Afternoon Tea 4.13.2021 - Monkeydactyl

Biden calls for our troops in Afghanistan to be out by 9/11, cops in Minnesota did an Xzibit when it came to shooting black citizens, for five years we sent soldiers to a Soviet base in Afghanistan that was radioactive, Clubhouse got scraped, why you hate internet recipe pages, and we discovered a dinosaur that has thumbs. It’s Tuesday, April 13th 2021, Ramadan has begun, and this is the Tea. (Source of below image)

Biden will withdraw all US forces from Afghanistan by 9/11/21 (Washington Post) If we actually leave, I will donate to Kamala Harris’ PAC or something else neoliberal.

'They’re trying to deny us until we die': Veterans hope new toxic exposure bill will spur change at VA (Stars & Stripes) & New VA Secretary promises to follow through with executive order on K2 Vets (WKRG - NW Florida) Because every day brings a new nightmare, I’m only just learning about the hundreds of vets who have been diagnosed with cancer and respiratory illnesses after they served at a former Soviet military installation, Karshi-Khanabad Air Base in Uzbekistan. The VA is being surprisingly awful about this, so a few senators and advocates are getting louder about it. Can we not send our soldiers to a abandoned radioactive Soviet base during the next forever war?

“I Felt Hate More Than Anything”: How an Active Duty Airman Tried to Start a Civil War (ProPublica) I’m not sure we’ll ever know how close we were to a Fort Sumter level event on 1/6. And that makes me so worried for the future.

Yes, police can pull you over for hanging an air freshener in your car (CNN) & Let It Burn (The Paris Review 6.8.20) & BCA identifies officer in Daunte Wright shooting (KTSP) To sum up, a police trainer, union president, and veteran with 25 years on the force, yelled “taser,” then shot a kid. During the protests happening surrounding the Trial of Officer Derek Chauvin, the cop who killed George Floyd. I can’t really say I give a crap that the officer who shot Daunte Wright resigned. I’m stuck thinking about the myths broken down in this great piece by Status Kuo, how many times people have called me stupid and racist for telling them those exact myths, especially #3, are true.

How Facebook’s Ad System Lets Companies Talk Out of Both Sides of Their Mouths (The Markup) In 2016, Project Alamo & Trump’s digital team pioneered the use of “Dark Ads” which allowed them to serve different political messages to people in the same geographic location. The Markup has discovered that corporations like Exxon and Comcast now have that power! If you see an ad from Exxon on Facebook, it’s most likely materially different than the one your moron friend who thinks masks give you Covinfluenza sees. That’s Gangster.

I Thought My Job Was To Report On Technology In India. Instead, I Got A Front-Row Seat To The Decline Of My Democracy. (BuzzFeed.News) Bleak narrative surrounding the last few years of Big Tech skipping hand in hand with Modi, BJP, and the RSS, a Hindu nationalist organization. Modi succeeded in many things that Trump hoped to. So if you want to get a sense of what could happen if we don’t push back, here it is.

Clubhouse data leak: 1.3 million scraped user records leaked online for free (Cybernews) While scraping not hacking, the fact that all of this information was available for anyone with the time and tools to grab it, is fucked. Reporters have already started unearthing anonymous Twitter identities by pairing them with the info in the Clubhouse. Which is what happens when you move fast and break things, Marc.

Tech keeps trying to ‘fix’ recipe sites. Food bloggers wish they’d stop. (Protocol) Speaking of broken things, recipe pages on the internet! What’s the joke, that a serial killer will just hide confessions to murders in recipe blogs, and no one will find them because they’re after the recipe?

Facebook deletes (and then restores) the French town of Bitche’s page (The Local FR) Route de BITCHE is definitely going to get visited once we’re free to move about the planet again. I can’t wait to be hung over on that road some random Sunday morning.

Scientists find ancient flying 'Monkeydactyl' with oldest opposed thumb (CNET - Full Text) New Pterosaur just dropped. This one has thumbs. With a wingspan of just under 3ft, I know one of you animal lunatics would own ones of these Flying Monkeys if they still existed. Those IG stories would be lit.

Song of the Tea: Keeping the theme going, I have a question for any of my West Coast/underground people. Is there a neo-high standards wave that us people who aren’t “with it” anymore are missing? Are we about to see a few months of Sinatra, Dean Martin, and nuRave Dixie? Because…I’m strangely fine with it. This slaps.

Can you rest for a moment? Even if not for long, just a moment in the warm light.

Yours,