It unveiled the console on Wednesday just hours before the president announced a wave of global tariffs.

Although the nonprofit parks board has no jurisdiction over on-street bike lanes, its president and CEO, Beth White, said the department tries to collaborate with the City of Houston. The administration of Mayor John Whitmire has halted the city's years-long expansion of its bike lane network. 

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who had protected legal status in the US, was deported last month to an El Salvadoran prison.

LOS ANGELES—Expressing relief that they were both on the same page about custody, Megan Fox confirmed Friday that she and her new baby would be working together to co-parent Machine Gun Kelly. “The coming months are going to be exhausting, but knowing that I have this newborn by my side to help set a good example for MGK makes it a lot less scary,” said the Transformers actress, pausing to tend to the sound of Kelly whimpering over the monitor that he needed a Monster Energy drink. “I’d almost forgotten how bad the late nights and the smell of vape smoke can be when you’re caring for a 34-year-old white pop-rapper, so it’s nice to feel emotionally supported by someone more mature for once. It’s basically a full-time job making sure he doesn’t put anything in his mouth that he’s not supposed to, but since we can switch off keeping an eye on him, I’ve been able to finally relax a bit. It was a lot of work to Machine Gun Kelly–proof this house, but the baby and I are just happy that, for now, he still has all his fingers and toes.” Fox added that before they knew it, the new baby would be driving Kelly around to all of his shows.

The post Megan Fox Confirms She And New Baby Will Co-Parent Machine Gun Kelly appeared first on The Onion.

HUNTSVILLE, AL—In an effort to comfort the child by telling her the funds had gone to a far better place, local parents Blake and Allison McKee gently explained to their daughter Friday that their money was in heaven now, sources confirmed. “Honey, the reason we’re sitting you down today is because even though our life savings isn’t with us anymore, you don’t need to be scared, because it’s now up in the sky where the angels live,” said Allison McKee, putting her arms around a sobbing 10-year-old Harper McKee and assuring her that while their wealth wasn’t coming back, it was smiling down on them from the clouds. “I know you loved the money very much. Daddy and I did, too. But don’t worry, your college fund had some really good years. Now it gets to enjoy its everlasting reward. Shh, shh. It’s okay, kiddo. Hey, I know. Whenever you start missing our sweet little nest egg, just try to remember all the good times we had being middle class.” At press time, the mother was reportedly attempting to console her heartbroken daughter by stressing that this was all part of the natural stock market cycle.

The post Parents Gently Explain To Child That Their Money In Heaven Now appeared first on The Onion.

Economists warn that, if left in place, Trump’s sweeping tariffs on U.S. trade partners will wreak havoc on households, businesses, and financial markets across the world, upending a global economic order that America benefited from and helped create. What do you think?

The post Trump Tariffs Upend Global Economic Order appeared first on The Onion.

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
There's a whole genre of robots taking selfies next to sterilized planets.

Today's News:

Akash Sriram, reporting for Reuters under the headline “A $2,300 Apple iPhone? Trump Tariffs Could Make That Happen.”:

Most iPhones are still made in China, which was hit with a 54% tariff. If those levies persist, Apple has a tough choice: absorb the extra expense or pass it on to customers.

Shares of the company closed down 9.3% on Thursday, hitting their worst day since March 2020.

Apple shares dropped another 7.3% percent today. Apple alone has lost 16.6% of its value in the last 48 hours; the S&P 500 dropped 10%.

The cheapest iPhone 16 model was launched in the U.S. with a sticker price of $799, but could cost as much as $1,142, per calculations based on projections from analysts at Rosenblatt Securities, who say the cost could rise by 43% — if Apple is able to pass that on to consumers. A more expensive iPhone 16 Pro Max, with a 6.9-inch display and 1 terabyte of storage, which currently retails at $1599, could cost nearly $2300 if a 43% increase were to pass to consumers.

It’s under-remarked upon, but Apple, to a point of almost obstinance, considers pricing part of the brand for its products. They tend not to raise or lower prices with the ebbs and flows of the world economy or even the obvious constraints of simple supply and demand. Throughout the entire COVID crisis, I don’t recall them changing their prices for anything.

