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Ultraprocessed foods are not poison

As any pharmacologist or toxicologist will tell you, the dose makes the poison. Most rice contains arsenic. Baked goods contain acrylamide. Seafood contains methylmercury. Natural groundwater contains fluoride. But in moderation, none of those things are toxic. Thanks to RFK Jr, there’s been a lot of silly nattering about the alleged dangers of ultraprocessed foods. But there’s no evidence that, consumed in moderation, ultraprocessed foods are either dangerous or toxic. In fact, they could even promote good health. “ In the third and longest ad libitum trial, individuals with overweight or obesity in the UK consumed either a UPF-rich or a non-UPF diet, with both diets adhering to national dietary guidelines on nutritional adequacy and healthfulness. Contrary to the other two trials, the UPF-rich diet reduced energy intake and promoted modest weight loss (0.9 kg) relative to baseline. These results suggest that a UPF-rich diet designed according to established dietary principles that em...
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De-dollarization heats up

Jonathan Last has a fairly detailed piece (with links to more details) concerning something called mBridge, which looks to be China’s ‘camel’s nose under the tent’ for dethroning the dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Read the whole thing. Here are some highlights: Currently, most of the world uses the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) system for carrying out international transactions across multiple currencies. SWIFT runs mostly on the dollar. mBridge works on blockchain. • currencies never have to be converted to USD; • the costs associated with each transaction are comparatively much cheaper; • transactions clear almost in real time. Trump tried and failed to fight mBridge with massive tariffs. He then turned to stablecoins, which aren’t an alternative to mBridge, but just a grift for him and his family. “So in sum:   • mBridge is a threat to the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. • Biden tried to derail it by cutting it off ...
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Trump’s Iran bamboozle

For all his boasting about winning and a deal with Iran, all Trump has is a memorandum of understanding. It apparently includes a 60-day period when Iran won’t collect tolls in the strait, a cessation of attacks by the US and some inchoate future discussion on buried uranium. And the CIA director has cast public doubt on Iran’s willingness to make concessions on nuclear programs. Josh Marshall thinks Administration hawks are undermining Trump’s exit plan. “If you go to war to achieve a specific end you don’t end the war before negotiating over that specific end. (The US has many declared ends in its war with Iran – proxies, missiles, etc. – but the nuclear program was always the most central.) You come to an agreement when [your] hand is strongest. The whole point of pushing the negotiation over nuclear weapons to after the conflict but making it seem like an agreement is somehow contained within the ceasefire isn’t a matter of really poor negotiating skills. It’s a ruse that both side...
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Where’s the beef?

I rarely eat beef. Maybe once or twice a year. The closest thing I eat to beef is bison, and even that only a pound or two a year. I long ago switched to chicken, turkey and fish for animal protein. Beef prices are skyrocketing.  “Retail beef prices are hovering near a record high. Last month, consumers paid on average a little over  $7 per pound  for ground beef, up 13% from a year earlier and 50% from five years earlier, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics — far outpacing the general inflation rate. A decent ribeye steak from the grocery store now looks like a luxury, with prime cuts typically pushing beyond $20 per pound. Even some beloved Texas barbecue joints are  shutting down  due to the skyrocketing cost of brisket.   “These are good times if you’re a rancher like Brown, who endured years of tight margins before the pandemic. But the steep prices are making shoppers wince — and creating a serious political problem for President Donald Trump ...
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Mike Johnson touches the third rail

You may have seen that Speaker Mike Johnson wants Social Security to be “fixed” after the midterms. The fact that he wants to wait until after the midterms tells you everything you need to know. He’s using “fixed” in the sense of what you do to your dog if you don’t want puppies. Republicans know this is radioactive and don’t want to run for re-election on it. And Johnson wants a stick to beat Democrats with when he’s loses the speaker’s gavel in January. Johnson argues that SS must be cut because it’s such a large share of the federal budget and topping it off to prevent benefits cuts in the early 2030s is too expensive. Setting aside the fact that SS is separately funded and so has zero effect on the deficit, how large is SS relative to the defense spending? Paul Krugman brings the receipts: “. . .    while the cost of maintaining Social Security benefits at their promised level isn’t trivial, it is in fact affordable. According to the Trustees’ report, the   actuarial ...
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Checking up on Trump’s chosen people

“So far, 206 Afrikaners have resettled in Ohio, a state that has struggled with population decline for decades. The Trump administration recently announced it plans to increase by 10,000 the number of refugee resettlement places for South Africans this year.   “But since arriving in the US, Afrikaners – largely the Afrikaans-speaking descendants of Dutch settlers and French Huguenots – have faced major challenges, in large part due to policies aimed at immigrants and enacted by the White House and Ohio’s Republican-run legislature.   “Last June, Ohio introduced new driving license rules for lawful residents who are not citizens or green card holders.   “They include the requirement for all applicants to complete eight hours of lessons through a designated driving school, 24 hours of classroom work and 50 hours of driving with a licensed adult before being able to take a driving exam. The cost of fulfilling these requirements is estimated at about $500 and could take up to...
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Whatever we’re paying him, it’s too much

The NYT published an article reporting that RFK Jr has abandoned most of his responsibilities: “Mr. Kennedy has shown little interest in managing the details of work in his department, according to multiple colleagues,” Sheryl Gay Stolberg wrote in the article. “Instead, they say, he is single-mindedly focused on his top priorities, including food recommendations and pesticide exposures, and hunting for evidence to support his long-held beliefs that vaccines are harmful.“ Not exactly news. Kennedy’s rebuttal? “All one needs to refute your argument is to glance at my publicly available calendar and to review my unprecedented list of accomplishments on a wide range of issues, all of which I drove,” Kennedy wrote.” LOL! His “accomplishments” are (a) the firings and resignations of health research experts at the CDC, FDA and NIH and (b) sowing distrust in scientific expertise while replacing sound science with magical thinking. Whatever they’re paying him, it’s way too much. Unless the job...
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