Oh dear the simultaneous Twitter, Faceb666k, and FTX implosions certainly are inconvenient for the lying mass media's non-stop oligarch worship.

At least they'll still have their personality cults: More crapto! More bread! More circuses!

It may make the piss-ons realize that having megalomaniacal billionaires with sociopathic personality disorders running big tech and the government isn't such a hot idea. (Probably not, tho).

"Fashionable Americans, it's time to care about soccer again."

What an odd statement to make in Seattle. In most recent years, the Sounders' average attendance per game is roughly double the Mariners' attendance. In 2022 the M's drew far more fans than usual (28,238) because they were actually pretty decent for a change, but the Sounders still had substantially higher average attendance (33,607).

'It may make
the piss-ons realize
that having megalomaniacal billionaires
with sociopathic personality disorders running
big tech and the government isn't such a hot idea.'

gotta Concur OA.
But sometimes
the Urine is
so Warm

I don't like Ticketmaster any more than the next person but honestly how would have multiple providers of tickets have changed anything for the Taylor Swift fiasco or somehow made the tickets more affordable? You still have a fixed quantify of tickets based on the venue no matter how many distribution channels have access to them. The $28K ticket isn't based on Ticketmaster, that's a scalper. If you think having 3 or 4 sellers would change the ability of scalpers to grab tickets you are delusional. I suppose we could go back to the old days where people had to camp out for a week in front of the venue for tickets.

@3, your attendance comparison is more than a little fuzzy. The Mariners play 81 regular season home games a season. The Sounders play 17. Fewer games generally means more attendance per game. You could just as easily say the Mariners drew almost 2.3M fans last year while the Sounders didn’t even crack 600K.

@5 and behind the success of that scalper is runaway income inequality… no sane person should be able to afford a year of housing costs or college tuition for a single show. And behind that scalpers success is also Americas singular obsession with crappy corporate music they market and people listen to. Joy can be found appreciating much less expensive music, or make your own! We we picking up this consumer fluff they laying down?

we we
wanna
wee wee
why we don’t?

@2: To our dismay these are the things that are possible in a democracy paired with free enterprise. But to remove these possibilities completely, you'd have to remove democracy and free enterprise.

@10. Exactly. That's why these companies and rich people don't exist in socialist states.

I've worked in Tech for 20 years in documentation and support where I've worked mostly around young and middle-aged women who were supporting their families. So, maybe don't lump everyone in as "tech bros" many of people who lost jobs are going to be those women.

I always rely on the stranger to tell me when it's cold outside. Keep up the good work!

@12: No kidding. My job has me involved in tech hiring; more and more women in tech positions, especially heavy in health care settings.

Holy crap, are Americans really so isolated that they are totally unaware of the overwhelmingly supported global boycott of this year's World Cup in Qatar? Keep living up to the stereotype, you ignorant island of dunces.

If Musk wants people to work tirelessly at thankless jobs for bottom dollar (which is a Republican wet dream), he should move Twitter to the South, as he did with Tesla. There, people, who take whatever is handed to them with some sort of gratitude, look upon labor unions as an unpatriotic and socialistic spit in the eye to the ones who brung ya. Check out why Volkwagen remains non-union in Chattanooga, for instance. A fried baloney sandwich on store brand white bread is always better than a “wool-far” cutlet. Talk about drinkin’ the Kool-Aid. I don’t know why this is. Maybe Southern Christian brainwashing? There are four churches at every intersection down there, you know.

Of the denier elections I’ve checked out, none of them got trampled. They only lost anywhere from a couple of percentage points to a fraction of a percentage point. Some of the races were squeakers. So, there’s no great glee in my house that this shit is over. It may be over for a little while, but the Republicans and their moneyed supporters are complete wizards at turning small and insignificant and false into a big fucking thing – by hook and certainly by crook. It’s become their claim to fame.

Apologies to those trying to get Taylor Swift tickets, but you know what? This is not national newsworthy and just shows you how the line between news and entertainment has vanished completely.

