#ArmorOfHalo #RoninWarriors

Today's links

• The Epstein class and collapse porn: Buy the dip!
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• Object permanence: Web 1.0 logos; Legality of printing Catan tiles; Hamster strandbeest; Pactuator; Michican bans oral; Blooks; Yours is a very bad hotel; Yippie Disneyland invasion model; Floppy toccata; Happy Birthday trolls owe $14m; Jughead is ace; Snowden for teens.
• Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
• Recent appearances: Where I've been.
• Latest books: You keep readin' em, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Upcoming books: Like I said, I'll keep writin' 'em.
• Colophon: All the rest.

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The Epstein class and collapse porn (permalink)

It's hard to talk about the Epstein class without thinking about "The Economy" – "The Economy" in the sense of a kind of mystical, free-floating entity whose health or sickness determines the outcomes for all the rest of us, whom we must make sacrifices to if we are to prosper.

As nebulous as "The Economy" is as an entity, there's an economic priesthood that claims it can measure and even alter the course of the economy using complex mathematics. We probably won't ever understand their methods, but we can at least follow an indicator or two, such as changes to GDP, an aggregated statistic that is deceptively precise, given that it subsumes any number of estimates, qualitative judgments and wild-ass guesses, which are all disguised behind an official statistic that is often published to three decimal places.

There's plenty to criticize about GDP: a healthy GDP doesn't necessarily mean that the average worker is better off. When your rent goes up, so does GDP. Same with your salary going down (provided this results in more spending by your boss). GDP isn't really a measure of the health of "The Economy" – it's a measure of the parts of "The Economy" that make rich people (that is, the Epstein class) better off.

But what if there was a way to make money from calamitous collapses in GDP? What if the wealthy didn't just win when "number go up," but also when "number eat shit?"

The latest batch of Epstein emails includes a particularly ghoulish exchange between Epstein and his business partner, the anti-democracy activist and billionaire Peter Thiel:

https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%209/EFTA00824843.pdf

The email is dated 26 Jun 2016, right after Brexit, and in it, Epstein writes:

return to tribalism . counter to globalization. amazing new alliances. you and I both agreed zero interest rates were too high, as i said in your office. finding things on their way to collapse , was much easier than finding the next bargain

This is a perfect example of what Naomi Klein calls "disaster capitalism." It's been the norm since the crash of 2008, when bankers were made whole through public bailouts and mortgage holders were evicted by the millions to "foam the runway" for the banks:

https://wallstreetonparade.com/2012/08/how-treasury-secretary-geithner-foamed-the-runways-with-childrens-shattered-lives/

The crash of 2008 turned a lot of people's homes – their only substantial possessions – into "distressed assets" that were purchased at fire-sale prices by Wall Street investors, who turned around and rented those homes out to people who were now priced out of the housing market at rents that kept them too poor to ever afford a home, under slum conditions that crawled with insects and black mold:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/01/housing-is-a-human-right/

Note here that economic collapse helps the Epstein class only if society has no social safety net. If Obama had supported homeowners instead of banks, there wouldn't have been a foreclosure crisis and thus there wouldn't have been any "distressed assets" flooding the market.

So it's no surprise that the Epstein class are also obsessed with austerity. Peter Mandelson (British Labour's "Prince of Darkness") is a close ally of Epstein, and also a key figure in the crushing austerity agenda of Blair, Brown and Starmer. He's a machine for turning Parliamentary majorities into distressed assets at scale.

Same for Steve Bannon, another close Epstein ally, who boasts about his alliances with far-right figures who exalt the capital class and call for deregulation and the elimination of public services: Le Pen, Salvini, Farage. Combine that with Epstein and Thiel's gloating about "finding things on their way to collapse…much easier than finding the next bargain," and it starts to feel like these guys are even happier with "number eat shit" than they are with "number go up."

Trump is the undisputed king of the Epstein class, and he seems determined to drive "The Economy" over a cliff. Take his tariff program, modeled on the McKinley tariffs of 1890, which led to the Panic of 1893, a financial crisis that saw one in four American workers forced into unemployment and 15,000 businesses into bankruptcy (that's a lot of distressed assets!):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1893

Then there's Trump's mass deportation program, which will force lots of businesses (farms, restaurants, etc) into bankruptcy, creating another massive pool of distressed assets. Trump's given ICE $75b, while the DoJ Antitrust Division and FTC (which protect Americans from corporate scams) have seen their budgets take a real-terms cut. The majority of DoJ lawyers and FBI agents are working on immigration cases (against workers, not employers, mind!). The Antitrust Division has $275m to fight all of America's corporate crime:

https://www.organizedmoney.fm/p/white-collar-crime-enforcement-in

I'm not saying that Trump is trying to induce another massive economic crash. I'm saying, rather, that within his coalition there is a substantial bloc of powerful, wealthy people who are on the hunt for "things on their way to collapse," and who are doubtless maneuvering to frustrate other Trump coalition members who are solely committed to "number go up."

Even the collapse of crypto creates lots of opportunities to "buy the dip." Not the dip in crypto (crypto's going to zero), but the dip in all the real things people bought with real money they got by borrowing against their shitcoins.

The thousand-plus children that Epstein lured to his island rape-camp were often "distressed assets" in their own right: Julie K Brown's groundbreaking reporting on Epstein for the Miami Herald described how he sought out children whose parents were poor, or neglectful, or both, on the grounds that those children would be "on their way to collapse," too.

The Epstein class's commitment to destroying "The Economy" makes sense when you understand that trashing civilization is "much easier than finding the next bargain." They want to buy the dip, so they're creating the dip.

They don't need the whole number to go up, just theirs. They know that inclusive economies are more prosperous for society as a whole, but it makes criminals and predators worse off. The New Deal kicked off a period of American economic growth never seen before or since, but the rich despised it, because a prosperous economy is one in which it gets harder and harder to find "things on their way to collapse," and thus nearly impossible to "find[] the next bargain."

(Image: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0)

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Hey look at this (permalink)

• RIP, Dave Farber https://seclists.org/nanog/2026/Feb/18

• Outlier and collapse: The enron corpus and foundation model training data https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20539517261421474

• You're Doing It Wrong: Notes on Criticism and Technology Hype https://peoples-things.ghost.io/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype/

• How Big Cloud becomes Bigger: Scrutinizing Google, Microsoft, and Amazon's investments https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5377426

• Go Left, Young Writers! https://jacobin.com/2026/02/new-masses-proletarian-literature-wright-gold/

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Object permanence (permalink)

#25yrsago Yours is a very bad hotel https://www.slideshare.net/slideshow/yours-is-a-very-bad-hotel/34583

#20yrsago Kids refuse to sell candy after completing health unit https://web.archive.org/web/20060223010123/http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,,-5600588,00.html

#20yrsago Disneyland model recreates Yippie invasion of 1970 https://web.archive.org/web/20051228122604/http://dannysland.blogspot.com/2005/12/great-moments-in-disneyland-history.html

#20yrsago Canadian Red Cross wastes its money harassing video game makers https://web.archive.org/web/20060221020835/https://www.igniq.com/2006/02/canadian-red-cross-wants-its-logo-out.html

#20yrsago How Yahoo/AOL’s email tax will hurt free speech https://web.archive.org/web/20060213175705/https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/archives/004398.php#004398

#20yrsago Adbusters and the Economist have the same covers https://pieratt.com/odds/adbusters_vs_theeconomist.jpg

#20yrsago Head of British Vid Assoc: Piracy doesn’t hurt DVD sales http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4691228.stm#6

#20yrsago Countries around the world rebelling against extreme copyright https://web.archive.org/web/20060629232414/http://www.michaelgeist.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1095

#20yrsago Web 1.0 logo-mosaic https://web.archive.org/web/20060506074530/https://www.complexify.com/buttons/

#15yrsago Is it legal to print Settlers of Catan tiles on a 3D printer? https://web.archive.org/web/20110131102845/https://publicknowledge.org/blog/3d-printing-settlers-catan-probably-not-illeg

#15yrsago UK Tories get majority of funding from bankers https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/feb/08/tory-funds-half-city-banks-financial-sector

#15yrsago Colorado Springs school bans kid who takes THC lozenges for neuro condition from attending because of “internal possession” https://www.coloradoindependent.com/2011/02/07/teens-medical-marijuana-fight-escalates-as-school-says-he-cannot-come-back-to-class-after-going-home-for-medicine/

#15yrsago Hamster-powered strandbeest walker https://crabfuartworks.blogspot.com/2011/02/hamster-powered-walker.html

#15yrsago Daytripper: wrenching existential graphic novel https://memex.craphound.com/2011/02/08/daytripper-wrenching-existential-graphic-novel/

#15yrsago Pactuator: a mechanical, hand-cranked Pac-Man https://upnotnorth.net/projects/pac-machina/pactuator/

#15yrsago Floppy drive organ plays toccata www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmoDLyiQYKw

#15yrsago Mike Mignola talks setting and architecture https://www.bldgblog.com/2011/02/ruin-space-and-shadow-an-interview-with-mike-mignola/

#15yrsago BBC to delete 172 unarchived sites, geek saves them for $3.99 https://web.archive.org/web/20110210152012/https://bengoldacre.posterous.com/nerd-saves-entire-bbc-archive-for-399-you-can

#10yrsago Australia, the driest country on Earth, eliminates basic climate science research https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/australia-cuts-110-climate-scientist-jobs/

#10yrsago Copyright trolls who claimed to own “Happy Birthday” will pay $14M to their “customers” https://web.archive.org/web/20160210091717/http://consumerist.com/2016/02/09/happy-birthday-song-settlement-to-pay-out-14-million-to-people-who-paid-to-use-song/

#10yrsago Eviction epidemic: the racialized, weaponized homes of America’s cities https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/08/forced-out

#10yrsago Association of German judges slams US-EU trade deal for its special corporate courts https://www.techdirt.com/2016/02/09/top-german-judges-tear-to-shreds-eus-proposed-tafta-ttip-investment-court-system/

#10yrsago A digital, 3D printed sundial whose precise holes cast a shadow displaying the current time https://www.mojoptix.com/fr/2015/10/12/ep-001-cadran-solaire-numerique/

#10yrsago Jughead is asexual https://www.themarysue.com/jughead-asexuality/

#10yrsago Vtech, having leaked 6.3m kids’ data, has a new EULA disclaiming responsibility for the next leak https://web.archive.org/web/20160210092704/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/hacked-toy-company-vtech-tos-now-says-its-not-liable-for-hacks

#10yrsago How America’s presidents started cashing out https://web.archive.org/web/20160208210036/https://theintercept.com/2016/02/08/taxpayers-give-big-pensions-to-ex-presidents-precisely-so-they-dont-have-to-sell-out/

#10yrsago Bill criminalizing anal and oral sex passes Michigan Senate https://www.thenewcivilrightsmovement.com/2016/02/michigan_senate_passes_bill_saying_sodomy_is_a_felony/

