I live in Utah... I wonder what effect this will have on my power prices.

Trump printed and handed out cash during COVID, that is socialism. It's a stupid form of socialism, but that's what it is.

Bush Junior passed and introduced the following:

1. Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Benefit (2003)
Largest expansion of federal welfare since 1965.
Added a new entitlement program without funding.
Taxpayers cover pharmaceutical costs for seniors.
Price negotiation blocked which transferred public money to private drug companies.
Long-term cost estimated over 1 trillion USD.

2. No Child Left Behind Act (2002)
Centralized federal control over education.
Took power from states and local school boards.
Tied federal funding to test results.
Expanded the Department of Education budget by 60 percent.

3. TARP Bank Bailouts (2008)
Socialized Wall Street losses.
Government purchased troubled assets and equity in failing banks.
Public money used to save private firms.
Risk transferred from private investors to taxpayers.

4. Nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (2008)
Federal government seized control of two huge mortgage companies.
Socialized hundreds of billions in mortgage losses.
Largest nationalization in U.S. history.

5. Federal Takeover of AIG (2008)
Government took 80 percent ownership.
Public funds used to pay private insurance contracts.
Direct state ownership of a corporation.

6. Steel Tariffs (2002)
Protectionist economic intervention.
Used federal power to interfere with free markets.
Forced consumers to pay higher steel prices to protect an industry.

7. Expanded Farm Subsidies (2002 Farm Bill)
Increased federal agricultural payouts by 190 billion USD over 10 years.
Direct wealth transfers from taxpayers to farmers.
Expanded central planning in agriculture.

Those are all socialist policies, they are a big state, interventionist, entitlement growing policies.

Senior Bush

1. Americans with Disabilities Act (1990)
Large federal mandate on private businesses and local governments
Forced costly compliance without funding
Expanded federal regulation of the labor market

2. Clean Air Act Amendments (1990)
Massive expansion of federal control over industry
Centralized environmental rules and enforcement
Imposed new costs through regulation and fines

3. Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (1990)
Raised federal taxes by 137 billion USD
Increased top income and corporate tax rates
Expanded federal spending rather than cutting programs

4. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Improvement Act (1991)
Increased federal power over banks
Allowed government intervention in failing institutions
Moved risk from private investors to taxpayers

5. Savings and Loan Bailout Continuation
Continued Resolution Trust Corporation actions started under Reagan
Used taxpayer money to rescue failed financial institutions
Socialized private banking losses

6. Immigration Act of 1990
Increased legal immigration by 40 percent
Expanded government-administered labor quotas and visa programs
Managed labor supply through federal policy

7. Transportation Equity Act (1991)
Large federal spending on infrastructure
Expanded federal role in transportation planning
Increased dependency of states on federal funding

Whatever you want to call him, this guy increased the size of the government, introduced socialist policies, expanded federal control over business and banking. He did more to give government power over private enterprise since Nixon.

Reagan

1. Savings and Loan Bailouts
Used taxpayer money to rescue failed financial institutions
Created the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation bailout framework
Socialized private banking losses
Set precedent for future bailouts

2. Military Keynesianism
Massive deficit-funded military buildup
Defense spending increased 40 percent
Government spending guided industrial output
Economic growth driven by public debt instead of private investment

3. Tax Reform Act of 1986
Flattened tax rates but also expanded government direction of the economy
Removed many private deductions
Strengthened IRS enforcement powers
Increased tax burden on working and middle class through payroll taxes

4. War on Drugs Centralization
Large expansion of federal police powers
Federal control over local law enforcement through funding and mandates
Increased federal spending and bureaucracy
Directed social behavior through state coercion

5. Export Controls and Trade Intervention
Limited high-tech exports
Imposed sanctions and trade barriers
Government interference in private trade decisions

6. Protectionist Trade Action
Restricted Japanese car imports
Imposed tariffs on motorcycles to assist Harley-Davidson
Protected domestic industries with federal action
Violated free market principles

7. Social Security Rescue Plan of 1983
Raised payroll taxes
Increased government control over retirement income
Forced workers to pay more for a mandatory public program

8. Farm Lending and Subsidy Support
Expanded federal loan guarantees to farmers
Federal aid to agriculture during the farm debt crisis
Transferred risk from private banks to taxpayers

He was a so called pro free market guy, who really expanded the role of the government, grew public debt, expanded federal police powers, abused tariffs, bailed the banks out, expanded SS.

