2024-08-09

Worthy

• How California Turned Against Growth

  How did this happen? Decades of growth began to strain the environment that had attracted people to California in the first place. Residents found themselves surrounded by polluted water, poisoned air, and a destroyed landscape. Views and natural beauty were increasingly spoiled by overhead power lines, outdoor advertising, freeway overpasses, and thousands of identical houses. Infrastructure like roads, schools and sewer systems were stretched to their breaking point. Crime was rising, and neighborhoods of single-family homes with largely white residents were being encroached on by apartment buildings housing the poor and minorities. In response to this unwanted change, Californians began to create land-use restrictions that would curb growth, help stop environmental harm, and limit the influx of new residents. When this drove up property values, Californians then passed Proposition 13, which cut property taxes, reduced the government’s ability to fund services, and locked in the low-growth culture that had taken root.

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• Over 90% of US Population Growth Since 2020 Came from Hispanics

Horseshit

• Rich countries drain 'shocking' amount of labor from the Global South

• Highlights from the Comments on Nietzsche

• Could reading instruction manuals become a thing of the past?

• Night owls are 'cognitively superior' to early risers. Here's why

• 7 Years After 'Summer of Hell,' the Subway Is Approaching Another Crisis

• Mercedes locks faster acceleration behind a $1,200 annual paywall

• Chess player suspended after allegedly poisoning rival

  • In world first, Russian chess player poisons rival's board with mercury

• Dairy Queen's Soft Serve Isn't What You Think It Is

  Has it ever occurred to you that Dairy Queen, renowned for its hot eats and cool treats does not refer to its ice cream as, well, ice cream? This is because, per the U.S. government, it's not really ice cream. According to regulations set forth by the Food and Drug Administration, ice cream must contain at least 10% milkfat, and DQ's soft serve only contains 5%.

LimpLicks

• Olympics may be transport hub for global disease spread

• Poetry Was an Official Olympic Event for Nearly 40 Years. What Happened?

• It's probably just money: Why hosts do well at the Olympics

• Athletes undercover? Global and U.S. anti-doping agencies clash over tactics

celebrity gossip

• Taylor Swift ISIS suspects planned augmented bomb-car, got hired as event staff

Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering

• The GARMs Race: The House Moves Forward With its Investigation of Blacklisting Company – JONATHAN TURLEY

  Rakowitz has denounced the “extreme global interpretation of the US Constitution” and how civil libertarians cite “‘principles for governance’ and applying them as literal law from 230 years ago (made by white men exclusively).”

  • Global Alliance for Responsible Media is 'discontinuing' after X filed a lawsuit

Musk

• Elon Musk's X sues ad industry group over alleged advertising 'boycott'

• Elon Musk deletes post spreading fake news about UK 'detainment camps'

• Elon Sues Ad Coalition Because He Thinks It's Illegal to Not Advertise on X

• The Antitrust Case Against SpaceX

  SpaceX’s exclusionary contracts with customers have all the markings of an anticompetitive restraint. While predation cases are rare, SpaceX’s pricing seems oddly low relative to its incremental costs, and the chance of recoupment is high. If an antitrust agency were considering filing a Section 2 complaint against SpaceX, it should push the boundaries by challenging SpaceX’s self-preferencing as well.

• Elon Musk Has Turned X into His Personal Political Playground

• Elon Musk's misleading claims have received 1.2 billion views, says report

• Elon Musk's Plan for Monster Rocket Rattles Florida's Space Coast

Electric / Self Driving cars

• EVs Registrations, Sales in Wyoming Grow Despite Big Auto Pullbacks

Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation

• Does Imane Khelif Belong in the Women's Ring?

• Israelis practise red heifer ritual in front of Al-Aqsa Mosque | Middle East Eye

  A group of religious Israelis have been pictured practising the ritual of the red heifer, which is meant to herald the building of a new Jewish temple on the site of Al-Aqsa Mosque. According to Jewish tradition, the ashes of a perfectly red heifer cow are needed for the ritual purification that would allow a third temple to be built in Jerusalem.

• Behind the Movement to Turn Back the Clock on Gender Roles

Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts

• The Imminent Student-Loan Disaster We’re Not Talking About

  the high drama of loan cancelation has drawn attention away from a more pressing issue in the student-loan system. After the pandemic-induced student-loan payment pause ended last year, the Education Department implemented a one-year transition period to allow borrowers time to ease back into the habit of paying their loans. That so-called on-ramp is set to expire at the end of September—yet tens of millions of borrowers have not yet made a payment.

Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising

• All the possible ways to destroy Google's monopoly in search

• Google and Meta ignored their own rules in secret teen-targeting ad deals

• TV groups slash cable network valuations as cord-cutting gains pace

• Verisign under fire for increasing .com prices each and every year it can

TechSuck / Geek Bait

• ICANN reserves .internal for private use at the DNS level

• Legacy Process Nodes Going Strong

  Most foundries and integrated device manufacturers (IDMs) have robust business on older nodes. “Pick your IDM, other than Intel or the memory ones, and many still fab at 130nm and above,” said David Park, vice president of marketing at Tignis. “There is just no need for certain parts to be made at a smaller node.”

• Will PC makers replace your crashing Intel chip? We asked 14 of them

• Free Software Foundation closing Boston office

  After August 31st, we will no longer be residing at our office on 51 Franklin Street. There were many factors that lead to this decision, and while some of them were out of our control, we're very excited for this new chapter in the FSF. We are confident that shifting to a remote working model will strengthen the FSF and empower us to continue advocating for user freedom long into the future. But first we must say goodbye to our office, and we'd love for you to join us. For the final time, we will open the office to everyone who would like to visit the office one last time on Friday, August 16th from 6:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. for our move-out party.

• Raspberry Pi Pico 2, our new $5 microcontroller board, on sale now

• Statistical Interpretation Library: Marginal Effects Zoo

• Intel's BIOS updates for crashing CPUs are now rolling out

AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World

• Humane's AI Pin Is Seeing More Returns Than Sales

Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO

• As Skies Fill With Space Junk, Nonprofit Urges US to Pause StarLink Launches | WIRED

  The new report is called “WasteX—Environmental Harms of Satellite Internet Mega-Constellations.” It was released today by the public interest group PIRG, which among other things focuses on sustainability and making products and production processes more repairable and reusable. As you might be able to tell by the name, the big target of the report here is StarLink, the satellite internet service operated by SpaceX and helmed by billionaire Elon Musk that provides data connections for people in off-the-grid locations.

• They went to space for eight days – and could be stuck until 2025

• Boeing Starliner Could Brick ISS Docking Port If Crew Abandons It

Crypto con games

• When markets get scary, crypto proves its worthlessness

• FTX to pay $12.7B to victims of Sam Bankman-Fried's scheme

Economicon / Business / Finance

• Intel shareholders sue after job, dividend cuts cause stock plunge

• Office Loans Are Toxic, but Apartment Loans Are in Bad Shape Too

• Unemployment rate rises to 4.3% in July; payroll employment edges up by 114,000

• The stockmarket rout may not be over

  Some of the violent recent swings in the yen, Japanese and American stocks, and indeed the Mexican peso may thus be down to yen-based carry trades. Moreover, any popular trade that some investors have funded through borrowing can fall victim to the same sort of doom loop. Bets on firms linked to AI euphoria are a prime candidate. The VIX index’s hair-raising spike on August 5th, caused by hordes of investors clamouring to buy insurance on the same stocks at once, suggests quite how crowded such positions are even after the recent unwinding. It also shows quite how much this crowding can move markets. And so there is plenty of potential for future sales, whether forced or voluntary, to cause further ructions.

  The most dangerous escalation would come if the turbulence left a sizeable investment vehicle unable to raise the cash to meet margin calls or close loss-making positions. That is what happened to Archegos, a family office, in 2021, prompting fire-sales of its assets and losses for its banks stretching into the billions. At a bigger outfit, such a collapse could spread contagion across the market and imperil other firms. As yet, “there is not sufficient pain to suggest a big player is in danger,” says Citi’s Mr Raute. “But if we see five more days of this, that may change.”

• Wall Street Engineers Invent a New Head-Spinning Options Trade - Bloomberg

  Financial wizards have conjured up possibly their most dizzying product yet in the quest to ride the derivatives boom: Cboe Global Markets Inc. is poised to offer options on futures for an index based on options on another index.

• Florida's Biggest Insurer Says It Needs to Increase Rates by 93 Percent

• Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway now owns more short-term Treasurys than Fed

• What Works in Taiwan Doesn't Always in Arizona, a Chipmaking Giant Learns

• Dell Makes Cuts to Boost AI Pivot, Reportedly Laying Off 12,500 Employees

• (Jul 26 2024) Food is more expensive – are US corporate profits to blame?

Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making

• “Whole of Society” – Chicago Boyz

  The “whole of society” concept is something that easily goes beyond authoritarianism and slides into totalitarianism: remember Mussolini’s dictum: ““Everything for the state, nothing outside the state, nothing above the state”…and also that German word Gleichschaltung.

• US elections have never been more secure, says CISA chief

• Hollywood Takes on Silicon Valley in an Epic Presidential Brawl

• DOJ antitrust chief is 'overjoyed' after Google monopoly verdict

Harris / TBA 2024 / Democrats Demonstrate "Our Democracy"

• Kamala Harris Isn't Taking Questions And Media Are Okay With It | National Review

  since Harris was tapped as the obvious replacement for Biden, we’ve seen unadulterated fawning over her by the media. There’s the first wave of adoring coverage that permeates every corner of the media (the New York Times even quoted an expert who declared, ​​“I don’t think there has been anybody who understands the power of cooking quite like Kamala.”) Then there is the secondary coverage, which cites the initial laudatory coverage as evidence that Harris’s rollout has been so brilliant and smooth. In the meantime, we are quietly told that Harris has reversed herself on a whole slate of positions she took during her first run for president, when she supported the Green New Deal; called for kicking 180 million people off of private insurance; vowed to ban fracking and offshore drilling; and promised to confiscate AR-15s. I say we are told this, because Harris has not stated any of this publicly, or been asked to explain any of these dramatic reversals. Instead, we are just told that this is now the case because “campaign officials” said so.

• Minnesota National Guard confirms VP nominee Tim Walz demoted, calling into question official bio | Just The News

Biden Inc

• PELOSI ON BIDEN: ‘Never been that impressed with his political operation.’

Trump / Right / Jan6

• 31% of Republicans say vaccines are more dangerous than diseases they prevent

• Thiel Launched J.D. Vance's VC Career, but He Was Rarely in the Office

• Daily Show Claims Trump Is Invoking Themes From Mein Kampf

Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security

• 72-year-old Florida man arrested after admitting he shot Walmart delivery drone

• Michigan Supreme Court Puts Another Dent in State's Abusive Forfeiture Laws

• USPS Text Scammers Duped His Wife, So He Hacked Their Operation

World

• Brits Warned Merely 'Retweeting' Information About Riots Could Be A Criminal Offense | ZeroHedge

  Stephen Parkinson, the Director of Public Prosecutions, told Sky News that people do not even need to personally post the content themselves to be deemed to be committing an offence. Parkinson said social media users could be guilty of “incitement to racial hatred” if they post “insulting or abusive” content that is “likely to stir up racial hatred.”

• Canadian investigation suggests foreign interference on /R/Canada Reddit group

• The small African country with the highest suicide rate

• Police officer arrested in connection to Carles Puigdemont's escape

Israel

• Journalist Charged with a Hate Crime for Recording a Gaza Protest Action

Russia Bad / Ukraine War

• Russia Map Shows over 130 Square Miles Now Under Ukraine's Control

• In a surprise attack, Ukraine sends a large ground force into western Russia

China

• China's Real Economic Crisis

• Chinese megaconstellation launch creates field of space debris

Health / Medicine

• Vitamin supplements do not improve mortality, alas

• After private equity takes over hospitals, they are less adept of providing care

• Poll: 30% of Americans over 50 are now caregivers.

Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp

• New mpox outbreak raises alarm; WHO considers declaring international emergency

• We're Applying the Lessons of the Covid Pandemic to Bird Flu

  • The lessons of the pandemic include (a) Do not trust the CDC (b) do not trust the WHO (c) do not trust "public health officials" of any other sort. We should certainly apply those lessons to the "Pinkeye Plague" they're trying to sell this time.

Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda

• Earthquake strikes off Japan's coast and triggers tsunami warning

  • Tsunami Alert Issued for Japan

• Major Solar Company Files for Bankruptcy After California Strips Subsidies.

• Solving the carbon market ‘integrity crisis’

• Paper Straws Are Often Touted as Alternative to Plastic, but They're Toxic

• Coming Clean on Clean Energy: It's a Dirty Business

• Bird Deaths from Window Strikes Are Way Higher Than We Ever Imagined

• String of record hot months came to an end in July