As an extreme example, consider the trashcan Mac Pro. It was introduced at WWDC 2013 and shipped in December that year with a starting price of $2,999. It then went over three years without an update — and still cost $2,999. Then in April 2017 Apple held that highly unusual small roundtable meeting — invitees were just Matthew Panzarino, Lance Ulanoff, Ina Fried, John Paczkowski, and yours truly — to discuss “completely rethinking the Mac Pro”. They issued small speed bumps to the trashcan Mac Pro that day, but didn’t ship the actual completely-rethought Mac Pro until WWDC 2019. The starting price never changed from $2,999, even when demand for the trashcan models had clearly dropped to near zero. The price was part of the brand. (The starting price for the 2019 Mac Pro: $5,999.)

Or consider today’s Mac Pro, with the M2 Ultra. It debuted alongside Mac Studio models that also came with the M2 Ultra at WWDC 2023 almost two years ago. M2 Ultra Mac Studios started at $3,999; Mac Pros at $6,999. Many observers, quite reasonably, questioned the $3,000 price difference when both computers offered the same chips. The 2023 Mac Pro, in some sense, is just a 2023 Mac Studio in a much bigger case with additional high-performance I/O options. But a month ago Apple debuted M3 Ultra Mac Studios, with an unchanged starting price of $3,999. The Mac Pro, still equipped with the older M2 Ultra, still starts at $6,999. Which means that for the time being, you’re not paying $3,000 extra for the same computer in a bigger case, but for a generation-older computer in a bigger case.

Presumably, M3 Ultra Mac Pros are coming soon, perhaps at WWDC. But until then, the pricing is undeniably weird when compared to the Mac Studio — and many people have thought the pricing was a bit weird compared to the Mac Studio when they were offered with the same M2-generation chips. But that’s how Apple likes to do pricing: they set a price when a product is announced, and that price never changes until a successor to that product is announced.

The erratic, illogical, nonsensical nature of Trump’s tariffs is bad for everyone. (Understatement.) But it’s particularly troublesome for a company that sees retail price stability as part of the branding for its products. Will Trump come to his senses (to some small degree), and declare a nonexistent victory next week and pull these tariffs from the board? Or stick to his guns and ride this global-economy-tanking insanity out? No one knows. Will he start granting exceptions? No one knows. So in addition to being nonsensical, the whole thing is entirely unpredictable, which is not at all compatible with the way Apple has set retail prices for decades.

My (bigly) guess is that Apple will inject its own predictability and stability into the mix, and keep its retail prices stable, for now, and take the tariff hit on its margins. But if these tariffs really stay in effect, even just for a few months, at current prices Apple would be breaking even at best, and likely losing money, on each iPhone it sells.

I observed yesterday that, in general, Visa and Mastercard credit cards are both accepted at the same locations. The most notable exception is Costco, which, as part of the deal to make its own credit card a Visa (after long partnering with Amex), only accepts Visa credit cards at its physical retail locations and gas stations. They accept “most PIN-based debit/ATM cards”, but for credit, only Visa.

Online, for reasons I don’t understand, Costco accepts Mastercard too (which they incorrectly style in camelcase — you’d think Costco, of all companies, would be sensitive to wrongly camelcased mid-name C’s). Also, in Canada’s Costcos, it’s reversed, with Mastercard being exclusive in-store but Visa being accepted online.

Another high-profile exception: The Olympics, which “proudly accepts only Visa for card and mobile payments, along with cash”.

The search for the child began at around 7 p.m. Thursday after he fell into the creek near the 3700 block of Cypresswood Drive in Spring, north of Houston. By around 8 p.m., rescue teams were searching the water for the young boy. 

It unveiled the console on Wednesday just hours before the president announced a wave of global tariffs.

The rap mogul now faces a total of five charges in a criminal trial that is set to begin next month.

The utility leased the 15 large, mobile generators at a cost of more than $800 million after the widespread power failures tied to the 2021 winter storm. The generators proved largely useless in the wake of last year’s Hurricane Beryl.

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) will debut Frida: The Making of an Icon, curated by Mari Carmen Ramírez in January 2026.

