Meanwhile, what those evil liberals think should happen to YOU is... that you be given healthcare and a general social safety net.

They've been launching dummysats from Starship for a number of launches now, so I'm not sure why you think they're "forever away". The only reasons they've been using dummysats and not actual satellites is 1) Not wanting to risk more valuable payloads thusfar, and 2) wanting to keep Starship suborbital (e.g. trajectory that reintersects the atmosphere) at just under orbital velocity until they can verify deorbit reliability (failure to do so would leave that massive ship falling onto a random point on Earth).

If they were to choose to, they could start launching payloads on all subsequent Starship missions, even if they're not yet ready for reliable recovery or quick reuse. In fact, given the killing off of Falcon 9 in Florida, one can presume that's the plan (if not immediately, then soon).

Um... no they're not?

Further reading: Musk's other unstated reasons for shutting down Falcon 9 in Florida (Behind The Black)

TL/DR, the author thinks that SpaceX shutting down Falcon 9 launches from Florida was secretly a magnanimous gesture by a charitable Elon Musk to boost the competition:

I therefore honestly believe that SpaceX’s decision was not entirely based on its own internal needs. Those needs certainly were the main motive, but based on Elon Musk’s passionate dream of making the human race multi-planetary, as well as his repeated willingness to help his competitors when they needed SpaceX to launch their satellites, I believe he recognized that SpaceX’s dominance could be hurting the rest of the rocket industry, and that the instant it made business sense to clear the field for these competitors, he was quite willing to do so.

LOL.

Yes, I remember way back when Mike Pence had nearly absolute unchecked authoritarian power.

CAIS: Male or female?

Swyer Syndrome: Male or female?

What is "sex" (let alone gender)? Of the numerous axes, each with their subaxes:

1. Genetic:

* Karyotype (including mosaicism and chimericism)
* SRY presence / absence
* Gene presence, expression, and functionality (SOX9, RSPO1, WNT4, DMRT1, FOXL2, WT1, SF1, DHH, CBX2, AR, SRD5A2, HSD17B3, CYP19A1, etc)
* Müllerian inhibiting factor (AMH/AMHR2) expression and reception
* Epigenetic regulation (imprinting, methylation, chromatin remodeling)
* Androgen expression and reception

2. Gonadal

* Gonadal Type (ovaries, testes, ovotestes, streak gonads, dysgenetic gonads)
* Gonadal Function (steroidogenic capacity, gametogenic potential)
* Gonadal Position (abdominal, inguinal, scrotal/labial, absent)
* Germ Cell Presence/Absence (oocytes, spermatogonia, none)
* Gonadal Hormone Secretion (androgens, estrogens, AMH, inhibin)

3. Hormonal Axes

* Androgen levels (testosterone, DHT, androstenedione)
* Estrogen levels (estradiol, estrone)
* Progestogen levels (progesterone)
* Gonadotropin levels (LH, FSH)
* AMH levels (high in males, low in females)
* Adrenal androgens (DHEA, DHEAS in CAH)
* Hormone sensitivity (AR mutations, ER mutations)

4. Internal Reproductive Structures

* Vaginal Canal (depth, presence of cervix)
* Ejaculatory Ducts (patent, atretic)
* Wolffian Duct Derivatives (epididymis, vas deferens, seminal vesicles) - present, absent, or partially developed
* Müllerian Duct Derivatives (uterus, fallopian tubes, upper vagina) - present, absent, or partially regressed
* Prostate/Skene’s glands (size, functionality)

5. External Genitalia Axes

* Phallus structure (clitoris, penis, or intermediate)
* Size (micropenis, clitoromegaly)
* Urethral position (hypospadias, normal)
* Labioscrotal folding (labia majora, scrotum, bifid scrotum, fused labia)
* Vaginal opening (present, absent, urogenital sinus)
* Perineal configuration (distance from anus, midline fusion)

