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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • No one knows what story she’s denying, or what images she’s claiming are fake. The most likely possibility is that someone is preparing to release a story on the links between her and Epstein. It’s standard practice in journalism to contact the subject of a piece, inform them of the contents of that piece, and offer them an opportunity to comment. A request for comment on an upcoming story seems a likely trigger for this reaction. The entire speech strikes me as a thinly veiled threat, essentially saying “If you publish your story I will sue you for defamation.”







  • My favorite tidbit about the POW camps for German soldiers in Canada is that the camps generally weren’t fenced. Like, you can escape if you want I guess, but you could walk for weeks and guess what? Still Canada!

    Most German POWs were happy to stay because the camps fed them far better than what they’d been getting as German soldiers in the European theater after years of rationing. Some felt guilty about how good they were eating, because they knew their civilian family members back in Germany were getting even less.




  • Hah, what profits?? Chinese auto makers have been massively subsidized by the Chinese government for the last several years. Any profits on their balance sheets have been propped up by those subsidies. The Chinese government has already indicated that those subsidies will be ending, because they’ve created a supply glut that China cannot absorb domestically and cannot offload internationally. No country on the planet is going to allow the wholesale dumping of heavily subsidized Chinese autos into their domestic market since it would damage or destroy any local auto manufacturing industry.

    Carney’s decision to allow a nominal amount of Chinese EVs is smart because it’s a net win for Canada no matter what happens. It gets Canadian soybeans shipping to China again, while the number of EVs being allowed is too small to have an outsized effect on the Canadian auto industry. That’s just the basic first-order stuff, there are huge potential upsides down the road. This acts as a trial balloon to see whether the Canadian market has an appetite for Chinese made autos. I suspect yes at first just based on price, but those prices will rise as Chinese subsidies draw down. If Canadians show a willingness to buy Chinese made autos, Canada can float expanding the import limit in exchange for some percentage of local manufacture.

    The US auto industry is pulling back from Canada, so Canada is making deals with South Korean auto makers. We’ve seen what happened when Canada put too many eggs in the proverbial US basket. Replacing those US auto makers with a variety of foreign makers (Germany, South Korea, maybe China down the road) is just pragmatic risk mitigation. It gives us a better local manufacturing base while ensuring we’re not overly beholden to a single foreign trading partner.









  • There aren’t really prosecutorial appeals for grand jury “no true bill” decisions, so this won’t be going to the supremes at this stage. However, there’s also nothing to prevent the prosecutors from trying again in front of a new grand jury. In practice this is pretty uncommon, likely because the judges presiding over grand juries take a dim view of lawyers who waste the court’s time (much like any other judge).

    A common reason to seek a new indictment would be if new evidence has come to light, and thus there are new facts for a new grand jury to weigh. I wouldn’t be surprised if these prosecutors try again, even though it’s a stupid move. Motiviations like “maintain credibility with my peers” and “don’t be an incompetent nincompoop” are clearly foreign to Trump’s DoJ.

    On a related note, double jeopard prevents someone from being tried twice for the same crime, but an indictment isn’t a trial. A trial does not start until after a grand jury returns an indictment, so double jeopardy doesn’t apply here.


  • There is an option to pay for Extended Security Update (ESU) support for Windows 10. It’ll give you access to critical security and Windows Defender antivirus updates, but no fixes or updates to features. There are three ways to pay:

    • “Free” if you’re syncing data to their cloud (pay by letting them datamine your data and settings)
    • With Microsoft Reward points, which I believe are primarily earned by using Bing (pay by letting them datamine your searches)
    • For $30 a year, at least for the first year, though I’ve read the price goes up each year as they want to drive everyone to Win11.

    The program would conceivably allow you to kick the can down the road, possibly as far as Oct. 2028. Personally, I opted instead to switch to Linux months ago instead, and don’t regret my choice.