History (General/Chat)
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No one uses “Malthusian” as a compliment. Since 1798, when the economist and cleric Thomas Malthus first published “An Essay on the Principles of Population,” the “Malthusian” position – the idea that humans are subject to natural limits – has been vilified and scorned. Today, the term is lobbed at anyone who dares question the optimism of infinite progress. Unfortunately, almost everything most people think they know about Malthus is wrong. The story goes like this: Once upon a time, an English country parson came up with the idea that population increases at a “geometrical” rate, while food production increases...
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For those that live or have lived around the American Great Lakes region, the story of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald is likely familiar. It was, to date, the largest ship to ever sink in those waters, claiming the lives of 29 crew members whose bodies were never recovered. On the afternoon of Nov. 9, 1975, the boat set sail from Superior, Wisconsin, carrying a full load of iron ore pellets, bound for a steel plant on Zug Island near Detroit, Michigan. But by the next day, a severe storm had hit the lake and the ship sunk in Canadian waters...
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Gov. Hochul is reportedly open to raising taxes on corporations in the Empire State to help fund socialist Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s freebie-filled agenda for New York City. Hochul, who is up for re-election in 2026, is sticking to her vow to not hit high-earners with higher taxes — but has had preliminary conversations about raising revenue by upping the corporate tax rate, according to Politico, which first reported the story. The hike would help fill the more than $4 billion budget gap facing the state next year and cover some of the costs associated with Mamdani’s socialist dream in the...
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A sweeping new analysis of tariff policy spanning 150 years suggests that the economic establishment may have fundamentally misunderstood how tariffs affect prices and employment, a finding with profound implications for understanding President Donald Trump’s trade policy and the proper response by the Federal Reserve. Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco examined major tariff changes from 1870 through 2020 across the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. Their conclusion challenges the conventional wisdom that dominated economic policy debates in recent years: when countries raise tariffs, prices actually fall, not rise. “We find that a tariff hike...
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As things on the domestic side here in the U.S. continue to seem more volatile, we can all be comforted by the fact that China has reportedly figured out how to create a freakin' "outer space particle beam." Good to know. America's chief rival nation and fellow superpower has a space laser. Here's more from ZeroHedge: Particle beams — streams of high-speed atoms or subatomic particles — have long been the holy grail of space warfare. The concept sounds simple: zap an enemy satellite with a beam so intense it melts or fries the target. Reality, however, has been less...
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Tucker Carlson to announce his findings related to the assassination attempt of President Trump in Butler on Friday night. Here is a list of items that are still outstanding. We’ve been saying since the assassination attempt that many questions are still open. Bannon shared Tucker’s tweet on GETTR. On Twitter and X, a similar report was made. We really don’t know anything about Thomas Crooks, the alleged assassin of President Trump in Bultler, PA, on July 13, 2024. Tucker will be addressing this in a show on Friday. Wall Street Apes shares this: BREAKING: Tucker Carlson announces he is releasing...
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NATIONAL PICKLE DAY National Pickle Day recognizes the tart, sometimes sweet, and even spicy pickle. Each year on November 14th, pickle lovers pop open pecks of their preferred preserved pickle. It may be a Dill, Gherkin, Cornichon, Brined, Kosher Dill, Polish, Hungarian, Lime, Bread and Butter, Swedish and Danish, or Kool-Aid Pickle. No matter your choice, eat them all day long. #NationalPickleDay The term pickle comes from the Dutch word pekel, meaning brine. In the United States, the word pickle typically refers to a pickled cucumber. However, just about any fruit or vegetable can be pickled. The process typically starts...
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Anger is brewing over former President Barack Obama’s decision to build his presidential library in the heart of a historic Chicago park. Costing $850 million, the Obama Presidential Center’s construction in Jackson Park began in 2021 and will conclude next spring. The problem is that many locals do not care for the odd-looking building that is his library, invading their community. “Obama, of all people, should not be building a palace for himself, a fortress in the middle of a public park,” famous Chicago-area architect Grahm Balkany, a left-winger, told the New York Post. “It’s just contrary to what I...
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According to a statement released by Antiquity, an international team of researchers is investigating the site of the palace of the Oba, or king of the Kingdom of Benin, which was looted and demolished by the British in 1897. The work is being conducted ahead of the construction of the Museum of West African Art (MOWAA) in Benin City by a team of scientists from MOWAA, the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, and the British Museum. The study has uncovered evidence for the development of the city, its architecture, and Benin's famed metalworking. “We know that we cannot arrest...
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Tarlton takes his place in theatrical history as creator of the stage yokel; his performance in this role is thought to have influenced Shakespeare's creation of the character Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Tarlton himself is said to have been the model for the court jester Yorick described in Hamlet. Tarlton's popularity and genius were undisputed. Thomas Nashe wrote that audiences began "exceedingly to laugh when he first peept out his head"; Edmund Spenser mourned him as "our pleasant Willy . . . with whom all joy and jolly merriment/Is also deaded"; and in 1643 Sir Richard Baker...
