Corporate profits are up 54% while labor costs are only up <8% over the last 18 months. What’s driving inflation again?
The largest refinery in America (and the Shell name and distribution rights) was sold to the Saudis in a non publicized deal in 2017, and they have reduced production and raised prices ever since. So much for the energy independence lie, even our oil in country was sold off to the Saudis. Thanks Trump.

For Biden to have control over the main driving factors, he would have to nationalize all industry. That is the answer to the current main driving factors of the current inflation rates. Severely limiting outrageous corporate profits would cut inflation by more than half. Is that what you advocate, or are you just lobbing blame at your enemies despite them having little involvement or control?

D’oh!
And again, today California/Newsom announced another new program aimed directly at helping the mentally ill homeless called the community assistance and recovery act (CARe) designed to stabilize them mentally, , get them services, and get them off the streets. Stage one is $63 million to serve 7-12000, with $1.4 billion to train businesses on how to safely employ them once they’re stable, housed, and off street drugs. No new tax required, the advantage of Democratic policies making us the strongest and largest economy in America by far.

What has your legislature done to help the homeless there?

I’m just gonna leave this here.

https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2022/09/worlds-largest-cruise-ship-to-be-scrapped-before-first-voyage/

In short, a >$2 billion cruise ship, the biggest ever, is going to be scrapped before ever sailing because the company building it went bankrupt with about a $300 million shortfall and no one wants to buy it unfinished.

I think Tesla does some innovative stuff - like using the worlds largest metallic moulds (built by some Italian company if I recall, which make those exclusively for Tesla). But ultimately Elon is a "hype man", and most of his promises have fallen flat (check out Thunderf00t's youtube channel - he debunks many scammy startups as well as Elon's claims, using high school chemistry and physics).

I do applaud Tesla for opening additional factories in Germany and China so quickly, but exponential growth (for any EV maker) is impossible - there's simply not enough easy-to-mine lithium in the world. (Maybe Elon is planning to mine some asteroids instead of going to Mars? who knows)

The GM battery tech isn't exciting or sexy, but it is a means to building a more affordable EV. Ford is already shipping F-150 Lightning (assuming its not affected by the same contactor recall as the Mach-E). Rivian has been (slowly) shipping trucks.
Where's the CyberTruck? I bet even the electric Silverado will start shipping before the CyberTruck.

Yeah, I thought finding the largest (tree) cover to hide is smarter under the circumstance.

Countries like Israel, due to its geolocation/geopolitical climate, it's a desalination powerhouse. California can do the same. But a balanced approach (environmental harm vs. human necessity vs. commercial viability) is hard to achieve:

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/california-regulator-rejects-plan-desalination-plant-2022-05-13/

Hope that California can gets its act together quick enough w/ more water recycling plants:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/worlds-largest-water-recycling-plant-located-in-orange-county-getting-major-expansion/ar-AAYLkXL

Some real & fair regulation & enforcement, with violators getting punished helps (HA!).

@newtboy
"I meant in a practical and ethical sense it would have made more sense for them to take part of Germany as actual reparations."
Isn't this a red herring, irrelevant point though unless they were given part of Palestine as 'reparations'? If we're gonna fix history with wishes lets go further and erase WW2.

"When they, as a people, invade a recently sovereign land and take it by force..."
It's your characterization here that you seem to just be asserting as true, but it's the heart of where we see it differently.

Are you objecting to the Jewish refugees illegally taking refuge alongside Jewish people already in Palestine in the 30s and early 40s? Your usage of the word 'invade' seems to suggest that.

Do you think I'm misrepresenting things as well when I pointed out it was the Arab states that declared war, immediately upon Israel embracing a two state solution? And let's be clear, it was a two state solution with borders essentially mirroring the existing land occupied by both Jewish and Arab peoples currently in Palestine at the time.

You declare it was taken by force, but the history as I know it has by far the largest use of force was 100% defensive after the declaration of war by all neighboring Arab states.

What are you seeing so differently at that point of history?

New research from West Virginia University sociologists suggests this face-to-face interaction, coupled with a distrust in preventative medicine, led to “excess deaths” among the Amish population in 2020.

The death rate for that year soared above the baseline average from 2015 to 2019, with the largest spike – 125% - occurring in November..

Your video, We Went Inside the Largest Nuclear Fusion Reactor, has made it into the Top 15 New Videos listing. Congratulations on your achievement. For your contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

This achievement has earned you your "Pop Star" Level 108 Badge!

Both my reply & the video itself are both tongue-in-cheek. So who knows the "stop before the line" mistake is intentional by the narrator or not?

What you described is pretty much correct. Where I live (suburb of Toronto - Canada's largest city of ~6 million) I've only seen 2 aroundabout in my area, and they're in located in low traffic residential area and they're the tiniest of aroundabouts. But I love them, they're confusing to us North American, I guess, but they're quite efficient.

The Hunga Tonga undersea volcanic eruption was the largest on earth over the last 30 years, according to Research Physical Scientist Brian Brettschneider with the National Weather Service Alaska region.

Brettschneider said that the ash created by the eruption will likely cause a slight cooling effect on the climate, though not as dramatic as short-term climate changes from past volcanic eruptions. In 1815, the climate impacts caused by the Mount Tambora volcanic eruption caused what was called “the year without a summer.”

“What we’re seeing so far is a fairly minor amount of climate altering stratospheric sulfur particles have been detected so far,” Brettschneider said. “A pretty small amount relative to the size of the eruption, so kind of our first initial best guess is that there is going to be a pretty minor climate impact over the next few years.”

Of course, that can only account for the estimates of the blast so far, not any future eruptions that may or may not happen.
Estimates say the Hunga Tonga eruption was equivalent to 2% of the pressure released in the Krakatoa eruption for comparison.

