Evangelicals are an almost entirely US phenomenon. In the rest of the world, Protestant countries like Germany and the UK are more liberal than Catholic countries like Ireland and Italy. For example, Italy “legalised” abortion in 1978 but the vast majority of gynaecologists refuse to perform them on religious grounds. Ireland didn’t legalise until… 2019!

Proof they aren’t American-trained…

I think people in the future will look back on how we raise livestock today as barbaric.

You Oughta Know isn’t even from the 21st century.

Aviation types still hang out on Pprune.org.

That’s not the origin of the term “red tape”. Binding documents with tape is as old as documents, and the practice of using red tape for important documents is hundreds of years old. Dickens used the term in one of his novels before the Civil War had even started.

You got some of the words right.

The BoJ measures inflation to help it manage the economy. It’s not a political tool. As an individual, changes in your cost of living are personal to you. You don’t need the central bank or the government to tell you about it.

Obviously, the BoJ isn’t focused on individuals. It wants to see what’s happening across the whole economy. Through research that is freely available, it has determined that the index provides a more reliable signal when volatile fresh food prices are excluded (because the things that typically cause these prices to change, like the weather, don’t reflect a broad shift in the economy).

You’re wrong that energy isn’t included. That sentence is referring to a different (“core-core CPI”) index, which is higher at 4% because energy prices have gone down. Japan’s energy problems are as result of the post-Fukushima shift from nuclear, largely a result of public opinion.

Put simply, CPI isn’t a measure of “cost of living“. It’s a tool for central bank policy.

A huge amount of the pollution comes from farmers burning stubble. The solution to that isn’t complex.

Louis talks about this exact issue on his Hot Ones interview.

So is My Dad Wrote a Porno, isn’t it?

However, Reply All’s PJ Vogt has a new podcast called Search Engine which is good.

This problem has been completely solved by auto-dimming mirrors.

People don’t “need” to say that.

How is it being used against you?

Are they alleging that Mastercard sells data with personally identifiable information? Because if not, what’s the big deal? The people that buy this data want to know about trends.

There are almost as many westerners in the UAE as there are Emiratis. They are all participants in the exploitation.

Yellowbeard. Starring Peter Cook, most of Monty Python, Cheech and Chong, Marty Feldman, Spike Milligan… what’s not to love?

The minister in charge of HSR was sentenced to death for corruption.

China is legally required to pay fair market value and rehouse displaced peoples

Lol.

Guess what? Being an authoritarian government means never having to ask permission to steal someone’s land, rip up a pristine habitat or demolish an entire village. Those types of considerations are what make infrastructure expensive in democratic countries.