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Just a grift before I go Is it possible that the same affinity for conspiracy theories on the right (yes, the left has its own) accompanies the gullibility that makes conservatives fall for grifts? Charlie Kirk is selling Blackout Coffee, you know, for when “The world is in flames, and Bidenomics is a complete and total disaster,” and the liberal zombie apocalypse comes to turn you gay. There are some brands that cater to lefty sensibilities, writes Ali Breland at The Atlantic. But it’s the expansion of niche products for the conservative paranoid that has caught his attention: The ads reflect the new paradigm of advertising. In previous decades, ads had to appeal to whole segments of the population—and products were made with that in mind. That some readers of Vanity Fair might want a Givenchy handbag, and some readers of Sports Illustrated might want Callaway golf clubs, was as targeted as ads could get. Now the country has fractured into partisan subgroups, and companies have access to reams of analytics that enable them to target ever more precise demographics.

You read a poem and it awakens you to something that you already knew.

Poachers, when caught stealing content from our website, always blamed the theft on an “intern” or “freelancer.” We always pretended to believe them.

The post Ah yes, the famous “intern did it” syndrome appeared first on Jeffrey Zeldman Presents.

In this column, professional speechwriter Chandler Dean provides partly satirical, partly genuine “How To” advice focused on a hyper-specific subcategory of speeches—from graduation speeches to wedding toasts to eulogies, and all the rhetorical occasions in between.

Writing is already hard when everything is fine. But often, things are bad. Sometimes, for example, someone has died. And as if that person’s loved ones haven’t suffered enough, they are soon subjected to an afternoon of inexperienced public speaking.

Fundamentally, the process of writing a eulogy is surreal. For any other life event where you have to give a speech, no one would ever encourage you to wait until that week to start writing.

You gotta laugh to keep from crying One of MSNBC’s commentators remarked Tuesday on the “thugocracy” on display at Donald Trump’s criminal trial. A parade of characters has pilgrimaged to Lower Manhattan to display their fealty to Boss Trump. On the day his defense rested, they included Chuck Zito, former convict and former leader of the New York chapter of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang. Trump likes his “heavies.” Rachel Maddow remarked: The Hells Angels leader is a very large man wearing a very flamboyant suit with a big, dyed-black pompadour, and huge, gaudy jewelry on very large hands. And he’s sitting next to Boris Epshteyn, who kind of looks like his body double. And there’s Alan Dershowitz, and there’s other recognizable people. And there’s members of Congress and well-known lawyers. And everybody seems sort of, there is a sort of performative aspect to the way they’re behaving in court. It is very noticeable for those of us who are there observing as journalists. I don’t know if they’re catching the jury’s attention so much.

In "Boom," Steven Moffat reveals more of the slightly hidden lore of the 51st-century history he created in Doctor Who beginning in 2005.

Since Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine Central Asian states and the EU have been forging ties to end their reliance on the sanctioned country

Alert: This is Verizon letting you know that an unrecognized device, the only device you’ve ever used to sign in to our website, has logged into your account. Was that you? Was it??

We are freaking out over here. We have no idea if this device—your only device—was you logging in. For all we know, it could be anyone. It could be an enemy that you have. Is there an enemy you have who might’ve used a device we don’t know to log into your account? Or was it you?

It was you, right???

It might not be. That’s why we asked, Is “AUDREY FARNSWORTH MACBOOK AIR” you, Audrey Farnsworth? We don’t recognize this device, even though you have literally never used any other device to log into our website.

But that doesn’t mean it’s NOT possible that it wasn’t you. There is actually no way of us knowing that. We weren’t there, physically, to see the logging in. That’s why we’re asking. So, was it?

With news that senior Murdoch executives now face a civil trial, Peter Jukes looks back on a decade of deceit

In today's BCTV Daily Dispatch: The Rookie, Walker, The Boys, X-Men '97, Smiling Friends, Starfleet Academy, The Acolyte, Doctor Who & more!

Clair Wills has long been among the most supple and illuminating explorers of the intertwined cultural histories of Ireland and Britain. She works in the intersections between social experience and literary representation, giving as much weight to supposedly ordinary lives as to momentous political events and artistic movements. That Neutral Island: A History of Ireland During […]

The post Making Sense of the Missing  appeared first on The New York Review of Books.

An animated day-in-the-life of this historic English county travels from market to dale to capture its northern essence

- by Aeon Video

Watch at Aeon

Just because you live in a body, doesn’t mean you feel at one with it. Embodiment psychology can help you reconnect

- by Elna Schütz

Read at Psyche

More young adults seek mental health treatment and struggle with affordability than older adults. Do economic factors play a role in worsening mental health indicators?

The leaked memo reveals Downing Street feared letting veterans use their veteran IDs would "open the floodgates" to also making it easier for students to vote

I believe that no-one deserves to be a billionaire. In the public realm, defenders of wealth concentration often come up with an example of a person who has created all their wealth themselves – the selfmade billionaire. They didn’t get their money from inheritance or some other form of luck, but from entrepreneurial instincts and […]

Nuri Khayal and Jonathan Loke Many households in the UK have seen their mortgage payments go up since mortgage rates started to increase in 2022. In the current environment of higher rates, the question of how much a household can comfortably spend on their mortgage payments before getting into financial distress is particularly relevant. This … Continue reading The link between mortgage debt servicing burdens and arrears: is there a critical threshold? →

Despite a raft of public scandals involving government corruption and negligence, there is still no adequate statutory framework to bring those guilty of misconduct in a public office to account