Quarts News None the Richer

In the Bangor Daily News, Julia Bayly reported that “A toxic, self-cloning worm that poops out of its mouth is invading Maine.” In this, as in so much else, Maine lags the rest of the country. In North Carolina, for example, they’ve already sent a toxic worm that poops out of its mouth to the House of Representatives, and Madison Cawthorn has been embarrassing his home state ever since, most recently by trying to smuggle a loaded gun through airport security (again!) and participating in a crypto pump and dump for the “Let’s Go Brandon Coin,” a transparently deceptive scheme to soak some cash out of dimwits who get excited when they see “3000% MATCH!!!!” in a Trump fundraising email. Cawthorn’s fellow toxic worm Matt Gaetz, still under federal investigation for his teen jobs program, released a statement bragging about holding “the largest event in Wyoming political history (without a rodeo element),” which can’t possibly be true because we know there was at least one clown there.

In Gaetz’s chaotic home state of Florida, lawmakers have been busy with a good old fashioned Nazi bibliocaust, banning books about objectionable subjects like babies and math. Deerfield Beach “minion of Satan” Chaz Stevens would like to suggest another book that should be banned:

Someone finally noticed that CNN+ subscriptions opened on March 28th, and if they kept it up past today the first subscriptions would renew and then have to be canceled and refunded, so the most failed streaming service of all time is hastily shutting down two more days early, reports Richard Lawler in The Verge. The service’s tens of paying subscribers will be fully refunded, but will no longer have access to the library of content no one wanted.

Amazon plans to grind twenty percent more income out of Twitch streamers. Business school mismanagement case study G/O Media will buy Quartz from TKTK FIND OUT WHO OWNS IT NOW I GUESS?? for what Benjamin Mullin and Katie Robertson seem to imply is, like, one million dollars? If that’s the price: yikes. In his email to staff about the deal, G/O herb Jim Spanfeller spelled it “Quarts News.” The gall on that guy. In The Hollywood Reporter, Kim Masters has a gossipy feature on why Netflix is collapsing. Masters blames it on executive relationships, which I bet is more reassuring to executives than admitting it’s because your kids will torture you until you pay Disney to let them watch “Encanto” for 8 hours a day, so if something has to go it’s gonna be the service that used to have good shows like “Stranger Things” and… that other one. And Dan Stone investigates: “Is it really the ‘New York Review of Each Other’s Books’?” Pretty much yes.

Happy Ed Balls Day to all who celebrate:

EJ “Snickers” Dickson profiled @JUNIPER, the shitposter who terrified the Let’s Go Brandon Coin investor community with the fake news that Mars was removing the dick vein from Snickers, and also probably invented goblin mode. All of us here at Tabs Industries salute her achievements, and we can’t wait to see what’s next.

Brand Twitter leaks out into the real world in Christianburg, Virginia. Containment crews are working frantically to prevent broader contamination. Buying bubbly real estate with bubbly crypto and then packaging the loans into bond offerings? What could go wrong. Casey is mad at Elon Musk, which is fair because Elon Musk is a giant wang, and “Twitter miscounted its daily users for three years straight“ (again!). New Covid nickname dropped: “The Coachella Cough.” Imagine being Isaac Chotiner and getting the opportunity to give your own neighborhood NIMBY a vigorous chotining in the New Yorker? Glorious.

Can I just do Today in Crabs every day now? If so, sweet.

Today in Crabs: “Snails’ Scars Offer a 100,000-Year Record of Crab Populations,” reports Marina Wang in Hakai. Can I also note that Hakai took this 550 word research blurb and made it look just beautiful? What a well-designed website.

Today’s Song: “I don't really mind,” DJ Poolboi (feat. Su Lee)

~ get a room at the Motel Six and tab the Gideons ~

What a week. I think tomorrow I’m gonna try something new in the Discord, so do subscribe if you want to find out what it is. If you’re a paid subscriber and aren’t already in the Discord, don’t worry, I’ll remind you how to get in tomorrow. I won’t stop tweeting until Elon pries @fka_tabs from my cold, dead hands. The bot said the thing: