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Daily Bafflements

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Daily Bafflements
January 14, 2016
• Yesterday afternoon, Al Jazeera America unceremoniously announced the end of all television and digital operations and a massive round of layoffs, to the detriment of another corps of journalists and the delight of a coterie of trolls. • Much like those in the news ...

Daily Bafflements
January 13, 2016
• Your chances of winning the Powerball may be 1 in 292 million, but that hasn’t stopped the media’s bullshit spinners from coming up with terrible advice of their own. One “expert” on Fox News suggests you “buy as many tickets ...

Daily Bafflements
January 11, 2016
• The FT recognizes the limits of attempting to humanize Charles Koch over lunch: “Koch would like us to get to know him. Or, more accurately, he has been persuaded that staying silent is counterproductive both politically and, increasingly, for his business.” ...

Daily Bafflements
January 08, 2016
• Today in techies: Elon Musk’s SpaceX plans to avenge its earlier, more flaccid rocket by landing one on a drone ship, and Martin Shkreli spoils a blind date’s appetite when he orders a $120 cup of tea. • A private art museum in San Francisco is being ...

Daily Bafflements
January 06, 2016
• Mark Zuckerberg is reading world-renowned war criminal Henry Kissinger’s latest book, World Order—and he thinks you should too! The naive Zuckerberg explains, “[It’s] about foreign relations and how we can build peaceful relationships ...

Daily Bafflements
January 04, 2016
• ‘Tis the season to be grateful, as Baffler contributing editor Barbara Ehrenreich notes in the New York Times: Falalala-laa-lalalala. • Reasons to feel jaded, part two: Ethan Couch, the “affluenza teen” we keep hearing about, was but a pale shadow of his ...

Daily Bafflements
December 30, 2015
• Everyone knows you can easily spend an exorbitant amount of money at New York City restaurants. Typically, though, a high three figure bill is associated with such upscale (and probably overrated) establishments as Per Se and Spotted Pig, not Bubba Gump Shrimp or ...

Daily Bafflements
December 28, 2015
• Research by Microsoft shows that when robots send out tweets about activism, they reap a higher level of engagement than calls to action by actual humans do. According to MIT Review, “Potential volunteers responded negatively when the clearly ...

Daily Bafflements
December 18, 2015
• After being arrested for what the FBI is calling a “securities fraud trifecta of lies, deceit and greed,” pharma-bro Martin Shkreli stepped down today from his role as CEO of Turing pharmaceuticals. The intelligence agency compared Shkreli’s business model to a ...

Daily Bafflements
December 16, 2015
• Pro Publica delves into a case in Washington, where a young woman recanted a true story of being raped by a man who turned out to be a serial offender. The inconsistencies in her story and seemingly odd behavior—both of which are fairly normal in ...

Daily Bafflements
December 14, 2015
• Hillary Clinton has a line about how, if elected, she will be “the youngest woman president” but her appeal is mainly with college-educated boomers: “Mrs. Clinton’s candidacy has not yet sparked among young women the kind of excitement about ...

Daily Bafflements
December 11, 2015
• Today in union busting: Midwestern home improvement giant Menards has made managers sign an employment agreement stating that Meanwhile, in New York City, where the death toll on construction worksites has been on the rise, union workers are rallying today for safer ...