Recent Comments

1. 6 days ago on Prickly City

   There are two main ways to “whip inflation now.”

   One is to raise unemployment / tip into recession.

   The other, is to grow the economy as a whole and grow past it.

   ~

   The U.S. economy grew faster than previously estimated in the fourth quarter, boosted by strong consumer spending and business investment in nonresidential structures like factories and healthcare facilities.

   The report from the Commerce Department on Thursday also showed profits rising at a solid clip last quarter, driven by nonfinancial corporations.

   Increasing profits, together with rising worker productivity, could encourage companies to retain their employees, and extend the economic expansion.

   The economy has shrugged off fearmongering about a recession following 525 basis points worth of interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve since March 2022 to quell inflation. Though momentum has slowed, it continues to outpace its global peers.

   The report, which also showed underlying inflation pressures easing last quarter, did not change expectations that the U.S. central bank will start cutting rates by June.

   “The economy is in good shape,” said Bill Adams, chief economist at Comerica Bank in Dallas. “It is operating on a more even keel than during the pandemic and its immediate aftermath.”

   ~

   Reuters

   US economy continues to shine with help from consumers, labor market

2. 16 days ago on Rabbits Against Magic

   .

   Well, @EgidiusPfanzelter, deleting all your posts that I’ve been responding to is certainly one way to “not get louder.”

3. 16 days ago on Rabbits Against Magic

   So, no. You don’t understand what “You Shall Not…” means.

   As the story goes, Moses, not his wife or any other female, gave the 10 Commandments to the Jewish tribe.

   And as you know, the men were in charge, and the women were little more than property.

   There was no ‘not including already married men’ exception.

   It was clearly and obviously written with no exception.

   ….And, obviously, the primary leaders of the tribe would have been other married men that the Commandment was written for, since unmarried men rarely had yet to rise to leadership positions.

   Those married men were clearly and obviously the audience that the Commandment(s) were written to and for.

   There wouldn’t have been a reason to include such a Commandment against adultery if the already married men were not committing a “Sin”.

4. 16 days ago on Rabbits Against Magic

   Then, you don’t understand the word: “You”?

   The Bible and the founding documents (such as the 10 commandments) were not written for an exclusively female audience.

   Per your own argument, they would have been written for primarily a male audience. (Although, I would argue they were for everyone.)

   Therefore, per your argument, ‘“You” shall not commit adultery’ was directed at the men.

5. 16 days ago on Rabbits Against Magic

   Nahh.

   There’s no need for a Commandment when ’you’re’ not doing anything considered a “sin.”

   You only need a Commandment for when the “sin” is widespread and requires correcting.

6. 16 days ago on Rabbits Against Magic

   .

   The 10 Commandments – #7 You shall not commit adultery.

   Bible reference – Exodus 20:14: “You shall not commit adultery.”

   ~

   Bible Info

   Ten Commandments List

7. 16 days ago on Prickly City

   Remember, this was when the Senate Republicans were in charge.

   ~

   A nearly 1,000-page report released by the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday documented a broad set of links and interactions between Russian government operatives and members of the 2016 Trump campaign, adding new details and dimensions to the account laid out last year by special counsel Robert Mueller and raising counterintelligence concerns about certain Russian efforts that may have persisted into the 2020 election season.

   Tuesday’s report was the committee’s final, and long-awaited, chapter in its more than three-year investigation into Russia’s 2016 election interference, marking the conclusion of what was held up as the last and arguably only bipartisan congressional investigation into the matter.

   Spanning 966 pages, it concluded, as have other assessments of Russia’s efforts, that Moscow “engaged in an aggressive, multifaceted effort to influence, or attempt to influence, the outcome of the 2016 presidential election.”

   The report, redacted in parts, detailed extensive contacts between Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian national who worked closely with Manafort for years.

   The report labeled Kilimnik a “Russian intelligence officer,” and said Manafort, for reasons the committee could not determine, sought on numerous occasions to “secretly share internal Campaign information with Kilimnik.”

   ✁

   Overall, the report said, Manafort’s proximity to then-candidate Trump “created opportunities for the Russian intelligence services to exert influence over, and acquire confidential information on, the Trump Campaign.” Manafort’s willingness to share information with Kilimnik and other Russian operatives, it said, “represented a grave counterintelligence threat.”