Featuring works by Frida Kahlo and artists inspired by her, the show illustrates how she transformed from being under-recognized throughout her lifetime to one of the most beloved artists by mainstream audiences. The show includes over 30 works by Ms. Kahlo and more than 120 pieces by artists inspired by her, from the 1970s and onward. Among the 72 exhibited artists are Amalia Mesa-Bains, Ana Mendieta, Carlos Almaraz, Delilah Montoya, Judy Chicago, and Kiki Smith.

In a press release, Ms. Ramírez, the Wortham Curator of Latin American Art at the MFAH and founding director of the museum’s International Center for the Arts of the Americas (ICAA), commented, “Frida: The Making of an Icon attempts to separate Frida Kahlo the artist from Frida Kahlo the phenomenon. The exhibition reveals how the different facets of Kahlo’s complex persona(lity), which she so carefully crafted and projected, were adapted again and again over her decades-long transformation into an icon.”

She continued, “As a result, her image became subsumed within the desires, fears, and hopes of artists and activists who transformed it into innovative proposals that transcend their source of inspiration while commenting on pressing issues of their place and time. In exploring that process, the exhibition re-establishes Kahlo’s own identity, and asserts her persistent relevance to contemporary art as well as activism over the past 70 years.”

The exhibition will be presented thematically in seven sections: Construction/Self-Construction, Surreal Affinities, On the Other Side of the Border, Gendered Dialogues, Neo-Mexicanisms, A Pro-Activist Legacy, and Fridamania. In addition to artworks, the show will feature documents, photographs, and memorabilia, including personal items from Ms. Kahlo’s archives. A catalog with essays by 14 contributors will accompany the exhibition.

Friday: The Making of an Icon will be on view at the MFAH from January 18 through May 17, 2026, and at the Tate Modern in London from June 25, 2026, to January 4, 2027.

The post Museum of Fine Arts, Houston to Present Frida Kahlo Exhibition in 2026 appeared first on Glasstire.

The post Climate Protestors Throw Paint On The Louvre’s 1988 Copy Of ‘Hustler’ Magazine appeared first on The Onion.

NEW YORK – Jewish students who chained themselves to the gates of Columbia University have been arrested by ICE and deported for being anti-Semitic terrorists. As the protesting students were thrown into unmarked vans, blindfolded, then placed onto waiting airplanes, Columbia president, Claire Shipman addressed reporters regarding rhe freedoms Columbia students enjoy. “We at Columbia […]

The post Jewish students at Columbia deported for being anti-Semitic appeared first on The Beaverton.

1. White people achieve new levels of whiteness via their most privileged impulses.

2. The stars of the show are a group of entitled and insensitive characters who may or may not face the consequences of their own actions.

3. There will be some antagonists and villains from previous seasons.

4. New and unsavory characters will be introduced.

5. Class, wealth, and power will be constantly explored in a way that seems humorous at first but is ultimately dispiriting and devastating.

6. An egocentric man will not consider his family’s well-being in the name of becoming obscenely rich.

7. We will witness an onslaught of clumsy international affairs.

8. There will be crimes in broad daylight, of course.

9. There will be fascinating, perplexing, and disturbing monologues by men.

10. The most dysfunctional characters will mask themselves as friendly and convivial to hide their moral flaws and inherent awfulness.

11. Tension will build as the audience realizes everyone involved has a literal nation-shattering secret.

12. Other cultures will continue to serve as a mirror to America’s bawdiness.

13. Once again, everyone looks forward to seeing the stunning property of a Four Seasons (Total Landscaping or otherwise) as a coveted filming location.

14. The vibes are always off.

15. Too often, you’ll gaze at your TV and wonder, What the fuck?

16. One is an HBO Original

17. The other, a USA unoriginal.

18. The week-to-week would seem less grim if only Jennifer Coolidge were there.

1–15: The White House and The White Lotus
16. The White Lotus
17. The White House
18. The White House and The White Lotus

