DIRS.INFO The most relevant business & tech news

☆ Opinion | Beware the Pettiness of the Powerful
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-16 | by ( Paul Krugman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Donald Trump isn’t exactly Don Quixote, but he does have a thing against windmills. Indeed, Trump’s animus toward wind power is one of the strangest obsessions of a man with many unusual preoccupations (toilets! Over the years, he has asserted, falsely, that wind turbines can cause cancer, that they can cause power outages and that wind energy “kills all the birds” (cats and windows do far more harm). Now he says that if he wins in November, on “Day 1” he’ll issue an executive order putting the brakes on offshore wind farm construction. Over the past 15 or so years we’ve seen revolutionary progress in the technology of renewable energy; the idea of an economy reliant on solar and wind power has gone from hippie fantasy to realistic policy goal.

Persons: Donald Trump isn’t, Don Quixote, Trump, It’s

☆ Upside-down US flag flew at home of Justice Samuel Alito after 2020 election, New York Times reports
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-16 | by ( John Fritze | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —An upside-down American flag – a symbol used by some supporters of former President Donald Trump who challenged the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s 2020 victory – hung outside the home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito after the election, The New York Times reported Thursday. A spokeswoman for the Supreme Court did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNN, which has not independently verified the flag’s use. “I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag,” Alito said in an emailed statement to the Times. The Times said it was not clear how long the flag flew outside of Alito’s home. Last fall, in response to a series of revelations about travel accepted by Thomas and Alito, the Supreme Court adopted a code of conduct for the first time.

Persons: Donald Trump, Joe Biden’s, –, Samuel Alito, Alito, Trump, “, ” Alito, Trump’s, Clarence Thomas, recusal, Virginia “ Ginni ” Thomas, Thomas, ”, James Organizations: CNN, Supreme, The New York Times, Times, Capitol, The Times, White, Hofstra Law Locations: Alexandria , Virginia, Alabama

☆ Inside a Michigan Town's War Over a Chinese-Owned Battery Plant
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-10 | by ( Brent Crane | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +24 min

This was nothing short of a communist invasion, in his eyes, and the patriots of Green Charter needed to rise up and confront the Red Peril. But the backlash in Green Charter represents something seldom seen since the Red Scare: a quasi-militant, homegrown resistance to the perceived threat of communism at home. But as the war over Gotion began to consume Green Charter, Riebow began to feel that the township board was behaving "too secretly." It's easy to dismiss what's happened in Green Charter as yet another sign of America's descent into dangerous incivility. Asked about Gotion's plans in Green Charter, Panetta replied, "I don't think there's any question that they are going to take advantage of that situation."

Persons: Jeff Peticolas, Sam Peticolas, He'd, Peticolas, Gos, Green, Matt Harrison Clough, Jim Chapman, I've, Chapman, freaked, Rush Doshi, Joe Biden's, Doshi, Donald Trump, Sen, Katie Britt, Lori Brock, Kristina Karamo, Lana Theis, John Moolenaar, it's, Gotion, John Holdsworth, I'm, Tracy Ruell, Ruell, Carlleen Rose, she'd, Suzi, Tim Hahn, Hahn, texted Hahn, Jeff, Corri Riebow, She'd, Riebow, Breitbart, Gretchen Whitmer, —, we've, Holdsworth, Jason Kruse, Kruse, that's, Kruse demurred, Hahn's, we're, We're, what's, William Evanina, Leon Panetta, Barack Obama's, Panetta, Brent Crane Organizations: Imperial, Pacific, Nikon, Ferris State University, Tech, Green Charter, BI Green Charter, Michigan, United States, Chinese Communist Party, Michigan Republican Party, Michigan GOP, WE, Republican, Republicans, Gotion, Treasury Department, BI, CCP politburo, Party, Communist Party of China, SAIC, Nexteer Automotive, Facebook, Big Rapids, Local, Moolenaar, Fox News, Daily Mail, Gov, Green Charter's, Ferris State, Big, FBI Locations: Pearl, He'd, Imperial Japan, Vietnam, Mecosta County , Michigan, American, Green Charter, Green, China, Green Charter's, Montana, Beijing, Arkansas, Reedley , California, Manteno , Illinois, Washington, America, United, United States, Biden's State, Alabama, Mecosta County, Michigan, Sweden, Big Rapids, enervated, Gotion, Northern Michigan, USA, Filipino, Charter, San Diego

☆ Why Jake Tapper made a new series about pre-Trump political scandals
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-18 | by ( Zachary Wolf | Analysis Zachary B. Wolf | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —There’s a funny, interesting and very sad new series on CNN featuring Jake Tapper. If you are encountering them for the first time, it will be an education in what Tapper calls his “Jar Jar Binks” theory. TAPPER: The scandals involving Trump are so vast and complex and ongoing. You revisit sex scandals, corruptions scandals and a spy scandal. TAPPER: I have a theory called the “Jar Jar Binks” theory, which is that every great person rises to a level where they can remove from their circle anyone telling them when they’re making a mistake.

