Greetings Webtaculators! Sorry about the delay – much like last week’s news, my weekend was too full of things to be able to get this out on time.  One of the things it was full of was food. One thing I learned you can do is make a reservation to a decent restaurant with a bunch of friends, and ask for the entire menu. It’s a surprisingly reasonably affordable way to get to try everything a place makes, as long as you have enough people. Highly recommended. The wait staff might hate you at the end, though, so remember to tip well. On to the news.

STORY OF THE WEEK (6 min. read)
What: America The Weak
Why: Because the US just lost every ounce of credibility it had with its allies by immediately withdrawing forces from Syria to let Turkey forces murder the Kurdish people. Power vacuums are not something that works in international politics. This is the exact reason why we could never leave the Middle East after Saddam, and why we never should have gone in in the first place – once you take ownership of a problem, you cannot wash your hands of it. Trump has unilaterally made the world a more dangerous place, and is working to undo the minimal good any of these wars ever accomplished.

ECONOMIC THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: Eat The Rich
Why: Because the wealthy are taking more than ever at the expense of people who clearly do not have as much. You can afford more.

INTERNATIONAL THING OF THE WEEK (5 min. reads)
What: China Don’t Play
Why: Because sports and video games, two of America’s biggest leisurely pursuits, have shown that both are always political, regardless of what them and their players and viewers say.

LAW THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: LBGTQ Rights Are Not About Bathrooms
Why: Because conservatives want you to think that the real problem is that that a dude can be a pervert and watch girls pee, instead of the real issue of whether or not someone can be fired simply because of who they love.

SCIENCE THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: Northern California Went Dark
Why: Because power outages normally occur because something went wrong with the power system – a line went down; there was a natural disaster; the fuel source ran out. In this case PG&E preemptively cut power to about 800,000 customers, a nicer way of saying over two million people, because of the potential damage its systems might cause. Another way to put it to understand the magnitude of the outage – imagine if the population of the states of New Mexico, Nebraska, West Virginia, Idaho, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Montana, Rhode Island, Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, or Wyoming suddenly did not have power (don’t even get me started on how roughly 1/3 of the United States gets more representation in our federal government than a just a portion of the greater Bay Area gets). PG&E is at this juncture due to a number of reasons, including global warming, increasing utility expenses, under investment in infrastructure, and the inherent dangers of electricity, but this is obviously no long term answer to deal with this. As a modern first world society, we can, and must, do better.

SPORTS THING OF THE WEEK (10 min. watch)
What: Sub 2
Why: Because a human being just ran a marathon in under two hours. Here’s how he did it. Also – in the time it took for you to watch the video, He would have run 2.5 miles. Ridiculous.

MOVIE THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: What Is A Parasite?
Why: Because Bong Joon-ho made yet another great, unique movie.

TELEVISION THING OF THE WEEK (3 min. read)
What: Pitter Patter
Why: Because Letterkenny is back. I suggest you start from the beginning.

MUSIC THING OF THE WEEK (long reads)
What: The Best Of The Teens
Why: Because Pitchfork released it’s top 100 tracks and albums of the last decade. It is interesting to see how much this decade represented a shift from indie to rap / pop, and how little albums seem to matter in recent years. One good trend is the top ten of both are dominated by women and people of color. Thanks streaming!

PHOTOGRAPHY THING OF THE WEEK (long look)
What: What We Have Wrought
Why: Because the violence you see here is directly on us.

LITERATURE THING OF THE WEEK (4 min. read)
What: Testament
Why: Because Offred story continues in only the way Atwood can tell it.

VIDEO GAME THING OF THE WEEK (6 min. read)
What: Killer App
Why: Because Asgard’s Wrath is the most fully realized VR game I have ever experienced.

INTERNET THINGS OF THE WEEK (∞)
What: A Perfect Circle; Gritty Grouch; Breaking Bad, Bitch!
Why: Because Internet.

THING YOU SHOULD GET BRIAN OF THE WEEK
What: Nike Vaporfly Next%
Why: Because Brian deserves it.

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