The idea beind civil disobedience is you disobey openly and then take the punishment. Governments have closed off this tactic by making punishments far too terrible. MLK Jr. himself only spent short stints in jail; he never faced felony charges.

Nowadays, if the government wants, you'll spend more time in jail without bail awaiting trial than MLK spent in jails total. And if you are convicted of a felony and aren't already wealthy (Hi Martha and Don), your life is basically over: you will be denied nearly all professional licenses, nobody respectable will hire you, and those who hire you will pay you poorly and treat you badly. As a result, the best you will be able to do is eke out a marginal existence until you die. That's what Swartz was facing even if he got no prison time.

Of course, if he had gotten prison time... well, Swartz was a nerdy white guy. What do you think happens to nerdy white guys in a prison? Prisons are filled with violent criminals and violence is tolerated against other prisoners partially in order to keep guys like Swartz in line -- to make the consequences of disobedience for all but the lowest of the low too terrible to contemplate. Either Swartz was going to end up a beaten, raped, broken, and penniless object lesson for the rest of us... or he was going to suicide. I suspect the government was indifferent as to which one it would be.

I also hate rust, so this is putting all the bad things in one basket. Next step: drop basket.

I predict a distinct change in the tone and content of ATC radio instructions. Use of the gamer word will skyrocket.

Step 1: Make a lot of crimes, such that everyone is at least technically a criminal

Step 2: Stop enforcing the laws against traditional property crimes (theft, vandalism, burglary, etc)

Step 3: Propose cameras, claiming to use them to solve crime problem. People rejoice

Step 4: Use cameras to catch all those crimes you made in step 1. Continue to fail to enforce laws against traditional property crimes.

Step 5: Put on trollface, ask citizens who are being fined and jailed and having guns stuck in their face "We're catching criminals, isn't that what you wanted?"

I'm sure nobody could have predicted this. Nobody at all.

Protein intake increases thermogenesis. This FGF21 is probably being released when protein is low because more body heat is needed when digestion and absorption aren't producing it, but we know protein-rich diets result in more total thermogenesis.

Make that ...in 2024 there were 7080.

In 2016, there were 6080 pedestrian deaths in the US. In 2017, there were 7080. Ascribing all 1000 of those additional deaths, plus another 2000 that presumably wouldn't have been happened, isn't credible.

I suppose what they did is make themselves a toy model which related hood height to deaths, then applied said model to actual hood heights to come up with a number. Basically assuming what they wanted to prove.

It's a state matter; SCOTUS isn't going to take it.

False. While the ballot measure does not impose an annual wealth tax, it authorizes the legislature to implement one without further voter approval. It also lets the legislature set the rate and the floor.

The wealth tax on Brin would amount to 67%, because it goes by percentage of voting shares or percentage of ownership, whichever is greater. I assume something similar would apply to Page, who also holds Alphabet class B shares. Of course they're going to avoid that.

"Who would have thought that school buses would be turned into the mass surveillance state?,"

As soon as they heard about the cameras? EVERYBODY.

The original article was written with AI and it shows.

The US tends to import heavy sour crude and export light sweet crude. We have the refining capacity for heavy sour, which is more capital and energy intensive, so that works out economically. We have extra heavy refining capacity now because in January Dos Bocas went on line in Mexico, so Mexico can now refine more heavy and export more lucrative refined products. Fortunately for US refiners, we also got a new source of crude (very heavy and sour) when we "liberated" Venezuela.

In general, the heavier and more sour the crude, the harder it is to refine; if the US suddenly had an excess of light sweet and a shortage of heavy sour, US refineries could still handle it.

World's not burning; insufficient fuel.