Persons: CNN —, Jake Tapper, Rod, Carolina Sen, John Edwards, Tapper, Donald Trump, I’ve, they’d, –, Hunter Biden, Matt Gaetz, George Santos, TAPPER, Trump, Valerie Plame, Blagojevich, Scooter Libby, Libby, Trump –, Roger Stone, Mike Flynn, it’s Organizations: CNN, “, Trump, Illinois Gov, New, South, Senate, Democrats Locations: “ United States, Carolina, New Jersey, South Carolina, Northeast

☆ Opinion | Taylor Swift and the Profound Weirdness of MAGA
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-04 | by ( David French | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

That’s a key lesson of the MAGA right’s deeply strange turn against Taylor Swift and her boyfriend, the Kansas City Chiefs’ star tight end Travis Kelce. In fact, that’s a key lesson from this entire sorry era in American political and cultural life. Even as he condemned Swift, one prominent MAGA figure recently boasted that his “side” still had Kid Rock, Ted Nugent and Jon Voight. According to them, Taylor Swift’s extraordinary popularity isn’t the organic outcome of a talented and appealing superstar’s bond with her fans. No, according to them, Swift’s rise is an “op” or a “psyop” engineered by the deep state in order to benefit Joe Biden.

Persons: Hatred, MAGA, Taylor Swift, Travis Kelce, Swift, Phil Bredesen, Republican Marsha Blackburn, Joe Biden, Kelce, “, Laura Ingraham’s, Rock, Ted Nugent, Jon Voight, Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, can’t, Taylor Organizations: Kansas City Chiefs, Democratic, Senate, Republican, Pfizer, —, Fox News, Dixie Locations: Tennessee, MAGA America

☆ How Wall Street's Culture Is Contributing to the Loneliness Crisis
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-30 | by ( Emmalyse Brownstein | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +14 min

Wall Street is notorious for its long hours and stressful lifestyle, particularly at the junior level, where grunt work abounds. They'd work hard and play hard, with an enviable social life like in all the Wall Street movies she'd seen. But Wall Street workers say that the nature of finance — the office politics and uniquely competitive cohort — can create a work culture that exacerbates feelings of loneliness. Some of the loneliness comes from this — it's all new, it feels bad, it's scary, and they don't feel like they can talk to anyone. But that doesn't mean people working on Wall Street can't do anything to mitigate their loneliness.

Persons: Madison, They'd, She'd, we'd, Cigna, it's, Wharton, Abbey, Denise Shull, Michael Sloyer, Goldman Sachs, Bumble BFF, Bumble, She's, —, Shull, I've, doesn't, They're, Sam Glazer, It's, Glazer, who's, There's, Goldman Organizations: Hamptons, Business, Wall, Ivy League, Madison, Harvard, NYU, Fifth Avenue Psychiatry Locations: New York City, Madison, Wharton, Yale, Upbuild, New York

☆ Opinion | Before Hillary Clinton, There Was Rosalynn Carter
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-21 | by ( Azadeh Moaveni | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

Mrs. Carter had the canny instincts to know that a player who courts influence requires a court. Mrs. Carter’s charismatic press secretary, Mary Hoyt, led the fight for decent East Wing salaries, despite stiff opposition. President Carter was demanding sacrifice from all Americans and turning down the heat in the White House to cut costs. Feminists like Gloria Steinem faulted Mrs. Carter for not being sufficiently outré in her activism. “She creates neither love nor hate.”Neither America nor Washington was quite ready for Mrs. Carter at the time.

