oxjox

Why are grocery prices so high?

Several factors affect food prices, such as:

• Supply chain challenges, including those related to COVID-19 and global relations such as the war in Ukraine.
• Inflation.
• Higher labor and transportation costs.
• Animal disease, such as the avian flu in 2022 which impacted egg and chicken prices.
• Extreme weather events which damage crops and affect animals.

The USDA expects grocery store prices to increase 1.2% in 2024 compared to 2023. Although the federal government can take indirect action to help manage grocery prices, it does not have a direct say in controlling price increases.

“The need is infrastructure,” he said. “You may produce all this light sweet crude oil in Texas. But if you don’t have pipelines to the nation’s refineries to deliver it, how are you going to be able to utilize it?”

So importing foreign crude oil is cheaper. Meanwhile, De Haan said, increasing renewable energy demand is making investments in fossil fuels riskier.

So we buy and refine the cheaper stuff, and we sell our more expensive stuff to places that can’t do that. There’s one more discount: The majority of our oil comes from our closest neighbor.

I've posted this in response to Trump's promise to "drill, baby, drill" as well as for all the people who have fuel prices as one of their primary concerns.

The reason gas prices are high is because it doesn't make fiscal sense for corporations to invest in the infrastructure to refine locally sourced crude oil. And, as it seems, refining local crude may actually increase prices at the pumps.

From everything I've read (please share anything that's contradictory), it seems like Trump's agenda is going to increase the cost of everything. For the number of people who voted based on 'the economy', I wish we had had more transparent discussions about the impact of his plans. I'm already scared for whomever has to inherit this pending catastrophe.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who President-elect Donald J. Trump has suggested would have a “big role” in his second administration, wasted no time laying out potential public health measures he would oversee if given the chance.

Mr. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer who has no medical or public health degrees and has promoted anti-vaccine conspiracies for years, told NBC News on Wednesday that he would not “take away anybody’s vaccines,” but that he wanted Americans to be informed with the “best information” available so they “can make individual assessments about whether that product is going to be good for them.”

“People ought to have choice,” he said, adding that he has “never been anti-vaccine.”

Mr. Kennedy has been a prominent critic of the childhood vaccination schedule and has frequently linked some vaccines to autism and other health issues. Studies have long shown no such connection.

On the topic of adding fluoride to drinking water, which helps to protect teeth, Mr. Kennedy said the mineral was “lowering I.Q. in our children,” despite decades’ worth of studies that show its efficacy and safety. “I think fluoride is on its way out,” he said. “I think the faster that it goes out, the better. I’m not going to compel anybody to take it out, but I’m going to advise the water districts about their legal liability.”

The treatment of public water with small amounts of fluoride has been widely hailed as one of the most important public health interventions of the past century; the American Dental Association has said that it reduces dental decay by at least 25 percent.

Mr. Kennedy also said that if he were given a position in Mr. Trump’s administration, he would focus on eliminating corruption at public health agencies like the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Some departments, including those focused on nutrition, “have to go,” he told NBC. “They’re not protecting our kids.”

“Once Americans are getting good science and allowed to make their own choices, they’re going to get a lot healthier,” he added. As president, Mr. Trump would have only limited authority to make some of these changes, and some would need congressional approval. But on the campaign trail, Mr. Trump said he would let Mr. Kennedy “go wild on health.”

“I want to be in the White House, and he has assured me that I’m going to have that,” Mr. Kennedy said this week.

Tariffs are at the center of former President Donald Trump’s economic plan. He wants to put across-the-board 60% tariffs on everything from China and 10%-20% on everything else from the rest of the world. It’s an extreme trade policy that he wants to use to generate revenue to cut taxes. But how would they work?

I upgraded only because the speakers on my 12 Mini were failing making it nearly impossible to have a phone call.

(1) This phone is too big, heavy, and slippery and uneasy to grasp with one hand.
(2) The camera bump is ridiculously large. It’s laughable how much it rocks on the counter as you type on it. Not in a good way.
(3) The Camera button is in the worst place (accidentally clicking it constantly) and too confusing so I disabled it forever.
(4) I also disabled the action button. This seems too easy to disable silent mode which I have enabled 99.9% of the time.
(5) The screen is noticeably worse and has a blue cast. It’s not as sharp and the contrast is dull.
(6) I love the material used on the back, even though it makes it difficult to hold.

I fully understand the hardware is significantly more advanced but the iPhone 16 genuinely feels like a downgrade from the iPhone 12 Mini. I’m not happy at all.

I’m going to stop by the Apple Store this weekend and look at getting the SE.

Update:

After a couple weeks, I can confirm that I still hate how gigantic this phone is. I had to get a case so that I can use it laid flat. It's like packing a laptop in my front pocket so I either put it in my back pocket or carry a bag. It STILL wobbles.

I have to use two hands to do most things. Shockingly, web sites and apps still don't properly fit on the screen. The camera is just ok. Speakers are pretty good. I have no use for Apple AI other than the occasional image edit (which other apps do).

