All The News That’s Fit To Spit [DOT 29/05/24] – DeadSplinter (2024)

This is apparently what passes for good news in America these days: Missouri student pays off entire school’s lunch debt.

Daken Kramer paid off the entire meal debt and then some, for his elementary school in Blue Springs, Missouri, after turning in a check for more than $7,300. Daken’s original goal was $3,500, which was just overthe total of the school’s debt, according to Daken’s mother, Vanessa Kramer. The remaining amount was given to Blue Springs High School, another school in the district.

“Children in elementary school should not have debt tied to their name. We have found out that there are high schools that keep seniors from attending prom or walking at graduation if they have stuff like student lunch debt,” Kramer said. “Some families can’t help it. They can’t pay it off.”

… the, uh, what now?

While Daken’s fundraiser cleared his school’s meal debt, the Blue Springs School District meal debt totals to more than $235,000, according to Woolf. The district includes 20 schools at varying levels.

This was pitched as a good-news story on CNN and it is f*cking horrific. There are deeper stats in there about million-dollar lunch debts in some districts and it’s just like … we can’t just let kids have food? We can only shut off the orphan-crushing machine if someone raises a bunch of money to turn it off for a few hours? And why do we have an orphan-crushing machine is just not a question we’re willing to ask?

Well, if you think they have a problem with kids having food, just WAIT until you hear about giving adults food: States look to block universal basic income programs

You can guess which states and which party is deeply against this and why — WHAT IF BLACK PEOPLE GET IT TOO?!?!?!?!? — but they use very neutral terms like “shrink the workforce” and “expand welfare” and “spend on vices” and stuff because you can’t just use racial slurs in these woke times. But what the actual research shows is … I mean, you know what’s coming here, right?

Research has complicated those critiques: After a year of receiving $500 a month, participants in a pilot guaranteed income program in Stockton, California, saw greater increases to theirfull-time employment ratesthan members of a control group who weren’t receiving the regular payments. Research also shows people use the cash foressentials like rent and food; participating in pilots has also beenshownto improve some people’s physical and mental health. The expanded Child Tax Credit — an example of the kind of far-reaching, unrestricted cash transfer advocates would like to see applied nationally —helped lift an estimated 3 to 3.5 million children out of povertyin each of its first three months in 2021.

But I suppose if you don’t mind children starving, I can’t see why you’d draw the line at adults. Who else could run the orphan-crushing machine?!

Plus, we don’t have that much money to spend here in America because we’re too busy shipping bombs to Israel that they can drop on our $320 million pier in Gaza which, uh oh, isn’t even functional.

A temporary pier built by the US military to deliver aid to Gaza has been damaged by heavy seas and will take at least a week to be repaired, according to US officials.

US forces began building the floating pier – which is attached to Gaza’s shoreline by a temporary causeway – several weeks ago. The causeway portion of the project has now reportedly broken off and will have to be repaired before being returned to its position.

Humanitarian organisations have warned that the amount of aid reaching Palestinians in Gaza is only a fraction of what is required to meet the needs of its population.

I think it’s great that the two choices in this year’s election are “Bomb Gaza” and “Bomb Gaza Harder But Also Kill Protesters” which is to say there’s a pretty obvious better choice but not a good choice.

Seems strange that several Supreme Court justices are married to lunatics: Alito’s wife seems like the worst possible neighbor and lied about the upside-down flag timing

Mrs. Alito happened to be standing outside. According to interviews with Ms. Baden and her husband, as well as messages they sent to friends at the time, Mrs. Alito ran toward their car and yelled something they did not understand. The couple continued driving, they said, and as they passed the Alito home again to exit the cul-de-sac, Mrs. Alito appeared to spit toward the vehicle.

Lovely couple, I’m sure. The Times noted there were “some differences” between the word salad from the Alitos and the documentation available from the neighbors that shows the Alitos might have lied. Shocked!

On to the lightning round!

Trump trial likely going to jury today: While I never want to believe he’ll ever face a consequence ever, this was eyebrow-raising …

NYC Corrections, Secret Service have made plans for possible jailing: It’s interesting, at least!

Is Trump making money off the Secret Service: Many people are saying he’s a business genius!

RFK got very upset at Confederate statues being torn down: Who could have guessed?

The NYT called it a “glitch” but I think I might call it “election fraud”: Ohio GOP tried to keep Biden off the ballot in the state, but the Dems figured out a way (which thankfully will not include anything to prevent them from doing this nonsense again in the future, we can’t have that)

Cool Pope maybe not so cool: “Never meant to offend” <vomits>

At this point I feel like I’ve spit enough bad news. So! For the first time ever, the good news section! (And I mean actual good news, not “the orphan-crushing machine lost a part and had to shut down for 12 minutes today” faux good news)

The most hated man in baseball is retiring: It’s hard to describe how loathed umpire Angel Hernandez was among fans. He was, for many, the only umpire that people knew by name because his reputation preceded him: he was a bad at making calls, aggressive and tyrannical against player and manager alike, and once tried to sue the league for not letting him work a World Series game because he’s Hispanic … until the league said, in court, that he was incompetent, hadn’t earned it, and had plenty of evidence to prove both points handily.

The good news isn’t just that he’s out of the league. The good news was the wave of elation that crested yesterday as the word got out about his sudden retirement. Across social media, and blogs, and news websites, people celebrated together. I shoddily created this Simpsons reference meme, which is Troy McClure picturing a joyous world without lawyers:

But it was really like the entire world agreed on something for the first time in a long time! Everyone was thrilled and jumped on Hernandez — even LASIK roasted him. To steal from “Casey at the Bat”: There WAS joy in Mudville yesterday.

My Celtics are back in the NBA Finals: YMMV on this being good news if you like other teams, but yay Celtics! (And likely they’ll be facing the Dallas Mavericks, who [morning update] lost last night but are up 3-1 in their series against the Timberwolves.) Plus they can win it for Bill Walton, who died on Monday, a great dude and former Celtic. THROW IT DOWN, BIG MAN!

Kate Middleton seen out for first time since diagnosis: For Cousin Matty, of course. But I am glad she seems to be doing better.

And the music today is even going to be good news. I’m not huge on metal bands and even less so on boy bands but you smush them together and sprinkle some industrial-ish German techno on top of it … somehow it’s amazing? I don’t entirely get how it works, but my goodness, this song and video are so much fun, and I highly recommend giving it a spin.

And one more, for luck:

Happy Wednesday! Hope you got the moves!