AFAIC all of these are basically Marxists, never mind socialists. I would not allow any of these people to run a corner store, never mind a country.

Have you ever wondered why have cars got so big? Why do we have more SUVs? It's because emission norms take into account the class (size) of the vehicle. All the powerful engines couldn't get away with getting into the right brackets so many manufectures instead decided to keep the same engine/power/emissions but make the car bigger so that it can squeeze under the right limit.

That's in the US due to EPA regulations or CAFE.

But the real reason is profits - because the big car trend started with the American automakers in the 90s where CAFE was much less of a deal. It's just that big trucks and SUVs made a lot more money than sedans and small cars. After all, you can tell people complain about EVs costing $50,000 when a new econobox costs $20K. Ford/GM/Chrysler of course would rather you buy that luxury SUV for $50K where they make far more money than that $20K econobox. It only costs just a tiny bit more to build it, but the margins are way better.

It's why the Big 3 don't really do small cars or sedans, and the ones they do generally suck outside of a few specialized ones like muscle cars.

If you're American, then Buy Ford/GM/Chrysler is basically in your DNA (despite the last two being foreign owned), so you've been forced to go along with buying the more expensive vehicles because the cheap ones are crap and the dealer would also want you to buy the bigger vehicle.

Meanwhile the rest of the world are making smaller vehicles that run great and are fuel efficient and making a profit.

The Japanese don't want to buy an F-150 that is larger than their famous Klei trucks and is far less nimble or practical on Tokyo streets. Meanwhile, Toyota makes nice sedans that get good mileage with great quality that satisfy the portion of the American population who either cannot afford a big vehicle, don't want to drive a big vehicle, or need a car to go down congested city streets easier than a literal tank.

The Telegraph - this one talks about China and its complete automation of production lines, speed to manufacture and deliver the final product. The West is done, it cannot compete, I wrote this here decades ago, once the West loses its manufacturing due to inflation, money manipulation, regulations and taxation, it will lose its engineering and then its education and science. In any case, what the West lost a long time ago is its ability to manufacture anything quickly and cheaply, its ability to manufacture anything domestically because of all of the combined costs, rules, laws, taxes, basically the cost of government and all of the socialism.

The West cannot manufacture because socialism cannot produce, it can only consume, that's how the USSR died as well, this is the path for the West if it doesn't reform and it won't.

One example is AlphaFold an AI program which predicts folded protein structures "with near experimental accuracy" from amino acid base sequences. This ability is going to have a huge impact on many practical problems like pharmaceutical development, agricultural science, and engineering custom proteins. For example, since the human genome has been long since sequenced, the program means we now, with a fairly high degree of certainty, know what all the protein coding sequences make.

I'd say that's a pretty significant result.

If you work in technology long enough, you see this over and over. Every time something new comes along, it's actual usefulness gets buried in the breathless media response by a mountain of bullshit. But that doesn't mean the uses aren't real.

The AMD drivers have been good for the past seven years or so, while also including a LOT of very good features. Do a search for AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition and you will hear about a lot of features that are in there. While things CAN always be problematic here and there, NVIDIA is now the company with bad drivers. For many games, you need to install the December 2024 drivers from NVIDIA, because starting in January of 2025, the drivers BROKE for a bunch of games and still haven't been fixed.

The car manufacturers are correct, the so called 'laws' are garbage. Europe and the USA are going to lose all of their manufacturing, China will win in this manufacturing war and that's all there will be.

I had no concern with Joe Biden being Catholic, but I *would* think something was fishy with the *Electoral College* if six of the last nine presidents were Catholic given that fewer than one in five Americans are Catholic.

