It's as if no one ever gets called out on failed predictions of doom. https://www.theglobeandmail.co...

...N95 masks for extended periods. Speaking from experience (voluntarily wearing them when doing IT work in nursing homes), they are exceedingly uncomfortable. Not to mention that they will need to be replaced after even a few hours of use because they get wet and disgusting. Sure there are some methods to "clean" them, but that is not realistic for most people.

For those with natural gas available, the cost to heat with a heat pump is significantly higher than doing so with natural gas.

The latest survey I saw shows that the average person significantly overestimates the risk of hospitalization and death among all age groups. The error is greatest with respect to the young. Some might justify the negative coverage as beneficial because it encourages "safe" behavior. But it also encourages pointless precautions that have significant negative side effects. The more obvious example is the closures of schools leading to a significant rise in suicides. But the early reporting that predicted mass hospital collapse directly led to the worst Covid death numbers in places like NY and NJ. Those states reacted to the bad predictions and hyped reporting by pushing hospitals to discharge infected patients into nursing homes. The resulting deaths were wholly avoidable.

The study appears to have made no effort to compare counties that reopened dining to those (in California?) which did not. Rather it simply took each county and compared numbers before and after restrictions were lifted. Considering that most of the lifting of restrictions occurred late Summer and into Fall, that means that the study effectively attributes the Winter surge to the lifting of dining restrictions. Similarly, the decline from mask mandates doesn't compare mandate counties to non-mandate counties (despite there now being ample non-mandate states to compare). It simply compares pre-mandate numbers in a county to post-mandate numbers. Considering the mandates were mostly imposed during the initial wave(s), it effectively credits the mandates for declines from peaks without any additional analysis. Given the varying levels of restrictions across different US (and International) jurisdictions, it seems like a more compelling analysis could have been made. But it appears that there is little correlation between level of NPIs and case/death numbers. If there was a clear causal relationship, then Florida and some other Southern states would have seen clearly worse results than more restrictive states. But that hasn't been the case.

Like reusable grocery bags, these reusable packages take A LOT more resources to produce. And how may times they end up being reused will be MUCH FEWER than promised. So they will almost certainly consume more resources, including energy.

We aren't even close to running out of landfill space. https://slate.com/technology/2...

Just a guess, but all the single point pickups and multiple trips the fancy packaging will take (plus the greater energy cost of actually producing them) will likely increase the net greenhouse gas emissions. The only plus is that this potentially saves landfill space - which isn't really an issue in the US (other than the occasional dispute between big cities in the Northeast and the hinterlands). So what is the point, other than allowing rich consumers to feel better about themselves?

Don't knock the eggs until your wife/girlfriend starts using them and gets super horny because she has something floating around her vagina all day.

You "can" do all sorts of things (ie, have the legal right to do them). And other people have the right to "call into question" when you do stupid things - especially when your stupidity impacts them.

it would ensure Trump gets re-elected. And I'm only sorta joking.

Trade is not an "internal affair".

....when it is in a much stronger position vs. China then will be the case in the future. The prior "free trade" approach was based on a tacit acceptance that China was going to overtake the US in economic power and hoped that trade would liberalize China's internal politics. That does not appear to be happening. On the contrary, China has been leveraging its trade power to increase domestic surveillance and repression (its social rating system is just one example). And by "confrontation" I don't mean military conflict. Rather, the US should use its economic power to insist that China stop cheating the system. And it should also target Chinese companies that are instrumental in Chinese internal repression. Under that approach it is more likely that the (previously blindly) hoped for liberalization will occur.

If one were to actually bother to read the current draft of the Restatement, it sets forth the many ways existing law provides significant consumer protections. And those protections are provided precisely because no one reads the contracts and they are what is commonly referred to as contracts of adhesion - ie, not negotiated or otherwise changeable contracts. If you want you cable service, or software you SHALL AGREE.

That is the whole point of the "Restatement". Complaining about its summary of existing law is like blaming the photographer for an ugly subject. Sure, there is some 'framing' on certain points. But here, contract law as it is currently enforced recognizes that basically no one reads boilerplate consumer contracts. Nonetheless, the courts have decided that they should be enforced. That may suck for some consumers, but the alternative is what?