Persons: Carter, —, Mary Hoyt, Hoyt, Carter’s, Ford, ”, Kennedy, Gloria Steinem, “, Steinem, United Press International’s Helen Thomas, pettiness, Nancy Reagan, Katharine Graham, Andy Warhol, Mr Organizations: East Wing, Southern Baptist, White, United Press, Democratic Locations: Israel, Egypt, Washington, America, Wing, clogs, Georgetown, Georgia, Plains , Ga

☆ ‘The Curse’ Series Premiere Recap: The Cameras Are Rolling
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-10 | by ( Esther Zuckerman | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

In his Comedy Central series, “Nathan for You,” he came up with outlandish ideas to promote small businesses, often capturing the surreality of human behavior as he instituted his plans. In his latest series, Showtime’s “The Curse,” created with the “Uncut Gems” filmmaker Benny Safdie, Fielder has stopped playing himself but has kept the same fascination. At the center of the first episode are two incidents that involve his character, Asher Siegel, caught in unflattering and uncomfortable situations on camera. Whitney is outraged — even if that outrage is performative, she has a reputation to maintain — but Asher is more comfortable with Dougie’s machinations. He wants to trust his childhood friend, even though from early on it seems clear that Dougie deserves no one’s trust.

Persons: Nathan Fielder’s, “ Nathan, ”, —, Benny Safdie, Fielder, Asher Siegel, Asher, Whitney, Emma Stone, “, Asher can’t, Dougie, Safdie Organizations: HBO, HGTV Locations: ‘

☆ ‘The Holdovers’ Review: Three Sad Souls Stranded for Christmas
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-26 | by ( Wesley Morris | More About Wesley Morris | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

They set little traps for Hunham’s arrogance and sic their daddies on the administrators, who then bear down on him. It’s a ritzy, laugh-out-loud Christmas miracle that whisks away four of the boys at the end of the first act. But one of them, an almost cool only-child named Angus Tully (Dominic Sessa), can’t go because nobody can reach his parents. He directed this movie — from a script David Hemingson wrote — and moody, quarrelsome people are his specialty. This is his eighth feature-length movie — “Citizen Ruth,” “Election,” “Sideways,” “About Schmidt,” “The Descendants,” “Nebraska” and “Downsizing” precede this one.

Persons: tony, can’t, Paul Hunham, Paul Giamatti, ”, he’s, It’s, Angus Tully, Dominic Sessa, Alexander Payne’s, David Hemingson, Barton, soundboards, Payne, Ruth, Schmidt, Payne’s, it’s, Giamatti, tweedy Organizations: ” “ Nebraska Locations: New England, Barton, St, Kitts, ” “

☆ Fashion police, brawls, and heckling: House Republicans' petty drama has no end in sight
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-20 | by ( Brent D. Griffiths | Madison Hall | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

House Republicans are stuck in an endless loop of infighting as they search for a new leader. download the app Email address Sign up By clicking “Sign Up”, you accept our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . Cameras watching the floors have documented the now weeks-long effort to replace former Speaker Kevin McCarthy after his historic ouster. McCarthy, according to multiple reports, screamed at Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida to sit down during a testy exchange on Thursday. The first time in January came as House Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers had to be restrained from charging at Gaetz.

Persons: —, America's, Kevin McCarthy, Nancy Mace, Mace, Greg Murphy, Murphy, McCarthy, Matt Gaetz, Gaetz, I'm, Lauren Boebert, Mike Rogers, Boebert, Mike Bost, Richard Hudson, Andrew Harnik, George Santos, Jasmine Crockett, Independent Sen, Kyrsten Sinema —, Santos, Crockett, Mitch McConnell, Sen, Joe Manchin, Jim Risch, Joe Biden, Jordan, It's Organizations: Republicans, Service, South, North Carolina Republican, Armed, Republican Rep, — Democratic, Independent, WHO, Lawmakers, West, West Virginia Democrat, Big 12, Manchin, Ohio Republican, DC Locations: Florida, Colorado, Illinois, West Virginia, Idaho, Israel, Ukraine, Southern

☆ It's peak petty season for tech bros right now
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-16 | by ( Hasan Chowdhury | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Pettiness is the order of the day for prominent tech bros.Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and others are behaving similarly amid their rivalries with each other. It comes at an awkward moment: petty season has come straight after layoff season. Whatever the case, it's got tech bros stooping to new depths of pettiness. Musk's response, in peak petty fashion, was to suggest that he'd rock up at Zuck's home in Palo Alto and fight him there. Tens of thousands of tech workers have been laid off in recent months amid claims that they need to get serious.

