2025-04-07
Horseshit
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Small Countries Should Not Exist
The World Bank classifies 40 countries as ‘small states’ on the basis of having a population smaller than 1.5 million. Some are as small as 11,000 (Tuvalu), and the total population of all of them put together is only 20 million. Nevertheless, each of these countries has ‘sovereignty’ – meaning that the organisations that rule over the populations within these territories has special and equal rights under international law – to exploit the resources that fall within their exclusive economic zone, for example, or to vote on matters of global importance at the United Nations, or to make up their own regulations about corporation tax and secrecy. Small countries do not make economic sense in their own right because their populations are too small to sustain the large scale markets required for specialisation and economies of scale and hence the economic productivity required for real prosperity. The lack of real economic opportunities leads many of their citizens to want to leave. Hence most of these countries are very poor, simply because the borders have been drawn around too small a population. It is true that some small states manage to prosper despite their singular disadvantage. But the ways in which they do so provide no general justification for the existence of small states. Most of the small states who prosper do so by exploiting the only thing they have in abundance: the legal sovereignty gifted by the international order. Most obviously, they use their right to make their own laws to convert crimes into opportunities for money laundering and tax avoidance for international companies and wealthy individuals. This is economic parasitism because it contributes nothing of economic value to the world.
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Teens are delaying getting their driver's licenses. Parents want to know why
- Getting a license before 18yo blows up the parent's insurance bill.
celebrity gossip
Musk
Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation
- Becuz they do business with Jooooos: BDS calls for boycott of Microsoft and Xbox gaming products
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
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Fewer Americans see TikTok as National Security threat, support a ban than 2023
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the ban-able danger was that the lack of proper moderation might get Trump elected, right?
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The TikTok ban is losing support among Americans, study says
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Tools that Just Work™ …until they don’t – Adventures in Linux and KDE
since then, both companies went in exactly in the directions I expected: Prusa released a new version of their printer that’s cheaper and better, plus a $100 kit for existing owners so they don’t have to buy a whole new thing… while Bambu released a firmware upgrade that lets them control how your Bambu printer can be used. It Just Works… until it doesn’t.
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'Minecraft Movie' Leaks Online: Full Unfinished Version Shared
TechSuck / Geek Bait
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Color Is a Mathematical Nightmare
- (Almost) everyone agrees "2+2=4". "red" and "blue' are nowhere near as universal.
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80m / f0.5 A Low F Number Lens, From Scratch
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO
Economicon / Business / Finance
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
Trump
Democrats
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Al Green says he'll present articles of impeachment against Trump within 30 days
“We need a Senate that will convict him this time, and I want you to know, from my heart, from my heart, I understand that he is a Goliath. He is a Goliath. He has control of the generals in the military. He has control of the Justice Department. He has control of the Republican Party, but my friends, my friends, for every Goliath, there is a David,” Green said while addressing demonstrators at D.C.’s “Hands Off!” rally on Saturday. “And I want you to know, Mr. President, this David is going to bring articles of impeachment against you within the next 30 days. Within the next 30 days, I’m bringing articles of impeachment. I’m coming for you. Mr. President, this David is coming for you,” the Texas Democrat said. Green, who vowed to bring articles of impeachment against Trump roughly two months ago, argued that Trump does not “deserve the office” he holds. “You can’t be entrusted with liberty and justice for all. You can’t be entrusted with government of the people by the people for the people. I’m coming for you. I’m your David. God bless you,” Green said.
The Texas Democrat was censured by the House on Feb. 2 for disrupting Trump’s Feb. 4 joint address to Congress. The House adopted the measure with a 224-198-2 vote, and Green became the 28th House member to be rebuked by the lower chamber.
