2025-06-30
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Witnesses: Helicopter dropped thousands of dollars onto Detroit street
Toney said all six lanes of traffic along Gratiot came to a standstill for several minutes while people stopped their cars — some right in the middle of the road — before exiting and running toward the falling bills. Knife said police arrived and shut down a portion of Gratiot for about 30 minutes.
The money drop was apparently the last wish of the owner of a nearby car wash. Knife said the man recently died due to Alzheimer's Disease and his funeral was Friday. Despite the mad dash for free cash, the incident remained peaceful, if hectic, Knife said. "There was no fighting, none of that," she said. "It was really beautiful."
Horseshit
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Societal conditions explain differences in "dark" personality across regions
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San Francisco employers are hiring etiquette coaches for Gen Z
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What I Learned from My Mother and the U.S. Postal Service
Grant’s year working for the United States Postal Service was not an exercise in immersive journalism conducted to understand one of the most dangerous jobs in America—a job with a higher injury rate than mining coal or working in construction. Nor was it an act of political resistance, seeking to illuminate one of America’s oldest government services in an era when conservatives have targeted it for extinction, or at least privatization. No, Grant came to the work out of desperation: laid off from his marketing job during the pandemic, the only place he found that was hiring was the U.S.P.S.
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'Swashbuckling and cheeky': island festival celebrates Ireland's 'pirate queen'
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It's Bulletproof, Fire-Resistant and Stronger Than Steel. It's Superwood
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The Boeing 747 Still Uses Floppy Disks for Software Updates: Here's Why
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Bentley Would Build You a Pickup Truck If You Asked, Exec Says.
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Avocado out, peas and vegan cream in as Wimbledon goes green
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She Got a Permit for Her Chickens. Now the City Is Fining Her $80k
Musk
Religion / Tribal / Culture War and Re-Segregation
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Present-day Indians descend from a single out-of-Africa migration 50K years ago
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How Biased Is the Criminal Justice System?
For most crimes, the researchers found no compelling evidence that Blacks or Hispanics receive harsher sentences than Whites or Asians, and no compelling evidence that poorer defendants receive harsher sentences than wealthier ones. They did find evidence for racial bias in sentencing for drug crimes, but the effect sizes were very small. Higher quality studies found less evidence for bias, as did studies exhibiting lower levels of citation bias. The near absence of race and class bias in sentencing is a surprising finding, and I’m not sure yet whether I buy it it. At the very least, though, it’s worth thinking through the issue.
Edumacationalizing / Acedemia Nuts
Info Rental / ShowBiz / Advertising
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British YouTuber traces AirPods stolen in Pakistan a year later
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Windows 7 still supported by major anti-virus solution makers
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The Death of the Middle-Class Musician
It’s easier than ever to make music, and harder than ever to make a living from it
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At 20 years old, Reddit is defending its data and fighting AI with AI
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Why These Rare Classic DVDs Are Every Collector's Dream Find?
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Commodore acquired for a 'low seven figure' price – CEO from retro community
TechSuck / Geek Bait
AI Will (Save | Destroy) The World
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Google Gemini is about to control your messages and calls, even if you say no
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It's Known as 'The List'–and It's a Secret File of AI Geniuses
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Battery recycling company is now cleaning up AI data centers
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People are being involuntarily committed or simply jailed after spiralling into "ChatGPT" psychosis.
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Cloudflare's CEO: AI has broken the Internet's economic model
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CEOs say AI is just a tool to help workers, but our jobs are already on the line
Space / Boomy Zoomers / UFO
Crypto con games
Economicon / Business / Finance
Gubmint / Poilitcks / Law Making
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Does CPS Investigate One Third of All Children in the US?
Ever and anon a post will go around X citing an astounding stat about the scale of Child Protective Services in the US. Often, they are attached to a horrifying report of loving parents losing their child after a blankface schoolteacher or pediatrician reported them. But astounding stats will go viral on X whether they are true or not and despite a morbid curiosity and a libertarian concern for government overreach, I’ve never looked beyond the tweet level at any of these claims. So are they really true? The short answer is yes.
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I’ve long advocated selling off some federal land—an idea that reliably causes mass fainting spells among the enlightened. How could we possibly part with our national patrimony, our land, our sacred wilderness? Calm down. Most of this “public land” is never used by the public. Selling some of it would actually make it more accessible and useful to real people. Moreover, most of you wailing about selling some Federal land are probably very happy we sold the “public” airwaves for your private cell phone use. Privatizing the airwaves made them much more useful to the public.
Trump
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Trump considers forcing journalists to reveal sources who leaked Iran report
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How Donald Trump Got NATO to Pay Up | The New Yorker
Since returning to the Presidency, Trump has sought to dramatically rewrite the terms of America’s commitment to European security. He is now pushing for member states to spend five per cent of their G.D.P. on defense. In February, during a visit to NATO, his Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, said that European leaders “should take primary responsibility for defense of the Continent.” This spring, NBC News reported that the Trump Administration was preparing to move a sizable portion of American forces stationed in Europe to Asia and other regions, and that it might not fill the position of Supreme Allied Commander Europe, or SACEUR, NATO’s top military position, which has been held by an American since the founding of the alliance.