Persons: Pettiness, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, it's, Dana White, Zuck, Satya Nadella, Microsoft's, OpenAI, Nadella, Jack Dorsey, Jeff Bezos Organizations: bros, Morning, New York Times, Facebook, Washington Post, UFC, Tech bros Locations: Silicon Valley, Musk's, Palo Alto, Zuck

☆ If You Don’t Have Anything Nice to Say, Don’t Be a Reference
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-02 | by ( Roxane Gay | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +4 min

I’m beginning to feel pretty isolated in a workplace I used to feel was quite congenial. Salaries aren’t high, but we get a 2-to-1 match on our retirement plan contributions, which is significant. HR blames the company that administers our retirement plan and says it is working on a fix. Unless they chase that payment, your former colleagues will never see that money, which I’m sure the organization knows. You have to calibrate how upset you get about this and how much you escalate the issue, with how much you care.

Persons: I’m, we’d, It’s, they’ll, Roxane Gay

☆ The billionaires' beef at Two Sigma seems pretty petty
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-29 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

ICYMI: This is the last week of 10 Things on Wall Street. Insider's Rebecca Ungarino has more details on how long the beef between Overdeck and Siegel has been brewing behind the scenes. What stands out to me about the drama at Two Sigma is how it all seems to be so petty. The Two Sigma cofounder was included only as an example of the type of managers Haider had eclipsed. The asset manager tapped two internal executives to serve as co-CEOs of the firm, succeeding CEO Jay Wintrob, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Persons: Dan DeFrancesco, I'm, Billy Joel's, —, we've, Goldman, Cofounders David Siegel, John Overdeck, David Siegel, cofounders, Insider's Rebecca Ungarino, Siegel, Rebecca, Haidar Capital's Said Haidar, Haider, Penny, Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, Scott Olson, Ruobing Su, Michael Broadbery, Goldman Sachs, Maza, Andreessen Horowitz, Seth Klarman, Jay Wintrob, Robert O'Leary, Armen Panossian, Everybody's, they're, Joey Hadden, Jeffrey Cane, Hallam Bullock Organizations: Sigma, Baupost, Oaktree Capital, Street, Wall, LinkedIn Locations: Omaha, New York, London

☆ California law enforcement intercepted a second plane in Sacramento carrying relocated migrants, as DeSantis remains mum about his involvement
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-05 | by ( Kimberly Leonard | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A second flight carrying roughly 20 migrants landed in Sacramento on Monday. Monday's revelation comes after 16 migrants from Venezuela and Colombia arrived by plane on Friday and were dropped off at a Catholic church. Ron DeSantis of Florida, who is also a 2024 presidential candidate, has yet to speak publicly about the matter. He and California Attorney General Rob Bonta have already said they think DeSantis is responsible for the flights. On Monday, a sheriff in Texas recommended charges be brought in connection to the Martha's Vineyard flights.

Persons: Ron DeSantis, —, general's, DeSantis, seethe, Charlie Crist, Gavin Newsom, Rob Bonta, Bonta, Karine Jean, Pierre, Newsom, Joe Biden's Organizations: Service, California Department of Justice, Vertol Systems Company, Republican Gov, Democratic, California Gov, Twitter, CNN, White, Democratic Party Locations: Sacramento, Sacramento , California, Florida, California, Venezuela, Colombia, Al Paso , Texas, San Antonio , Texas, Vineyard , Massachusetts, Texas

☆ California investigators suspect Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis planned the flight carrying 16 migrants who were 'dumped' outside Sacramento church
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-05 | by ( Kimberly Leonard | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Sixteen migrants arrived in Sacramento, California, over the weekend. California Gov. They'd first had a layover in New Mexico before arriving in Sacramento on Friday evening and being "dumped on the doorstep of a local church without any advance warning," California Gov. In an interview with Insider in April, Newsom called DeSantis' actions on numerous topics, including immigration, "performative" and "very destructive." DeSantis is scheduled to go to Sacramento for a fundraiser on June 19, according to the Sacramento Bee.

Persons: Ron DeSantis, Gavin Newsom, DeSantis, —, they'd, They'd, Newsom, Rob Bonta, Karine Jean, Pierre, Monday, didn't, Joe Biden's, hadn't, Nikki Fried, Donald Trump Organizations: Gov, California Gov, Democrat, Service, Florida Gov, Vertol Systems Company, New York Times, Associated Press, California Department of Justice, CNN, Florida's Department of Emergency Management, Florida Democratic, Sacramento Bee Locations: Sacramento , California, Florida, California, Sacramento, Colombia, Venezuela, El Paso , Texas, New Mexico, San Antonio , Texas, Vineyard , Massachusetts, Mexico

☆ ‘Succession’ Season 4, Episode 8 Recap: The Will of Some People
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-14 | by ( Noel Murray | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Here, he listens to Shiv’s argument that ATN could slow the Mencken momentum. The first is that Kendall really wants the next president to kill the GoJo deal, which Roman insists Mencken will do. So Kendall asks Shiv to take one more shot at persuading her ex-lover Nate to get Jimenez to make that same promise. This sets up the second impediment: when Kendall call Nate to iterate more clearly what Shiv claims to have said. ATN really is about to help elevate an authoritarian to America’s most powerful public office because one spoiled brother is in a snit.

☆ LIV Golf contingent leave mark on Masters leaderboard
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-10 | by ( Frank Pingue | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Patrick Reed, who won the Masters in 2018, was a further shot back with a share of fourth, while Joaquin Niemann was the next best from LIV Golf as he ended up tied for 16th. This year's Masters was the first since LIV Golf launched last June, and 18 players from the lucrative circuit, whose 54-hole tournaments with no cuts have raised talk about their competitiveness, teed it up in the year's first major. Koepka said nobody should be surprised to see that he and his LIV Golf peers posed a threat at Augusta National, which is one of the game's biggest stages. Although it proved too little too late for Mickelson, the six-time major said he and the others from LIV Golf were not out to prove a point to other players in the field. Augusta National cleared the way last December for eligible players from LIV Golf to compete in the year's first major.

☆ ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ rekindles the wonder in a way that demands to be seen
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-13 | by ( Brian Lowry | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —“Avatar” took a very basic story and adorned it with eye-popping spectacle, in a way that made the film a must-see commodity, and a record-breaking hit in the process. Thirteen years later, braving much different theatrical tides, director James Cameron has done it again with “Avatar: The Way of Water,” a state-of-the-art exercise that rekindles that sense of wonder and demands to be seen by anyone with lingering interest in watching movies in theaters. The children, in particular, must grapple with the personalities and pettiness associated with becoming the new kids on the reef. Ultimately, though, “The Way of Water” melts away any skepticism that it might be too late or too long in its return to Pandora. “Avatar: The Way of Water” premieres December 16 in US theaters.

☆ Why the world’s top chip maker is doubling down on American manufacturing
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Allison Morrow | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

That measure invests more than $200 billion to encourage companies to bring chip production back onto American soil. Raising the debt limit, the bank wrote, will be “necessary but hard to achieve.”For the uninitiated: The “debt ceiling” is simply the federal government’s borrowing limit. Senator John Thune told Bloomberg last week the debt ceiling could be a way to push through budget cuts. Goldman Sachs noted that the political environment next year will have “echoes of 1995 and 2011” — the two most tense standoffs over the debt limit in recent history. (OK, most nights — we believe in a four-day work week around here.)

☆ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Mark Ruffalo among those criticizing Elon Musk's $8 a month Twitter subscription plan
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-06 | by ( Mirna Alsharif | Mirna Alsharif Is A Breaking News Reporter For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, and actor Mark Ruffalo are among those who have taken to Twitter to criticize Elon Musk's potential plan to charge users $8 a month for identity verification and what it means for free speech. She also shared a screenshot of her Twitter notifications under the "verified" tab appearing blank. Actor Mark Ruffalo retweeted AOC's post, asking Musk to "get off Twitter." The actor also retweeted AOC's tweet last week in which she criticized the $8 a month subscription plan, saying it's bad for advertising. After criticizing the subscription plan Friday, Ruffalo tagged Musk in a retweet of an article on the climate crisis minutes later asking him to focus on "what really matters."

☆ Gov. Ron DeSantis says 'my phone line is open' if Biden wants to call about Hurricane Ian: 'We don't have time for pettiness'
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-27 | by ( Kimberly Leonard | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Email address By clicking ‘Sign up’, you agree to receive marketing emails from Insider as well as other partner offers and accept our Terms of Service and Privacy PolicyMIAMI, Florida — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday that he would be receptive to a phone call from President Joe Biden about the Hurricane Ian as it closes in on his state. The White House confirmed earlier in the day that Biden hadn't called, but repeatedly dodged questions about why. Biden raised the calls during an event in the White House the Rose Garden but did not mention DeSantis. It's possible he will challenge Biden for president in 2024, particularly if former President Donald Trump doesn't seek the White House again.

Search resuls for: "pettiness"

21 mentions found