2023-03-19

Horseshit

• The SVB debacle has exposed the hypocrisy of Silicon Valley

• The James Webb Space Telescope will ripple through our moral universe | Hacker News

  expected the article to be about overturning Lemaitre's Big Bang Theory, both because Lemaitre was a Catholic priest and his theory is very neatly Catholic

• HN exchange re "lead in dark chocolate" story Do I Need to Avoid Dark Chocolate Now?

  Why would dark chocolate be worse than any other chocoloate?

  Just a matter of concentration. 80% of 100g is more than 40% of 100g.

  How do we know that? I'd ask both us and NYT to be scientific about it. Not Cargo culting science.

celebrity gossip

• Peter Gabriel on the future of AI: 'dance with them, rather than fight them'

• Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

  • HN comments

  Everyone I know who recreationally does cocaine is scared to continue because of the risk of fentanyl contamination.

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• Pro-Moscow voices tried to steer Ohio train disaster debate

• The Federalist Society Isn’t Quite Sure About Democracy Anymore

Musk

• How Elon Musk Knocked Tesla’s ‘Full Self-Driving’ Off Course

• Decentralized Social Media Rises as Twitter Melts Down

Trump / War against the Right / Jan6

• Trump posts on Truth Social that he’ll be arrested next week (Dem ‘SQUIRREL’ moment detected).

• The DA aggressively pursuing Trump over his alleged role in a hush money scheme

• Manhattan D.A. says attempts to intimidate office won’t be tolerated

Pestilence / Pox / COVID / VaxCult

• What Worked Against Covid: Masks, Closures and Vaccines

• Covid-19 Jabs Can Cause ‘Permanent Disabilities,’ Says German Health Minister

• Covid vaccines: From rationing to not knowing what to do with them

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• Watch the troll farms dancing: More students are turning away from college and toward apprenticeships | Hacker News

TechSuck

• Unix legend Ken Thompson announces he's switching From macOS To Raspbian Linux | Hacker News

Crypto con games

• Balaji's betting 1 BTC will be $1M in 90 days

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Magical Monetary Thinking at the Fed Killed SVB

• SVB execs sold millions of company stock in lead up to collapse

• Prices at the supermarket keep rising. So do corporate profits

  • HN comments

• Why car prices are still so high– and why they are unlikely to fall anytime soon

• Midsize US Banks Ask FDIC to Insure Deposits for Two Years

• UBS seeks $6B in government guarantees for Credit Suisse takeover

• Dysfunction in 'wildly illiquid' bond markets unnerves investors, officials

• Bailouts of insolvent banks don’t lead to hyperinflation

• Save now, buy later: an emerging fintech model

• UBS offers to buy Credit Suisse for up to $1B | Hacker News

  1/7 of the Friday closing price - this is heading into the Matt Levine "we will buy your bank, make sure that all your customers are made whole, and give you a Snickers bar in exchange for 100% of the equity" territory

• US banks want socialism for themselves - and capitalism for everyone else | Robert Reich

• The Fed’s Balance Sheet Looks Like SVB's

• Before Collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, the Fed Spotted Big Problems

• Signature Bank's Quirky Mix of Customers Fueled Its Rise and Hastened Its Fall

• Switzerland Weighs Full or Partial Credit Suisse Nationalization | Hacker News

• Switzerland Considers Nationalization Of Credit Suisse As Proposed UBS Takeunder Falters | ZeroHedge

  Update (1300ET): The Financial Times reports that UBS has agreed to buy Credit Suisse after increasing its offer to more than $2bn, with Swiss authorities poised to change the country’s laws to bypass a shareholder vote on the transaction as they rush to finalize a deal before Monday. he purchase price is a fraction of the $8 billion market cap the company was valued at on Friday's close; it means that UBS will now pay slightly more than CHF0.50 a share in its own stock, up from a bid of SFr0.25 earlier today, but far below Credit Suisse’s closing price of CHF1.86 on Friday.

• UBS makes offer for Credit Suisse as contagion fears grow

• SVB’s collapse will not be a one-off – a banking crisis was long overdue

• Silicon Valley Bank crisis a result of ‘idiot management,’ Kevin O’Leary says

• SVB employees blame remote work for bank failure

• FDIC Moves Toward Breakup Plan for Silicon Valley Bank

• UBS Agrees to Buy Credit Suisse in Historic Deal to End Crisis

  • HN comments

• UBS agrees to buy Credit Suisse for over $2B

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• A Four-Decade Secret: The Untold Story of Sabotaging Jimmy Carter’s Re-Election

• Yes, it’s real: Joe Biden’s Department of Energy just moved to ban nearly all gas stoves.

  • Hoyt: " as an asthmatic, this is rich coming from the people who told us our disability wasn’t a thing and we had to wear the mask, or be locked in our houses. These are my middle fingers."

• Are Democrats Deliberately Making Trump a Martyr to Boost Him With GOP Voters?

• Warren Buffett in discussions with Biden officials on banking crisis

• U.S. lawmakers to examine merits of higher FDIC bank deposit insurance cap

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• CNN Reporter Robbed While Covering “Rampant Street Crime” in San Francisco

  • CNN reporters doing a story on San Fran street crime hired security to watch their cars at city hall. You know what happened next. | Not the Bee

• L.A. riders bail on Metro trains amid ‘horror’ of deadly drug overdoses, crime

• Memphis lieutenant on scene of Tyre Nichols' beating retired with benefits

• Shot: defund the police; Chaser: I am begging for more police – HotAir

World

• Heavy Clashes in Paris

• Why more immigrants have come to the UK since Brexit

• Pakistani Police Storm Home of Former PM Khan, Arrest 61

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Use of Chinese ammunition by Russia confirmed in Ukraine

• Playing the Victim - by Timothy Snyder - Thinking about...

  My first point is that harm to Russians, and harm to Russian culture, is primarily a result of the policies of the Russian Federation. If we are concerned about harm to Russians and Russian culture, then we should be concerned with the policies of the Russian state. My second point will be that the term "russophobia," which we are discussing today, has been exploited during this war as a form of imperial propaganda in which the aggressor claims to be the victim. It has served this last year as a justification for Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

• Putin visits occupied city of Mariupol

• Russia may take over Toyota plant in St Petersburg: State media

Health / Medicine

• Chicago starts testing for polio virus in wastewater in hopes of detecting any potential local cases early.

• Wyoming Outlaws Abortion Pills

• To ensure vaccines work properly, men should get a good night’s sleep | Hacker News

• Recall issued after frozen strawberries linked to Hepatitis A cases

• California's Own Brand of Insulin

• Cocaine production reaches record levels as new trafficking hubs emerge

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Global fresh water demand will outstrip supply by 40% by 2030, say experts

• Skunks in Vancouver Are Dying of Avian Flu

• The Myth of a Wilderness Without Humans

  • I'm pretty far out in the woods: just about as rural as you can get East of the Mississippi river in the US. We're so far out AT&T never bought and crushed the local phone company, and neither of the two ever quite got out as far as our house. We still have no cell service (go out on the porch on a good day and get some signal,maybe) nor even Starlink. My house is surrounded by 80-100 year old trees. If you look close on the hillsides you can see the marks where someone plowed the hills in terraces for several years before these trees sprouted there. Down the hill a ways, someone has laid bricks around one of the good springs, making the spot a bit easier to use and more durable. Those bricks have fingermarks baked into them. The first maps and explorers notes of this area note it as "treeless rolling hills": the only way to keep the forest from covering the land here is to clear it every couple years minimum.