A Scammer Darkly
RSS
Archive
Subscribe
No Justice, No Peace - Protests, Facebook, Tyson Foods, and Tesla
May 3, 2024
Protests Columbia University protests via Rolling Stone Across the country, thousands of brave students spent the last week engaging in peaceful protests...
Fit to Print - News, Driving, Regulations, and Trump
April 26, 2024
News Last week, a listener posed a question during the Distraction podcast that felt pertinent to what we do here at ASD. It was, loosely paraphrased - are...
Daddy's Home - Israel, Migrants, Florida, and TMTG
April 19, 2024
Israel (Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90) We talk a lot around here about AI, and the many harms it has or could someday inflict upon society. Well, it turns out...
Race to the Bottom - Chatbots, Boeing, Kids, and Sexting
April 12, 2024
Chatbots If you worked in marketing some time between 2013 and 2020, you were probably exposed to the 'martech' revolution (a portmanteau of Marketing...
Bottled in Bond - Trump, TMTG, Hunterbrook, and Walmart
April 5, 2024
Trump Photo credit: NBC News One reason it doesn't pay to get optimistic about our justice system ever handing down penalties against Donald J Trump is that...
Won't Shut Up - Speech, MrBeast, Oceans, and Cat Bonds
March 29, 2024
Speech Like most things American, speech is unevenly distributed - those in power have far greater leeway to say and do what they want, while the less...
Ruling Class - Oligarchs, AI, Boeing, and Justice
March 22, 2024
Oligarchs Courtesy: CTV News The invasion of Ukraine, and subsequent seizure of assets Russian oligarchs had squirreled away around the globe, helped...
Hasn't Got the Juice - The Economy, Energy, Plagiarism, and Elon
March 15, 2024
The Economy We have talked about America's obsession with vibes-based economic policy. We had a year of interest rate hikes and talk of sending the country...
Elite Impunity - Politicians, Tech, Media, and Taxes
March 8, 2024
Politicians tfw your handpicked judges hand you a rare W As expected, this week the Supreme Court decided the state of Colorado couldn't keep Donald Trump...
End of an Era - Sports Illustrated, VICE, Product Reviews, and Instagram
March 1, 2024
Sports Illustrated Why is it always the Chainsmokers? Last month, most of the staff at Sports Illustrated were notified they would be laid off, due to a...
Bad, Bad Men - Trump, Musk, MBS, and All the Rest
February 23, 2024
Trump Look at my lawyer dawggggg I'm going to be ordered to pay $450 million Earlier this month, Donald Trump was ordered to pay $83 million dollars in a...
A Trilli - AI, Green Energy, Uber, and Reading
February 16, 2024
AI The Prophet of AI Caping for Petrodollars At this point, a significant portion of the tech industry runs on hype cycles - a burst of excitement over a new...
Gridlock - Driving, Vouchers, Migrants, and Politicians
February 9, 2024
Driving The average American spends 2.5 work weeks in traffic. We have talked about cars, and the ways Americans are uniquely dangerous behind the wheel. It...
Chain Gang - Prison Labor, Boeing, 23andMe, and Taking Ls
February 2, 2024
Prison Labor Two things the United States is especially good at are putting its citizens in prison, and putting cheap meat and produce on grocery shelves. It...
Out of Stock - Instacart, Elon Musk, Cruises, and Crabs
January 26, 2024
Instacart For a long time, the business model for any consumer-facing product or service was that you'd sell that product or service for a good price, or...
Irregulars
January 19, 2024
Note: Thanks for everyone's patience as I get acclimated to the new system. This week's newsletter should be coming from the right place, and hopefully land...
Risky Business
January 12, 2024
Thanks to everyone who's made the jump with me. Let's kick the new year off on a new domain, on a new platform that doesn't amplify some of the worst bigots...
Lights Out
December 29, 2023
Note: ASD will be off next week, returning the week after from a new home, explained below. Substack Starting off a newsletter talking about issues within...
Common Law
December 22, 2023
Note: The nice folks at Business Insider wrote about the FCC closing the lead generator loophole, and quoted your humble newsletterer in the process. Lawyers...
Over the Rainbow
December 15, 2023
Crime Americans are obsessed with crime. They see it everywhere (other than, ironically, where they live) and it gets wielded as a cudgel in many local...
House of Cards
December 8, 2023
AI As if we weren’t swimming in enough breathlessly credulous coverage of AI writ large, industry darling Sam Altman got himself mixed up in a Succession-...
Lead From the Front
December 1, 2023
Lead Generation Only seriously long-time readers of this newsletter will be aware that in a past life I worked in lead generation. My job, for a couple...
No Occupancy
November 17, 2023
Note: ASD will be off next week for the holiday, back Dec 1. Elections Those of you fortunate enough to not be on a dozen different candidate spam text lists...
