Favorite Rejects 2023-03-16

Oliver Jia (オリバー・ジア) @OliverJia1014

Hoping that Japan and South Korea enter a new age of better relations. More importantly, I hope that the people in power now ensure that their successors don’t attempt to undo any progress that gets made.

Kyodo News | Japan @kyodo_english

#BREAKING: Japan canceling export controls on chip materials to South Korea: Seoul https://t.co/0681UITrLa https://t.co/tnJarAAWVa

Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇦 @Noahpinion

Sorry, zoonoticoids. The lableakers won in the court of public opinion, and, this being a democracy, it means lab leak must be the Truth. Take your stuffed pangolins and go home

Conor Sen @conorsen

Among white college grads, the lab leak theory has 2:1 support over natural transmission. https://t.co/OUckgs6E11

Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇦 @Noahpinion

On one hand this is nonsense fantasy and nothing like this either can happen or will happen. On the other hand, I appreciate that they capitalized "Consumption" but left "production" uncapitalized

Timothée Parrique @timparrique

A reduction of production and consumption to lighten the ecological footprints, planned democratically in a spirit of social justice while improving well-being. https://t.co/r4tPvNlH31

Judd Legum @JuddLegum

1. Fox News' @JesseBWatters told millions of viewers that Silicon Valley Bank "donated $74 million to Black Lives Matter." Similar claims went viral on Twitter Some "facts" are too good to check The actual amount that SVB donated to BLM is ZERO Follow along for receipts 🧾

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

If your competitors favor your merger, that's an anti-competitive merger! It honestly doesn't get much more clear-cut than that.

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

When AT&T was trying to get regulatory approval to acquire T-Mobile, they made all these commitments to avoid laying off any workers. This killed them with the FCC: If the merger is profitable but doesn't involve cost-cutting, that's an anti-competitive merger!

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Republicans have conveniently forgotten about this but Trump spent the first three months of the Covid crisis slobbering Xi with praise in an effort to score this big soybean sale that ultimately amounted to nothing. https://t.co/1eDxfz5QBT

Chad P. Bown @ChadBown

China bought none of the extra $200 billion of US exports in Trump's "phase one" deal. In 2022, US exports to China improved only slightly. US exports to China in 2022 are now 23% lower than if they had grown at the same rate as China’s imports from the world over 2018–22... 2/ https://t.co/Lfv8LP6Iac

Dr Maria Shagina 🇺🇦 @maria_shagina

The customs data show that Chinese companies have sent 1,000 assault rifles and other equipment that could be used for military purposes, including drone parts and body armor, to Russia routed via Turkey and the UAE.

politico.com‘Hunting rifles’ — really? China ships assault weapons and body armor to RussiaCustoms data obtained by POLITICO reveals direct shipments of Chinese assault rifles, as well as drone shipments and body armor routed via Turkey and the UAE.

Marc Ambinder @marcambinder

I asked Chat GPT to assess the secrets that Starfleet Command keeps and their justification for keeping them. @StarTrek @StarTrekRoom

Matthew Yglesias @mattyglesias

Section 31 is so secret that ChatGPT won't discuss it.

Marc Ambinder @marcambinder

I asked Chat GPT to assess the secrets that Starfleet Command keeps and their justification for keeping them. @StarTrek @StarTrekRoom https://t.co/1WUIGeZ2A3

McKay Coppins @mckaycoppins

A fascinating (and kind of hilarious) finding in this Pew survey: Mormons are among the least popular religious groups in America. They are also the only group that expresses a net favorable opinion of *every other group,* including Muslims and atheists. pewresearch.org/religion/2023/…