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The idea that mysterious stuff speeds up the acceleration of the universe could be a big mistake

The post These Physicists Want to Ditch Dark Energy appeared first on Nautilus.

Kash Patel and Pam Bondi are being nominated to purge the “Deep State” of all people who have not pledged fealty to Donald Trump. But there’s no reason to believe the DOJ or the FBI will be emptied. There are plenty of Trump loyalists in those agencies and have been from the very beginning. Recall that James Comey revealed the “investigation” into the Anthony Weiner laptop just days before the 2016 election largely because he was aware that the NY FBI field office was full of Trumpers who were planning to leak the information. (He should have just let them and we could have called it the phony dirty trick it was. Instead it became front page news. two weeks before the election.) Now we have more evidence of Trumpers in the woodpile. Philip Bump reports: In early 2020, the coronavirus pandemic reached the United States, leaving state governments and the Trump administration scrambling to respond. Trump pushed for a quick return to normal, with his reelection bid looming. His subsequent disputes with medical experts and the increasing toll from the virus became central elements of the 2020 presidential campaign.

Watching, on the one hand, the Israeli soldiers’ video confessions of their genocidal intent and acts and, on the other hand, the Palestinians’ livestreaming of their own deaths and devastation, it is ever so easy to throw one’s hands up in the air, to despair, to want to shut the cruelty out, to find solace […]

The post What to watch out for in the unfolding Palestinian genocide – a video briefing on 9th Jan 2025 appeared first on Yanis Varoufakis.

I can hardly believe that this is real: There’s a nascent, concerted effort to make Oklahoma the first state to ban new renewable energy projects. And it’s picking up steam. Across the U.S., activism against wind and solar energy has only grown in intensity, power, and scope in tandem with the recent renewables boom. This is in direct contrast to hopes many in the climate movement had that these technologies would become more popular as they entered communities historically hostile to the idea of switching away from fossil fuels. If anything, grassroots angst toward the energy transition has only surged in many pockets of the country since passage of the nation’s first climate law – Inflation Reduction Act – in 2022. Nowhere is this more true than Oklahoma, which on paper resembles a breadbasket of possibilities for the “green” economy. Oklahoma is the nation’s third largest generator of wind energy, home to a burgeoning solar energy sector, a potential hydrogen hub, and maybe even the nation’s first refinery for cobalt, a rare metal used in electric vehicles.

The Republicans are back, baby! They sound like the warmongering assholes we’ve always known and hated. I knew it was only a matter of time. I haven’t thought about Manifest Destiny since about the 8th grade. It’s a ridiculous concept in the 21st century but then virtually everything Trump is doing and saying is about returning to the 18th and 19th centuries. I have yet to read a good explanation of where Trump and his moronic followers are getting this stuff. We know Trump doesn’t read books. And while I certainly believe that he may have come up with the idea of taking over the world all by himself, the extolling of the gilded age and McKinley and all that has to have come from someone else. In the past I would have thought it was Steve Bannon but he doesn’t have trump’s ear anymore on this kind of thing. I wonder who does? Update — It’s on! I wonder why they bothered to delete it?

Thanks to Trump’s giveaways and Biden’s reticence, private equity is coming for your 401(k) savings.

Jimmy Carter was an evangelical. A liberal evangelical. A liberal evangelical in the age before...

I don’t see the kind of wall to wall coverage I might expect from the national news media if this horrific disaster Los Angeles is experiencing was taking place in the east. But I’m sure you’ve seen something about it and it’s actually much worse than you know. Luckily there is robust local news covering this so people in the area are able to get real news. They certainly aren’t on Twitter which is a total shithole during times like these since Elon fired their disaster team and Facebook is equally unreliable. Bluesky is good but it doesn’t quite have the scale to do what Twitter used to do. I was going to share some pictures here but I don’t have the heart to do it. It’s just devastating. And keep a good thought for all the animals in the mountains that are on fire here in southern California. It breaks my heart. By the way, if anyone tells you this has nothing to do with climate change and everyone should just rake the forest, they are wrong. This 2015 article in Rolling Stone by Tim Dickinson explains it well: This is the present, and the future, of climate change.

Whether it’s banning articles on X or killing fact checks on Meta, the only constant is that it benefits the powerful.

The post My Ban From X Is About One Simple Thing: Elon Musk Controlling the Flow of Information appeared first on The Intercept.

Look, I get it. You thought what you posted was innocuous. Still, did you stop to think about everyone who has ever lived and how it could make them feel?

I know, I know—all you did was share your chili recipe, but did you consider the people who don’t like chili? The people who are vegetarians? The people without tastebuds? The people who don’t know how to turn on stoves? What about all those folks?

Not only did you share a thoughtless, cruel recipe, but you also had the audacity to call it the “best chili recipe in the world.” Really? Have you tried every chili recipe? How do you think this makes the creators of other recipes feel? How would you feel if someone said your chili wasn’t the best they’d ever had?

Oh, you’d be fine with that? People are entitled to their opinions? Well, that makes me feel pretty disregarded. Like you don’t even care what I think of your chili? Like you don’t even feel guilty completely disregarding my taste?

“The role of the attorney-general in Australia, even in these partisan times, is to uphold the rule of law,” as the former Chief Justice Sir Anthony Mason said. So how can it be in any way compatible with that duty for Mark Dreyfus, the current holder of the office, to head to Israel and meet Continue reading »

Critics worry that a sweeping ban based on predictions rather than more concrete proof of TikTok’s security risks sets a precedent in line with repressive regimes.

The post To Ban TikTok, Supreme Court Would Rank “National Security” Before First Amendment appeared first on The Intercept.

Fuck you Facebook. That was the first thought I had when I woke up this morning. Followed by: What ministry is Mark Zuckerberg volunteering to manage for the dictators of the world? All I could think of is how Orwell’s Ministry of Love is about hate. So what are we creating here? The Ministry of […]

Nobody voted for this Many people don’t have the stomach to follow politics these days after the disappointment of the last election and the return of the Trump three ring circus to Washington. It’s depressing and nerve-wracking even if you just hear snippets in passing or read a few paragraphs of a news story about billionaires at Mar-a-Lago or strange D-list celebrity political figures being lifted into positions of great responsibility. There’s only so much you can take. But I do wish that everyone could bring themselves to watch at least some of President-elect Trump’s press conference yesterday. Yes, much of it was the standard lunacy about shower heads and whales and windmills. He always plays his greatest hits. But he’s got some new material that I think people should be aware of. I’ve been saying for years that his schtick about being some kind of peacenik was a crock. First of all, it was obvious that he adopted that pose in order to position himself as the opposite of both Bush and Obama who were criticized for their foreign policy.

After seven days, the Doctor Who Christmas Special "Joy to the World" brought in 5.9 million viewers, sixth place for the holiday season.