ghost apparently pardoned themselves and 4k others, and the takeaway is obvious: sure, this is kinda trashy, but at least the president’s
crack-addict son is no longer holding the pen.
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Time heals all wounds (money helps, too) |
Anduril is partnering with Meta on “Eagle Eye,” a helmet that gives soldiers superhuman senses like literally seeing through walls, Palmer Luckey told podcaster Ashlee Vance on Thursday. In addition to, you know, saving patriots from death, this is a big deal because of: petty drama. Once upon a time, Facebook bought Palmer’s VR headset company Oculus. But after Palmer helped fund a billboard (literally: one single billboard) depicting Hillary Clinton's face with the words “Too Big To Jail” underneath, he was made out to be the demon spawn of hate memes and “an evil mastermind who got Donald Trump elected,” as Palmer puts it. Facebook unceremoniously yeeted him from the company (how is this legal lol); lawyering and vitriol ensued (tl;dr it isn’t). But now that Zuck is patriotism-pilled (aka drooling at Anduril’s gazillion-dollar defense contracts), I guess he’s ready to
forgive Palmer for being a Republican? Mazel tov, boys!
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