Extra, Extra
Label Libel: “Sheehan, forty-four, specializes in consumer-protection class-action suits. Specifically, he focusses on packaged foods, and on the authenticity of their ingredients and flavors. Sheehan has sued the makers of frosted strawberry Pop-Tarts (dearth of real strawberries), Hint of Lime Tostitos (absence of lime), Snapple ‘all natural’ fruit drinks (absence of natural juice), Keebler’s fudge-mint cookies (lack of real fudge and mint), Cheesecake Factory brown bread (insufficient whole-grain flour), Trident original-flavor gum (lack of real mint, despite package’s illustration of a blue mint leaf), and many more, generally seeking millions in damages from each.” The New Yorker: The Lies in Your Grocery Store. “Most people accept the gimmicks of food labelling. One lawyer can’t stomach them.” (I read this while lowering my cholesterol with a few bowls of Honey Nut Cheerios.)
+ Space Force: Elon Musk doesn’t really get free speech, he’s increasingly become a fan of conspiracy theories and antisemitic tropes, he stiffs vendors (including many SF small businesses), and he’s ruined Twitter. But he’s also one of the most powerful people in the world. “Elon Musk secretly ordered his engineers to turn off his company’s Starlink satellite communications network near the Crimean coast last year to disrupt a Ukrainian sneak attack on the Russian naval fleet.”
+ No Bench: 67% of Dems say they want a candidate other than Joe Biden as the party’s nominee. But “when those respondents were asked who the party’s 2024 nominee should be, no other person polled above 3%.”
+ Whatever Floats Your Boat: “It took investigators months to unravel the mystery of the engine’s breakdown. But this much was clear at the outset: The Freedom’s collapse was another unmistakable sign that the Navy had spent billions of dollars and more than a decade on warships with rampant and crippling flaws.” The Inside Story of How the Navy Spent Billions on the “Little Crappy Ship.” (This seems like a reasonable time to listen to Lyle Lovett sing If I had a Boat which makes it a reasonable time follow that up with Pants is Overrated.)
+ Apple Cored: “China ordered officials at central government agencies not to use Apple’s iPhones and other foreign-branded devices for work or bring them into the office.” (If my Apple-heavy stock portfolio is any indication, this is a big deal.)
+ A Different Eras Tour: “Bruce Springsteen has canceled plans to play a slate of arena concerts this month, saying the move was recommended by his medical team due to ‘symptoms of peptic ulcer disease.'”