I've replaced the shitty Apple camera app with Halide. I access this from Control Center. I swipe left from the home screen to access the default video camera. I found a cool trick to utilize the Action button - use it to access a menu built in Shortcuts (basically mimicking Control Center). I would one thousand percent prefer to get rid of the camera button entirely.

I guess I've adjusted to the screen though it still seems too blue to me.

I really can't think of one reason anyone would choose to upgrade to this phone.

This phone would be perfect if (1) Apple shifted more of the weight towards the bottom, (2) removed one camera, (3) recessed the camera entirely, (4) made the back from smooth (sticky) glass that wasn't nano-textured, (5) reduced the height and width dimensions by 10mm, (6) got rid of the camera button.

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones accused Vice President Kamala Harris of having the ability to control hurricanes through so-called "weather weapons."

Jones kicked off his Tuesday broadcast by promising to explain how he knew the government could control the weather.

"I'm going to be covering today, and I've sent the crew over 20 clips, and I've got over a hundred documents right here," he explained. "I'm gonna do a big presentation for everybody on what's really going on with weather weapons."

Jones claimed to have interviews and government documents that would prove his point.

"Then we have the bold headlines that I put up on X that the Kamala Harris, you know, the Biden-Harris administration is in control of this hurricane," he said of Hurricane Milton.

"So they have the power certified easily with just five or six big aircraft," he opined. "And that's the old technology, not the lasers that are all certified and the Doppler radar. They also have on ships and in large oil drilling platforms that they've launched. They could totally just make this thing stop and dump the water in the ocean."

Jones insisted that the technology to control hurricanes was used before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"And on 9/11, the hurricane was gonna hit," he asserted. "Remember in 2001, but that meteorologists never saw anything like it. It just turned away from the coast went away because that was gonna get in the way of some of the stuff the deep state was up to."

Scientists have said it is currently impossible to control weather events like Hurricane Milton.

I've been trying to delete as many online accounts as possible to reduce the threat of my personal information / duplicate passwords / my cell number getting out there. I know, it's probably not worth the effort but it does at least clean up my password manager and MFA app.

I've tried had trouble getting my personal information scrubbed and my account deleted at Robinhood and LendingTree. Both have policies that claim they're unable to delete user accounts due to federal regulations.

Here's the bit from Lending Tree: https://www.lendingclub.com/legal/privacy-policy

Data Retention: Due to the regulated nature of our industry, we are under legal requirements to retain data and are generally not able to delete consumer transactional data, credit or deposit account application data, or other financial information upon request. Certain regulations issued by state and/or federal government agencies may require us to maintain and report demographic information on the collective activities of our membership. We may also be required to maintain information about you for at least seven years to comply with applicable federal and state laws regarding recordkeeping, reporting, and audits. Criteria used to determine the period of time information about you is retained are primarily related to legal requirements and usefulness of the information for the purposes it was collected.

In both of these cases, I haven't used the account in many years (RH: 2020, LT: 2018). It serves no purpose to maintain this account other than to exist as data for some malicious actor to acquire and act upon.

With data leaks happening practically every day, I'm really not comfortable with financial agencies with varying degrees of security keeping my information forever. I would think it would be in their own best interest to comply with a deletion request to prevent anyone from scamming them.

Also, I can't tell you how many websites I've lost access to because my phone number was tied to log in. I previously had a company-issued cell phone and not longer have access to that. Any website that requires a phone number for MFA is just horrible. I'm trying to sign into another financial site now and apparently I'm not able to do so without a phone number I had eight years ago.

Wondering if anyone is familiar with this federal regulation that requires they hold on to this information and if there's some sort of way around this either with a lawyer or federal form or something.

It's a bit shocking to me when I see people online putting 9/11 conspiracies in the same box as "MAGA" conspiracies (for lack of a better term, sorry).

For reference, I was 24 in 2001 living in central NJ. Even without social media or fake news websites or what cable news has become today, I have vivid memories of people having the firm belief that there was something up with the attack on 9/11. Was this just my social circle?

Jet fuel melting steel beams was one of the more fringe and unfounded (and quickly debunked) ideas but the rest of everything on that day was questionable. Tower seven falling, the missing plane debris at the pentagon and central PA, the military / president not responding to known threats, if a person with limited flight time could hit a tower, the fact that Bush attacked a country that had nothing to do with the event, and so much more are still, I thought, reasonable questions - especially when looked at together.

This is not about rehashing each theory. Or maybe it is? Have I missed that everything has been debunked?

I mean, I still believe 9/11 was an inside job or at least high level officials, including Bush, were aware it was going to happen and did nothing to stop it. I thought this was still a common opinion of most or many Americans over the age of forty.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240905014936/https://www.inquirer.com/politics/election/russian-misinformation-social-design-agency-sergei-kiriyenko-20240904.html

Federal authorities in Philadelphia announced on Wednesday the dismantling of a wide-ranging, Russian-backed misinformation network targeting voters in Pennsylvania and five other swing states ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

The network — known colloquially as “Doppelganger” and which prosecutors said was run by a top aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin — sought to dupe Americans in key demographics into believing Kremlin-produced propaganda it spread online had been produced by legitimate American news outlets.