Left Angst
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The Narrowing of Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan's Philanthropy
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Comments include ideas like confiscation of their personal holdings, how this justifies "wealth taxes", etc etc. "It's their money to spend" doesn't seem to be an opinion one is allowed to state on the boards.
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The US’ clash with Iran may be shaped by prophecy, not politics | CNN
When most people contemplate the future of America’s conflict with Iran, they hunt for clues in grainy satellite photos, statements from military analysts and President Trump’s social media posts. But when scholar Diana Butler Bass considers what could happen next, her thoughts turn toward another group she says is now thinking more about prophecy than politics. She recalls warnings from her childhood about the rise of an Antichrist, stories about weeping mothers clutching their empty blankets after their babies were suddenly “Raptured” to heaven and paintings of an angry Jesus leading armies of angels to an Armageddon-like, final battle in modern-day Israel. Those stories terrified and thrilled Bass when she heard them growing up in a White evangelical church in the 1970s. It was a time when the end always seemed near, and books like the bestseller “The Late Great Planet Earth” warned Christians to gird their loins for a period of Great Tribulation and prepare for Jesus’ triumphant return to Jerusalem. Bass, a prominent, progressive religious author who hosts a popular Substack newsletter called “The Cottage,” no longer believes those stories. Yet when she considers why the US struck three nuclear facilities in Iran this month and what could happen next, she now offers a prophecy of her own: Bombing Iran will reinforce Trump’s status as God’s “Chosen One” and Israel as His chosen nation among many of the President’s White evangelical supporters. Many of these supporters dismiss the dangers of a larger war, she tells CNN, because such a clash would mean the world is approaching the “end times” — a series of cataclysmic events ushering in the Second Coming of Christ and the rise of Israel as the fulfillment of biblical prophecies. “There’s almost a kind of spiritual eagerness for a war in the Middle East,” says Bass, describing attitudes among some White evangelicals. “They believe a war is going to set off a series of events that will result in Jesus returning.”
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A new Dark Age for science – and democracy
The Justice Department forced the resignation of James E. Ryan, President of the University of Virginia, as part of a settlement in a civil rights investigation into the university’s diversity practices. This marks the first time a U.S. university president has been pressured to step down by the White House—simply for upholding existing laws on diversity and inclusion. Yet this episode is just the latest assault in a broader campaign to dismantle American academia and scientific inquiry, animated by a reactionary urge to suppress critical thought and drag society backward.
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When I wrote back in November 2024 that Trump’s dictatorship was a fait accompi there was still plenty of room for people to disagree. But (with the exception of an announced state of emergency) it’s turned out far worse than I thought possible. Opposition politicians and judges have been arrested for doing their jobs, and many more have been threatened. The limited resistance of the courts has been effectively halted by the Supreme Court’s decision ending nationwide injunctions. University leaders have been forced to comply or quit. The press has been cowed into submission by the threat of litigation or harm to corporate owners. Political assassinations are laughed about and will soon become routine. With the use of troops to suppress peaceful protests, and the open support of Trump and his followers, more deaths are inevitable, quite possibly on a scale not seen since the Civil War. The idea that this process might be stopped by a free and fair election in 2026 or 2028 is absurdly optimistic. Unless age catches up with him, Trump will appoint himself as President for life, just as Xi and Putin have done.
At least in Australia, Trumpism is political poison. But until we understand that Trumpism is not an aberration but the course Americans have chosen, we will not be able to free ourselves from our past allegiance to an idea which is now an illusion.
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Tech billionaires to reap the rewards of Trump's strongarm tax tactics
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The second Trump administration is deploying new surveillance methods
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EPA plans to end the Energy Star program, with costs to US homeowners uncertain
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Loss of key US satellite data could send hurricane forecasting back 'decades'
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RFK Jr. says there may be ‘more cavities’ under fluoride bans: ‘It’s a balance.’
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The Trump administration is building a national citizenship data system
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GOP Bill Adds Surprise Tax That Could Cripple Wind and Solar Power
Law Breaking / Police / Internal Security
World
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Germany's SPD wants to limit the influence of tech companies
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EU leaders try to out-bully Trump, floating world trade club without US
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G7 agrees to exempt U.S. multinationals from global minimum tax
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How Europe Got Tough on Migration - The New York Times
The European Union has not gone as far as President Trump in cracking down on immigration, but its shift is already profound.
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In Australia, a Big Place with Few People, a Minister Needs a Pilot's License
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In an about-face, Germany plans to build Europe’s biggest military.
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Thousands in Norway told they won up to millions in lottery error
China
Health / Medicine
Environment / Climate / Green Propaganda
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Their own, not available as a service yet: Genetic Code Enables Zebrafish to Mend Damaged Organs
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A year after Helene, river guides in Appalachia are navigating a new world
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Earth is trapping much more heat than climate models forecast
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Dolphins Got Giant Testicles. We Got a Chin. Only One Makes Sense.
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Explosive increase of ticks that cause meat allergy in US due to climate crisis