Month: January 2025

Dore

Chill War, WTF

Ian Welsh: This is what winning looks like! Total victory for my most-adored Putin!

Everyone else: What the actual goddamn fuck?

(Warning: people definitely do die in the above video. Which somehow fucktard Welsh will also see as a victory.)

Chill Links

More Americans, Risking Ruin, Drop Their Home Insurance.

Million year-old bubbles could solve ice age mystery.

The Incredible Conundrum of Life’s Origin.

Why 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive.’

The Architects Of L.A.’s Wildfire Devastation. Developers and real estate interests crushed efforts to limit development in high-wildfire-risk areas — including in L.A. neighborhoods now in ashes.

2,000-year-old wine and the uncanny immediacy of the past.

YF-118G: History’s Forgotten Stealth Aircraft.

The Hypocrisy of Clueless Executives Wanting Unicorn Candidates.

Importints

Chill Regular-ass Post

Have you experienced the feeling that male needs in a relationship are less important? How have you approached this?

In every relationship I’ve had except my current one, my needs were definitely seen as less important and less a priority than those of the woman’s.

In this one, we are true equals and working to make it better all the time.

I think men being seen as less important is the societal default?

Home Slice

Chill Political Economy

In broad outline, I agree. Without that home-building gap Trump would’ve never had a chance. Building enough housing still would not have solved that many good jobs were shipped to Mexico and China and never replaced — but an adequate home supply would’ve made us far less likely to go off the rails as a country.

It wasn’t just the effects of 2008 that caused this gap. Around then, NIMBYs really ramped up their bullshit. In a very real sense NIMBYs might ultimately cause the destruction of the United States more than any other single factor.

Chicago

Chill Clowns, Evil

I knew one day I’d have to watch powerful men burn the world down – I just didn’t expect them to be such losers.

I don’t even disagree with the general gist of this column, but it shows how much some women really deeply hate any nerdy man. Shaw is the same sort of woman who likes to claim nerdy types are nothing but sexual abusers and are inherently creepy, despite the fact that frat bros commit sexual assault at something like 3-10x the rate of other demographics — including male nerds.

She even alludes to it in the column, but this is the same type of woman who would’ve bullied me relentlessly in middle school merely for existing. To her, I’d be “creepy” by dint of continuing to breathe and occupying space.

Watching his Nigel-no-friends attempts to be popular, his endless pathetic tweets that read as though they come from the brain of an 11-year-old poser, has made me start to believe we should bring back bullying.

I mean, saying I had “no friends” was an actual taunt people just like her used back then.

I’m no fan of Zuckerberg or Musk — but I hate this brand of sanctimonious bully just as much, if not even more.

Unins

Chill Political Economy

Is the World Becoming Uninsurable?

As tail risks increase greatly, insurance costs should rise very non-linearly because how actuarial risk calcs work. Basically, to simplify the work of actuaries greatly, a 10x or greater increase in tail risk1 means that most areas are no longer insurable.

We’ve reached that now with recent disasters in the North Carolina and with the LA fires.

Soon, I’d expect many places to have no insurance available at any price. And yes, that has everything to do with climate change.

  1. Rather, the unpredictability of likely tail risk costs.

Chill Links

America’s Least Affordable Cities Going Into 2025.

Down by Tubes. Many such cases back then.

Why The Weak Nuclear Force Is Short Range.

The world is full of stuff that could be excellent with just 1% more effort. But people don’t care.

New research shows plants absorb 31% more carbon dioxide than previously thought.

America’s Coming Public Health Crisis.

Reckoning with Post-Columbus Empires.

We Had a Good 50-Year Run, Folks.

There is an ever growing problem with the posting of ghost jobs. Any exec who does this and/or participates should go to jail for one year minimum.

The South China Sea Comes to a Boil.

UnitedHealth, employer of slain exec Brian Thompson, found to have overcharged some cancer patients for drugs by over 1,000%.

Top financial watchdog warns climate change set to trigger market panics. Correct.

How Germany declined under Olaf Scholz — in charts.

The Media’s Mega-Failure on LA’s Mega-Fires. Even as the LA fires still burn, most journalism is not representing how the climate crisis is driving increasingly frequent and severe extreme weather.

The Inflation Genie Is Moving to the White House.

Walgreens Replaced Fridge Doors With Smart Screens. It’s Now a $200 Million Fiasco. A startup promised the pharmacy chain its high-tech coolers would track shoppers and spark an in-store ad revolution.