"I legitimately don't know how any parent in the Lone Star state gets through the day after reading this headline from CBSNews": Two of my friends and their young child moved to Texas a couple of years ago, so that one of them could become an ass. prof. at a college there. The desperate things people do to get faculty jobs ...

I seriously wonder if they'll stay there, as it gets ever crazier. I used to enjoy visiting Texas (Austin, Guadalupe Mountains, and a few other places) from time to time, but I doubt I'll ever go there again. There are plenty of places to go where not so many of the locals are dangerous lunatics.

@1 that’s so corny. I hope the rich get what they want: an empty echo chamber where they can convince each other of how “hardcore” they are

@1 Is that really a Seattle you'd enjoy living in? Think long and hard about it. What you're essentially advocating is no local art scene, no local music scene, no culture whatsoever except the lavishly funded corporate variety, nothing but corporate drones and their gated-enclave overlords. You might as well decamp to Mercer Island right now with that attitude. Personally, I prefer a city whose leaders who recognize that people (including those without money) are the soul of a city and who at least try, despite all the obstacles, to make room for everyone who wants to live here. If Seattle ever gave up on that, I'd leave the next day.

@20: Having a higher median income doesn’t necessarily mean Seattle will have only soulless corporate drones for residents. Seattle covers fewer than 90 square miles; the only way to make rom for everyone who wants to live on 90 square miles is to reduce “everyone” to a small number, by making the city so wretchedly unattractive that very few persons want to reside in it. Is that the future you want for Seattle?

@20 CKathes: +1 Word. Bravo and well said. I can't imagine living anywhere without music.

@17 Bauhaus I: I agree. The Irritable Bowel Syndrome that the Orange Turd's batshit crazy supporters call "Trump Fever" is still raging on in even bloodier red neofascist states of confusion (i.e.: Texas, Florida, and just about
everywhere else in the Deep Fried South).

@18 Ralph Haygood: My landlord grew up in Texas. He says drivers are the craziest there. A lot of people in filthy black smoke spewing Ford F-450s will tailgate, pass, cut you off, and flip you the bird. I've never been to Texas but I am hesitant to visit there.
I am reminded of a subplot in the 1991 Susan Sarandon and Geena Davis road movie, Thelma & Louise--particularly if the girls got stopped by law enforcement in the Lone Star State. Because of a traumatic past experience (it isn't revealed, but there is a hint that Louise got violently raped somewhere in Texas, and she doesn't want to talk about it), Louise stubbornly remains adamant about not driving through Texas at all costs, even if it means going hundreds of extra miles out of their way on the lam for Mexico.
Louise (Sarandon, to Thelma (Davis), at a railroad stop): "Believe me, you shoot off a guy's head with his pants down, Texas isn't the place you wanna get caught!"
That was the American Southwest depicted 31 years ago on the big screen. It sounds like a completely lawless hellhole now for everyone who isn't wealthy, corrupt, oil-soaked, misogynist white supremacist RepubliKKKan male.

@18 Ralph Haygood: Among my high school classmates I have old friends who have homes and daughters living in Texas and Florida. They're ever fearful for their daughters' health and safety down there, especially now with the Orange Turd's stacked Extreme Court, the overturning of Roe, and extreme bans on abortion rigidly enforced in those states. I couldn't sleep if I had a daughter in a red state. I'm so grateful to be in my native Washington state, west of the Cascades.
WTF is WRONG with people in red states, counties, and communities who keep voting RepubliKKKan no matter what, and no matter how much they and the rest of us stand to lose? Is it the heat and humidity? Lack of education and livable wage jobs? Brainwashing by RWNJs? Their brain tissue got transducted by aliens? The atrocity of the Orange Turd ordered January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol is a perfect example of a political party so far out of whack it should be permanently disbanded.

@2 Original Andrew and @4 kristofarian: Spot on! I'm grateful to never have opened a Twitter account. I certainly won't now. I keep picturing The Evil Empire in the original Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) in the scene in which the rebels and androids just barely escape Darth Vader's battle station before it explodes in space.
I swear, the Orange Turd must think it's Darth Vader. The sooner the world is rid of the Orange Turd, the sooner all health and sanity can be restored.