Cruise Control
November 10, 2023
Quick note: Welcome to all our new subscribers, many of whom came from Ryan Broderick’s excellent newsletter Garbage Day. Also, as part of a long-overdue...
Strike Three
November 3, 2023
Unions Normally when we talk about unions, it’s bad news. Despite unionization drives in recent years, weak US labor laws and powerful corporations seemed to...
Big Rig Man
October 27, 2023
Lawsuits When we talk about lawsuits in these pages, it’s often a big company suing a competitor, or an unfortunate citizen - basically, a wealthy plaintiff...
Peace Out
October 20, 2023
Israel For many people, the last weeks have been upsetting and confusing. Hamas’s surprise attack against Israel, Israel’s brutal sanctions and bombing...
Bad Results
October 13, 2023
Google Google turned 25 this year. What began as a janky jumble of bright colors and text in the late nineties has grown into a tech behemoth - it dominates...
Earth Shattering
October 6, 2023
Fracking We talked recently about groundwater, and how parts of the US are rapidly depleting underground aquifers, some of which may never recover. Americans...
Envelope Math
September 29, 2023
Bribery Dictionary dot com defines a bribe as ‘money or any other valuable consideration given or promised with a view to corrupting the behavior of a...
In The Zone
September 22, 2023
Blue Zones A Blue Zone is an area of the world where people live much longer than average. They have been identified by aging researchers, and featured in...
Downright Inhospitable
September 15, 2023
Hospitals For many Americans - especially those without health insurance - a hospital is the most utilized form of health care. Hospitals come in all shapes...
All Warmed Up
September 8, 2023
Weather Anyone who lives just about anywhere in the world has felt the effects of the planet’s warming this year. In the southern hemisphere, South American...
Send in the Clowns
September 1, 2023
Hello from the beach! I am typing this from a veranda overlooking the ocean whilst eating goat stew. This week’s newsletter will be abbreviated to cover a...
Jammed Up
August 25, 2023
Doctors Last week we talked about moral injury in the medical field - doctors being asked to violate their beliefs and deliver substandard care to patients...
Couldn't Care Less
August 18, 2023
Doctors Any non-wealthy person who’s had to interact with America’s labyrinthine health care system in recent years may have witnessed a decline in quality...
Short Shrift
August 11, 2023
Short Selling Loosely speaking, short selling is borrowing shares of stock to place a bet that its value will go down. You put up some margin to borrow the...
Blind Ambition
August 4, 2023
Tesla If you’re a person with opinions about Elon Musk, you probably fall into one of three camps - he’s either a world-changing genius who’s single-handedly...
Weighed Down
July 28, 2023
Lead We’ve been talking about lead in these pages for awhile now - past decades of a powerful lead industry in America show up in our water, soil, and the...
Grab n' Go
July 21, 2023
Predatory Pricing Back in the early 20th century, the US Justice Department utilized predatory pricing controls to break up monopolies like Standard Oil. The...
Cats Out of the Bag
July 14, 2023
Operation Heavy Metal Two years ago, we briefly touched on the impact of catalytic converter thefts on average people - expensive repairs they could ill...
Flip the Script
July 7, 2023
HomeVestors Have you seen this gaudy yellow billboard like in your neighborhood? It could be a sign you’re on the radar of a HomeVestors franchise. The...
Ranked Choice
June 30, 2023
Google Google (Alphabet, whatever) is a giant, extremely profitable company with a virtual monopoly on web search, online videos, and display advertising....
Gone Fishin'
June 23, 2023
Titanic Sub Once in awhile a story comes along that galvanizes people from all walks of life - this week, that story is the Titanic sub. What is the Titanic...
Cross the Streams
June 16, 2023
Note: This week I stepped in to write an edition of Walt Hickey’s excellent Numlock News. A big thanks to all of you who subscribed as a result. Hopefully...
Lured In
June 9, 2023
Catfishing This newsletter’s relevant definition of catfishing is the process of luring someone into a relationship by means of a fictional persona. There...
Under Water
June 2, 2023
Insurance Florida’s recent history could be told two different ways. One version would sing the state’s praises for attracting millions of new residents...
Medically Unnecessary
May 26, 2023
Health Insurance Anyone who reads this newsletter is well aware that the American health care system excels at providing extremely expensive, sub-standard...
Boom Town
May 19, 2023
Boomflation One reason we talk about inflation a lot around here is that the increased costs tend to fall on those who can least afford it, and the increased...
Jurist Prudence
May 12, 2023
The Supreme Court Typically, when we are talking about the Supreme Court around these parts it’s because they’ve gutted regulatory oversight, stripped more...
Older archives