#10yrsago Hacker promises dump of data from 20K FBI and 9K DHS employees https://web.archive.org/web/20160208214013/https://motherboard.vice.com/read/hacker-plans-to-dump-alleged-details-of-20000-fbi-9000-dhs-employees

#10yrsago Blooks: functional objects disguised as books https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/30/blook-madness-inside-the-world-of-bogus-books

#10yrsago Indian regulator stands up for net neutrality, bans Facebook’s walled garden https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/02/facebooks-free-internet-app-banned-by-indias-new-net-neutrality-rule/

#10yrsago British spies want to be able to suck data out of US Internet giants https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/the-british-want-to-come-to-america–with-wiretap-orders-and-search-warrants/2016/02/04/b351ce9e-ca86-11e5-a7b2-5a2f824b02c9_story.html

#5yrsago Fleet Street calls out schtum Tories https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/09/permanent-record/#foia-uk

#5yrsago The ECB should forgive the debt it owes itself https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/09/permanent-record/#ecb

#5yrsago Favicons as undeletable tracking beacons https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/09/permanent-record/#supercookies

#5yrsago Snowden's young adult memoir https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/09/permanent-record/#ya-snowden

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Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• Salt Lake City: Enshittification at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (Tanner Humanities Center), Feb 18
  https://tanner.utah.edu/center-events/cory-doctorow/

• Montreal (remote): Fedimtl, Feb 24
  https://fedimtl.ca/

• Victoria: 28th Annual Victoria International Privacy & Security Summit, Mar 3-5
  https://www.rebootcommunications.com/event/vipss2026/

• Berkeley: Bioneers keynote, Mar 27
  https://conference.bioneers.org/

• Berlin: Re:publica, May 18-20
  https://re-publica.com/de/news/rp26-sprecher-cory-doctorow

• Berlin: Enshittification at Otherland Books, May 19
  https://www.otherland-berlin.de/de/event-details/cory-doctorow.html

• Hay-on-Wye: HowTheLightGetsIn, May 22-25
  https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay/big-ideas-2

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Recent appearances (permalink)

• Everything Wrong With the Internet and How to Fix It, with Tim Wu (Ezra Klein)
  https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/06/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-doctorow-wu.html

• How the Internet Got Worse (Masters in Business)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auXlkuVhxMo

• Enshittification (Jon Favreau/Offline):
  https://crooked.com/podcast/the-enshittification-of-the-internet-with-cory-doctorow/

• Why Big Tech is a Trap for Independent Creators (Stripper News)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmYDyz8AMZ0

• Enshittification (Creative Nonfiction podcast)
  https://brendanomeara.com/episode-507-enshittification-author-cory-doctorow-believes-in-a-new-good-internet/

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Latest books (permalink)

• "Canny Valley": A limited edition collection of the collages I create for Pluralistic, self-published, September 2025

• "Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, October 7 2025
  https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374619329/enshittification/

• "Picks and Shovels": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about the heroic era of the PC, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2025 (https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865908/picksandshovels).

• "The Bezzle": a sequel to "Red Team Blues," about prison-tech and other grifts, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), February 2024 (thebezzle.org).

• "The Lost Cause:" a solarpunk novel of hope in the climate emergency, Tor Books (US), Head of Zeus (UK), November 2023 (http://lost-cause.org).

• "The Internet Con": A nonfiction book about interoperability and Big Tech (Verso) September 2023 (http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org). Signed copies at Book Soup (https://www.booksoup.com/book/9781804291245).

• "Red Team Blues": "A grabby, compulsive thriller that will leave you knowing more about how the world works than you did before." Tor Books http://redteamblues.com.

• "Chokepoint Capitalism: How to Beat Big Tech, Tame Big Content, and Get Artists Paid, with Rebecca Giblin", on how to unrig the markets for creative labor, Beacon Press/Scribe 2022 https://chokepointcapitalism.com

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Upcoming books (permalink)

• "The Reverse-Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book about being a better AI critic, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, June 2026

• "Enshittification, Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It" (the graphic novel), Firstsecond, 2026

• "The Post-American Internet," a geopolitical sequel of sorts to Enshittification, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2027

• "Unauthorized Bread": a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2027

• "The Memex Method," Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2027

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Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing: "The Post-American Internet," a sequel to "Enshittification," about the better world the rest of us get to have now that Trump has torched America ( words today, total)

• "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to AI," a short book for Farrar, Straus and Giroux about being an effective AI critic. LEGAL REVIEW AND COPYEDIT COMPLETE.

• "The Post-American Internet," a short book about internet policy in the age of Trumpism. PLANNING.

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

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This work – excluding any serialized fiction – is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially, provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link to pluralistic.net.

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Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

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"When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla" -Joey "Accordion Guy" DeVilla

READ CAREFULLY: By reading this, you agree, on behalf of your employer, to release me from all obligations and waivers arising from any and all NON-NEGOTIATED agreements, licenses, terms-of-service, shrinkwrap, clickwrap, browsewrap, confidentiality, non-disclosure, non-compete and acceptable use policies ("BOGUS AGREEMENTS") that I have entered into with your employer, its partners, licensors, agents and assigns, in perpetuity, without prejudice to my ongoing rights and privileges. You further represent that you have the authority to release me from any BOGUS AGREEMENTS on behalf of your employer.

ISSN: 3066-764X

The Department of Homeland Security warned that the use of toxins, such as ricin and cyanide, to poison domestic partners has increased over the last five years, driven by several factors including accessibility of online information, ease of obtaining certain chemicals, and perceived difficulty in detection. What do you think?

