Mad Max by Google

The Mad Max series is about an Australia where society has collapsed and lawless rules. Did Google nearly herald such anarchy in Oz? 

According to an Ars Technica report, Google Cloud accidentally deleted the account of the $135 billion Australian pension fund, UniSuper, including back-ups! In what is termed as an extremely rare incident of "misconfiguration", 650,000 UniSuper members couldn’t access their retirements accounts for a week.

“Google Cloud CEO, Thomas Kurian has confirmed that the disruption arose from an unprecedented sequence of events whereby an inadvertent misconfiguration during provisioning of UniSuper’s Private Cloud services ultimately resulted in the deletion of UniSuper’s Private Cloud subscription.” 

Further, while Google typically has duplications in different geographies to ensure that if one service goes down or is lost then it can be easily restored, because UniSuper's cloud subscription itself was deleted, it caused the deletion of all backups as well! Great! So, an unsubscribe button nearly wiped clean the retirement accounts of 2% of Australia's population.

Fortunately, UniSuper was able to eventually restore services because the fund had backups in place with another provider. As the proverb goes...don't put all your eggs in one hyperscaler basket!

Israeli Exceptionalism

In a powerful segment, Jon Stewart calls out American hypocrisy when comes to America's favorite ally. Referring to the conflict in Gaza, Stewart remarks that justice is beginning to "look like cruelty," but not to worry America is on the case with its "universal values." And then proceeds to expose the contrasts and glaring contradictions in Joe Biden's approach to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. The journalist Spencer Ackerman effectively made the same argument in a scathing op-ed in the NYT, arguing America is undermining its credibility by having a different standard for Israel. As Stewart dryly notes, "Every time America tells the world that there’s something we won't allow, Israel seems to say, 'Challenge accepted.'"

Thanks Jon... it's all very "concerning".  

Markets: Technology is No Match for Staples

If AI is the future, then Nvidia is surely taking us there. The chip giant, the third biggest company in the world by market capitalization, is up 228% the past twelve months ending April 5, 2024. That's trully impressive. However, there's something decidedly much, much older doing even better--chocolates! The S&P GSCI Cocoa TR Index is up 277% over the same period! Weak crop yields in West Africa due to the effects of El Nino weather patterns are an important driver of the commodity's price surge. Countries such as Ivory Coast, Ghana, Nigeria, and Cameroon are responsible for over 70% of the world's cocoa output. On top of climate factors, political instability, poor governmental policies, and thin margins in these countries have deterred investments in new plantations for years, accentuating the supply/demand imbalance. The result has translated into soaring retail chocolate prices. The cost of chocolate prices in U.S. stores increased 11.6% in 2023, about three times higher than CPI (3.4%). Research has long shown chocolate contains compounds, such as phenylethylamine and tryptophan, that lifts moods and produces feelings of happiness. So, if cocoa prices continue to rise, it could make the world a less happy place!

Staples outperforming the best of tech is not unusual. Google (GOOGL) went public on August 19, 2004. Just a few weeks earlier, a decidedly less techie company, Domino's Pizza (DPZ), also IPO-ed. An investment in Google, held through April 5, 2024, would have returned 61x. Pretty, pretty...good. However, an investment in Domino's would have yielded 79x, almost 30% more! People love the internet, but their pizza even more!

Ramy: God, Free Palestine!

Arab-Muslim comedian Ramy Youssef hosted a "spiritual" SNL last night with ongoing Ramadan and Easter Sunday coming together. Youssef gave a funny and heartfelt monologue, riffing on the Arab-American experience, politics, and prayer. He ended the segment by asking God to "free the people of Palestine" and "free all the hostages." His plea for the liberation of Gaza and West Bank received rapturous applause from the audience as polls show the majority of Americans (55%) oppose Israeli action in Gaza. Among Democrats it's closer to 80%. Ya habibi!

There was also a funny bit on Ramadan Ozepmic:

Ilhan Omar: Lost in Translation

Ilhan Abdullahi Omar made history in 2019 when she became the first Somali American in the U.S. Congress and the first woman of color to represent Minnesota. She was also one of the first Muslim women in Congress along with Michigan's Rashida Tlaib. Both are core members of the "Squad", an informal group of progressive Democrats, who are a favorite target of many Republicans. The latest brouhaha flared up earlier this after a clip of Omar making a speech in Somali went viral on X. In it she was purportedly bragging about advancing a Somalia First agenda in Congress. As context, Omar was expressing support for the Somali government in its dispute with a breakaway republic within Somalia, called Somaliland, that is not recognized by the U.S. 

