Greetings Webtaculators! Aren’t you glad the Messiah is finally here for the second time? It took long enough. On to the news.

STORY OF THE WEEK (6 min. read)
What: Stupid Man Yells On Internet, Tanks World Economy
Why: Because I’m becoming more certain that Trump still doesn’t quite realize that he is president, or what the actual power the presidency has, because no rational actor would behave the way he did this past week.  He clearly doesn’t understand that what he says has real consequences, or else he would never open his idiot mouth. Related – stupid man tries to buy country that isn’t for sale.

ECONOMIC THING OF THE WEEK (5 min. read)
What: Business No Longer About Business, According To Best Business People
Why: Because one of the key tenets of corporations for the last 70 or so years, that corporations only responsibility is to their shareholders, is apparently not true any more, at least as far as a number of prominent CEOs are concerned. Whether or not this actually changes anything remains to be seen, but it at least sounds OK on paper. Thanks, for nothing, Milton. Also important, David Koch, one of the the worst Americans in recent memory, just passed away.

LAW THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Space Crime
Why: Because an astronaut has been accused of committing banking fraud from the International Space Station. Way less interesting than space murder or space hijacking, but we’ll take what we can get.

SCIENCE THING OF THE WEEK (6 min. read)
What: Earth’s Lungs Are On Fire
Why: Because this is one of the likely outcomes when you elect people who don’t believe in climate change into power.

SPORTS THING OF THE WEEK (5 min. read)
What: Running Out Of Luck
Why: Because Andrew Luck should have been one of football’s historical greats. Instead, the sport destroyed him.

JOURNALISM THING OF THE WEEK (long read)
What: The Future Of News Is Doomed
Why: Because people who don’t understand that news is about more than clicks (see CEO statement, above) mean that the public does not receive the news it should. Gizmodo Media Group, which consists of the sister sites from ashes of Gawker, consistently has some of the best writing on the internet. Turning it into a click-bait site will drive it into the ground.

MOVIE THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Too Big To Sling
Why: Because Spider Man is out of the Avengers thanks to Sony and Disney not being able to agree on how to split billions of dollars in foreseeable profits. Also, there’s going to be a new Matrix, but the payphone travel method clearly needs to be updated.

TELEVISION THING OF THE WEEK (1 min. 30 sec. watch)
What: The Mandalorian
Why: Because this is one of the many reasons most people are going to be paying $7 a month for Disney+ when it arrives in November.

MUSIC THING OF THE WEEK (6 min. read)
What: T-Swift Is Finally Growing Up
Why: Because her newest album actually talks about adult things like women empowerment and supporting LGBTQ people.

PHOTOGRAPHY THING OF THE WEEK (5 min. look)
What: The World Is On Fire
Why: Because it’s not only the Amazon.

LITERATURE THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: Some Short Things To Read
Why: Because I really have fallen off the reading wagon, but maybe some of these will help make sure you stay on.

VIDEO GAME THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: Like Dark Souls, But With Guns
Why: Because many other games try to be like FromSoftware’s genre creating title, but Remnant: From the Ashes (what an awful name) actually pulls it off.

INTERNET THINGS OF THE WEEK (∞)
What: Chicken Sandwiches Fight For Your Soul; There Are Too Many “National” Days; Crab Rangoon Is Neither Crab Nor From Rangoon.
Why: Because Internet.

THING YOU SHOULD GET BRIAN OF THE WEEK
What: A Fleet Of Yachts
Why: Because Brian deserves it.

Webtacularly yours,
Brian
Managing Editor, Webtacular World
The Internet You Didn’t Know You Needed™

Greetings Webtaculators! Well, it looks like we go a small reprieve from mass shootings, so I guess a steep selloff in stocks, a fascist white pride rally in Portland, and docking workers pay for not attending a Trump rally are marginally good things?  It’s really easy to shift the Overton Window to make degrees of awfulness seem relatively OK.  To make myself feel better about all of this, I volunteered at the Kid’s Gran Fondo, a children’s bike race that raises money for local kids with life threatening illnesses (ignore the fact that we live in a place where there needs to be fundraisers for children with health issues, but that’s another rant for another day).  Kids had fun, the weather wasn’t too hot, and I got to feel good about doing something to help make the world a little better.  All in all, a good day. On to the news.

