djsp

That article is a sobering read. I wasn't aware of the extent of the spread and thank you for sharing it.

If pigs get it […]. That's how the "spanish" flu started in the USA.

That is indeed a theory, hypothesized in a paper from 2005 and mentioned on the Wikipedia article about the Spanish flu:

[The hospital] also was home to a piggery and poultry was regularly brought in from surrounding villages to feed the camp. Oxford and his team postulated that a precursor virus, harbored in birds, mutated and then migrated to pigs kept near the front.

Because pigs are more readily infected with avian influenza viruses than are humans, they were suggested as the original recipients of the virus, passing the virus to humans sometime between 1913 and 1918.

[I fact-check as much as my time and preexisting knowledge allow. I post what I found to vouch for your comment and save other people time. I hope I don't come across in the wrong way.]

penguin populations in the arctic

There are no penguins in the Arctic and the article you linked to doesn't mention them. Where has bird flu infected penguins?

As far as I can tell, Biden didn't control Congress. Senator Manchin, for example, effectively watered down the Build Back Better Act that Biden advocated for — and, to my knowledge, Biden never threatened him or any other Democratic members of Congress who resisted his legislative plans with “political consequences”, as Trump is doing to Republican House representatives in this instance.

In establishing himself as the Republican presidential candidate for the 2024 election, Trump seems to me to have set up a sort of cult of personality within the party such that Republicans either fall in line or out of favor.

To be fair :P, English is not my mother tongue, so I don't necessarily realize how pedantic some expressions I use come across. Fair enough?

To be fair, fearing for one's life is understandable in a society where gun ownership, social injustice and mental illness are not only relatively widespread, but correlated, and the chances of being hurt in even simple altercations correspondingly high. The solution, though, is not allowing police to resort to violence routinely, disproportionately and indiscriminately, but to address the root causes of the danger with socioeconomic justice and safeguards, proper universal healthcare and at least some restrictions in gun ownership. Those who either aren't willing to solve these underlying issues or deny their existence outright often resort to the charge of terrorism as both a convenient deflection and an instrument of suppression and oppression. It is in our interest to push back against such misuse and keep the public discourse centered on the origins of conflict.

If I understand your quotation correctly, unlawful gathering warrants the charge of terrorism only when “intended to […] (a) influence the policies of a unit of government by intimidation or coercion and (b) affect the conduct of a unit of government by murder, assassination or kidnapping”. Then again, (a) and (b) seem redundant and the law and the judiciary might see intimidation or coercion where we do not.

Intelligent analysis I concur with and thank you for. I sometimes wonder what myths our flawed present may pass down to our uncertain future. Who knows? After two millennia, our descendants might think of Trump the way we conceive of Narcissus while they recall the new flood myths we are delivering them.

For anyone else who, like me, didn't know: Trump once referred to Tim Cook as “Tim Apple”, as described in the Wikipedia article on Tim Cook:

In a meeting for the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board with President Donald Trump in March 2019, Trump referred to Cook as "Tim Apple".

Presidents and administrations might not be able to dictate specific prices, but they can and do enact laws and regulations that influence or even define the economy. Trump's proposed tariffs are expected –not just by economists, but by markets, as seen after the election– to raise prices and, if they are enacted and result in the predicted outcome, fingers should be pointed at his Orangeness.

I don't know what substances were involved in writing that post. Mind sharing, @werefreeatlast? :P

Easy there — you already filled up your quota with Rupert Murdoch.

Russia benefits from a stronger US dollar insofar as its oil and gas exports are settled in that currency. The more valuable the US dollar is (as measured against the ruble), the more rubles Russia's exports end up yielding — or the better they compete with other producers in international markets.

To the contrary: the value of the US dollar, as measured against other currencies, has surged in the past weeks amidst Donald Trump's announcements of tariffs, because markets expect them to bump prices and higher prices, in turn, ~~would~~ could prompt the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates, just as we saw in 2022.

TL;DR: higher tariffs => higher prices => Federal Reaerve raises interest rates => US dollar appreciates

The incoming Trump administration could counter this dynamic by changing the mandate under which the Federal Reserve has been operating for about a century and bringing it under the executive, stripping it of its independence.