WASHINGTON—In a controversial move that has outraged those critical of President Trump’s agenda, Elon Musk announced Friday that all 340 million Americans must strip and take a turn pushing the Wheel of Pain. “Pulling off your garments and crawling into the pit in order to lash yourself to the Wheel of Pain is something that Americans are just going to have to get used to,” said the billionaire senior advisor to the president, confirming that a week-long shift operating the gigantic wooden circle riddled with sharp blades and jagged glass was a necessary and important part of making the country run more efficiently. “Of course, not everyone is going to like the fact that they will be expected to push nonstop without food or water until they collapse from exhaustion and are crushed under the wheel. But the point of this is not to make everybody happy. It’s about making the tough decisions and sticking to them. Say what you will, but ultimately we’re all going to have to submit to the terrible Ring of Blood whose cleansing agony none may escape.” White House sources later confirmed that Americans in a few key leadership positions would be exempted from pushing the Wheel of Pain.

The post Musk Announces All 340 Million Americans Must Strip And Take Turn Pushing The Wheel Of Pain  appeared first on The Onion.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has published a new book, Antisemitism In America. The Onion sat down with the politician to discuss his greatest achievements, Trump’s second term, and the future of the Democratic party.

The Onion: Why did you allow the spending bill to pass?

Chuck Schumer: I finally got a 7 p.m. reservation at Carbone, and I couldn’t let the opportunity go.

The Onion: Can’t you do anything?

Schumer: I can shake this pencil between my fingers and make it look like it’s wiggling.

The Onion: What do you consider your biggest accomplishment?

Schumer: Probably achieving telepathic communication with Nancy Pelosi.

The Onion: What do you still want to accomplish?

Schumer: I don’t know exactly how it’ll happen, but I’d really like something called “The Schumer Protocol” to exist.

The Onion: Are you excited about the new generation of Democratic leaders?

Schumer: The 65-year-olds coming up have really impressed me in how quickly they fall in line.

The Onion: Are you jealous Mitch McConnell is considered the most chelonian senator, even though you also look like a turtle?

Schumer: I’m under no illusion that the American public is well-versed in herpetology.

The Onion: What’s something about you that might surprise people?

Schumer: That it’s really me sending all those text messages.

The Onion: Be honest—how do you really feel about AOC?

Schumer: Alexandria and I may not always see eye to eye on policy, but at the end of the day, I will crush her beneath my heel. 

The Onion: How do you want to leave office when the time comes?

Schumer: Gracefully by body bag.

The post The Onion’s Exclusive Interview With Chuck Schumer appeared first on The Onion.

The post Heaven Enacts Retaliatory Tariffs On U.S.-Bound Miracles appeared first on The Onion.

The post Finance Guy Doing Cocaine In Sad Way This Time appeared first on The Onion.

WASHINGTON—In response to market panic about his new wide-ranging tariffs, President Donald Trump reportedly offered Wall Street assurance Friday that he would soon go back to just fucking over poor people. “While my trade policy might cause some temporary hardships for investors, it’s ultimately intended to completely fucking destroy the livelihoods of the financially destitute,” said Trump, urging calm by insisting that big banks, hedge funds, and other major players should take a longer-term view to understand that his tariffs were necessary to increase widespread suffering among the impoverished. “My focus is and has always been on ruining the lives of the lower classes. This is just a short-term reorienting of our economy so we can get back to doing what America does best: taking advantage of the needy. In time, these tariffs will liberate the rich and destroy the well-being of the most vulnerable among us, from minimum-wage workers to the homeless.” The president went on to state that his plan to bring wealth back to the affluent and crush the welfare of those in desperate need was “going very well.”

The post Trump Assures Wall Street He’ll Go Back To Just Fucking Over Poor People Soon appeared first on The Onion.

Today's links

• End-stage capitalism: A transitional phase between feudalism and gangsterism.
• Hey look at this: Delights to delectate.
• Object permanence: 2005, 2010, 2020, 2024
• Upcoming appearances: Where to find me.
• 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.

---

End-stage capitalism (permalink)

Karl Marx predicted that capitalism would eventually fail, torn apart by its own contradictions. He called the bourgeoisie, who epitomized these contradictions, capitalism's "grave diggers":

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/books/review/a-spectre-haunting-china-mieville.html

In the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels marvel at capitalism's adaptability, its ability to reinvent itself in the face of seemingly terminal crises and emerge in a new form. For nearly two centuries, Marxists have treated capitalism as an intermediate stage between feudalism and socialism – a lengthy, but still impermanent, regime whose purpose was to produce the systems of plenty that socialism would deliver to democratic control.