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Harvard physicists unveil system to solve long-standing barrier to new generation of supercomputers The dream of creating game-changing quantum computers — supermachines that encode information in single atoms rather than conventional bits — has been hampered by the formidable challenge known as quantum error correction. In a paper published Monday in Nature, Harvard researchers demonstrated a new system capable of detecting and removing errors below a key performance threshold, potentially providing a workable solution to the problem. “For the first time, we combined all essential elements for a scalable, error-corrected quantum computation in an integrated architecture,” said Mikhail Lukin, co-director...
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The U.S. Mint on Wednesday ended production of the penny, a change made to save money and because the 1-cent coin that could once buy a snack or a piece of candy had become increasingly irrelevant. The last pennies were struck at the mint in Philadelphia, where the country's smallest denomination coins have been produced since 1793, a year after Congress passed the Coinage Act. Officials said the final few pennies would be auctioned off. "God bless America, and we're going to save the taxpayers $56 million," U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach said just before hitting a button to strike the...
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We marked last week the death at age 97 of James D. Watson (1928 – 2025), co-discoverer with Francis Crick of the structure of DNA. Reflecting on his life leads to contradictory responses: a hero of science, whose work led to insights pointing to life’s intelligent design, he was also a bigoted atheist and champion of pseudoscientific racism.The names Watson and Crick are almost as iconic as the DNA double helix that they elucidated in 1953, for which they won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine along with Maurice Wilkins. One discovery led to another: Crick’s sequence hypothesis...
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Throughout the arid regions of Iran, agricultural and permanent settlements are supported by the ancient qanat system of tapping alluvial aquifers at the heads of valleys and conducting the water along underground tunnels by gravity, often over many kilometres.Each qanat comprises an almost horizontal tunnel collecting water from an underground water source, usually an alluvial fan, into which a mother well is sunk to the appropriate level of the aquifer. Well shafts are sunk at regular intervals along the route of the tunnel to enable removal of spoil and allow ventilation. These appear as craters from above, following the line...
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NORFOLK, Virginia — The two houses at the center of New York Attorney General Letitia James’ legal trouble have been magnets for police activity since she bought them — with cops dispatched two dozen times since her ne’er-do-well kin moved in, The Post has learned. James’ serial crook grandniece, Nakia Thompson, 36, moved into one home with her three children soon after James closed on the house in August 2020, for which she paid $137,000. Since then, cops have been summoned to the residence on 12 occasions, according to police records — including several instances in which they were called...
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Reuters reports that Peruvian authorities announced the discovery of a major lost ancient city in the country's Barranca province. The site of Peñico was founded high in the Andes mountains between 1800 and 1500 b.c. following the collapse of the nearby Caral culture, which is often considered the oldest civilization in the Americas. The site features a monumental central plaza with a large circular structure and walls bearing relief sculptures and depictions of pututus, or conch shell trumpets. Over the past several years, archaeologists have uncovered 18 buildings that include residential complexes and ceremonial temples. Among the objects they recovered...
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Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered three New Kingdom tombs,,. The burials were found within a cemetery now known as Dra Abu el-Naga, which is near modern-day Luxor (ancient Thebes).The three deceased individuals, all men, each held important roles in ancient Egypt's temples and grain silos. So it's no surprise they were buried at the Dra Abu el-Naga cemetery, which is located near the Nile and is a necropolis for important non-royal people.One of the tombs belongs to a man named "Amun-Em-Ipet" who served in a temple or estate that was dedicated to Amun, a god associated with ancient Thebes, Egypt's...
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According to an IFL Science report, traces of opium have been detected in an ancient Egyptian alabaster vase held in Yale University's Peabody Museum. A team of researchers led by Andrew J. Koh of Yale University used gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to analyze the sticky, dark-brown residue with a distinct odor that was found in the jar. Noscapine, hydrocotarnine, morphine, thebaine, and papaverine -- all diagnostic biomarkers for opium -- were identified. The alabastron bears inscriptions written in Akkadian, Elamite, Persian, and Egyptian, and names “Great King” Xerxes I, who ruled Persia in the fifth century B.C. It had been previously...
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That climate is a-changin'! The Gulf Stream is near collapse, scientists warn — inviting a new ice age and rising sea levels https://t.co/mtZqDdQwce pic.twitter.com/37bikEYbXU— New York Post (@nypost) November 12, 2025I get it. It's a New York Post link. It's supposed to be clickbaity. But this is a real study published in Communications Earth & Environment that was conducted by researchers from the Institute of Oceanology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IOCAS) and the University of California, San Diego. Per the new findings, the at-risk current in question is the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or AMOC, a 'conveyor belt...
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Everyone knows Beethoven went deaf, but nobody really knew what killed him until now. Let’s get into it. For centuries, people talked about his genius and his misery like they were the same thing. And as it turns out, they kinda were. The man who gave the world symphonies was being poisoned every single day of his life. Scientists have tested the locks of hair that fans snipped from his head when he died in 1827. And what they found was pure mayhem. His body was loaded with lead, arsenic, and mercury. His wine, his medicine, even the glass he...
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