The post Report: Poisonings Of Domestic Partners Have Increased appeared first on The Onion.

That last panel wasn’t in my original rough, it arrived out of nowhere at the last minute. And I was very glad that it did. I hope you like my era-appropriate Katamari Queen Cher.

 

The post Stop pirouetting appeared first on Bad Machinery.

In brief: In today’s post we briefly revisit this past weekend’s stunning weather, and look forward to when we might see similar conditions. Mostly, however, this coming week will see slightly warmer weather with modestly higher humidity.

A wonderful weekend

We complain a lot about the weather in Houston, and justifiably so I believe. But every now and then you get a spectacular weekend, which we did on Saturday and Sunday. Mrs. Berger and I had a lovely walk around the Houston Arboretum on Sunday afternoon, and there were times when I just stopped and said, “It feels so pleasant outside today.” Conditions this weekend will be mostly on the mild side, but with dewpoints around 60 degrees we will be a tad on the humid side of things. A front will arrive by this weekend, and although Saturday may see some rain showers, next Sunday may again be one of those fantastic weather days in Houston. We’ll see.

Monday

We are fully in a pattern with a pronounced onshore flow at this point, and we are going to see persistent southerly flow all week. This will present several changes to our weather. First of all, temperatures on Monday, and for the rest of the week, are generally going to be in the upper 70s. Some locations may hit 80 degrees. Skies will be partly sunny. And our nights will be warmer, with lows generally in the lower 60s. With the influx of moisture from the Gulf, and temperatures falling to dewpoint levels, we will see healthy chances of sea fog developing during the overnight hours, and persisting into the morning hours. Not all areas will see fog all week, but the threat will remain.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday

Not much will change through the middle of the week: expect highs mostly in the upper 70s, partly sunny skies, modestly humid air, and mild nights with the potential for fog developing. We might see a slight chance of showers on Tuesday or Wednesday night, but I’m not particularly bullish.

Saturday

We’ll start to see some rain chances creep into the forecast on Friday night in response to an approaching disturbance. Rain chances will peak on Saturday, probably above 50 percent for most locations. As for accumulations it’s too early to say much with confidence, but a lot of places will probably pick up between 0.25 and 0.75 inch. Highs Saturday should be in the mid-70s, but this will depend on the arrival of a surface front. For now I’ll guess late afternoon or evening. Lows on Saturday night probably will drop into the 50s.

Sunday

As noted above, this looks to be the pick of the litter in terms of weather for the upcoming period. Highs probably will be in the vicinity of 70 degrees, with sunny skies and lower humidity, but for now those details must remain on the fuzzy side of things.

Next week

After a couple of cooler nights (Sunday night into Monday morning may get into the 40s) most of next week looks pretty mild as well. There’s no strong signal for rain showers, and I’d bet we’re back mostly in the 70s for daytime highs.

The couple had invited Bad Bunny to their wedding, but he suggested they be part of his halftime show instead.

Police launched the inquiry after news organizations reported on emails that suggest the then-prince sent Epstein reports from a 2010 tour of Southeast Asia he took as Britain's envoy for international trade.

A reader writes:

I left my last job after 3.5 months despite receiving consistently high praise privately from the director (my direct manager) of my department.

At a year-end all-hands meeting where the entire company of at least 70+ people attended and each department gave a status update, I did not get any public recognition in my department of four.

One person was called a Salesforce “wizard” and another was praised for doing the hard work of helping set up the infrastructure. The director had only been there two months longer than me, and no one in our team worked there for longer than one year.

Needless to say, this was hurtful and humiliating. In just 3.5 months, I was an unofficial manager to an under-performer, someone who was objectively assigned the most challenging work, and also had notable Salesforce accomplishments.

To add insult to injury, I contributed heavily to another department, by their request, and one of their middle managers completely excluded my contributions in a very elaborate Slack shoutout. No one in the entire organization sought to correct the record in this case or at the all-hands meeting.

I brought up these and several other concerns with my department director (excluded from important meetings, getting onboarded late, constant reschedules or no-shows) and asked for tangible and meaningful concessions. I wanted them to put themselves in my shoes and then really make an effort to do just about anything.

It would have cost 10 seconds to simply go into Slack and just say that I’ve been a great leader. Because for all of the private praise I received, when it came time for the rubber to meet the road, this person was completely missing. Isn’t that part of the job? The “contract” we have as manager and employee is that I give great work, and you don’t embarrass me in front of the entire company. There’s a phrase for that and it’s called being two-faced.

After the holiday break, I decided to get HR involved because I had lost all faith in my department director and my emotional health was at a low point.

We all met together and their verdict was simple: stay in your lane (which was not said literally, but about 85% close to being literal).

They closed ranks to maintain the status quo, and I incurred a net penalty. Half of their “proposals” were “I’ll try to do a better job” without any tangible mechanisms, and the other half were just barely better than that.

At that point, enough was enough and I decided to leave, because they had clearly shown a lack of humility and did not put thought into any structural changes. I truly invested in my teammates and the work itself, and thought I could overcome the obstacles plaguing my career.

Unfortunately, after two weeks, the wound is still fresh and I still don’t even have written confirmation of a professional reference from my manager. I know writing a review on Indeed, Glassdoor, or LinkedIn would appear like I’m lashing out, but this has to be heard. I want the record to be set straight. And to be completely honest here I don’t want to be the only loser. I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

Based just on what’s in your letter, this is a disproportionately strong reaction.

