> On the other hand, if your card got refused at that
> grocery line - would you go back? Likely not.

Oh, I would absolutely go back. And after I unload my entire cart, including meat, dairy, and frozen foods; if they reject my card, I will just say "Oh? Okay. Never mind then." and I will walk right out... repeatedly... until they knock off the shenanigans.

Science? Really? There's a lot of soft-brained, unscientific and technophilic pseudo-religion in the article.

Let's work with the argument's load-bearing phrase, "exploration is an intrinsic part of the human spirit."

There are so many things to criticise in that single statement of bias. Suffice it to say there's a good case to be made that "provincial domesticity and tribalism are prevalent inherited traits in humans", without emotional appeals to a "spirit" not in evidence.

The kinds of foods that trash your LDL predate the FDA and the United States.

With a president who solves an existential threat by finding the best expert he can find, and using his own formidable political skills and charisma to run interference for that expert.

Seriously, Comacho was a meathead, but Iâ(TM)d vote for him.

Sure. First, lower the copyright term to match that of patents. Second, restore the latter (both) to the original 14 years. Once there is a reasonable balance between all of the interested parties again, let's talk. But the conciliatory ship sailed with Lars and Hillary and has never had reason to return to shore. And so long as one side is an abusive cartel with regulatory capture with absolute power to screw over the other everyone else, fuck 'em.

In theory, yes. The district attorney's office is supposed to be completely separate, independent, and skeptical of the police. That's that whole "separate and equally important" soundbite from the Law and Order intro. In practice, here in the US the DAs are so corrupt and in bed with crooked cops that the two departments may as well be one and the same. In the vast overwhelming majority of cases, all a cop has to do is say to a DA: "he done it" and someone will be in a cell and charges will be filed, no actual investigation or confirmation of the cop's story.

And, of course, the abomination of injustice that is qualified immunity makes it all but impossible to see the dirty cops and crooked DAs who arrest and/or charge the innocent properly punished.

No. What should happen is: Accuse, "arrest," approach, or in any other way whatsoever harass or accost, someone who is not, in fact, guilty of the crime; and the "cop" instantaneously and forever loses every privilege or protection of the badge and is considered just another random violent thug to be treated like nothing more than that ever again.

Once enough of them are prosecuted for assault, battery, and kidnapping; and locked away never again to breathe free air or to look upon the sun or sky without bars interposed... the rest will start to get the message.

Sometimes experimentation is the only thing standing between you and certain death. None of us would be surviving cancer if not for patients being experimented on.

Beyond terminal illnesses, the regulatory burdens should be very high and not lowered because something shiny and new comes along.

I'm convinced that's a big part ofthe reason for our curent descent into fascism. I'm part of the younger cohort of Gen-X. My grandparents' generation were the original Antifa. Only they didn't pussyfoot around like the current iteration does. They way THEIR generation delt with poeple like richard spencer, stephen miller, stormtrooper barbie, their brown-shirted henchmen in ICE CBP and DHS, and the rest of their kind, was to drop high explosives on them by the tonne from B-17s and Lancasters; of, if it was for some reason necessary to get up close and personal, to cut out their living goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of their tanks.

But most of them are dead now and cannot tell their stories. My cohort of my generation are the youngest people now who were old enough to grow up with, and have adult conversations with, the World War 2 generation. I grew up with my grandparents and their buddies in the Masonic Lodge telling stories about island hopping in the Pacific as SeaBees, landing their crippled B-17 in the English Channel after not bailing out because he couldn't swim and setpping from the plane onto the rescue boat hever having even gotten a foot wet, hauling ass through the deserts of North Africa in dune buggies while machine-gunning nazi airplanes. And when I got into my late teens and 20s, one past-Master of the lodge told us about what he saw when his unit got to the camps.

I will never forget what those men told me. Because of what those men told me I will never, EVER, support, aid, or have even the smallest or empathy for any fascists in any form, or their enablers or symphasizers. Because of what those men told me I will forever support Antifa in any form. In fact, I wish it really WERE an actual organization that I coule offer more support than moral. I will forever honor their legacy and what they did directly for this country and the world and indirectly for me when they were too goddamned young to be asked to bear the responsibility they were given. I will forever be greatful to the greatest generation.

But they were also people I knew persionaly. I grew up with them. I was even part of a Masonic youth group named after a Templar for which Master Masons were the advisors; so, for a kid, I was at the lodge a lot. I loved some of them as family and others as may-as-well-be-family. To me they are real. Their lives are real. Their stories are real. Their history is real. To the younger generations though? They did not grow up with those people and their lives and stories. To people who did not grow up around WW2 vets, that's just all trivia for the history test before they move on to the latest tweet or tiktok. I really do think that a lot of people have missed out on a LOT... particularly the perspectives that came from fighting... REALLY fighting... to destroy fascists. And I would bet good money that if that generation were still around; we would not be where we are in this country today.

Maybe they can start putting USB sticks on magazines like they used to do with 3.5" floppies back in the day? That would... well... it might at least increase the demand for the brand name.

The REAL headline and buried lede for the original post should be:

Trump guts nuclear safety regulations

“The president signed a pair of orders on Friday aimed at streamlining the licensing and construction of nuclear power plants — while panning the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for its ‘myopic’ radiation safety standards.”

We now have industry capture of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Who here knows about Admiral Hyman RIckover? All of this is worth reading:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyman_G._Rickover#Safety_record

Are You Scared Yet?

I would be.

The Department of Energy is selling off more than 40,000 pounds of weapons-grade plutonium from the Cold War arsenal to nuclear reactor startups. All of which I’m sure will be thoroughly vetted and monitored, because this is done under the direction of a former board member. Yikes!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Wright

Who IS Oklo, Inc. the "private nuclear reactor builder/operator"? Oklo is Sam Altman:

Trump Administration Providing Weapons Grade Plutonium to Sam Altman

We're in territory where weapons-grade plutonium is being given at fire-sale prices to billionaires who's ethical boundaries include creating their own demand for otherwise unnecessary, high-risk energy projects. Guys like Altman, who get their ideas from Wikipedia articles about Ayn Rand — because they are one rung lower than people who actually READ that garbage.

But I'm sure no inventory of hot nuke metal will ever go missing.

Apple had a culture of authenticity. Culture dies pretty hard in most cases. I think we will see the last of that culture dissipate, as it eroded so greatly under Cook and Ive. Then the extractive, enshittifying corruption will spread from Apple, too.

There really was something, that began with Jobs and Woz. It wasn't perfect, and Jobs had a way of twisting ethical stances in ends-justifying-means sophistry. But Steve Jobs would never have prostrated before Trump, proffering a solid gold token.

Oh, you want profit? This is a surveillance spyware wrapper around the entire MacOS user experience - so if you thought Microsoft's Copilot Recall was invasive monitoring, you haven't seen anything yet.

If Apple won't monetize a user panopticon and partner with governments to do it, OpenAI will be right there, to take the cash.