All the more critical as climate change is going to start wreaking havoc on ‘establish’ tree species when their specific ‘environmental’ niche starts disappearing. Because it’s already happening. Mass die offs of trees are happening all around the world. Trees actually have pretty narrow climate regions in which they…

That’s because it’s not just about domestic spying. In fact, it’s not about spying at all. They don’t give two shits about spying done through social media. That’s just more spin, another narrative crafted to gin up fear so people won’t look too closely at the real purpose. It’s all about *control* — controlling the…

Nothing gets political action faster than challenges to the power of the powerful or the wealth of the wealthy. Tiktok presents a threat to both. But not to democracy. If this was truly about democracy, Fox ‘News’ and the disinformation peddlers like it would have been banned years ago. The fact that they still…

Trains would be cool, if the US rail infrastructure wasn’t a national disaster (or the cause of one) every other week....

The biggest obstacle is the high cost. High costs negatively impact adoption. Without a high enough adoption rate, you can’t attract the kind of investment and talent that create the kinds of ‘must have’ applications, games, software, etc that ultimately drive and fuel these kinds of technology ecosystems. And without…

You’re almost to the point: the fact that those other entities are owned and control by US oligarchies, and thus amplify (or mute) specific messages and ideologies is the real ‘problem’ they want to ‘address’ by pushing Tiktok to sell itself to US oligarchies. Especially since a significant demographic consume more of…

So you’re saying Truth Social’s IPO was classic example of a pump-and-dump scam??

Snyder’s ‘forte’ is big, bombastic and flashy action sequences. Story, characters and development, plot, etc...he’s not good at any of that. He’s a flesh and blood “AI” producer — he doesn’t really understand anything he’s creating, he just regurgitates pale, empty imitations of things he’s seen before.

Warrantless wiretapping is unconstitutional, for the same reason that warrantless searches and seizures are — due process is a constitutional mandate. No law can bypass the fact that due process is *NOT* being performed to approve these action, nor can a law ‘apply’ ‘due process’ in bulk without a constitutional…

The sea of hypocrisy and lies the Republican party swims in is completely on brand for the last 40+ years. And when it comes to conservatives, that goes back to before the US was just a bunch of British colonies. Because at no point in recent history has conservatism been on the right side of any significant…

The King’s Landing ‘finale’ wasn’t that out of character for Daenerys. It wasn’t the first time her rage boiled over into mass murder, after all (not even remotely). It’s just that too little time was spent with right story beats in motion to build to that kind of violence. The writers took steps in antagonizing her…

Or at least a renegotiation, but whatever the case, I’m sure that’s a major factor in the decision. Streaming doesn’t generate anywhere near the profits of more traditional medias, and that’s putting a strain on actor retention and squeezing the profit margins into dangerous territories. Which isn’t to say that…

It’s doubtful a bigot has the level of self-awareness and control necessary to keep their bigotry to themselves. The qualities are kind of mutually exclusive.

People rarely hold just one form of bigotry. And she made it abundantly clear that she’s a bigot. So, yeah, she’s a bigot who was only going to be more problematic as more of her bigotry got revealed. She also could have chosen to change, to see the error of her ways, of her attitudes and beliefs, but she chose to…

Musk only believes in the freedom of speech he likes or agrees with. And he’ll attack anyone who says otherwise....

You think it ever *stopped*? That’s cute....

The US has no *REAL* recycling infrastructure. What does exist is mostly a token gesture from various industries as an attempt deflect the blame of their waste away from themselves. In fact, you know when plastic usage skyrocketed? When the plastic industry convinced the public that plastic waste was the public’s…

The Tucker-Carlson defense makes #2 unlikely. In ‘Great America’ you can be a grifting, lying, conniving asshole pretty freely. You just have claim that ‘no right-minded individual would actually believe what I’m saying.’

Yup. These assholes are incapable of seeing, of accepting or even acknowledging, that *THEY* are the cause of the problems they purport to be fixing. They’re the fire that ‘fixes’ a house by burning it to the ground.

To answer your questions: