> A 2020 Cochrane meta-analysis of roughly 59,000 participants across 15 randomized controlled trials found that replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat reduced combined cardiovascular events by 21%.
…about same difference as taking statins (per the article)
> There’s something else worth knowing about beef tallow that isn’t making it into the wellness content: It contains ruminant trans fats.
> The administration that declared it is “ending the war on saturated fat” has found a cooking fat that delivers more of the exact compounds most associated with cardiovascular mortality. MAHA is road paved with artery-clogging cholesterol, and they’re calling it a health revolution.
The article seems worth reading. I found it informative. It’s not that the scariest compounds in seed oils aren’t considered dangerous, but they’re probably not in vegetable oils in significant enough levels. So that’s conspiratorial misunderstanding by the MAHA contingent.
The British who came to this land weren’t “immigrants.” They were settlers. They came to this land, and created a country based on British law, British civic institutions, British political philosophy, and British economics. The Germans and Scandinavians came here for the most part also developed towns and cities that weren’t there before. Immigrants are the people who then moved into those places.
The distinction between settlers and immigrants is extremely salient from a sociological standpoint.
In the U.S., we have a right to a jury trial. To decide whether a jury trial right exists in a particular case, we look to whether that case would have been tried to a jury in 1791 in a particular country. Which country is that? The people from that country were the settlers.
If you look at American legal theory and elide people’s names, you might not realize there was anyone here besides British people. There’s more influence in our legal system from ancient Rome than modern Italy.
I notice isn't quite often that the people complaining about immigration are less than the most shining examples of American ingenuity and hustle. They are, very nearly to the one, small, terrified people who seem to think that their position in the social heirarchy is threatened by the relative concentration of melanin in the area (or they are pretending to hold that opinion to manipulate those people to their own ends)
America needs the vigor and drive that immigration brings. Our countrymen have always been immigrants and we were greatest when we stole the most courageous, the smartest, the hardest working from everywhere in the world. We reject that resource today at our own peril.
Do we want to be the UK? Inward-focused ignorant navel gazing and xenophobia are how we get there
>They are, very nearly to the one, small, terrified people who seem to think that their position in the social heirarchy is threatened by the relative concentration of melanin in the area
Literally nobody brought up skin color in this entire discussion but you and you're using it in bad faith to call other racists. The typical way of liberals and democrat arguments is always rejecting logic and statistics if they make immigration look bad, and focusing on identity politics and skin color to deflect your arguments as racist. Look in the mirror, the racist might be right there if skin color is the first thing you reach for in a discussion.
>Our countrymen have always been immigrants and we were greatest when we stole the most courageous, the smartest, the hardest working from everywhere in the world.
And tell me, what happened to the native American Indians when you "courageous, smartest and hardest working" immigrants(my ancestors) moved to America? Where are the descendant of the native Indians today and how many are they and what's their socio-economic situation at the moment in society relative to the immigrants that displaced them? Or look at what happened to Palestinians after they opened their doors to Jewish refugees from Europe since 1945. How are the descendents of those Palestinians faring today? Not so good, huh, barely trying to survive not being genocided by the guests they welcomed in 80 years ago. Every mass migration event in the world has led to violence and demographic displacement of the local population. If those invading your land in high numbers are "smart and hard working" it makes no difference to you if you're getting demographically displaced.
>We reject that resource today at our own peril.
As we should. Why would I want to happen to me what happened to native american Indians or to Palestinians when they accepted foreign invaders(now called migrants)? Just think about it for 3 seconds, why would anyone voluntarily want to bring in their own demise? Except this time around, I'm pretty sure once you're demographically and democratically displaced, you won't get your own minority rights, reservations and casinos by your invaders, because they'll see your suffering as just retribution for the conquest and past sins your ancestors have done over the natives back then. The overton window has already shifted to the point where democrats call and win election based on racist policies of taxing white people more. It'll be like what's happening to the descendents of European immigrants in South Africa and Zimbabwe today. Not pretty.
>Do we want to be the UK? Inward-focused ignorant navel gazing and xenophobia are how we get there
Except UK has had more migration per capita than the US especially since 2020, and their situation has only gotten worse. If you accept more migration then you're guaranteed to end be like the UK.
Why is it that when Americans travel abroad and say how amazing, clean it was and how safe they felt in X country, that country somehow has very low migration rates and draconical laws on visa entry and is hard on crime? Weird how they can't connect the dots on this one.
The current path is replacing bureaucratic power with unchecked executive power which is the opposite of what you want. Bureaucrats who must follow the rule of law is what you want.
Are you saying Congress should be domain experts every area they allocate funds to? From maritime safety to preschool nutrition, congress should be expert enough in everything to specify all important details, and then the agencies (staffed by actual domain experts in each area) are mere accountants to execute the policies?
