You can see how much individuals associated with British American Tobacco contributed to campaigns. In 2024 it was over $26 million a vast majority of that going to Republicans. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/british-american-tobacco/summary?id=D000067317 they also spent over $5 million in lobbying in 2024.

Some other notable quotes from the article:

In February 2021, the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Network (OCCRP) published an investigation according to which trafficking of BAT cigarettes had helped finance jihadist and separatist groups in northern Mali using, among other mechanisms, a system of oversupplying the country with tobacco. This has allowed billions of cigarettes to be smuggled out of the country.

In November 2012, the Zimbabwean government arrested several people for spying on factories owned by local tobacco companies, including Pacific Cigarette Company (PCC). BAT's involvement was suspected but not proven.[76][77][78] Later that month, President Robert Mugabe accused BAT of spying and hijacking PCC trucks to "kill competition".[79][80][81] In September 2021, a BBC Panorama investigation found evidence that BAT had enlisted Forensic Security Services, a South African Security firm, to sabotage and surveil factories owned by competitors, including PCC. After the spies were arrested, BAT negotiated a bribe so that the government would release them from jail.[82][83]

Example: a volunteer fireman = I never run to a flame

cross-posted from: https://lemmit.online/post/5938935

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/sleekpaprika69 on 2025-05-29 01:09:43+00:00.

cross-posted from: https://lemmit.online/post/5932732

TIL Playboy asked Richard Thompson and other musicians to compile a list of the best songs of the millennium to celebrate the year 2000. Thompson maliciously complied and included songs as old as ...

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/todayilearned by /u/IanGecko on 2025-05-28 05:08:36+00:00.

Original Title: TIL Playboy asked Richard Thompson and other musicians to compile a list of the best songs of the millennium to celebrate the year 2000. Thompson maliciously complied and included songs as old as the 13th century. The list was never published so Thompson released a live album.

I never realized there was a term to describe the low-effort phrases that people often use to get other people to shut up.

A thought-terminating cliché (also known as a semantic stop-sign, a thought-stopper, bumper sticker logic, or cliché thinking) is a form of loaded language—often passing as folk wisdom—intended to end an argument and quell cognitive dissonance with a cliché rather than a point.[1][2] Some such clichés are not inherently terminating, and only becomes so when used to intentionally dismiss, dissent, or justify fallacies.[3]

The term was popularized by Robert Jay Lifton in his 1961 book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, who referred to the use of the cliché, along with "loading the language", as "the language of non-thought".[4]

Poor countries are catching up and getting richer faster than the rich countries are - and the accumulation of wealth by the global top 10% is actually decreasing, while the wealth of the bottom 50% is on the rise.

Source

The Wikipedia article is well worth a read! It looks likes the owner of Dubai-based Legatum Group made his fortunes in part with Russian gas money. The Legatum Institute which it seems is now called the "Prosperity Institute"* is registered in Bermuda and controlled by a company in the Cayman Islands.

* usually at-least speaking about things in the U.S. when a non-profit or a think tank has the words prosperity in it, it usually means that they advocate for a far-right viewpoint that screws over you and helps the billionaires become richer.

US states by population data (you'll have to do a little work to sort).

New York City population - estimated 8.4M in 2024.

The only states it's lower than are:

• Virginia
• New Jersey
• Michigan
• North Carolina
• Georgia
• Ohio
• Illinois
• Pennsylvania
• New York
• Florida
• Texas
• California

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/64402838

TLDR:

• Theoretical and experimental evidence now strongly supports the possibility of energy extraction from spinning objects, including black holes.

• Creating a “black hole bomb” is no longer just science fiction—lab-scale analogs exist.

• Realizing a full-scale version (especially around a real black hole) is still far in the future, but the groundwork is being laid.

Main Idea

It is theoretically and experimentally possible to extract energy from spinning black holes, and under specific conditions, this could be amplified to create what’s known as a “black hole bomb.”

Theoretical Background

Penrose Process (1969)

• Proposed by Roger Penrose.

• Energy can be extracted from a spinning black hole via its ergosphere.

• The ergosphere is a region just outside the event horizon where spacetime is dragged due to the black hole’s spin.

• Inside this region:

  • Objects cannot remain stationary.
  • Energy can be gained if mass is ejected in the right way.
  • A spacecraft, for instance, could enter the ergosphere and leave with more energy than it had.

Zeldovich Effect (1971)

• Proposed by Yakov Zeldovich.
• Rotating bodies (not just black holes) can amplify electromagnetic waves via rotational energy.
• Predicted that light or sound aimed at a spinning object could gain energy upon reflection.
• Required extremely high rotational speeds—nearly relativistic—for noticeable effects.

Experimental Verification

Sound Waves (2020)

• Spinning absorptive disc increased the energy of low-frequency sound waves.
• Proved the Zeldovich effect using acoustics.

Electromagnetic Waves (2023–2024)

• A spinning aluminum cylinder with surrounding magnetic coils showed energy amplification of EM waves.
• Rotation direction affected energy gain/loss.
• First real-world proof of the superradiance concept from Zeldovich's theory.

Black Hole Bomb Concept (1972)

Key Mechanism

• Enclose a spinning black hole (or any rotating energy source) with a reflective mirror.

• Waves bounce between the mirror and ergosphere, each time gaining energy from the black hole’s spin.

• This creates a positive feedback loop:

  • Energy builds exponentially.
  • Could result in an enormous explosion (i.e., a “black hole bomb”).
  • Or energy could be released in a controlled burst, like a black hole plasma gun.

Recent Experiments (2024)

• Miniature black hole bomb analog was created:

  • A metal cylinder was rotated.
  • Surrounded by coils acting as magnetic mirrors.
  • EM waves were amplified exponentially when rotation threshold was met.
  • Verified theoretical predictions experimentally for the first time.

Challenges & Future Research

For Actual Black Holes

• Creating a real reflective mirror around a black hole is still theoretical.
• Stabilizing such a structure near a black hole is currently beyond our technology.

Next Step: Quantum Foam

• Researchers aim to attempt amplification using quantum vacuum energy (quantum foam).

• If successful:

  • Could demonstrate energy extraction from spacetime itself.
  • Would confirm another Zeldovich prediction.
  • Potential Nobel Prize-level breakthrough.

source

The full story is here, but this was one of the most substantial legal civil rights victories in American history, and one of the scant few that ever occurred to obtain legal recourse against US abuses of native people.