Yes, managers should give public praise! And yes, when you told them you were feeling slighted at not receiving any, they had a very easy way to remedy that, and it’s not clear why it required meeting after meeting for them to half-heartedly vow to do better when, as you say, they could have put the whole thing to rest with a quick team message in Slack.

But you are having a very strong reaction to something that, on its own, doesn’t warrant it.

It’s not that odd not to get public recognition at an all-hands meeting. There were 70+ people at this meeting; presumably they weren’t all singled out for public praise. (In fact, it sounds like in a department of four, half of you were and half of you weren’t.) This is not an outrage, and it’s unusual to experience it as humiliating, especially when you’d only been there a few months.

Should the other manager have included you in their Slack shout-out for the project you’d contributed heavily to? It sounds like it! But it’s also really, really common for those shout-outs not to be fully comprehensive. Maybe it was an oversight. Maybe it was because as much as you did, other people did more. Either way, it’s very unlikely that it was an intentional slight.

None of this is “embarrassing you in front of the entire company.” It’s extremely unlikely that anyone else in the company was thinking about it, let alone drawing any conclusions about your work from it.

I can’t tell if there was more going on that caused you to have bad feelings about this job, and the recognition issue just became the thing that all those bad feelings coalesced on. Sometimes that happens. But the recognition issue on its own just doesn’t sound that outrageous.

It is weird that you apparently had repeated conversations about it and they didn’t just give you some public recognition. But the fact that they didn’t — combined with them telling you to stay in your lane — makes me think there was more going on.

Regardless, it sounds clear that this wasn’t the right job for you; you weren’t happy, you left, and that sounds like clearly the right choice. But nothing here is at the level of needing to publicly set the record straight.

(Also, don’t spend energy pursuing the reference you mentioned! It doesn’t sound like you could be confident it would be fully positive — the relationship sounds messy at best — and a reference from a job you were only at for 3.5 months isn’t likely to significantly strengthen your candidacy for future jobs anyway.)

The post should I write a bad review for a job I quit after 3.5 months because they wouldn’t publicly praise me? appeared first on Ask a Manager.

A reader writes:

I’m a woman working in a male-dominated profession. I do most of the planning and organizing for company events—not by choice or job description, but because I’m told I’m such a good planner.

While I’m planning something, I’m rarely offered help. However, right before the event, I’m often asked by male coworkers if they can do anything or if I need anything. “Are we all good for Thursday? Can I do anything?”

Of course, it’s way too late for them to do anything, and they know that. Is this weaponized incompetence? Or what is it? Whatever it is, it’s incredibly annoying, and I’d love to come up with a comeback that shows I’m onto them.

You’re focusing on the wrong problem. You don’t need a comeback for last-minute offers of help — you need to stop agreeing to do all the event planning when it’s not part of your job.

For what it’s worth, it’s possible those offers of help aren’t deliberately insincere, but rather people haven’t thought about the event at all until right before it (because they don’t have to, because they know you are handling it). Then they see it on the calendar for the next day and figure it would be polite to ask if you need help. And if they never plan events themselves, they genuinely may not realize how ridiculous it is to wait until the last minute to make that offer.

If there is weaponized incompetence here, it’s probably happening much earlier — when you’re somehow the only person capable of planning events because you’re so good at them. You will remain better at it than everyone else if no one else is ever expected to do it, and your colleagues are probably happy for that to remain the case.

Regardless, you don’t need a comeback. You need to talk to your own boss and say that you don’t want all the event planning to continue falling to you and you want to focus on the parts of your job that you were hired to do (and which you’re presumably evaluated on when it your performance is assessed and raises are considered), just like your male coworkers get to do. And you should feel free to name the gender disparity — as in, “I’m concerned that this is falling to the one woman on the team, while male team members are free to stay focused on work that’s more advantageous to their careers.”

You can also try just saying no the next time you’re asked to organize an event: “I don’t have room on my plate for that right now, but I’ve done quite a few this year. Could you check with Brian or Roger about this one?”

If that doesn’t work, your back-up strategy should be to stop waiting for offers of help and instead announce what help you need and either assign pieces of the work to people or ask your boss to. But that still leaves you as the person ultimately responsible for making it all come together, so it’s far from ideal.

The post I get stuck with all the event planning due to my male coworkers’ weaponized incompetence appeared first on Ask a Manager.

Come on, honey, I’ll just quietly squeeze in between you two.

With the popularity of streaming megahit KPop Demon Hunters, the formation of “global girl group” Katseye, and the reunion of superstars BTS, Korean pop music’s influence on American pop culture is stronger than ever. The Onion shares everything you need to know about K-pop.

Who are some of the major K-pop groups?
BTS, EXO, NCT, NCIS, and NCIS: New Orleans.

How are K-pop groups formed?
By the Korean version of Simon Cowell, who has far more power than the British Simon Cowell could ever dream of.

Why are so many young people into K-pop?
To confuse and enrage you.

Is K-pop only for teens?
Of course not! K-pop is for anyone struggling with an addiction to their electronic devices.

Are the songs always in Korean?
They are often a mix of Korean, English, and iMovie sound effects.

If I send a finger to Lisa from Blackpink will she fall in love with me?
You’ll never know unless you try.

Are K-pop idols happy?
They’re smiling, aren’t they?

How can I join a fandom?
By successfully killing a member of a rival fandom.

What do I do if I’m not really into K-pop?
Hide.

Does this mean that American cultural hegemony is waning?
Hey, don’t cry—we’ll always have blue jeans.

The post All The Questions You Have About K-Pop, Answered appeared first on The Onion.

