Hasnain says:

This whole thing has been such a shitshow.

“Since the AMA, some subreddits have escalated their response. Over at r/iPhone, the moderators posted early morning that their original plan was to go dark for just 48 hours, but Huffman’s behavior changed their minds:

Originally, the protest was planned to be 48 hours. However, after a shambolic AMA held by Reddit’s CEO, it has become clear to us that Reddit doesn’t intend to act in good faith. When the CEO is willing to lie and spread libellous claims about another third-party developer, and then try double down by vilifying them, again, in an AMA, despite being proven as a liar by the developer through audio recordings, that’s when we knew what we were up against.”

Hasnain says:

“There can and should be open debate about police reform, diversity, covid-19 policies and other issues — both between the two parties and among progressives and other non-Republicans. But when we have a left that is pushing America to finish the work of the 1960s and create a true multicultural democracy and a right that is banning Black intellectual ideas from public schools, it’s a huge mistake for powerful non-Republicans in society to spend so much time bashing the left. This anti-woke centrism often sounds as though people are auditioning to be today’s version of the “white moderates” the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. castigated six decades ago.

…

But Licht and others like him should definitely stop being so anti-woke. It is disappointing that some of the most powerful people in the country think the problem in America is that people are too critical of the police and insufficiently critical of transgender activists. I can’t tell if the anti-woke don’t understand what’s actually happening in America — or if they actively oppose a more equitable country.”

Hasnain says:

“As the Republican “culture war” has turned into a full-fledged battle against basic human rights, the political media’s continued insistence on covering it like just another political tactic is enabling it.

That’s right: Journalistic restraint is aiding and abetting the dehumanizing of gay and trans people by a bunch of evil fanatics.”

Hasnain says:

The SEC quotes here are... gold

"The SEC’s complaint alleges that Zhao and Binance created BAM Management and BAM Trading in September 2019 as part of an elaborate scheme to evade U.S. federal securities laws by claiming that BAM Trading operated the Binance.US platform independently and that U.S. customers were not able to use the Binance.com platform. The complaint alleges that, in reality, Zhao and Binance maintained substantial involvement and control of the U.S. entity and that, behind the scenes, Zhao directed Binance to allow and conceal many high-value U.S. customers’ continued access to Binance.com. In one instance, the Binance chief compliance officer messaged a colleague that, “[w]e are operating as a fking unlicensed securities exchange in the USA bro.”"

Hasnain says:

“Without the ballast in place, railway lines would simply not be able to cope with the stress from the weight of the trains passing over them, not to mention the impacts of expansion and contraction.
So, the next time you are near a railway line and you see the loose stones all around, you will now hopefully have a greater respect for the role they play in getting you safely to your destination.”

Hasnain says:

Every introvert’s nightmare, magnified.

“McSorley had already been out to watch them once, so when her friend came to town for a visit, she asked her if she wanted to go.

"Her reaction was, 'No, I don't like the ocean. I'm scared of sharks. I'm scared of anything I can't see in the water.' And I so ignorantly told her, 'Oh, they're never going to dump you over. The kayaks are very stable. I've never had an issue,'" McSorley said.

"And so she reluctantly came with me just to have a new experience."”

Hasnain says:

Debunking more COVID myths. I wish this had come out earlier.

“"More than 70% of transmissions in households with adults and children were from a pediatric index case, but this percentage fluctuated weekly," the study authors wrote. "Once US schools reopened in fall 2020, children contributed more to inferred within-household transmission when they were in school, and less during summer and winter breaks, a pattern consistent for 2 consecutive school years."

The researchers said the finding that pediatric COVID-19 transmission was negatively correlated with new community cases during most of the pandemic is consistent with that of a previous study.”

Hasnain says:

:( this is horrifying

“It is believed that several carriages from the Shalimar-Chennai Coromandel Express derailed at about 19:00 local time (13:30 GMT), with some of them ending up on the opposite track.

Another train - the Howrah Superfast Express travelling from Yesvantpur to Howrah - is then thought to have hit the overturned carriages.

Indian officials said that a goods train - which was stationary at the site - was also involved in the incident. They provided no further details.”

Hasnain says:

“Fuck that. The common thread is nothing more than a pulsing desire by the already powerful to sew up the last few places in the world that they are forced to deal with regular people on an equal playing field. Elon Musk is rich and powerful, but he looked like an idiot when he tried standup comedy. Thomas Friedman is distressingly influential and comfortable cheerleading a war, but he looked pretty normal when he got a pie in the face on stage. And David Zaslav can force thousands of writers to risk their livelihoods in order to go on strike, but he can’t help looking like a pathetic greed-drunk uncool dad when all the kids start booing him at his commencement speech.

If we lived in a more equal society in which everyone had a fair and democratic chance to exercise their own power and influence, we could have a reasonable discussion about toning down “incivility.” Until then, fuck it. You gotta use what you got. Keep booing these fuckers when you are forced to listen to their speeches. Yell at Stephen Miller when you see him in a restaurant. Make fun of billionaires. They can have everything else, but they’re not entitled to our love. They didn’t earn it.”

Hasnain says:

My only disagreement with this piece is in the final sentence: it’s deserving of more than just a little contempt.

“Recognizing the justices’ ideological project also points to the beginning of the solution. We ought to begin talking about the justices the way we talk about other political actors — recognizing that their first name is not Justice and that they, like other politicians, should be identified by their party.

We should stop talking about another branch’s potential defiance of a judicial opinion as an attack on “the rule of law” and instead understand it as an attack on rule by judges, one that may (or may not) be a justified response to some act of judicial governance. And those other branches should be more willing — as they have at other moments in American history — to use the tools at their disposal, including cutting the judiciary’s funding, to put the courts in their place.

In recent years, the judiciary has shown little but contempt for other governing institutions. It has earned a little contempt in return.”