I don’t think it’s workable. At best it just swaps lobbyists for civil servants.
More realistically you'd end up with an official advisory body where the exact same experts would write the regulations, they would be intermittently passed by congress between their regular bouts of systemic dysfunction, and the current crop of bureaucrats would be replaced by mindless pencil pushers. Add an official title for members of this government run advisory body such as "sage" and give them lifelong tenure and we've about completed the process.
On paper it's different but in practice congress would largely be rubber stamping things. I predict the differences would be largely negative. More room for non-experts to meddle, more room for lobbyists to insert themselves into the process, and more room for broad capture of the advisory body to go unnoticed.
Ostensibly, who's paying their salary is important. Lobbyists, paid for by corporations with a vested interest in things going their way, is far worse than civil servants who's salary comes from taxpayers, and who's responsibility is to them, and not corporate interests. Ostensibly.
People don't vote for civil servants their loyality is not with the public but themselves. Congress's loyality is with donors and/or leader's who's loyality is with donors.
Nothing will work when the courts decide giving money is speech and now protected. Super pacs have unlimited spending and shield donors.
It's hard to change. You need a new supreme court or amendment to remove super pacs then you need to convince the people who got in power by having more money to limit donations to an amount an average American can afford. Then you need laws to fix gerrymandering or possible an amendment. Then you need radical laws to deal with immigration vote buy which mlght involve rules not allowing people not born in the country from voting.
And then we will realize that people with more money will actually need more power because they have bigger needs. So they will start buying people through convert ways (media ownership, ai filtered data, ...) and we'll have more disinformation. Maybe this is the best democracy can offer.
Congress always had the power to remove delegated power from an institution if it didn't like how that institution was performing. It's also had the power to disband the executive branch regime at any point since January 20. Everything that is happening now is happening with the complete approval of Congress.
Correct, and congress hasn't been exercising that power for the better part of a century now. The War Powers Resolution was 1973, for example.
I don't know what the exact solution is, but something needs to change in the structure and incentives of congress to incentivize them to exercise power again. Eliminating the filibuster and drastically increasing the total number of representatives seem like the best ways to me, but I'm open yo other possibilities.
Nobody should be incentivized to exercise power for the sake of exercising power. They should be incentivized to exercise power to change things they don't agree with. And they already have that incentive. And they are already using it. What is there to change?
Very true, but some are acting like it’s the end of the world if a few people in the middle to lower end who worked very hard get a bonus and when I say work hard, I would say they probably in South Korea worked a lot harder that many people in the west in the same position have relatively speaking.
I don't think it would be bad for equity in any way. It might actually be good instead actually.
First, the general public would have more disposable income if we shift more of the tax burden on the ultra rich.
Second, people like Elon Musk won't be able to give themselves massive bonuses that are essentially paid by diluting common stock.
Also, with regard to the U.S., the U.S. could wipe out its national debt with a one-time wealth tax, and also pass a balanced budget const. amendment so it never ends up deep in debt again.
Lastly, perverse and extremely greed-based exploitative businesses might become less common, since there aren't ultra fat executive paychecks. Although it might still happen if a large group of people are able to make a somewhat high salary off such schemes.
No way wealth tax covers the debt. It would be more of an asset seizure and forced sale or nationalization of a bunch of businesses and illiquid asset classes. The rich don’t hold enough cash to make it happen.
The other issue is the U.S. deficit is a feature not a bug. As long as the world buys the bonds, it’s “free” and no one will care until forced austerity happens.
Look into the end of the Gilded Age to see how this really gets fixed.
Nationalization is arbitrary and wrong. That's not what I'm proposing.
We'd largely be transferring shares in companies to the treasury bond holders, ie the people and orgs who hold US debt.
The federal government might for example force mega-sized private companies like Koch Industries to go public to get an accurate market valuation (or just sell it to private equity by starting a bidding war on it across many private equity investors).
The wealth tax cutoff would be determined by the national debt. It might fall to a relatively harsh / low threshold like 99.9% of assets over $20 million. Or maybe 99% of assets between $20 million to $1 billion, and 99.9% on assets above $1 billion.
Treasury bonds themselves would be subject to the wealth tax, so someone with $100 billion in T bonds might just see 99% of $80 million erased. So even the total number of T bonds payable will drop under this wealth tax.
But someone with $100 million in shares in private and public companies will see their shares transferred to the federal government, and then eventually sold.
Once every T bond has been paid off, Congress and the states could try to close the centuries-long chapter on debt by trying to pass a balanced budget constitutional amendment.
> A 2020 Cochrane meta-analysis of roughly 59,000 participants across 15 randomized controlled trials found that replacing saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat reduced combined cardiovascular events by 21%.
…about same difference as taking statins (per the article)
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