- they got the dates wrong, the censure vote was Mar 6, the speech Mar 4: Who voted to censure Rep. Al Green | CNN Politics
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Times Finds Evidence Suggesting Hunter Acted as Foreign Agent
Left Angst
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Administration cancels international student visas at UC, Stanford
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Today, just as the Times reported 59 years ago, right-wing activists are launching attacks on local governments, libraries, school boards, and parent-teacher associations in their decades-long quest to undermine the public school system. And today, just like back then, those activists are motivated by a deeply held belief that public schools are a tool of the political left, indoctrinating children into liberalism as part of a plot to erode the American way of life.
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Calculated Risk: Recession Watch
I'm concerned about tariff policy impacting the economy. Usually fiscal, executive and trade policy decisions wouldn't lead to an immediate recession, but these tariffs are a huge blunder. There have been other unforced errors - like cutting basic research spending - but that is more of a long-term issue. As an aside: Imagine a tech company announcing they were going to cut spending by eliminating R&D. Their stock would plummet. That is what the U.S. has done with some of the DOGE cuts.
although I'm on "recession watch", I'm not currently predicting a recession.
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Why Do Domestic Prices Rise With Tarriffs?
Many people think they understand why domestic prices rise with tariffs–domestic producers take advantage of reduced competition to jack up prices and increase their profits. The explanation seems cynical and sophisticated and its not entirely wrong but it misses deeper truths. Moreover, this “explanation” makes people think that an appropriate response to domestic firms raising prices is price controls and threats, which would make things worse. In fact, tariffs will increase domestic prices even in perfectly competitive industries. Let’s see why. Suppose we tax imports of French and Italian wine. As a result, demand for California wine rises, and producers in Napa and Sonoma expand production to meet it. Here’s the key point: Expanding production without increasing costs is difficult, indeed impossible for any big expansion in normal times.
- How does "mass production" work, then? If this was the case Henry Ford would've gone bankrupt and we'd all be driving locally made Rolls Royce type craftsman cars.
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Opinion | The Theories Behind the Trump Shock - The New York Times
I think trying to reshore some manufacturing and decouple more from China makes sense from a national security standpoint, even if it costs something to G.D.P. and the stock market. Using revenue from such a limited, China-focused tariff regime to pay down the deficit seems entirely reasonable. I am more skeptical that such reshoring will alleviate specific male blue-collar social ills, because automation has changed the industries so much that I suspect you would need some sort of social restoration first to make the current millions of male work force dropouts more employable.
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the protest in Chicago drew only 7,500 attendees, with "92% having attended five or more Kamala Harris rallies, Antifa/BLM events, or pro-Hamas, pro-Palestinian protests." He noted that CBS News attempted to claim "thousands" were present while organizers inflated the number to 30,000.
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Tariffs could disrupt Taiwan imports for US builders, cyclists and golfers alike
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Small Businesses Face a 'Tornado' of Challenges: Cuts, Freezes and Now Tariffs
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Doge's attack on social security causing 'complete, utter chaos', staff says
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Doge reportedly planning a hackathon to build 'mega API' for IRS data
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National Park Service Rewrites History of Underground Railroad
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Laura Loomer Is a Warning - The Atlantic
Loomer doesn’t have an official job in the Trump administration, and the president has denied that she had anything to do with the NSC firings. Loomer’s power marks how little Trump now seems to care about being around people who have expressed racist and extremist ideas and kept racist and extremist company. She is a bit like the Forrest Gump of Trumpworld—an unlikely but persistent character who just keeps popping up during some of the right’s biggest moments.
External Security / Militaria / Diplomania
World
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Mining firm seeking U.S. approval to dig in international waters
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I heard the full story of the woman jailed for two years for a tweet (Archive)
The wife of a Conservative councillor has been jailed for 31 months after calling for hotels housing asylum seekers to be set on fire. Lucy Connolly, whose husband serves on West Northamptonshire Council, posted the expletive-ridden message on X on the day three girls were killed in Southport. The 41-year-old childminder called for "mass deportation now" and added: "If that makes me racist, so be it."