STORY OF THE WEEK (5 min. read)
What: The Edge Of Freedom
Why: Because the Protests in Hong Kong continued this week, and are continuing to prove that it is hard to maintain democratic principles in a heavily controlled society.

ECONOMIC THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: What Is An Inverted Yield Curve And Why It Is Scary
Why: Because long term investments should generally have a greater rate of return than short term investments. That was not the case this past week.

LAW THING OF THE WEEK (3-5 min. reads)
What: Things That Make America Actually Great
Why: Because the Trump administration plans to weaken environmental protections and LGBT protections for government contractors. In regards to the latter, it looks as though Log Cabin Republicans have no idea what the hell they are talking about.

HISTORY THING OF THE WEEK (long read)
What: 400 Years Of American Slavery
Why: Because the first African slaves arrived to America 400 years ago.

SPORTS THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: More Like Jay-Why???
Why: Because there are mixed reactions after news released that Jay-Z might become a partial owner of an NFL.  This might be one of those situations where getting a seat at the table just isn’t worth it, at least morally speaking.

MOVIE THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: 6th Grade Going On 40
Why: Because raunchy coming of age stories keep on skewing younger.  Next will probably be a movie about preschoolers who swear while talking about tampons or something.

MUSIC THING OF THE WEEK (long read)
What: Sleater-Kinney In A Changing World 
Why: Because one of the preeminent women rock bands is going through some changes itself. Also, Pitchfork dove off of the deep end and decided to review a bunch of older Taylor Swift albums, probably in preparation for the new one. Pitchfork gave a Taylor Swift album a 9.0. Do what you will with that information.

COMIC BOOK THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Marvel Doesn’t Understand Its Own History
Why: Because Art Spiegelman, creator of the wonderful graphic novel Maus, had an opening essay (read essay here) pulled from a new history of Marvel Comics for political content.

LITERATURE THING OF THE WEEK (2 min. read)
What: A Literate President Strikes Again
Why: Because Obama released his latest reading list.

INTERNET THINGS OF THE WEEK (∞)
What: Jack Gray; A Nicer Way Of Saying People Are Too Stupid For Satire, but then again, Trump Is Trying To Buy Greenland; How To Pop A Balloon
Why: Because Internet.

THING YOU SHOULD GET BRIAN OF THE WEEK
What: Greenland
Why: Because Brian deserves it.

Webtacularly yours,
Brian
Managing Editor, Webtacular World
The Internet You Didn’t Know You Needed™

Greetings Webtaculators. This all somehow keeps getting worse, doesn’t it?  On to the news.

STORY OF THE WEEK (6 min. read)
What: Epstein Dies Under Federal Imprisonment
Why: Because I’m not normally one for conspiracy theories, but ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME. The amount of failure that needed to occur for Epstein to be able to kill himself while in a jail cell after having already been under suicide watch for a previous attempt is inconceivable.  Of course, Trump decides to share his belief that this is somehow Clinton’s fault, even though he is the single person actually in charge of federal prisons.  He managed to do this in between the most horrific thumbs up photo with an orphaned child who’s parents were gunned down in the anti-Mexican attack in Texas, speaking in a mock Asian accent when talking about Korea and Japan, and going golfing again.

ECONOMIC THING OF THE WEEK (short look)
What: Stocks Are Essentially Flat
Why: Because after a bad week on Wall Street largely attributable to the stupidity of Trump’s tariff war with China, the market fell to levels just above that of a year ago.

LAW THING OF THE WEEK (long read)
What: Liberty For None
Why: Because if no one is granted asylum in the US, then I guess we aren’t the land of the free.

SPORTS THINGS OF THE WEEK (short looks)
What: So Much Spinning
Why: Because Simone Biles won her 6th all around US title with the first ever triple double on the floor and double double off of a balance beam. Also, Mitchie Brusco landed the first 1260 on a skateboard (I remember when a 900 was a big deal).

MOVIE THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Be Like Spike
Why: Because Spike Lee published a list of 95 essential movies for aspiring directors.

MUSIC THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Inside This Year
Why: Because even though I would have loved to see Childish Gambino, this is the first year in many that I did not attend Outside Lands. What has been one of my favorite events has slowly become for other people – in terms of cost, distance, and musical preference. At least the weed was legal this year? Also, there is new Bon Iver, but for some reason, I’m just not getting into it as much as did Justin Vernon’s previous work. Critics seem to love it, though.

PHOTOGRAPHY THING OF THE WEEK (Really, don’t even bother looking at it again. It is disgusting.)
What: This Fucking Picture
Why: If there was any doubt that Trump is a monster, this should end that discussion. But, of course it wont.

LITERATURE THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: RIP Toni Morrison
Why: Because one of the great American voices is no longer with us.

VIDEO GAME THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Video Games Don’t Kill People
Why: Because the website IGN usually follows the ESPN mantra of entertainment – no politics. However, it’s kind of hard to not do politics when politics continuously fails to follow a basic understanding of reality.

INTERNET THINGS OF THE WEEK (∞)
What: Full Mustache; 50-30 Hogs; The First Actual Good Use Of Twitter In Years
Why: Because Internet.

THING YOU SHOULD GET BRIAN OF THE WEEK
What: Whoever took the real timeline and replaced it with this circus sideshow needs to give it back to the rest of us now.
Why: Because Brian deserves it.

Webtacularly yours,
Brian
Managing Editor, Webtacular World
The Internet You Didn’t Know You Needed™

I am sad, and I am tired. On to the news.

STORY OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: Enough
Why: Because I have no more words that will do anything to convince anyone that still thinks civilian owned weapons have any place in a free society. I mourn for the people affected by the shootings at Gilroy, El Paso, and Dayton this past week, but I also have no hope that anything will be done to prevent this.

ECONOMIC THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Cheaper Money
Why: Because I could have sworn that the only reason to lower the federal interest rate was to prop up a faltering economy. I must be wrong, since I’ve been assured America is doing great.

LAW THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: The Bar Is A Joke
Why: Because the CA bar examiners released the questions to the exam before it was given.

SCIENCE THING OF THE WEEK (2 min. read)
What: Hovering To The Future
Why: Because this is way better than those shitty two wheeled things that kept catching on fire that everyone got for Christmas two years ago.

SPORTS THING OF THE WEEK (5 min. read)
What: The Tour
Why: Because with no standout American in the race, sports journalism largely forgot to mention that this happened.

MOVIE THING OF THE WEEK (long read)
What: The Best Bads Of Bond
Why: Because the James Bond franchise has great villains.

MUSIC THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: Newport Folk Turns 60
Why: Because folk music has come a long way since it was the voice of a disenfranchised America. Maybe it needs to start speaking up again.

ART THING OF THE WEEK (short look)
What: Goofy Froot
Why: Because sometimes you need to look at a banana in a suit to feel a bit better about life.

LITERATURE THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: The Pen Vs. The Sword
Why: Because right now, it looks as thought the sword infiltrated religion and education and told people only it matters.

VIDEO GAME THING OF THE WEEK (long read)
What: The Super Bowl Of Fighting Games
Why: Because imagine that you took all of the sports derived from football (i.e. rugby, association football, american football, Aussie rules, etc.), and got all of the best teams for each of those playing at the same event over a weekend. That’s Evo.

INTERNET THINGS OF THE WEEK (∞)
What: Party Like It’s 1999; How To Sell Your Movie About Imaginary Hitler; Hot Chicken With Carla And Michael
Why: Because Internet.

THING YOU SHOULD GET BRIAN OF THE WEEK
What: Let’s Try A Week Without Mass Murder. That shouldn’t be too hard of an ask, but I don’t have much faith in humanity right now.
Why: Because Brian deserves it.

Webtacularly yours,
Brian
Managing Editor, Webtacular World
The Internet You Didn’t Know You Needed™