this has no business being this funny

https://twitter.com/ArmandDoma/status/1621971518086602753

imagine devoting your entire life to a violent power fantasy, getting exactly what you wanted with a whole country under your thumb, then having the nerve to complain that oppressing people "feels like a routine"

"Hot goods": the Dept of Labor can freeze interstate shipment of "hot goods"- those made in violation of min wage, overtime, or child labor laws. NCAE says that's too harsh!

And "oppose any & all" enforcement against human trafficking in agriculture speaks for itself.

https://twitter.com/OgtheDim/status/1618660341948506114

Yep there is an actual pro-human trafficking lobby!

And it's farmers, not the porn industry.

Hey everyone! If you've ever wondered "how DOES the food system actually work? And how come every time we try to fix something about it, it seems to fail?"

I'm doing a webinar on that tonight!

bit.ly/Jan25FarmtoTab…

(Note: times here are Pacific time, & registration is free) If you've come across my threads on the surprising realities of US farmers' wealth & income, this one's for you.

We're doing a deeeeeep dive on what those realities mean for how our food system works, how different players in the food system are incentivized to behave, etc.

So some folks who are in the Effective Altruism movement, & horrified by its recent behavior, wrote a piece about how EA can fix it self.

Reading through it, all I can think is "Ohhhh yeah. I remember this stage of trying to break out of a cult." 🥲

forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/54vAiSFk… Folks, if a group you're in:

-Promises that only it can save you from existential threats (hell, extinction, etc)

-Has a few prominent leaders at the top who control large flows of cash & behave badly,

-Shuns you for pointing out those leaders' bad behavior,

-That's a cult.

Diamond's memorial service was held in Fayetteville today.

Silk, Mark Robinson, multiple Trumps, & others from all over the country were there to speak. It was a real who's-who of the Trumpist movement in NC & at the national level.

And all of about 150 guests showed up.

https://twitter.com/SolomonLexiB/status/1616943850865451008

For context: it was held at the Crown Coliseum. Earlier this week, the Crown had an MLK Day brunch.

It was attended by 1200 people. Snarled up traffic in that corner of town when it let out.

FARM TO TABER IS BACK

First episode of the season is up for Patreon subscribers: Whaling and Agribusiness.

In this episode, we do a deep dive (heh) on how the legacy of whaling has shaped today's food system in surprising ways.

patreon.com/posts/podcast-… Whaling's impact on the modern food system is overlooked, but it's huge!

The whaling episode has everything. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, farm policy, pest control, World War II food rationing, food conglomerates with their own whaling fleets, & the birth of the petroleum age.

Check out all the shed lobster exoskeletons on the ground. Moulting is the riskiest point in most crustaceans' life cycle, so they look for hidey holes just big enough for a lobster & too small to allow predators.

Looks like cinderblocks are a good size for spiny lobsters!

https://twitter.com/AllgeierLab/status/1607753294448922627

Ecology is complicated. Food webs aren't just about food, they're also about "are there places for things to exist & hide while they're not out hunting."

This is part of why reefs are important! Most of the ocean floor's food web is critters that need places to hide. 🦐

Re: the Christmas blackouts in NC.

Duke cut gas & coal production during the blackouts.

In other words, the main contributor to Duke's blackouts was fossil fuel outages.

But they're blaming… solar power?

https://twitter.com/AlexMillerNC/status/1608172574940315652

We need answers on why Duke turned its fossil fuel plants DOWN during statewide rolling blackouts.

Did a bunch of their plants have an emergency simultaneously?

Did transmission problems (potentially related to Moore Co. substation attacks) contribute?

Hi, crop scientist here. Wind doesn't "take farmland out of production." You can keep farming under the turbines.

But, it's harder to sell farmland with turbines on it to real estate developers later!

And that's a lot of farmers' real financial plan when you get down to it.

https://twitter.com/Ben_Inskeep/status/1604142644925325312

Not aiming to rude here, I understand most people take farmers at face value when they talk about how XYZ will affect rural communities.

But farmers are a wealthy minority in rural areas! With very specific financial interests! That don't get discussed outside the industry!

Ok friendos it's time for the soy sauce supply chain infodump So there's a person, more of a group effort now, on tumblr looking into Japan's soy sauce industry in the aftermath of World War 2. There's a compilation of their work & findings here, with links to more info in the comments.

reddit.com/r/CuratedTumbl…

Sinema's 5x more popular with Republicans in AZ than she is with Dems.

If she runs in a 3way she's probably gonna siphon way more moderate GOP votes than Democratic ones.

https://twitter.com/DrewLinzer/status/1601289169338519552

Sinema's consistently put self-promotion over any coherent political strategy.

So, a splashy independent run that fucks over her core constituency (AZ never-Trump Republicans, or about 5% of Arizona) is 100% on brand.

What's this, an account from Lumberton yelling about how Fayetteville is gross & crimey? Oh boy. Let's look up some stats.

Fayetteville NC homicide rate: 11.34 per 100K
Lumberton NC homicide rate: 28.1 per 100K

This is what I'm talking about with the "haha Fayettenam" stuff. Lumberton's got real problems bud! Your homicide rate is close to triple Fayetteville's. You could, idk, get productively engaged in your hometown or something.

But sure go ahead, tell yourself that someone *else* is "mad about living in a shithole." let it all out LMAO

Some local context. This is in Southern Pines NC. It's kinda like the Shelbyville to Fayetteville's Springfield. The Eagleton to our Pawnee.

Southern Pines is where the snobs go so they don't have to look at Fayetteville!

https://twitter.com/cmclymer/status/1599253199126683650

Here's the story of Pinehurst & Southern Pines. Back in the Gilded Age some robber baron got tired of winter, took a train south, & when he found the first place it was warm enough to play golf, he built a resort town.

It's been a wealthy golf retirement enclave ever since.

Today's hot new scam is a luxury "chemical free" laundry detergent that gives you skin infections

rollingstone.com/culture/cultur… Looks like the culprit is Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

I'm just at a loss over how you load up a laundry detergent with enough P. aeruginosa to give people skin infections.

Some monkeypox context, bc we need that I guess.

Full disclosure: I'm not a human doctor. I'm a doctor for crops.

So this comes from the POV of agricultural epidemiology: how diseases hang out in the landscape & sometimes run into people & the plants/animals we hang out with. Monkeypox is 1 member of a big family of orthopoxviruses:

-cowpox
-camelpox
-horsepox
-smallpox
-raccoonpox
-skunkpox
-alaskapox
-dolphinpox

Yes these are all real. What a world amirite

"Be your own boss" is a trash reason to start a business.

Nobody's perfect. So if you do an operation halfway right, your clients/customers and employees (if you have them) will tell you what got fucked up CONSTANTLY.

that's not a very boss-ly feeling, idk what to tell you 🙃 Having more control over your time, having more (but by NO means total) control over your income, etc: self-employment *can* accomplish that.