6. Secondary Sex Characteristics (e.g. post-pubertal)

* Breast development (Tanner stages, gynecomastia, absent)
* Body hair distribution (androgenic vs. non-androgenic patterns)
* Voice pitch (androgen-dependent deepening)
* Muscle/fat distribution (male vs. female typical)
* Bone structure (pelvic width, shoulder breadth)
* Larynx size (Adam’s apple prominence)

7. Reproductive Functional Axes

* Fertility status (fertile, subfertile, infertile)
* Gamete production (spermatozoa, ova, none)
* Menstrual status (eumenorrheic, amenorrheic, dysmenorrheic)
* Spermatogenic capacity (azoospermia, oligospermia, normal)
* Ovarian reserve (normal, diminished, premature failure)

8. Neurological & Behavioral Axes

* Brain sexual dimorphism (SDN-POA, BSTc, corpus callosum)
* Gender identity (congruent or incongruent with anatomy)
* Sexual orientation (androphilic, gynephilic, bisexual, asexual)
* Prenatal androgen exposure effects (CAH-related behavioral shifts)

There is no "single thing called sex". It is a vastly multidimensional space. The parameters in this space are *correlated* but not inherently causal. If you define purely based on any one factor, you come up with ludicrous consequences like pregnant women being classed as men or whatnot.

Furthermore, each subaxis has varying degrees of (A) malleability, and (B) impact on daily life. Some are highly malleable, others not at all with current technology. But it just so happens that the subaxes that impact daily life the most tend to be the most malleable, while the ones that impact it the least tend to be the least malleable. For example, the presence of SRY is not at all malleable, and yet it's also entirely irrelevant to a person's daily life. Yet curiously, "sex essentialists" always try to come up with their definitions based on subaxes that fall into the latter category, not the former category.

For the concept of "other sexes" (your words) to exist, you have to be able to have an essentialist definition of what one's immutable sex is (otherwise, the concept of there being some immutable "other sex" is incoherent). So what is your balance of the above axes, how did you reach that as being the most logical conclusion, and how would you respond to someone raising the case of someone who fits one sex within your definition but is flipped on most / all of the other axes?

You realize that you don't "import" immigrants, right?

People flee horrific situations in their homeland - war, violence, inability to feed themselves and/or their children, etc. You don't "import" them, they come to you.

The political debate is over whether to show them sympathy or to send them back to be killed and starve. Over whether diversity is a strength or a weakness. Over, on the sale of zero assimilation to spending every day driving a monster truck and eating a diet of corn dogs and beef jerky, how much assimilation is to be expected. Over whether their kids grow up just as American as anyone else or whether they're fundamentally Othered.

There are no "importation conspiracies". There are debates over how to react to a situation that already exists: with sympathy and hope, or fear and hostility.

It was a pretty ignorant comment, but I'm going to play Devil's Advocate on their behalf. I'm very much in the Ezra Klein school on this. People like Seven Spirals need help, but their experience with the US government's provision of help has been with a system that doesn't work. That makes you jump through hoops, waste time, and demeans you to get scraps of assistance and tries to get people to fall through the cracks - often those who need it the most (those with mental health problems, health issues, the most overloaded, etc, who can't manage to navigate the bureaucracy. And if any of these people in need screw up on a form, throwing the book at them as if it's all some massive fraud scheme. You made these systems to help people? Well, then help them, damn it. Stop treating them like leeches and automatically-suspected fraudsters.

And one can say, well, Republicans deliberately try to cause this, because they don't want government to work for people, because then they'll vote for Democrats. And there's a lot of truth to that. But there's also a lot of truth to the fact that Democrats have become far more obsessed with process than actually delivering results, that they tend to forget that results are the whole bloody point. A good example is the Rural Broadband bill. Democrats crafted that. Democrats signed it into office. They could have structured it however they wanted, and what did they make? A gigantic bureaucratic mess involving 56 jurisdictions, a sequential 14-step process (each with its own protracted review and comment periods), the creation of 50+ new bureaucracies, fragmented feeral programs, shifting priorities, all loaded with labour mandates, environmental mandates, buy-American mandates, and on and on, that stalled out year after year. The money was available. The people who could connect rural areas were available. But the pursuit of bureaucratic perfection distracted from the fact that voters want you to actually deliver. That doesn't mean, "The bill is passed, let's now dump a bunch of cash on a no-bid contract to whatever offer arrives first and bulldoze any environmental issues that stand in the way". But don't draft policies that take so long to deliver that you're basically pushing them off into another administration, who may well just kill them so that they never deliver.

