“the PNAS paper didn’t just convert microplastic units to nanoplastic units. The techniques did allow for the detection of a greater amount of plastic in the water, but the implications of that were played up in the media in the most dire way possible. The Washington Post headline referenced “100 to 1000 times more plastics.” The subhead of that article proclaims: “A new study finds that ‘nanoplastics’ are even more common than microplastics in bottled water.” In that article we are told, “People are swallowing hundreds of thousands of microscopic pieces of plastic each time they drink a liter of bottled water, scientists have shown—a revelation that could have profound implications for human health.”
Emphasis on “could.” There are no good studies on what the effects of these particles are. Most of the media outlets that covered the nanoplastic discovery disclose that there’s never been a documented effect on health from the particles, but they still can’t resist framing the discovery with maximum alarm.”
“What do the state’s insurance and housing crises have in common? Obviously, homeowner policies have an impact on housing costs, but I’m referring to something different, namely the concept of open-ended risk. Insurers are exiting the market because state policies limit their ability to price policies to reflect the risk of a major wildfire season. They rather pull out of California than risk the destruction of their assets.
I’d argue the same thing is happening in the rental market, thanks to a fusillade of pro-tenant laws that subject landlords to an incalculable level of risk. Landlords have freely entered the business and understand the various ups and downs. They can calculate the costs of mortgages, taxes, insurance, and maintenance. They expect to, say, replace carpets and paint between tenants. They know the cost of the eviction process in those instances where it’s necessary.
But the Legislature’s anti-property-rights crusade—done in the name of protecting tenants in a tight housing market—has not only increased those easily calculated costs, but also the costs that are potentially devastating. It’s one thing to realize it might require x-number of legal fees to remove a bad tenant and quite another to wrap one’s head around the possibility of someone staying in a rent-controlled unit forever.”
“Russia said Monday it would treat F-16s in Ukraine as an escalation because they’re nuclear-capable.
Its foreign ministry said it would consider the delivery of the jets as a “purposeful provocation.”
Meanwhile, the warplanes already used by Ukraine can be fitted to deploy nukes, too.”
“Capitalists make a profit by serving their customers. The more customers they please, the more money they might make. It hurts the bottom line to exclude any groups.
“Look around the world,” says Norberg. “The least racist societies with the fewest expressions of racist attitudes are the most capitalist countries.”
Norberg’s new book The Capitalist Manifesto highlights a Journal of Institutional Economics study that found a correlation between economic freedom and “tolerance of ethnic groups.”
“Capitalism,” he says, “is the first economic system where you only get rich by opening up opportunities for others. It pays to be colorblind. It pays to be open to willing customers and workers who could enrich your company no matter what religion or race….It doesn’t mean that every person will be colorblind. There will always be idiots. But in capitalism, it’s costly to be an idiot.”
He reminds us that in the Jim Crow South, businesses fought racism, because the rules denied them customers.”
…
“The streetcar company in Mobile, Alabama, only obeyed Jim Crow laws after their conductors began to get arrested and fined.
Those business owners may have been racist—I can’t know—but they fought segregation.
“We got Jim Crow laws,” says Norberg, “because free markets weren’t willing to discriminate.”
Capitalists cared about green—not black or white.”
“Speaker Mike Johnson will likely escape Marjorie Taylor Greene’s first attempt to fire him. The threat of an ouster vote will still haunt him all year long.
Despite near-universal consensus in the House that allowing any one member to force a snap vote on booting a speaker is a recipe for chaos, lawmakers in both parties are increasingly acknowledging that they have almost no chance of changing that rule before January.
It’s not for a lack of interest — in fact, the idea was brought up in GOP meetings as recently as this week. But Johnson is boxed in from both sides. He can’t change the rules with only Republican votes because of the rebels on his right flank, who insisted that former Speaker Kevin McCarthy empower them by allowing a single lawmaker to force a vote of no confidence.
And Democrats, while they’re ready to save him from Greene’s (R-Ga.) first ejection attempt next week, are clear that their mercy won’t necessarily be permanent if the Georgia firebrand, or someone else, tries again. They also have little political incentive to give Johnson more permanent protection, unless he opens up broader negotiations about potential power sharing in the House. That price is too steep for the speaker to pay.”
“Abortion bans with no health exception are horrible for women and for medical professionals. Oregon doctor Jennifer Lincoln referred to them as “not dead enough yet” rules. If a pregnant woman shows up at a doctor’s office or hospital with serious and potentially-but-not-yet life-threatening complications, doctors’ hands are tied.
Under such a paradigm, performing an abortion is illegal until it’s certain a woman’s life itself is in jeopardy. This leaves women in the terrible position of having to wait while their health worsens, knowing all the while that a (possibly much-wanted) pregnancy cannot continue and also that the longer they wait, the greater the chance of damage to their reproductive organs or other body parts. And steep penalties for performing an abortion outside of life-threatening emergencies may lead some doctors or health systems to be overly cautious from a liability perspective, further putting pregnant women’s health at risk.
Meanwhile, doctors are put in the position of having to either send women in such circumstances out of state if possible or simply watch and wait while their patient’s condition deteriorates.”