Not remotely, and you are quickly becoming intolerably offensive.

Except that there were truly good reasons to use asbestos, and its bad health effects weren't discovered for about a century after it came into common use.

this is right, and scary. I don't think I ever understood why they call them "secret police" until now.

I must point out that "What happens after death?" is far larger than any of those, and has continued to be a major topic of discussion into the modern era.

By the numbers, my time and energy are better spent explaining to people that Trump is a creature of the duopoly, and as long as the duopoly exists things will NEVER get better, than in merely shouting my little peep among tens of millions. I have *far* more influence writing than I do voting.

That's because the duopoly structure holds US voters hostage. Since there are two and ONLY two viable choices in most US elections, the majority ALWAYS vote for "the lesser of two evils". And since the system encourages psychopaths, the only difference between the two is often one of percentages.

Another reminder the death penalty is never about healing or justice for the victims. And usually just adds trauma to an already traumatic situation.

Russian bot traffic has dropped to nearly 0 after Ukraine struck a Yandex data center in Vladimir, Russia

You'd think that this sort of thing would result in a moratorium. Maybe companies shouldn't be allowed to bulld machines they can't/won't control. Maybe there should be legal penalties who whoever is engineering or running these companies It just seems like there are obvious choices here

The total amount Trump has embezzled from the Treasury to run political ads glorifying himself: $19mn.

Partisan thinking rots brains. The idea that some given policy position intrinsically "belongs" to one of two and ONLY two officially-sanctioned parties is utterly absurd to anyone who ever paid attention in history class, or remembers any part of the 20th century, but partisans fully embrace it.

This is 100% correct, but decades of parroting cop-talk in which guns, bullets, and cars do things on their own, without being initiated by the cops, eroded journalistic standards to make this possible. It's ALWAYS the object's fault, never that of the Establishment figure who CONTROLS the object.

I could say something *very* similar about the true cost of living in cities.

Reporters: the word is "tackle". Saying "take him to the ground" makes it sound like they went on a date.

Tulipmania, but worse; tulips have SOME real value and don't kill people or cause brain rot.

In 2025 Anthropic recorded revenue of $4.6 billion and an operating loss of $8.06 billion according to Reuters. The upcoming IPO is expected to value the company at $2 trillion. Granted, revenues are growing exponentially, but so are capital investments (and maybe losses). Hell of a gamble.

Not quickly enough.

I can *guarantee* that if I'm in Seattle and a couple of unhinged thugs run up to my car, screaming & waving guns, I am going to turn my wheel toward the nearest gap, hit my accelerator, and not stop until I'm back at Sunset, while calling my lawyer on the phone as soon as I'm out of dense traffic.