Category Archives: Around the World

“Maybe grandma’s secret family recipe isn’t so secret after all.”

Atlas Obscura: The Dirty Secret of ’Secret Family Recipes’. “Surprisingly often, they’re copied from mayo jars and famous cookbooks.”

“When Danny Meyer was gearing up to open his barbecue restaurant, Blue Smoke, there was one recipe he knew he had to have on the menu: his grandmother’s secret potato salad recipe.

“I told the chef, ‘My very favorite potato salad in the world was the one my grandmother made,’“ Meyer recalls.
[…]
When Meyer arrived, the sous chefs had a big bowl of potato salad that brought back memories of his grandmother. He tried it, smiled, and told the chefs, “That’s exactly right.“ They grinned back at him mischievously. Eventually, Meyer broke and asked, “What’s so funny?“ A chef pulled out a jar of Hellman’s mayonnaise and placed it on the table. Meyer looked at it, then realized that the secret recipe his grandmother had hoarded for years was on the jar. It was the official Hellman’s recipe for potato salad.”

Even more enjoyable to read is the MetaFilter posting from which this link came. Members share their not-so-secret family recipes.

“So Bears Ears isn’t really about oil and gas.“

The New York Times: Oil Was Central in Decision to Shrink Bears Ears Monument, Emails Show.

“Even before President Trump officially opened his high-profile review last spring of federal lands protected as national monuments, the Department of Interior was focused on the potential for oil and gas exploration at a protected Utah site, internal agency documents show.”

Link via MetaFilter.

“Die Erde. Endliche Weiten. Das sind die Abenteuer der Menschen im 21. Jahrhundert.”

ZDF “Die Anstalt” vom 27.02.2018: Zukunftszenario Klimawandel – Zurück im Jahr 2100. (52min, auch als Download)

Hintergrundinformationen: Faktencheck (PDF, 564kB)

“Das Abschmelzen der Polkappen und das Verschwinden von Florida wird noch ein bisschen dauern, aber durch den Anstieg des Meeresspiegels sind weite Teile von Norddeutschland, den Niederlanden und Dänemark bereits überflutet. Hamburg und Amsterdam haben große Probleme und können nicht gehalten werden. 13 Millionen Menschen in Europa haben ihre Heimat verloren und in Indonesien 200 Millionen. Durch den Temperaturanstieg ist ein Drittel der Erdoberfläche unbewohnbar, und die Hitze zusammen mit der hohen Luftfeuchtigkeit hat dazu geführt, dass die Tropen, also von Brasilien über Afrika bis nach Thailand, Indonesien und Vietnam zu einer Todeszone geworden sind. – Moment, über welches Jahr reden wir hier? – 2100.”

[P]eople on online forums worked aggressively to undermine news reports about a troubled teen accused of killing 17 people

The Washington Post: We studied thousands of anonymous posts about the Parkland attack — and found a conspiracy in the making.

“Forty-seven minutes after news broke of a high school shooting in Parkland, Fla., the posters on the anonymous chat board 8chan had devised a plan to bend the public narrative to their own designs: “Start looking for [Jewish] numerology and crisis actors.“

The voices from this dark corner of the Internet quickly coalesced around a plan of attack: Use details gleaned from news reports and other sources to push false information about one of America’s deadliest school shootings.
[…]
The success of this effort would soon illustrate how lies that thrive on raucous online platforms increasingly shape public understanding of major events. As much of the nation mourned, the story concocted on anonymous chat rooms soon burst onto YouTube, Twitter and Facebook, where the theories surged in popularity.”

Link via Garret.

“Why is there suddenly so much traction? Has the country just finally had enough with these mass shootings?”

The Atlantic: The Parkland Students Aren’t Going Away. “American teens are shaping a new kind of debate about gun violence—but why now?” By Alia Wong. Feb 24, 2018.

“It quickly became clear that these survivors were poised to spearhead a political movement whose message is so loud, and so raw, it’s continued to dominate mainstream news coverage and radio shows and even late-night comedy a week after the shooting—an unusual phenomenon in today’s real-time news environment. They’ve written haunting op-eds and delivered viral speeches; they’ve instigated rallies and prompted nationwide walkouts by students and teachers.”

See the website March For Our Lives.