But as capitalism lurched from crisis to crisis, some Marxists speculated that capitalism would give way to something even worse. In 2023, Yanis Varoufakis proposed that capitalism might end up being a transitional phase between feudalism and another kind of feudalism – technofeudalism:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital

But Trump's disastrous policies – tariffs, suspension of the rule of law, pointless military expansionism – don't serve Varoufakis's technofeudalism or any other kind of feudalism. As Hamilton Nolan writes, Trump represents a rupture of the customarily unshakable class solidarity of the wealthy. Trump's policies are not good for business. Trump is going to make America much, much poorer – and since the vast majority of American wealth is held by a tiny minority of very rich people, any program that vaporizes an appreciable fraction of American wealth will make a lot of rich people a lot poorer.

Hamilton Nolan wrote about this a couple days ago, enumerating all the ways that Trump – who LARPed a TV businessman – is extremely bad for business:

https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/divergence-from-the-interests-of

• Gutting state capacity

As Nolan writes, there are plenty on the right who don't care about the idea that public education produces the skilled workers needed to run and expand the economy, and who believe that paving half the national parks and putting a $500/day admission price on the remainder will suit them just fine. But even the most hardcore plutocrat needs a functional immigration system so they can source workers who can do the jobs Americans won't – or can't – do. You can't be a finance guy in a country with a collapsed, corrupt Treasury Department that periodically reaches into institutional bank accounts and drains them of millions in pursuit of "obscure witch-hunts":

“stupidly breaking the parts of the government that allow our financial markets to function smoothly with no apparent plan" is not “populism” any more than a bite from an alligator is a kiss

• Ending the rule of law

Anyone who claims to love "free markets" loves the rule of law. The predictability of a laws-based society is a necessary precondition for capital formation, long-term investing, and the use of contracts to coordinate business within a transparent, known set of rules.

Trump's lavish corruption – his crypto companies (which someone called "a tipjar for the Oval Office"), his sale of commutations and pardons to flagrant criminals, and his purging of Democrats within the DoJ to create space for "buffoons" who run his witch hunts – all offer good reason for investors to stay the hell out of America, and for businesses to get the hell out of the country:

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5182515-senate-democrats-complaint-ed-martin/

The spectacle of the top executives of world's most powerful multinationals openly paying bribes to Trump, while seated at Trump's own members' club, makes an eloquent case for seeking your business opportunities in another country – practically any other country:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/05/trump-dinner-mar-a-lago

Then there's Trump's interference in the Fed, "endangering financial markets for short term political gain":

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-bid-to-control-fed-puts-us-economy-at-risk-by-kenneth-rogoff-2025-01

And finally, there's his defiance of federal court orders, and his attacks on law firms that employ lawyers who had the temerity to sue him. As Nolan writes, "This is not good for business." Sure, it's grimly satisfying to think about all those rich fools who howled because Biden had the temerity to suggest modest tax hikes and improvements to labor law now having to watch as "the world’s most sophisticated corporate legal regime [is replaced] with a system in which you must grovel at his toes in a ridiculous red hat in order to get anything done."

• Military adventures

Trump is apparently going to go to war with Iran, Canada, Denmark, Mexico, and several other countries to be determined at a later date. Sure, America's military spending is higher than all the rest of the world's combined, but getting involved in several wars at once is – once again – not good for business. For one thing, he's going to kill Boeing, Lockheed, and all the other US-based arms dealers that rely on a friendly relationship with America's erstwhile allies for billions of dollars per year in business. Things are no better for the companies that do other kinds of business with the countries America is apparently on the brink of war with. This kind of "Hitlerian" program of economic growth was a failure in the previous century, and it will fail again:

Did Hitler’s wild invasions ultimate make Germany richer? No. They started a world war. And, no matter what anyone tells you, world war is not good for business.