I don’t get what everyone on all sides is so angry about. Isn’t this exactly what the country voted for? Do we not remember the affordability crisis from 2024 and the price of everything? With the cost of food, energy, and housing, it was no surprise that America reelected Donald Trump.

For instance, I know I wasn’t alone in my top priority being the lack of craft-store gold belching a gleaming brine over the full Oval Office. And surely, a silent majority thought the White House needed to be desecrated to build an enormous ballroom to host some Caligula Chamber of Commerce convention of oil executives, Nazis, crypto weirdos, and for-profit preachers.

Captioning presidential portraits with incel message board internet trolling of former occupants of the Oval Office was definitely important for suburban Michigan moms. And a conspicuous lack of measles was causing real hardship across the Sun Belt for many middle-class families.

As families struggle to pay bills, WOW county voters in Wisconsin knew there was no better way to get our fiscal house in order than letting the richest guy in the world Sieg Heil his way into the government to steal taxpayer data. I mean, come on, is there no appreciation for the fact that DOGE’s famous chainsaw budgeting cost $135 billion and is on pace to kill fourteen million people by 2030? That’s the fiscal responsibility we need.

And speaking of preposterously wealthy tech billionaires. Exit polls confirmed a major concern in Pennsylvania was that Amazon had not directly bribed the president of the United States by financing and promoting a terrible puff piece documentary it recruited a sex pest to direct. The point wasn’t to make money, you guys, it was to curry favor with the president. The mandate was delivered in November 2024.

Just look at the gains the Trump coalition made with non-white voters. It was puzzling in the moment to some, but obvious in hindsight. A major issue for Black and Latino voters was a president who would use his office to add $4 billion in wealth, including a half billion kickback from the United Arab Emirates for the Trump crypto scam. And don’t underestimate the power of the pulpit and religious voters. Many of whom were clear that Air Force One was kind of mid. They were praying for a dubious-to-whoa-that’s-super-illegal “gift” from Qatar that cost US taxpayers $1 billion to upgrade.

Think about what resonates in the swing areas of North Carolina. College-educated whites told us with their ballots that they wanted the United States to murder fishermen and turn the entire country of Venezuela into our personal gas pump. You see, our FIFA Peace Prize winning president learned the lessons from foreign entanglements in oil-rich regions of the world. Specifically, that they didn’t drag on long enough.

So, in summation.

Populism.

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
Bet you none of these newfangled Ai art generators will do you an upskirt Pope.

Today's News:

The family of Alan Andrews, 52, welcomes any suggestions for alternate phrasings of “suicide by cop.”

The post Alan Andrews appeared first on The Onion.

STANFORD, CA—In a comprehensive, decade-long study of the self-destructive pattern, researchers at Stanford University recorded a shocking 98% recidivism rate among Americans who had burned their mouths on hot food.

Despite the lingering numbness on their tongues or the roofs of their mouths, the study found that nearly all subjects who burned themselves on items such as soup or fresh-out-of-the-oven pizza repeated the behavior almost immediately. The findings suggest that traditional punitive disincentives are woefully inadequate in preventing recurrence of the harmful practice that leads individuals to repeatedly say “Hot, hot, hot” while fanning their mouths and wincing in pain.

“This is a wake-up call for anyone who thought that having to hastily reach for a soda or milk was a deterrent to taking a second searing bite,” said lead researcher Laurie Jimenez, adding that, even when controlling for hunger levels and drunkenness, subjects went in for another spoonful when the chili was boiling-hot almost as quickly as they did when the chili had been sitting in a room temperature serving bowl for 15 minutes. “If 98% of people are making an O shape with their mouths and taking several breaths in quick succession to cool down the egg roll filling that’s burning their mouth—but then diving right back in—we all ought to be alarmed.”

“Of course, these individuals do bear some responsibility for their conduct, but this cycle of eating, burning, and eating again is an indictment of us all,” Jimenez added. “These are our fellow Americans, and we’re failing them.”

The data presented additional causes of concern, including the fact that most individuals did not stop at a second bite but returned for a third or even a fourth despite the near certainty of a negative outcome. In fact, the likely consequences did not appear to even enter their thoughts as they were devouring yet another onion ring straight from the fryer.

Researchers told reporters that it was impossible to isolate a single reason why people would be unfazed by the very real threat of a painful blister on their gums. But the study did hypothesize a number of possible contributing factors, among them a lack of education, with many of the subjects having never been warned by a parent that blowing on a microwaved Hot Pocket after an initial bite does little to cool its molten center. 

“Another issue could be a lack of positive role models,” study co-author Glenn Rothenberger said. “Maybe they grew up in an environment where they observed family members digging into lasagna, soup dumplings, or hot apple pie with no effort to pace themselves. Or maybe they were surrounded by peers at restaurants who just chowed down on mozzarella sticks filled with still-bubbling cheese. How would you know to wait a second and maybe dip your mozzarella sticks in a little cup of tepid marinara if you never saw anyone else doing it?”

“Or, sadly, they may simply feel they have no viable alternative to this damaging behavior,” Rothenberger continued. “They already bought the instant ramen, it’s in front of them, and it’s delicious. So what are they supposed to do?”

Caleb Jenkins, a 24-year-old Seattle man who participated in the study, admitted to reporters he didn’t think twice about stuffing another forkful of hot calzone in his mouth despite the very real risk of scalding his tongue.

“I know it’s not right,” Jenkins said. “I know it ultimately hurts me. I know it’s a bad decision. But I also don’t know any other way. I just feel trapped.”

“Ow, ow, ow,” added Jenkins, reaching for another bite.

