2021-03-28

Worthy

• The forgotten medieval fruit with a vulgar name - BBC Future

• http://disq.us/p/2g0pq7l

  Deep in my black little libertarian heart I'm enjoying the mockery that's being made of our federal government by everyone involved. It must be painful to watch for anyone who worships Big Government. Whether it's Congress, the presidency, the Derp State agencies, the lawyers and lobbyists and mega corps who write the laws and pay off the people who claim to be in charge but don't want any responsibility for anything.. They've all been exposed for the fools and tools they are.

  Some might argue that the antics in Washington leave us open to attack by our foreign enemies, but I suspect that China, Russia, et al. have been paying closer attention than most of us, and have probably known for a long time that we live with a government that's half kleptocracy -- our government can be bought, our enemies like that and take advantage of it -- and half kakistocracy. What saves us from our foreign enemies is the very incompetence and insanity of our government. Our allies have long complained about the inconsistency and unpredictability of our government but it's got to be even worse for our enemies. It's like dealing with a drunk or someone who's profoundly insane, they never know what will set the US off and the response to any provocation might be all out of proportion.

  That no one even knows who has their finger on the Big Red Button makes it even more difficult. Is some General Jack D. Ripper 10 minutes from launch, or is it Pedo Joe, who would call a lid and go back to bed if America and/or our allies came under attack?

  Here at home, who could have predicted six months ago that the Republican Senate Majority Leader would take to the podium to tell all 75 million Republican voters -- far and away the most who have ever turned out to vote for a Republican president -- to go to hell? Who could possibly have predicted that most of Congress -- on both sides of the aisle -- would be so desperate to be rid of the most popular president in recent history that they'd commit or condone massive, right in our faces vote fraud and then throw up a razor wire-topped fence guarded by military troops around the capitol while they hope to brazen it out?

  The border is open, the schools are closed, and the capitol is fortified. The heads of our National Institutes of Health are funding Chinese biowarfare labs -- just waiting for the next shoe to drop there -- our president is non compose mentis, our institutes of higher education and our corporate media are circling the bowl, Hollywood is bereft of any shred of creativity and existing on remakes of 1930s comic books, our big cities are under attack by mostly peaceful mobs abetted by our blue state governments, the police are being defunded, the prisons are being emptied, and the powers-that-be think it would be a great idea to confiscate all our guns, our Department of Homeland security has declared anyone who questions government authority a domestic terrorist, we're witnessing the biggest Free Shit giveaway in world history, and that's just the highlights.

  We live in interesting times..

etc

• These Huge 'Demon Ducks' With Squished Brains Were an Extreme Evolutionary Experiment

• Gun Group At Iowa State University Faces Backlash Over Event About 3D-Printed Weapons  | ZeroHedge

• The US consumer safety regulator is investigating Tesla solar panel fires

  • Have seen people complain that Tesla hires cheap local tweaker installers and they've a nasty habit of using cheap connectors and such instead of the weatherproof / long life / etc. Of course any "hundreds of amps DC" installation is going to require discipline about torquing things down and contact grease etc that few household AC experienced electricians know about.

• Alien Languages May Not Be Alien to Us

Horseshit

• BMW charges extra for a ‘don’t blind other people’ software update

• San Diego Comic-Con sets sights on Thanksgiving weekend, sparking backlash

• Harvard closes evolution center after finding connections to Jeffrey Epstein

• Global depopulation is looming existential threat that no one is talking about

  • Well, nobody but the "conspiracy theorists" and "religious nuts" that have been talking about it since the 70s, but OK, then welcome to the part y'all.

Media / Many Ministries of Truths

• Dartmouth-Brown Study Documents Media's Stoking "Vicious Circle Of Fear" On COVID | ZeroHedge

• How U.S. media lost the trust of the public

• Twitter says calling the Syrian Muslim CO shooter a "white Christian terrorist" does not violate its policies on misinformation or hate | Not the Bee

• CNN slammed for questionable tweet that refers to murder as an ‘accident’ | Fox News

• comment chain:

  That's how free speech works in the modern world. You have to waste your time, energy, nerves to refute a total nonsense that zombie-like mob find useful in supporting.

  How was free speech in the .. non-modern world any different?

  In the past it took real effort to broadcast your ideas to the world. People had to really believe in an idea to help it spread.