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High-level discussions to phase out petrol and diesel vehicles in India
Iran / Houthi
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Pentagon's Yemen Operations Nearing $1 Billion Price Tag | ZeroHedge (Archive)
Washington has actually been bombing Yemen off-and-on for years, spanning back to the Obama administration, without so much as a single vote in Congress. Past efforts by Libertarian-leaning Republicans to reign in the Executive's war powers have failed. However, CNN notes that as Pentagon resources become more and more strained, also amid the Ukraine war, this could force Congress to take up the question of funding down the line:
Israel
Russia Bad / Ukraine War
China
Health / Medicine
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(2023) A case of humidifier lung; the key diagnosis is detailed medical history taking
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How to Make Superbabies — LessWrong
The proposition was fairly simple; if you and your spouse went through IVF and produced a bunch of embryos, Heliospect could perform a kind of genetic fortune-telling. They could show you each embryo’s risk of diabetes. They could tell you how likely each one was to drop out of high school. They could even tell you how smart each of them was likely to be.
After reading each embryo's genome and ranking them according to the importance of each of these traits, the best would be implanted in the mother. If all went well, 9 months later a baby would pop out that has a slight genetic advantage relative to its counterfactual siblings. The service wasn’t perfect; Heliospect’s tests could give you a rough idea of each embryo’s genetic predispositions, but nothing more.Still, this was enough to increase your future child’s IQ by around 3-7 points or increase their quality adjusted life expectancy by about 1-4 years. And though Heliospect wasn’t the first company to offer embryo selection to reduce disease risk, they were the first to offer selection specifically for enhancement.
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Want Better Health and Status? For $250k, Longevity Clinics Promise Both
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Scientists discover why obesity takes away the pleasure of eating
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Our Peanut Allergy Epidemic Sprang From Experts' Exactly-Wrong Guidance
In the 1980s, peanut allergies were almost entirely unheard-of. Today, the United States has one of the highest peanut-allergy rates in the world. Disturbingly, this epidemic was precipitated by institutions that exist to promote public health. The story of their malpractice illuminates the fallibility of respected institutions, and confirms that public health’s catastrophically incorrect guidance during the Covid-19 pandemic wasn’t an isolated anomaly.
All along, the right thing to do was the opposite of what the AAP and NIAID had instructed: The best means of avoiding peanut allergies wasn’t to shield young children from peanuts, but rather to intentionally feed them peanuts. That was consistent with established principles of immunological tolerance — specifically, the knowledge that early-life contact with various substances can promote tolerance of would-be allergens.
Rather than decreasing peanut allergies, AAP and NIAID created an all-out epidemic, and then prolonged it by fiercely resisting the stark reality of what they’d done. Instead of re-examining the rationale for the peanut-avoidance instruction, the public health establishment only became more emphatic in pushing its bad medicine, assuming noncompliant parents must be to blame. In reality, as the allergy rate soared, parents were growing even more dedicated to keeping children away from peanuts. The vicious circle of the growing epidemic prompting even more peanut avoidance brought disaster, with ER trips for peanut allergy attacks tripling from 2005 to 2014.
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Antiviral chewing gum shows promise in reducing influenza and herpes spread.
Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp
Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda
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India's rivers are home to 6k dolphins – but they are in trouble
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Space probe to map carbon content of remotest tropical forests
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Deep-dive dinners are the norm for tuna and swordfish, MIT oceanographers find
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Is Indonesia's rice megaproject doomed to fail? Yeah, probably.
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An early but interesting end to the 2024-25 polar vortex season | NOAA Climate.gov
latest forecasts suggest the polar vortex is unlikely to return to its normal position over the pole or re-strengthen this season. Based on these forecasts, the winds at 60°N will remain easterly, and the remnants of the polar vortex over Northern Europe will dissipate. So this warming event will likely be the final stratospheric warming of the season, making it the second-earliest final warming since 1958
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Nepali farmers switch crops to reduce human-elephant conflict
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Disney's Snow White had higher carbon emissions than the latest Fast & Furious