The California state water board just announced that farms will receive 0% of their allocation in 2022 from state run sources in both the earliest and lowest allocation announcement.

ZERO. Only the bare minimum for sanitary conditions in many otherwise completely dry communities, up to 55gal per day per person if they’re granted emergency access.

This is on top of the major cuts from sources like the Colorado river, already cut completely from Arizona and Nevada farmers, and with California aquifers rapidly running dry.
California is by far the largest food producing state, producing over 13% of all food in America (by value) and nearly 100% of many staple foods and beverages. Along with the near complete halt to farming in neighboring states, it’s impossible to imagine this won’t dramatically affect both food costs and quality in America for the foreseeable future.

This is inflation due to predicted climate change, @bobknight33 , in case you need someone to blame…and since inflation is suddenly an issue for you. Biden asked for funding to address it, and got not one Republican vote. Clearly inflation isn’t important to Republican representatives unless it’s inflation of yacht prices.

Democrats are denied even a hearing for even their centrist picks (Garland) outrageously unconstitutionally, then Republicans pick FAR RIGHT politicos to replace moderate leftist judges. That was new, never before seen in our history.
Sotomayor and Karen are centrists, dumb shit. Kavenaugh and Barrett are extremist far right wingers….Barrett is barely even a judge, rushed in by a lame duck traitorous seditionist and his lackeys, directly contradicting their own excuse for not hearing Obama’s nomination. They actually admitted they rammed her through as fast as possible with the barest minimum of examination in order to pack the court in anticipation of them contesting the election results….admitted it before the election.
Kavenaugh and Barrett are both extremist Far right wingers, political activist judges, who lied in their confirmation, one is a multiple rapist, never investigated, the other a religious extremist with zero experience who said she would recuse herself on any issue of faith, but hasn’t recused herself from any.
Throw down the gauntlet?! Opposition to his nomination centered on his perceived willingness to roll back the civil rights rulings of the Warren and Burger courts, and his role in the Saturday Night Massacre during the Watergate scandal. On October 23, 1987, the Senate rejected Robert Bork's nomination to the Supreme Court by a roll call vote of 42—58. Bork's margin of rejection by the Senate remains, by percentage, the third-largest on record and broke a 142-year record for largest defeat of a Supreme Court nomination. A historic immediate bipartisan rejection because he was totally unsuited, and had undeniably tried to help Nixon cover up Watergate as acting AG by firing the special prosecutor at Nixon’s direction (the AG and deputy AG had quit when Nixon insisted)….*.
Absolutely nothing similar to Obama being denied a hearing for his picks for a year until his term ended….*. Holy shit! What stupidity.

There are far fewer “conservatives” today, the Republican Party is 26% of the population, not a majority.

Yes, they are throwing cases to the packed court as fast as possible before their stolen majority evaporates. I support a 15 justice Supreme Court with a constitutional amendment halting any further additions without a 2/3 majority….add 6 hyper liberals…no judicial experience necessary or even preferred…AOC would be great.

Why bring a case you might lose? Because cases are supposed to be heard on their merits, not based on political affiliation you ignorant cow. You think the Supreme Court should be a political wing of the right, choosing and deciding cases based on political affiliation, not the law, science, common sense, ethics, or precedent….but only when it serves you.

So, gun rights should be up to states? That’s the next step if you win that fight…the constitution dies and states decide everything….as civil war erupts. Great plan, so patriotic. Remember, California is big enough that when they require fingerprint scanners on all guns sold in the state, manufacturers will add them to all guns….when semi auto guns are banned, manufacturers will move to single shot guns….just like auto manufacturers changed their cars to meet our requirements. Is that your plan? Had you even considered what individual states being in control means? It means California becomes the leader of America, controlling the other states by means of our size, wealth, and international clout. Enjoy.

Not like this, it hasn’t. Never in American history has the court been politicized and weaponized against the will of the majority to ignore precedent (contrary to their oaths and confirmation statements) in order to overturn established law and constitutional rights as a political act. Never.

So, you think there should be new regulations put on oil production companies so they don’t raise prices? Or are you calling for the full nationalization of the oil and gas industry? You must be, because for it to be Biden’s fault, he must control it somehow. I wonder, do you think he sets oil prices? Production schedules? Supply or demand? Controls OPEC or Russia?
Biden released oil reserves to mitigate the price gouging (didn’t work), but without nationalizing oil and gas, there’s little more he could do (maybe threaten to halt all new drilling permits until those already issued are used, but good luck). You would pretend cancelling Keystone XL raised prices, it wasn’t operational yet.

Just ask Texas how privatization and deregulation is working for them. Analysts say they aren’t better prepared for extreme weather than last year because there’s no requirement for them to upgrade, so statewide power outages and multiple deaths can be expected, and the hits to the economy that come with shutting the state down for weeks.

The largest oil and gas companies made a combined $174bn in profits in the first nine months of the year as gasoline prices climbed in the US.
Exxon, Chevron, Shell and BP among group of 24 who resisted calls to increase production but doled out shareholder dividends and bought back stock.
The oil and gas industry has fought Joe Biden’s attempts to pause new drilling permits on federal land, despite its unwillingness to expand operations in order to reap the returns of costlier oil and the fact the industry currently sits on 14m acres of already leased land that isn’t being used, an area about double the size of Massachusetts.
“It’s not the government that is banning them from drilling more,” said Pavel Molchanov, an analyst at Raymond James. “It’s pressure from their shareholders.”


Soooooo…..nationalize? Gas in Venezuela is $.12 a gallon. If not, blame capitalism, not Biden, for your “high” gas price. (Try gas prices in Europe where gas isn’t subsidized, now those are high gas prices).

Many people don't know this, but Norway is the largest country in Norway.

uh-mazing!