  These days a throwaway tweet or blog post can be seen by millions before there’s been any chance to debate the argument on a smaller scale (and either refine or abandon it)

  I hate this. It makes you not want to venture anything online, or at least anything with your name attached to it. I have a deep fear that something dumb but pithy I've said will become a flag for morons long after I realized that I was completely wrong.

  there was some kickback but mostly it was an affirmation circle of "oh yes life was better when only our betters could speak to the masses". people pointing out that its still mostly the same lords saying the same stupid shit to the same masses got flattened. "your tweet can go around the world before you know it!" "Yeah? when's the last time that happened to you?" ... the argument isn't welcomed because no one wants to say that they're not an influencer, not followed by millions, etc.

Identity Politics / Re segregation

• Oxford considers scrapping sheet music for being “too colonial.”

• USA Today editor alleges 'white authority' after being fired for a tweet

• Two Men in Seattle, San Francisco Face Anti-Asian Hate Charges

TechSuck

• Amazon Twitter war with Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren spurred by Jeff Bezos - Vox

• Does Amazon make more from ads than AWS?

• Free as in Climbing: Open Data Project Threatened by Bogus Copyright Claims

• Silicon Valley giants provide tech support in Newsom recall fight

• The Curious Case of the YCombinator Bookmarklet - Dan Bulwinkle

• Microsoft to let Seattle-area employees return to office

Economicon

• Traders Are ‘Glued to Their Screens’ and Set for Volatile Open

• Semiconductors lead times in March 2021

• Zoom's pandemic profits exceeded $670M. Its federal tax payment? Zilch

• Funds Bet on a Consumer Boom to Rival ‘Roaring Twenties’

• Bubble Deniers Abound to Dismiss Valuation Metrics One by One

Suez

• Giant Vessel Is Now Afloat, Inchcape Says: Suez Update

• Valentin Vincendon - A "sudden strong wind": the worst excuse Ever Given?

  Even without strong hypotheses, it does seem like an extremely strong wind could in theory bring the ship dangerously close to the bank. I must say that it goes against my initial intuition, so I am glad I did the math.

• Suez Shows Civilization Is More Vulnerable Than We Think

• Egyptian President "Prepare For All Scenarios" To Refloat Megaship

Poilitcks

• Texas Federal Judge Tosses Qualified Immunity Defense

• Border tour: Senators heckled by ‘coyotes,’ Biden officials tried to block photos

Security / Militaria

• US Strategic Command tweets “;l;;gmlxzssaw”

• Howie Carr: FBI whiffs again on Colorado mass shooting suspect

• Mulvaney calls Trump's comments on Capitol riot 'manifestly false'

World

• China’s millennials, Gen Z leading nation away from American culture

• Palm Sunday Church Bombing Wounds 20 In Indonesia

• UN officials condemn Myanmar junta after 100-plus civilians killed in one day

• Bangladeshi Protesters Clash with Police during Strike

• China sanctions U.S. religious freedom officials, Canadian ...

• Ethiopian news media have become dangerously divided along ethnic fault line

• Bangladeshi protestors attack Hindu temples

Health / Medicine / COVID

• Heroes to zeros: how German perfectionism wrecked its Covid vaccine drive

• New York State’s Covid-19 Vaccine Passport Leaves Users Clueless About Privacy

• Birx tells CNN most U.S. covid deaths ‘could have been mitigated’ after first 100,000

• In Photos: 5k pack into Spain arena for concert after Covid screen

• Foreign vaccine-seekers flock to Serbia for Covid-19 shots

• Mounting evidence suggests mink farms in China could be the cradle of Covid-19

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Mexico's Decision to Ban Glyphosate Has Rocked the Agribusiness World

  • they never bought into "no till farming" the way the USA did

• The lawyer who took on Chevron – and now marks his 600th day under house arrest

• Paul Kedrosky on Twitter: "Cherry blossoms in Tokyo, Japan, are in full bloom, the second-earliest start date in history. This data series has been reconstructed back to the 9th century, and the recent trend to earlier dates is accelerating with warmer winters and earlier springs. https://t.co/ku4H5QtnqR https://t.co/kxRnFIJ5je" / Twitter

  • 1200 years of data points fits within 38 days.

• Heard NFTs are bad for the environment? Here's what that means

• Edible insect proteins. Disgust as an obstacle for sustainable production

• Scientists Support an Idea Long Thought Outlandish: Reflecting the Sun’s Rays