I'm not saying Catholics (or Jews) shouldn't serve on the Supreme Court, although maybe it would be good idea to have some justices who weren't Catholic or Jewish. Maybe an atheist, or polytheist.

Wut?

I mean, I haven't been "on line" as much as some folks but I did start BBSing in 1981.

I doubt I've seen any reference to Philidelphia until this /. post.

Weird

One of the casualties of the Internet has been newspaper science desks. In the post Sputnik era, major city newspapers built teams of reporters with science and technology backgrounds to cover breaking science stories. To make use of that manpower in between big stories, they'd do a weekly science supplement, which was one of my favorite parts to read. These bureaus even had people on staff who could cover breaking news in *mathematics*.

That's all gone now, and you can see the impact of that in the scientifically ignorant summary you are objecting to. Twenty years ago, no major city newspaper would ever print anything that stupid. Today just the New York Times and Washington Post still have a newspaper science desk, and those are much reduced. Smaller newspapers barely cover local government anymore, they tend to just reprint opinion, purchased content, and press releases by politicians and corporations, and dueling reading letters on hot button issues. Actual shoe leather find out the facts journalism is in steep decline. In other words cheap content is more profitable, and science reporting is the least profitable content of all. The most widely consumed remaining sources of science information are non-profit -- the public broadcasting outlets.

This is the single dumbest thing I've read on slashdot in 20 years.

I'm not implying anything. I'm saying the Pope's opinion is particularly significant to more than half the Supreme Court. They won't necessarily take those words as marching orders; I doubt that they would even agree that all the other Catholics on the court are good Catholics. But it means those words are automatically more weighty than if, say the Dalai Lama or the Lubavitcher Rebbe said them.

If we're not Catholic ourselves, I mean.

I'll tell you why: 2/3 of the Supreme Court justices are Catholic.

First of all, spoils of war doesn't work the way you think it does under international law, according to multiple treaties to which Russia is a signatory. Spoils of war are limited to military equipment like tanks or ships. You can't invade your neighbor and declare anything you can grab as yours because they're spoils. Private property, civilian infrastructure, cultural objects and human beings are explicitly excluded.

So when Russia seized the power plant, what it got -- again according to treaties it signs and holds other countries to -- is a mess of responsibilities. It is obligated to protect and maintain the plant. It is obligated to protect the civilian population in the areas under its control, both by maintaining the plant in a safe condition, and by providing normal infrastructure services to those civilians; it does *not* however, need to ship power to the rest of Ukraine.

So Russia could, under its treaty obligations, sever the grid in the area around the plant from the rest of Ukraine, and connect it to Russia. The plant would then provide normal services to the civilian population in the occupied area, and also provide power to Russia at least until the final status of the province and power plant are agreed to by the belligerents.

What Russia can't do is use the plant, in essence, as a giant dirty bomb to blackmail Ukraine. That is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. But so was destroying the Kakhovka Dam back in 2023. That's a cautionary tail, because it tells you something important: the Russian military leadership aren't just war criminals, they're idiots. The consensus was the intent of the dam destruction was to hamper Ukrainian movements. But it also hampered Russian movements. What's more it cut off the main water supply to Crimea, which Russia considers Russian territory. This caused massive economic damage to the man industry in Crimea: agriculture. Not counting environmental costs, and the billions of dollars required to build new wells and desalination plants, this act by Russian generals is costing Crimea, a "Russian territory", tens of billions of dollars a year economically.

So the takeaway is this: the fate of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant is in the hands of idiot criminals.

A lot of outsourced IT is generally low quality/cheap ways to get things done, and AI does have the ability to monitor problems and to do the same response that outsourced monitoring can do, even calling the on-call person to report problems. For programming, while the quality of AI generated code may not be great, it may be "good enough" to cut the need for a lot of outsourced programmers(AI can be used intelligently by more experienced programmers if you know to limit what AI is doing). Many initial programming work done by recent college graduates really is, "make a function that does this or that", it's like going to school for engineering, and you end up working to fabricate screws for your first year or two until you get involved in some things that require more knowledge/understanding.