The meltdown from the right was swift and predictable. Fellow Minnesotan and GOP Majority Whip, Tom Emmers, demanded Omar resign in disgrace. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said that she should be expelled from Congress, stripped of her citizenship and deported. Naturally, Majorie Talyor Greene called her words treasonous and sought to censure her. Except...that Omar never said any such thing. The video of Omar’s speech was circulated on social media with distorted English captions. 

As per the Intelligencer, the "captions made it appear that Omar had said that she and her audience were “Somalians first, Muslims second,” and that “The U.S. government will only do what Somalians in the U.S. tell them to do. They will do what we want and nothing else. They must follow our orders.” 

However independent reviews by the Minnesota Reformer and the Minneapolis Star Tribune found significant differences between the videos’ claims and what Omar actually said. 

Per the Star Tribune, that part of Omar’s speech actually went as follows: “My answer was the U.S. government will do what we tell the U.S. government to do. We as Somalis should have that confidence in ourselves. We live in this country. We pay taxes in this country. It’s a country where one of your own sits in Congress. As long as I’m in Congress, no one will take Somalia’s sea. And the United States will not support other people to rob us. Rest assured, Minnesotans. The woman you sent to Congress is aware of you and has the same interest as you.”

In fact, Omar's position on the issue of Somaliland is in line with U.S. policy. So, there shouldn't have been any controversy. But if you're Somali, Muslim, and/or both, things are always a little more complicated. Best for Omar keep her speeches in English at all times...so nothing gets lost in translation.

The Birth of American Exceptionalism

General Washington rousing the troops in 1777. One of SNL's best skits in a long while.

Mean Girls 2024: Stanley Cups are So Fetch!

Tina Fey's 2004 movie Mean Girls is considered a classic for its authenticity of teen culture, specifically teen girl culture. It astutely examined the rigid social hierarchy of secondary school filled with cliques, drama, and competition while giving us memorable lines like "that was so fetch"—Gretchen Weiners, "If you’re from Africa, why are you white?”—Karen Smith, and "...you're, like, really pretty. So, you agree? You think you're really pretty?"—Regina George. For many girls, life—at least for a time (perhaps more?)—is all about "Queen Bees and Wannabees".

Now, The Cut reports middle schools across the U.S. have been overtaken by Stanley Cup fever; and your status in the intricate social hierarchy of tween/teen girls is being dictated by whether or not you own an overpriced ($45-$55) 40z water bottle. Made by a 110-year old Seattle-based company, the Stanley Quencher has gone mega viral and is bringing overnight lines and mayhem to stores like Targets and Walmart. The sudden fame has turned the company that was generating about $70 million a year in revenue in 2019 into a $750 million business.  

When Stanleys are suddenly so fetch, they are a must-have. “Every day when I get into school at like 7:45 a.m., everybody comes over to me like, ‘Oh my God, I like your Stanley!’ or ‘It’s so cool, I want a Stanley just like yours!’” [said Dahlia], who is in eighth grade...“It makes me feel like I’m famous and being swarmed by paparazzi.”

On the other hand, you can be mercilessly banished to the Out Krowd if you have the wrong drinking receptacle. In a viral TikTok a mom said her daughter was made fun of for having a Walmart dupe. Another woman said her niece was "bullied by her classmates for bringing an off-brand version of the cup...basically the exact same product, minus the Stanley logo."

Of course, such dynamics aren't new. Studies find Mean Girls to be a distinct youth subculture with marked roles and positions: Queen, sidekick, banker, torn bystander, wannabees, and target. Particularly among girls, it can be characterized by social or relational aggressive behavior: back-biting and manipulation that can often be quite vicious. As protagonist Cady Hebron famously observes in the movie "in girl world, all fighting had to be sneaky." Such behaviors induce anxiety and stress that can take a significant toll on teenagers' mental health, with the CDC reporting 1 in 5 students feeling being bullied last year.   

What ya gonna do? To quote the Girl Who Doesn't Go to North Shore “I wish we could all get along...bake a cake filled with rainbows and smiles and everyone would eat and be happy.” More realistically, we will just have to shell out $50 for something our kids don't really need to keep them happy.