People like Seven Spirals have a right to feel like the government has let them down. Yes, you should - accurately - point out that Republicans deliberately want it this way, and seek to undermine such programmes at every turn. But at the same time, Democrats need to step up and focus on actually providing good service to the people they're nominally trying to help. It's not a procedure-contest, it's a results-contest.

You realize that more Patriots were used during the first three days of the Iran war than were sent to Ukraine total across four years of war, right?

They have absolutely zero spending discipline. For example, they've been treating $50M Reapers basically as disposable munitions, with a quarter of the entire US fleet having been lost already.

According to what this article says:

Under the new rules, AI assistance can still be used, but humans must have written the song, and have performed the lead vocal and primary instruments.

.... under the second principle, all electronic music should be banned. And under the first, Hatsune Miku fans aren't going to be happy ;) Radiohead's "Fitter, Happier, More Productive", Kraftwerk's "Pocket Calculator", Pink Floyd's "Keep Talkin", Benny Benassi's "Satisfaction", etc are gone too.

Even for music that is fully performed by humans, that doesn't inherently say much about the artist. Okay, so they didn't generate the vocals or backing... but that doesn't mean that they didn't just buy it. That's actually really common, just buying riffs, paying for vocals on Fiverr, etc. If you're using that policy as some sort of metric for the artist's talent or work, it's not a good metric. And there's also a presumption that if AI is used at all then no meaningful time or skill went into the track, which is also not true. It may have just been "prompt something a couple times and then just post one or", or it might mean weeks of generation, selection, and esp. mixing and mastering to get what you had in your head. And if something is becoming a chart it, it's far more likely to be the latter.

This is all so stupid - banning the #2 track in the country (yes, it would be banned under the new policy) because you don't like the tools the artist used.

Also, just to be clear, there is no clear distinction between using AI to master and using AI to generate. If, say, a track is clipped, and I use AI to remove the clipping, that data wasn't there before, it's having to fill it in.

Not much, just smaller.

Committees deciding what counts as "art" doesn't have the glorious history that you seem to think it has.

Wait... you're going to the National Museum of African American History and Culture (founded in 2003, signed into law by George W. Bush) and you're shocked that there was - somewhere in the 400k square foot building - a chart of stereotypes about white people next to a chart of stereotypes about black people?

I'm sure you'd be welcome if you ever wanted to - you're already ideologically highly aligned (and never really were with the US...) :) Honestly, economically and geopolitically it'd be a very strong alliance for both parties, as what Canada offers vs. what it needs is a good match for what the EU offers vs. what it needs. Though admittedly both parties need to rearm fast - but the EU has a lot more resources to do that than Canada has on its own. Canada has raw materials, EU needs them. Canadian automakers/parts suppliers need an alternative market, EU can provide it, etc.

Shifting eastward wouldn't be frictionless - for example, your oil infrastructure is designed to send it south, not to ports that can export it to the east, and European refineries would need to set up to process it, for example. But it's pretty clear that the current status quo can no longer be relied on, as the US is intent on extortion.

They're certainly trying. I was listening to an exoplanets researcher the other day (in response to "How are scientists adjusting the way they work during the Trump administration?") grumble about how they're afraid to use the phrase "diversity of exoplanets" in their work because of a (well-grounded) fear that having the word "diversity" will get their paper flagged for rejection. This sort of environment is toxic.

(My favourite response was "Spell it 'divers' and throw in the occasional 'thou art' and 'exeunt' " ;) )