• Tariffs

Finally, there's Trump's deranged tariff plan. As David Dayen writes for The American Propsect, these aren't really tariffs at all – they're sanctions, punishments visited upon every country in the world (even uninhabited islands!) for a bunch of imaginary crimes:

https://prospect.org/economy/2025-04-03-theyre-not-tariffs-theyre-sanctions/

Trump's tariffs make no sense as an economic policy, but they are familiar to anyone who's spent time around organized crime (like, say, Trump):

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/donald-trump-2016-mob-organized-crime-213910/

Dayen likens Trump's approach to "a mob boss moving into town and sending his thugs to every business on Main Street, roughing up the proprietors and asking for protection money so they don’t get pushed out of business." Trump's demands – such as they are – include forcing America's trading partners to do away with their privacy, food safety and antitrust laws:

https://tacd.org/wp-content/uploads/TACD-Statement-Tariffs-3-April.pdf

Even if it was worth it for other countries to dismantle their laws to enjoy continued access to US markets (it isn't), no one trusts that giving in to Trump means that he'll carry out his end of the bargain. As Brad DeLong reminds us, Trump personally negotiated the USMCA terms that Canada and Mexico have been living under since he last left office, and those are the two countries he's most pissed off at:

https://braddelong.substack.com/p/draft-mar-a-lago-discord

This isn't capitalism – it's gangsterism. It's a system that will annihilate trillions of dollars in value to put billions of dollars in the pockets of Trump and a few of his cronies – at the expense of all the other rich people.

Nolan concludes that Trump is "insane" – that his actions are irrational, disconnected from reality, impossible to understand. For Nolan, the question isn't "What is Trump trying to accomplish?" It's "how has this insane man managed to gain control of the government of the world’s richest and most powerful nation?"

He's got a hell of an answer, too:

That, my friends, is the unfortunate outcome of an economic system that has so profoundly failed to enforce economic equality, and a political system that so profoundly failed to protect its democracy from the influence of capital that it allowed itself to be totally captured by extreme lunatics backed by extreme wealth.

---

Hey look at this (permalink)

• Billionaires and Guillotines https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/plutopress/billionaires-and-guillotines

• Mozilla Thunderbird Finally Takes On Gmail With New Email Service https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2025/04/01/finally-mozilla-thunderbird-takes-on-gmail-with-new-email-service/

• Site-Blocking Legislation Is Back. It’s Still a Terrible Idea https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/04/congress-reviving-site-blocking-and-its-just-dangerous-ever

---

Object permanence (permalink)

#20yrsago Star Wars geeks in line at Grauman’s will answer payphone calls https://web.archive.org/web/20050407062702/https://liningup.net/news/2005_04.php#000088

#20yrsago Creative Commons UK: will it flower? https://web.archive.org/web/20050424082444/http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/policy/2005/04/04/cclicenseinUK.html

#15yrsago Bruce Sterling’s State-of-the-Spime address https://vimeo.com/10256403

#15yrsago Scotland Yard ignored Murdoch paper’s royal voicemail hacks https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/apr/04/police-ignored-news-world-evidence

#15yrsago Shirky: What “people must pay for content” really means https://web.archive.org/web/20100404013927/http://shirky.com/weblog/2010/04/the-collapse-of-complex-business-models/

#5yrsago The Pandumbic https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/04/a-mind-forever-voyaging/#receipts-r-us

#5yrsago Landlord accidentally organizes rent strike https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/04/a-mind-forever-voyaging/#bcc

#5yrsago Prescient Reagan-era text-adventures https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/04/a-mind-forever-voyaging/#steve-meretzky

#5yrsago MacGuyver mask tutorial https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/04/a-mind-forever-voyaging/#power-couple

#5yrsago Private equity looting public health in a pandemic https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/04/a-mind-forever-voyaging/#prop-bets

#5yrsago Bookshop: a local, indie alternative to Amazon https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/05/25-30ml-of-sputum/#crowleys

#5yrsago Socioeconomics of coronavirus https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/05/25-30ml-of-sputum/#covid-class-war

#1yrago General Mills and cheaply bought "dietitians" co-opted the anti-diet movement https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/05/corrupt-for-cocoa-puffs/#flood-the-zone-with-shit

#1yrago Too big to care https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/04/teach-me-how-to-shruggie/#kagi