The findings from this study parallel results from similar research that found a 95% recidivism rate among those who felt their food smelled or looked weird, but took a second bite anyway just to make sure. 

The post Study Finds 98% Recidivism Rate Among Americans Who Burn Mouths On Hot Food appeared first on The Onion.

WILMINGTON, DE—Expressing relief about his obliviousness to America’s unraveling, former President Joe Biden told reporters Thursday that he was grateful not to be alive to see what Trump was doing to the country.“ I devoted my entire life to safeguarding the ideals of democratic freedom and promoting liberty across this great land, and I cannot emphasize enough how lucky I am to have left this world before I had to see what Donald Trump has done to our country’s most sacred values, ” said Biden, noting that because he was mercifully freed from his mortal coil before Trump took office in 2017, he never witnessed U.S. cities being threatened with occupation by the National Guard, devastating cuts to the social safety net and scientific research, or the dereliction of American leadership in trade and global affairs. “The silver lining of my passing is that I remain blissfully unaware of Trump’s weaponization of the federal government to silence dissidents and target political opponents. Though it’s impossible to know exactly how I would process that vile man undermining not only my legacy but this sacred republic’s foundational values, I’m certain that, had I not taken my last breath over a decade ago, I would recoil in disgust.” Biden admitted that getting tangled up with a pool-cleaning robot and drowning was a fate far preferable to watching the complete eradication of personal liberties. 

The post Biden Grateful He’s Not Alive To See What Trump Doing To Country appeared first on The Onion.

President Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, was recently tapped to lead ICE’s highly publicized deportation campaign in Minnesota. The Onion takes a look at Homan’s background.

Head Weight: 66 pounds

Ideology: Fundamentalist Punisher fan

Least Favorite Haplogroup: Q-M242

Role In Project 2025: Genetic source for cloned ICE agents

Favorite Part Of Job: Working with kids

Bribery Price: Sliding scale

Favorite Pickup Line: “Show me your papers.”

Pet Peeve: Stephen Miller rolling his eyes when asked what “physiognomy” means

The post Political Profile: Tom Homan appeared first on The Onion.

The post Non-Biathlon Skier Would Also Like Gun appeared first on The Onion.

A publicist for Bad Bunny confirmed to NPR that the little boy in a blue bunny hat detained by ICE in Minneapolis last month did not participate in the Super Bowl halftime show.

#Kento #Cye #Mia #Ully #RoninWarriors

It appears that these things are called Pajamas. Uh .. oh .. no, I'm reading that wrong. These things are actually called ... cheaters. Well ... I wonder what they cheat at? #CowboyWho

#Cye #RoninWarriors

It is Blando the Unforgettable. That's why I changed my name from Blando the Magnificent, so people would not forget it. #CowboyWho

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. My boss assigns work by pulling names out of a hat

I work on a team of about 10 people. At our weekly meetings, my manager tries to assign out any new tasks. Team members usually volunteer for tasks related to their ongoing work. But when no one volunteers to take on a task, he pulls names out of a hat to see who gets assigned. These tasks aren’t always quick things; they can take a lot of time.

This frustrates me so much. To me, it’s dismissive of the other work we have and just bad management. The team doesn’t really push back on it, but I’m wondering if I should. When no one volunteers to take on an assignment, I try to explain my concerns and why I can’t take it on. But then no one else chimes in, and he just goes on to draw a name at random.

What do you think? And if this isn’t going to change, how do I not let this bother me?

Yeah, managing by hat — as opposed to managing by, you know, looking at people’s workloads and strengths and weaknesses — is absurd. Not only does it mean that your boss is completely forfeiting the opportunity to assign projects where they make the most sense, but he’s also signaling to your team that he sees you as interchangeable, doesn’t care about distributing work equitably, and doesn’t care enough about any of it to put actual thought into it.

As for how to stop it from bothering you … look at the actual impact. If it’s not resulting in significant workload inequities, then just write this off to a crappy manager and roll your eyes at it internally. But if the hat distributes work in a way that doesn’t make sense, you should feel free to speak up — as in, “My plate is really full with X and Y this week; do you want me to push those back to make room for Z or should it be assigned to someone else?”

2. Has everyone stopped responding to emails?

Have people just … stopped responding to emails?

Okay, maybe not everyone, and maybe not literally. But I feel like over the last year to 18 months, it’s extremely frequent that I have to send second or even third follow-up notes to get a response, mostly to external contacts (as in, not my coworkers). And when people do reply, it seems to be increasingly common for them to wait a week or more. This has been my experience in communications with both junior-level and senior-level staff. My role, and my workplace, are corporate in nature. It’s not a sales role, so my emails are not sales-related.

For the record, I’m a VP-level employee myself, so I wouldn’t chalk this up to more senior people ignoring me. Is this something you’ve noticed? Something your readers have noticed? And if so, what gives?

I haven’t noticed much of it, but it could certainly be happening. If it is, my hunch is that it’s field-specific — and in particular, if you frequently deal with people in fields affected by layoffs, you might be emailing overworked people who can’t be as responsive as they used to be. I don’t think there’s a culture-wide shift happening where people in general no longer feel the need to be responsive to work emails, but I do think there are lots of things happening in the world that could be making it harder to respond as quickly.

3. Can I file for workers’ comp for an injury I got walking my dog while working from home?

I’m a remote employee, and my job requires four in-office visits per year to HQ. They cover travel and expenses while I’m there.

