2025-04-19
Horseshit
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It's Legal to Pay US Workers with Disabilities as Little as 25¢ an Hour
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FIFA has used US soccer as a cash cow – and gives little back
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The man who fought Chicago for his Cadillac—and never got it back
despite fighting in court for nearly a decade, he never got his Cadillac back. I learned this week that Byrd died in February, while that lawsuit was still pending.
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TV Before Cable Was a Barren Landscape. It Was Also Magical.
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Twinkies' New Owner Courts a Novel Group of Snackers: Stoners
Rank Propaganda / Thought Policing / World Disordering
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Sec’y of State Marco Rubio Admits State Dept. Part of Censorship Industrial Complex, as NCLA Alleged
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has announced in an op-ed published in The Federalist that the State Department was complicit in censoring American citizens. In an effort to prevent that despicable conduct from recurring under his watch, Secretary Rubio is completely abolishing the Global Engagement Center (GEC). While GEC had already ostensibly been dismantled when Congress declined to renew its funding in late 2024, the Biden Administration had sidestepped this legislative decision by reallocating GEC’s activities to another entity within the State Department and giving it a different name.
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Florida's New Social Media Bill Demands an Encryption Backdoor
Musk
Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
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Tennis-ball towers reach record-breaking heights with 12-storey, 34-ball structure – Physics World
Now, in the latest exciting development, I have built a new, record-breaking tower with 34 balls (n = 11), in which all 30 balls from the second to the eleventh layer are kept in equilibrium by the locker on the top
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
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Google, Apple, and Snap aren't happy about Meta's poorly-redacted slides
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CVE fallout: The splintering of the standard vulnerability tracking system
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IBM orders US sales to locate near customers, RTO for cloud staff, DEI purge
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How many are tapped into any given tower who don't care about judges? Ain't just China: Judge Rules Blanket Search of Cell Tower Data Unconstitutional
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO
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Is Dimethyl Sulfide a Sign of Alien Life?
Like many organic chemists, I am very familiar with the smell of DMS, because it is produced as a by-product of a well-known oxidation reaction, the Swern. I don't really mind its too-much-cabbage-last-night odor, to tell you the truth, because (as a friend pointed out back in grad school) it was the smell of a successful oxidation step. But there's no doubt that both DMS and DMSS are distinctive in that sulfury way.
both DMS and DMDS are photochemically labile, and even a red dwarf's light should be able to break them down to low levels. The most likely hypothesis is that some other process keeps topping them off with fresh supplies. So this could be Life On Another Planet, or it could be that other huge oceanic planets with very different atmospheres than ours have atmospheric chemical pathways that we haven't considered. I still think that the latter is the way to bet, but that the former is certainly a non-zero possibility.
- Now we can get grants to build the Smell-O-Scope
Crypto con games
Economicon / Business / Finance
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Tariff uncertainty forces undelivered Chinese 737s back to Seattle
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Chinese tea chain Chagee valued at $6.2B as shares pop in Nasdaq debut
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Toyota weighs adding US production of new RAV4 in response to tariffs
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Sell-off in the dollar raises the specter of investors losing trust
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A market on the precipice: 5 takeaways from the April State of Freight - FreightWaves
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Yale sells up to $6B of its PE portfolio amid federal funding challenge
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
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Virginia state flag banned in Texas district over exposed breast
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You Weren't Supposed to Know About This Biden-Era Program – But Tulsi Gabbard Just Blew it Wide Open
For starters, some of the instructions could violate the First Amendment, especially when it comes to free speech and assembly. The SIP emphasizes the need to counter the proliferation of “DT (domestic terrorism)-related content” on the Internet. It suggests an expansive effort to monitor, report, and censor speech that is deemed extremist by working with Big Tech platforms. The SIP also proposed expanding federal watchlists such as the Terrorist Screening Database (TSDB) and the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment (TIDE) to include people who do not have international connections. “TIDE and the TSDB include a greater number of known and suspected terrorists that are motivated by a variety of ideologies,” the document read. Those included in these databases can be subject to travel restrictions, investigations, and other negative consequences without judicial oversight or due process. It essentially enables agencies to conduct surveillance based on mere suspicion instead of hard evidence.
- the "anti-Musk Action" network is receiving the sharp end of these tools now?
Trump
Left Angst
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Intuit, Owner of TurboTax, Wins Battle Against America's Taxpayers
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Doge cuts spark questions as employees supporting Musk space launches spared
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A deadly E. coli outbreak hit 15 states, but the FDA chose not to publicize it
An E. coli outbreak linked to romaine lettuce ripped across 15 states in November, sickening dozens of people, including a 9-year-old boy in Indiana who nearly died of kidney failure and a 57-year-old Missouri woman who fell ill after attending a funeral lunch. One person died. But chances are you haven’t heard about it. The Food and Drug Administration indicated in February that it had closed the investigation without publicly detailing what had happened — or which companies were responsible for growing and processing the contaminated lettuce.
much of the staff responsible for developing and distributing information to the public about foodborne illnesses was terminated this month as part of the Trump administration’s sweeping effort to shrink the federal government.
- Happened last November, but it's Trump's fault!
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25M deaths: what could happen if the US ends global health funding
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MSU faculty join call for Big Ten 'mutual defense compact' against Trump
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Trump is a Critical Vulnerability
the Trump administration nearly killed CVE, the system that names and tracks software vulnerabilities worldwide. When trust-based digital infrastructure becomes a political bargaining chip, our entire security framework is at risk.