---

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

---

Upcoming appearances (permalink)

• Bloomington: Picks and Shovels at Morgenstern, Apr 4
  https://morgensternbooks.com/event/2025-04-04/author-event-cory-doctorow

• Bloomington: Ostrom Center, Apr 4
  https://events.iu.edu/ostromworkshop/event/1843316-hls-beyond-the-web-cory-doctorow

• Pittsburgh: Picks and Shovels at White Whale Books, May 15
  https://whitewhalebookstore.com/events/20250515

• Pittsburgh: PyCon, May 16
  https://us.pycon.org/2025/schedule/

• PDX: Teardown 2025, Jun 20-22
  https://www.crowdsupply.com/teardown/portland-2025

• PDX: Picks and Shovels at Barnes and Noble, Jun 20
  https://stores.barnesandnoble.com/event/9780062183697-0

• Manchester: Picks and Shovels at Blackwell, Jul 2
  https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-evening-with-cory-doctorow-tickets-1308451968059

• New Orleans: DeepSouthCon63, Oct 10-12, 2025
  http://www.contraflowscifi.org/

---

Recent appearances (permalink)

• The Political Orphanage
  https://player.fm/series/the-political-orphanage/cory-doctorow-on-the-evils-of-copyright-law

• Fire the unelected social media dictators (Al Jazeera Upfront)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXa4DzhkUZ8

• Capitalists Hate Capitalism (MMT Podcast)
  https://pileusmmt.libsyn.com/195-capitalists-hate-capitalism-with-cory-doctorow

---

Latest books (permalink)

• • 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 (the-bezzle.org). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3062/Available_Feb_20th%3A_The_Bezzle_HB.html#/).

• "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). Signed, personalized copies at Dark Delicacies (https://www.darkdel.com/store/p3007/Pre-Order_Signed_Copies%3A_The_Lost_Cause_HB.html#/)

• "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. Signed copies at Dark Delicacies (US): and Forbidden Planet (UK): https://forbiddenplanet.com/385004-red-team-blues-signed-edition-hardcover/.

• "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

• "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone technothriller for adults. The Washington Post called it "a political cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html

• "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a solution. https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59?sk=f6cd10e54e20a07d4c6d0f3ac011af6b) (signed copies: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)

• "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new introduction by Edward Snowden: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

• "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime, gender, and kicking ass. Order here: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed copy here: https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2682/Corey_Doctorow%3A_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer_HB.html#/.

---

Upcoming books (permalink)

• 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/

• Unauthorized Bread: a middle-grades graphic novel adapted from my novella about refugees, toasters and DRM, FirstSecond, 2026

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

• The Memex Method, Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2026

---

Colophon (permalink)

Today's top sources:

Currently writing:

• Enshittification: a nonfiction book about platform decay for Farrar, Straus, Giroux. Status: second pass edit underway (readaloud)

• A Little Brother short story about DIY insulin PLANNING

• Picks and Shovels, a Martin Hench noir thriller about the heroic era of the PC. FORTHCOMING TOR BOOKS FEB 2025

Latest podcast: With Great Power Came No Responsibility: How Enshittification Conquered the 21st Century and How We Can Overthrow It https://craphound.com/news/2025/02/26/with-great-power-came-no-responsibility-how-enshittification-conquered-the-21st-century-and-how-we-can-overthrow-it/

---

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.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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.

---

How to get Pluralistic:

Blog (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

Pluralistic.net

Newsletter (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

https://pluralistic.net/plura-list

Mastodon (no ads, tracking, or data-collection):

https://mamot.fr/@pluralistic

Medium (no ads, paywalled):

https://doctorow.medium.com/

Twitter (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising):

https://twitter.com/doctorow

Tumblr (mass-scale, unrestricted, third-party surveillance and advertising):

https://mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/tagged/pluralistic

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

ISSN: 3066-764X

A couple of years ago, I discovered something that caught my interest. I was working with frequent collaborator Anonymous in Houston on preparing a list of interesting Krogers. We decided that for no particular reason, 2023 would be “The Year of Kroger” on HHR. Every month, AIH would write a post on a Kroger he thought was interesting. While he was writing, I was taking photos, so I had to know why each Kroger was ...

