Notes from the edge of civilization: June 15, 2025
Excremental progress; Citigroup re-arms; spy vs. pie.
If you woke up feeling queasy this morning, you’re not alone — at least, according to the latest poop-veillance data. In case you can’t pin your nausea on the news cycle alone, you can track viral trends in real-time poop dashboards like this one to see if sickness is spreading in your vicinity.
Wastewater data can offer a goldmine of early warning signals, picking up community-wide infection trends before people start flooding emergency rooms. Experts say this kind of information collection is anonymous, passive, and doesn’t require people to get tested (or lie about their symptoms), making it one of the best tools we have for proactive disease monitoring. And in a perfect world, it would be a low-cost public good that helps allocate resources, target support, and avoid unnecessary panic.
But we don’t live in a perfect world, and we don’t trust experts. Since public health has become political theater and data is too often wielded as a weapon, monitoring the sewer could inch us closer to a reality where a neighborhood’s collective bowel movements could trigger school closures, mask mandates, or local lockdowns.
Until we know who is interpreting the data and who decides what counts as a spike, this kind of bio-surveillance stands out as just another potential lever of control. With so little trust, handing over another data stream — even a crappy one — could be dicey.
Welcome to the data-driven future. It stinks, doesn’t it?
Citibank has backed away from a controversial policy that discriminated against businesses in the firearm industry, acknowledging growing concerns over fair banking access. The shift is being hailed by the NRA as a major victory for America’s hunters and lawful gun owners.
In a release titled “Reinforcing our Commitment to Fair Access to Financial Services,” Citigroup, the parent company of Citibank, confirmed it is dropping its firearm-specific policy, instituted in 2018:
The policy was intended to promote the adoption of best sales practices as prudent risk management and didn’t address the manufacturing of firearms. Many retailers have been following these best practices, and we hope communities and lawmakers will continue to seek out ways to prevent the tragic consequences of gun violence.
Citigroup originally framed the policy as “prudent risk management” — prohibiting the sale of standard-capacity magazines, refusing service to dealers who sold firearms to adults under 21, and requiring them to bypass federal provisions that allow for sales when background checks are delayed. But the end result was clear: many small firearm businesses were at risk of being cut off from banking services, financially strangled, or forced out of operation.
Citigroup also says it will update its internal policies to state that it does not discriminate based on political affiliation — placing that commitment on equal footing with protections based on race or religion.
The next time Pentagon staff trade their usual evening hangouts for classified briefings with extra cheese, maybe the world will pay more attention.
Welcome to the bizarrely accurate world of the Pentagon Pizza Index — America’s least official but weirdly effective early-warning system for global conflict. (h/t to
for spotting the news.)Internet sleuths like Pentagon Pizza Report noticed last Thursday evening, as Israel launched air strikes on Iran, that Freddie’s Beach Bar — a Pentagon-adjacent gay bar known for its karaoke and cosmos — saw a suspicious dip in traffic. Meanwhile, the nearby Domino’s and Papa John’s were pumping out pies like a national emergency depended on it.
Pretty much anyone with Google Maps and Uber loaded on their smartphone can now become an open-source intelligence nerd, turning pizza crust into a crystal ball. It just takes a bit of baseline data, some knowledge of which local establishments are frequented by military folks, and some cross-validation from in-real-life sources.
Just remember — not every pizza surge is going to mean war is brewing. But when multiple signals align, it may be a good idea to start scanning the headlines if you’re looking to cut through the official BS narratives.
Everyday patterns like who is ordering pizza and not going to bars can reveal a lot, reminding us that power leaves fingerprints, even if they're greasy and need extra napkins.
Also, now that this cat is largely out of the bag, start thinking about what other fast foods might become a proxy indicator for Papa John’s. Anyone want to register the Pentagon Burger Briefing on X? The Tactical Taco Index? Takeout Tension Tracker?
I used to fly (sailplanes) from MASA (Mid Atlantic Soaring Assn) near the Pa/Md border. We often flew over what was known as the underground Pentagon. Car lot full always meant something was brewing. Most reliable predictor of military malarkey!
There was a similar tracking item I saw where they were using the head count of people in the gay bars in the area.