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The “De” In “Decentralization” Stands For “Democracy” | Techdirt
The internet was supposed to give everyone a voice. It briefly did. . At this moment when democracy faces its greatest existential threat in my lifetime, decentralized systems aren’t just a technical preference — they’re a democratic necessity. They represent our best path forward to reclaim power from those who would centralize control, and to resurrect the original promise of the internet as a tool for individual agency.
- So surely these folks stood up for Parler and Kiwifarms and....
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Trump Reportedly to Do Away IRS Direct File Program for No Discernible Reason
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Order to halt NY wind project stuns offshore industry, threatens other projects
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Law firms, universities and now civil society groups targets for punitive action
“It’s a sad day in this country when organizations that provide critical services to their communities are under attack from their government,” said Cole Leiter, executive director of the advocacy group Americans Against Government Censorship. “No administration, Republican or Democratic, should be able to weaponize the weight of the government against their political enemies.”
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Who? A group that apparently started in 2024 but has quite a media profile:
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Free Speech Coalition Vows to Defend Nonprofits From 'Unprecedented' Threat | Common Dreams
Americans Against Government Censorship—whose founding members include the AFL-CIO, Oxfam America, Service Employees International Union, and Indivisible—said it was founded to combat the threat posed by bills such as H.R. 9495, which would allow the U.S. Treasury Department to unilaterally strip nonprofits of their tax-exempt status if they're deemed supporters of terrorism.
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Resist, eggheads! Universities are not as weak as they have chosen to be. - Ars Technica
At a moment when the administration is systematically waging war on diversity initiatives of every kind, it has simultaneously discovered that it is really concerned about both "viewpoint diversity" and "antisemitism" on college campuses—and it is using the two issues as a club to beat on the US university system until it either dies or conforms to MAGA ideology.
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Trump admin accused of censoring NIH's top expert on ultra-processed foods
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Trade War to Weaken Global Growth and Increase Inflation, IMF Warns
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As national organizations dedicated to advancing the well-being of Autistic individuals, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, Autism Society of America, Autism Speaks, The Arc of the United States, Autistic Women and Non-Binary Network, Autistic People of Color Fund, and partners across the disability and public health sectors stand united in our call for science-based decision-making and increased investment in the research, programs and services the Autism community needs to live fully.
While our organizations reflect a broad range of perspectives and experiences, we are aligned in the following principles:
- Vaccines Do Not Cause Autism. Decades of scientific research confirm there is no causal link. Public health messaging must be grounded in science and protect all communities.
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When Must We Kill Them? - by Nicholas Decker
Violence only makes sense as part of coordinated strategy. This is why protests are important – not as a way of changing the present administration’s actions, but as a way to coordinate a group. There may come a time when we shall have no guarantee of freedom but the one which we make for ourselves. If it comes, I tell you that there is no greater honor than he who lays down his life for his friends. Until then, we must wait. And when is that time? Your threshold may differ from mine, but you must have one. If the present administration should cancel elections; if it should engage in fraud in the electoral process; if it should suppress the speech of its opponents, and jail its political adversaries; if it ignores the will of Congress; if it should directly spurn the orders of the court; all these are reasons for revolution. It may be best to stave off, and wait for elections to throw out this scourge; but if it should threaten the ability to remove it, we shall have no choice. We will have to do the right thing. We will have to prepare ourselves to die. I hope that we should conduct ourselves with such courage that it will be our finest hour; I expect that we shall do our duty.
- So violence was justified in 2021, after all? I'm pretty sure that the Biden FBI killed some folks who published less threatening essays than this.
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Tennessee’s GOP leads the fight to deny public education to children without documents.
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Politically Connected Startup to Overhaul $700B Government Payments Program
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as an American, I have a really bad feeling about this.
In ~3-6 months we are going to start having shortages of transformers, pumps, air conditioners, and other complex goods which are made (or their critical components) in China. These products, which cannot be efficiently sourced elsewhere in this timeframe, are necessary for electricity, clean water, and a pleasant life. The vibe in our country right now is not good and we do not want to layer on top of that, along with our high gun ownership, a collapse of basic government services.
The U.S. is a net food importer and the foods that we do export to China can be purchased elsewhere (eg soybeans from Brazil) in a way that critical machinery like transformers, pumps, etc cannot. no one is starting US factories to replace China’s capacity amidst this uncertainty.
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NOAA Scientists Are Cleaning Bathrooms After Contracts for Basic Services Expire
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FDA making plans to end its routine food safety inspections, sources say
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Women, minorities fired in purge of NIH science review boards
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Internal budget document reveals extent of Trump's proposed health cuts
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Trump Halts Data Collection on Drug Use, Maternal Mortality, Climate Change, Etc
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'A death blow': Filmmakers, archivists reel as DOGE suddenly cuts their funding
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Attacks on the Fed threaten its independence − and sound economic stewardship
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Trump EPA targets two-man geoengineering startup for 'polluting the air'
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Thousands of federal workers would be easier to fire under Trump rule change
External Security / Militaria / Diplomania
World
Israel
Russia Bad / Ukraine War
Health / Medicine
Pox / COVID / BioTerror AgitProp
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How Virologists Lost the Gain-of-Function Debate — The New Atlantis
For years, scientists kept the debate about risky virus research among themselves. Then Covid happened. As President Trump prepares to crack down on virology research, the expert community must face up to its own failures.
As with so many other scientific controversies in our political life, public opinion on Covid origins has come to track — and serve as a signifier for — partisan identity. This bodes ill for dispassionate investigation, which we must have if we want to know the truth about what actually threw the world into chaos for years and killed 27 million people.
- the people who want a mass human die off are not going to give up because they failed the first attempts.