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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 22nd, 2023

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  • I wonder if Congress can withhold SCOTUS operational funding until something is done?

    They could do a hell of a lot more than that. The Constitution defines the SCOTUS and states:

    In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.

    Congress has the power to modify the powers of the Supreme court. They could, if they had the will, take away the vast majority of the power of SCOTUS. Congress could add exceptions to the SCOTUS’ appellate powers for all matters except matters “affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a state shall be party.” With the President’s assistance, Congress could even expand the court and alter the current majority.

    They could do all this, but they won’t, and for the same reason they won’t impeach the blatantly ethically bereft members of the court. Because the Republicans are benefiting from the status quo and they will never allow the Democrats to change it as long as they have more than 40 seats in the Senate and a majority in the House.




  • Because they don’t want to see it. They want to feel superior to everyone else by claiming the moral high ground but don’t actually want to adhere to the morality they pretend to believe in. Feed the poor? Not with my tax dollars! Love thy neighbor? No way! One side is Muslims and the others are black! The meek shall inherit the Earth? Not on my watch!






  • This is kind of like time travel in a way. If one were to go back in time, you would mainly need to worry about the diseases and parasites you bring back with you. You are descended from those who learned to survive the diseases of the past so you are likely to have some resistance to it. You wouldn’t be perfectly safe of course, but not likely at more risk than if you stayed in your own time.

    On the other hand, if you travel forward in time, like this nematode did, you are entering a realm that is full of virus, bacteria, and even fungus that have had decades to learn new tricks to survive that you would have no inherent resistance to.

    The chance of there being some sleeping time bomb in the permafrost seems low to me since everything alive today is descended from those who survived that germ or parasite in the past.


  • But this is only an early phase, base on the article.

    The company is hoping to replicate its success at a site in Utah. If Fervo sees similar results there and it successfully implements design upgrades to maximize output, the site is expected to generate enough electricity to power 300,000 homes simultaneously, Latimer said. That’s around a quarter of all homes in Utah.

    If they successfully scale it up to power a quarter of the homes in Utah then it could dramatically reduce the need for power generated by other methods in the region. My concern is the part of the article where they talk about fracking other areas to make those areas more suitable for geothermal power generation. Assuming that their process uses the same chemical cocktail as petroleum fracking, I would not support it.

    As for Google data centers, this article is not suggesting a reduced carbon footprint for Google. It about minimizing the increase in their carbon footprint. They are expanding and are going to continue expanding regardless of how their power needs are met. It is a good thing if their expansion can be powered by minimally polluting means.

    I suspect a large part of the internet and the Fediverse is hosted on Google cloud services. Do you really want to shut down the data centers and hobble the internet? I would much rather we switch 100% to wind, solar, geothermal rather than ditching the internet.