   ~

   CBS

   Senate Intelligence Committee releases final report on 2016 Russian interference

8. 25 days ago on Doonesbury

   Human composting appears to legal in your State.

   ~

   When Michelle Skaff dies, she’s going to turn into dirt.

   The 31-year-old is a client of Return Home, a Seattle-area human composting facility. Its futuristic-looking vessels full of organic material like straw, alfalfa and sawdust can turn human bodies back into soil by mimicking natural decomposition processes, the company says.

   Skaff is very much alive, and plans to be for a long time. She signed up for the company’s “pre-planning” services, starting a payment plan that’ll enable her to eventually become compost.

   The reason: Burials and cremations carry heavy environmental tolls. Burials require embalming bodies in toxic solutions, plus an indefinite use of land, and cremations result in millions of tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually.

   ~

   CNBC

   ‘Human composting,’ already legal in 6 states, could help the planet: ‘Young people are going to teach us to die better’

9. 28 days ago on Prickly City

   2018 – In Court… Under Oath….

   A replay of the Tobacco Companies techniques to convince people that tobacco doesn’t cause cancer…

   ~

   The plaintiffs are the coastal cities of San Francisco and Oakland.

   They’re suing five major oil companies (Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, ConocoPhillips and BP) to pay for the cities’ costs to cope with the sea level rise caused by global warming.

   Chevron’s lawyer presented the science for the defense, and most notably, began by explicitly accepting the expert consensus on human-caused global warming, saying:

   “From Chevron’s perspective, there is no debate about the science of climate change.”

   (Yep, burning oil / coal causes climate change to speed up drastically.)

   ✁

   The judge mandated that those submitting briefs detail their funding sources, and they listed a litany of oil companies and fossil fuel-funded think tanks. Among those listed by Monckton and Soon’s group were ExxonMobil, the Heartland Institute, and the Charles G. Koch Foundation.

   Among those listed by Happer, Koonin, and Lindzen were the Heritage Foundation, Peabody Coal, the Cato Institute, and the Texas Public Policy Foundation.

   It’s a perfect example of the oil industry’s two-faced behavior.

   For decades their own scientists quietly published peer-reviewed research concluding that humans are causing global warming.

   That was the face we saw from Chevron’s lawyer.

   But at the same time, oil companies were funding contrarian scientists and think tanks to spread denial and doubt about that same science.

   That was the face revealed in the denier briefs.

   Although they accept the expert climate consensus, the oil companies obviously don’t want to be held liable for the costs of the climate damages their products cause.

   ~

   The Guardian

   In court, Big Oil rejected climate denial

   If even oil companies accept human-caused global warming, why doesn’t everybody?

10. 29 days ago on Prickly City

    Bitter cold continues to grip the United States as unusual freezing temperatures stretch as far south as Florida this week. Even more chilly weather is in store through the weekend, putting more than 80 percent of the US population under some type of cold weather advisory.

    But this jarring cold snap is sandwiched between the end of what was the hottest year on record and the start of another year that could be even hotter.

    And even as temperatures plunge to new depths, the recent weather isn’t remotely enough to derail an ominous trend.

    As the climate changes, the bottom of the temperature scale is rising faster than the top. This pronounced winter warming is often less palpable than the triple-digit summer heat waves that have become all the more frequent across much of the country, but no less profound.

    According to Climate Central, more than 200 locations around the United States have lost almost two weeks of below-freezing nights since 1970. By 2050, 23 states are projected to lose upward of a month of freezing days.

    “In general, winters have been getting warmer across the country, and really across the world,” said Pamela Knox, an agricultural climatologist at the University of Georgia extension. “It turns out that the colder seasons are warming up more quickly than the warmer seasons.”

    Warmer winters are one of the strongest examples of how humanity has changed the world with its ravenous appetite for fossil fuels, which emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and drive up global temperatures.

    That doesn’t just mean fewer good ski days or the end of white Christmases for some regions; cold weather is an important, essential signal for plants and animals, and losing it has far-reaching effects on the economy, food production, and health.

    ~

    Vox

    Why have our winters gotten so weird?

    Yes, it’s freezing now. But winters are actually warming dangerously fast.