Afternoon Tea 5.5.21 - Nonuplets

A Mali woman reportedly gave birth to 9 kids in a Moroccan hospital, Afghan grift continues even as we make for the exits, you can pay for stuff in Russia with your face, Chicago spent over $30 million on a system to “hear” gunshots that led cops to no crimes 86% of the time, and the American pandemic baby boom is officially a bust. It's Wednesday, May 5th 2021, and this is your Tea.

US birth rate falls to lowest point in more than a century (Associated Press) It’s almost as if no one wants to birth a child into a lawless climate hellscape, raise a kid over Zoom, and have them graduate into a world where jobs with benefits are a thing of the past unless you speak magic internet.

Mali woman gives birth to nine babies: government (Agence France-Presse) Malian woman gave birth to nine children, after initially believing she was carrying seven. Five girls & four boys were born by Caesarean section. While we’re waiting on the Moroccan health ministry to confirm the case, I can’t fathom the insanity of going from no kids to 9 kids.

How Afghanistan’s President Helped His Brother Secure Lucrative Mining Deals with a US Contractor (OCCRP) Long, boring, minutiae filled report about how the latest president of Afghanistan greased the skids for SOS International to win an exclusive contract to access mines across Afghanistan. Which stems from a 2011 Special Forces led initiative to work with members of a pro-gov’t militia in a mineral rich Afghan province. Deep grift.

With Kremlin’s blessing, Russian companies embrace biometric ambitions (RestOfWorld) No matter where you are in the world, never, ever “pay with your face” for anything. Use literally any other form of currency than your biometric data, especially in Russia or SE Asia.

Data Show Demand for Butt Implants Soared During the Pandemic (Bloomberg) Apparently Butt Implants are different than Butt Lifts, where the latter tones “pancake butt” while the former “provides volume.” I thought Coors Light & pork rinds were generally the recommended prescription for getting a voluminous ass.

The Bigger Short (The Intercept) Remember that crap that happened with residential real estate over a decade ago? It’s shaping up to be a huge risk surrounding commercial real estate.

If ShotSpotter constantly misfires, what’s Chicago getting for its $33 million? (Chicago Sun Times) There’s this bullshit system in Chicago the cops use called “ShotSpotter” which claims it can hear gunshots with “97% accuracy.” I use the word claims because police officers responding to calls that originate from this Great Value Panopticon, they report no evidence of a crime 86% of the time. Also the system costs $33 million a year. Just putting it out there.

Online shopping changed, and we barely noticed (Vox) Great discussion of how social media has morphed, ever so slowly, into social commerce. Boring if you don’t work for the Internet, but wildly exciting if you’re struggling to understand how that ad that “got you” on FB or IG works.

We investigated Elon Musk’s claim Tesla bought every USB cable in the Bay Area (SFGate) Short answer, of course he did not. This seems like minutiae, but I really do like the reporter’s reasoning here. If Musk and Tesla are motivated and willing to lie about something as mundane as buying USB cables, we really do need to take a moment and critically evaluate core messages about his company and other things that, if taken at face value, translate into millions of dollars in revenue or profit for his firms. Lying is a habit, it takes practice.

Persuading the Body to Regenerate Its Limbs (New Yorker) Humans are not very persuasive when it comes to tricking or convincing parts of our innate regenerative capacities to work after we’re out of the womb. We’re getting better at it slowly, and something called “bioelectricity” might be the key.

Leaving you with an Earthrise taken from Kaguya, the Japanese lunar orbiter.

Song of the Tea: Bloom Line & Brooke Alexx combine for a dancey, poppy tune with some more elevated, possibly playful emotional intelligence.

Yours,