The five bills that would require complete air conditioning in state prisons haven’t had a hearing yet, and the money set for the upgrades falls short of the estimated cost.

In brief: Continued wind in Houston today will finally break tomorrow as a cold front ushers in showers and thunderstorms in the afternoon. There is some severe weather risk on Saturday before we slowly clear out on a much cooler Sunday, setting up a gorgeous week to come.

Good morning, H-Town. Any day after an Astros “W” is a good day. The Astros are off today, and although the Rockets play an okay team from OKC tonight, today that W actually stands for wind.

Today

We’ll have to do some digging on how this spring has actually compared to previous springs in terms of wind when we get some time, but today is going to be no different. Wind advisories are again in effect today, and we’ll see southeast winds gusting as high as 35 mph. Oak pollen remains extremely high, and although we’re past peak now all this wind is going to keep carrying it around.

Outside of wind, expect another hot day today with temperature pushing well into the 80s and plenty of humidity. We get to track the potential for showers or a thunderstorm later this afternoon. Modeling has been trying to initiate storms near I-10 or just north before quickly lifting them northeastward. That may very well be what happens. As those storms move northeast, they’d be likely to intensify, and it’s not out of the question for a couple raucous storms to impact portions of Montgomery, Liberty, Walker, San Jacinto, or Polk Counties late today. We do not expect severe weather in the Houston Metro today. The highest severe risk remains up in far northeast Texas and Arkansas, where a moderate risk (4/5) is in place.

Saturday

After a continued breezy, warm, humid Friday night, we get to watch the potential for some strong thunderstorms on Saturday. The timing of the front hitting the area right now appears to be in the 11 AM through 4 PM window. It will enter the western parts of the area as a broken line of showers and some storms. As it crosses the Houston Metro, it will likely begin to ramp up a bit.

The Storm Prediction Center has us in a slight (level 2/5) risk for severe storms as this happens. The exact timing of the front may determine our odds of severe weather. A slower front would likely have more instability to tap into, whereas a faster front would hit earlier in the day with less instability. Generally speaking, the farther to the east you go, the better your chances of seeing severe thunderstorms. Whatever the case, we will update you Saturday morning (or possibly later today) with the latest. All severe weather hazards are on the table, including hail, damaging winds, and an isolated tornado or two. Additionally, any storm could easily dump 1 to 3 inches of rain in an hour causing some flash street flooding. Stay tuned.

Outside of storms, expect highs in the 80s again with lingering showers in the area Saturday evening.

Sunday

We will shift to a significantly cooler theme on Sunday. Some lingering clouds or even a few AM showers should give way to sunshine, but after a morning in the 50s or even upper-40s, we will limp into the lower or middle 60s for highs. It will feel awfully cool compared to how this week has been.

Next week

Bust open the windows! (responsibly, of course) It looks like Monday is going to be stellar. Morning lows in the 40s will be followed by daytime highs near 70 degrees. Tuesday? Nice; 50s to mid 70s. Wednesday? Nice; 50s to upper 70s to near 80 degrees. Thursday? Still nice! Warmer though with 80s. All we do is win, win, win no matter what next week. We’ll call that a “W” too.

#Rowen #RoninWarriors

Critics are questioning if Donald Trump's administration possibly used chatbots to calculate reciprocal tariffs announced yesterday that Trump claimed were "individualized" tariffs placed on countries that have " the largest trade deficits" with the US.

Those tariffs are due to take effect on April 9 for 60 countries, with peak rates around 50 percent. That's in addition to a baseline 10 percent tariff that all countries will be subject to starting on April 5. But while Trump expressed intent to push back on anyone supposedly taking advantage of the US, some of the countries on the reciprocal tariffs list puzzled experts and officials, who pointed out to The Guardian that Trump was, for some reason, targeting uninhabited islands, some of them exporting nothing and populated with penguins.

Some overseas officials challenged Trump's math, such as George Plant, the administrator of Norfolk Island, who told the Guardian that "there are no known exports from Norfolk Island to the United States and no tariffs or known non-tariff trade barriers on goods coming to Norfolk Island."

Read full article

Comments