Following my Q3 visit, I got home from the airport, ready to get back to work. (We’re supposed to work on travel days if we can.) However, my dog, who had been home alone while my husband was at work, needed to go out. While walking her, I tripped and broke my wrist. I ended up spending the afternoon in the ER rather than working.

My husband suggested I file a workers’ comp claim because I had traveled for work and was supposed to be “on duty.” To be fair, my travel exhaustion did play a role in the fall, but it didn’t seem to be workers’ comp worthy. How does workers’ comp work for remote workers? What would qualify as an “on the job injury” when “the job” is at your house?

Good try, husband. But no.

Remote work is covered under workers’ comp if the injury occurs while you’re completing a work task during work hours. In most cases, the remote employee has the burden of proof and needs to demonstrate that they were acting in the interest of their employer at the time of the injury. Walking your dog is not going to qualify.

4. Does my boss want a written record of a mistake to justify firing me?

I have been in my current role for about 18 months and have nearly eight years of experience in the industry and 15 years in my field. My role is fairly specialized and requires project management, QA/QC, and hard and fast deadlines.

My company provides services to other companies, and when they need a service, they issue a request for information or bids. Recently, a client asked us to provide a statement as a supplementary response to something we bid on. This statement was to cover a requirement that was requested in the initial ask, but had been overlooked by not only myself, but a large group of people. After discussing this with my manager and ensuring them I will be more vigilant and adopt a better system for compliance, my grandboss wants a written explanation as to why the mistake happened. This is not the first time my grandboss has requested a written statement, and this is the first time I made a mistake like this.

Is this normal or is my grandboss compiling information to justify letting me go? I feel it’s not normal to have to provide a written statement when mistakes happen as we are all human and I already discussed the issue in detail with my direct manager. I really like this company but I’m getting toxic vibes.

I don’t see any reason to assume your grandboss is complying information to justify letting you go. It’s possible, but I wouldn’t jump to that without way more signs of it. Rather, it sounds like she just wants something in writing about how the mistake happened. Maybe that’s because she needs to cover her ass with her own boss, or maybe she thinks putting it in writing will make you and your boss take it more seriously, or maybe she functions better when she has stuff written down so she can consult it if it ever comes up in the future, or who knows what. I don’t think it’s particularly toxic on its own.

5. One accepted(ish) offer, two more interview processes

After being laid off three months ago, I received an offer from Company A, which I accepted via email last Sunday. The offer is a strong one, albeit in an industry I’m not particularly passionate about and for a role I can do well but I’m not super excited about. My tentative start date is in about a week.

On Monday, Company B reached out to schedule an interview. On Wednesday, Company C reached out for an interview. Both Companies B and C are in industries I’m much more interested in, for roles I’m excited about, and I have personal connections to both, which I think may give me a strong chance of being a finalist in both interview processes — though I’m aware nothing is guaranteed! The interviews with B and C are the results of networking I did early on in my job search, but results have just come about in the past week.

On Friday, the hiring manager at Company A sent an email that indicated he somehow did not receive the signed offer letter I sent on Sunday. I double checked: I did send the signed offer letter, but because there were two email chains going with the hiring manager on both of them, I think he somehow missed it.

I’d like to see the interview processes through with Companies B and C, but without compromising the offer from Company A. Do I:

1) Start working with Company A in about a week, and then resign if I receive a better offer.
2) Ask A if I can postpone my start date. (I anticipate the processes with B and C will take at least another month, and that seems like an unreasonable amount of time to ask for.)
3) Decline the offer from A. If I don’t receive offers from B and C, I could reach out to A and let them know circumstances have changed, and find out if there is still opportunity for me to join their company.
4) Some other option(s) I’m not seeing?

In the current job market, it seems risky not to accept Company A’s offer. I have some temporary work in the meantime, but the sooner I have full-time work, the better it will be for my financial situation.

The salaries at A and B are comparable; C’s is higher. All three offer strong benefits packages.

If you don’t get B or C, would you regret having turned down A? If so, accept A with the existing start date. If you get offered one of the others and accept it, you can explain it fell in your lap and you can’t pass it up. It will burn the bridge with A, but it’s worth doing if you strongly prefer B or C.

The post boss assigns work by pulling names out of a hat, has everyone stopped emailing, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

Flash floods caused by storm Marta in northern Morocco killed at least four people as the country struggled with days of heavy rain and water releases from overfilled dams.

The post Turning Point USA Halftime Show Opens With Snake-Handling Preacher appeared first on The Onion.

BOISE, ID—Crying out “¡Dios mío!” and “¡Ayúdame!” as soon as they heard the opening notes of the Puerto Rican superstar’s “EoO,” millions of terrified conservatives reportedly lost the ability to speak English Sunday after exposure to Bad Bunny’s Super Bowl LX halftime performance. “Oh, what a crock-load of mierda—¿qué?—¿qué está pasando? ” said local 43-year-old Randy Hance, who in a scene that was currently unfolding in millions of households across the nation jumped out of his seat and clutched at his throat as he realized he was no longer able to speak any language but Spanish.“¡Estoy hablando español! ¿Pero no hablo español? No entiendo nada. ¡No puedo parar! Inglés, inglés, inglés, ¡quiero hablar inglés! ¡Es culpa tuya, conejito malo!” At press time, sources confirmed Hance was frantically attempting to smash his television set as his Super Bowl party guests cowered behind the sofa shrieking, “¡Dios nos ha abandonado!”

The post Terrified Conservatives Lose Ability To Speak English After Exposure To Bad Bunny Performance (‘¡Dios Mío!’ Cry Millions Of Panicking Republicans) appeared first on The Onion.