The campaign also sought to enlist the aid of unwitting influencers in America and other countries to spread disinformation, sow social media discord, and advance the campaign of former President Donald Trump, whom the program’s backers viewed as more supportive of Russian interests.

The takedown of that effort — involving the seizure of more than 30 internet domains by agents from the FBI’s Philadelphia field office — was just one of a sweeping series of steps President Joe Biden’s administration announced Wednesday to fend off attempts by Russia to meddle ahead of November’s vote.

Taken together, they amounted to the most significant public response yet by U.S. authorities to Russia’s alleged efforts to undermine the integrity of the election.

“Protecting our democratic processes from foreign malign influence is paramount to ensure public trust,” U.S. Attorney Jacqueline C. Romero said in a statement detailing the Doppelganger seizures.

In Washington, the Treasury Department announced new sanctions against a Russian-based nonprofit tied to the Doppelganger network, and Attorney General Merrick Garland unveiled an indictment against two Russian employees of state-owned broadcaster RT, who he said had paid a Tennessee company to spread nearly 2,000 English-language videos supportive of Kremlin interests.

Prosecutors said that the defendants — Kostiantyn Kalashnikov and Elena Afanasyeva — used aliases and that the company involved was unaware it was being used by Russian plotters.

Court filings in that case and the Doppelganger seizures were careful not to specifically name the Trump campaign as an intended beneficiary of the misinformation effort, and there was no allegation that anyone in the campaign was aware of or involved in the effort.

“The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas in order to covertly further its own propaganda efforts,” Garland said in a statement Wednesday.

“The investigation,” he added, “is ongoing.”

For months, intelligence agencies have warned that Russia remains the primary threat to the integrity of the 2024 election — despite recent headlines about efforts by other foreign governments to shape the outcome of the vote.

Last month, federal authorities accused Iran of hacking Trump’s campaign and attempting to breach the campaigns of Biden and Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.

Officials have also raised alarms about threats from China, which they have accused of maintaining a vast network of social media accounts aimed at targeting U.S. voters.

But ever since the U.S. was caught unprepared in the 2016 presidential election by Russia’s sophisticated social media campaign to influence voters — a push that included organizing fake campaign rallies for Trump in Pennsylvania and other swing states — U.S. intelligence efforts have focused on Russia as a priority.

An FBI affidavit unsealed Wednesday in federal court in Philadelphia outlined the Doppelganger scheme, drawing on reams of planning documents and meeting notes by Kremlin officials as they mapped out their 2024 strategy. All references in the Russian documents to specific candidates or U.S. political parties were redacted.

“The conspirators specifically targeted the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s citizens … in order to influence the electorate in this, and other districts,” the affidavit said.

According to the court filing, the effort had been overseen since at least 2022 by Sergei Kiriyenko, a former Russian prime minister and Putin’s first deputy chief of staff. He and several of the entities cited in the court filings have already been subjected to U.S. sanctions for their roles in spreading misinformation.

Their primary goal, agents said, was to pass off inflammatory or fake news stories — supporting Russian interests or backing Trump — as work produced by legitimate American media outlets.

Plotters registered domain names similar to those of well-known media brands — like washingtonpost.pm and foxnews.cx — and posted stories under the names of real journalists who worked for them.

For instance, investigators said, one story featured on the spoofed Washington Post website — run under the headline “White House Miscalculated: Conflict with Ukraine Strengthens Russia” — sought to diminish public sentiment for Ukraine amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of the country.

“It’s time for our leaders to recognize that continued support for Ukraine is a mistake,” that story read. “It was a waste of lives and money. … For the sake of everyone involved in the conflict, the Biden administration should just make a peace agreement and move on.”

The Doppelganger network also focused on ensuring those stories went viral, going so far as to create fake social media accounts posing as U.S. citizens to spread them and seeding the comments on other social media posts with links back to the propaganda they had posted.

“The aim of the campaign,” according to one Russian planning document quoted in the FBI affidavit unsealed Wednesday, “is securing Russia’s preferred outcome in the election.”

In another planning document, Doppelganger plotters outlined a scheme they dubbed “The Good Old USA Project” aimed at targeting voters from specific demographics in the U.S. with fake news and spoofed social media posts.

They included Hispanics, American Jews, conservatives, and the “community of American gamers, users of Reddit and image boards such as 4chan (the ‘backbone’ of right-wing trends in the U.S. segment of the internet),” according to Kremlin planning documents included in Wednesday’s filings.

“In order for this work to be effective,” it warned, “you need to use a minimum of fake news and a maximum of realistic information. At the same time, you should continuously repeat that this is what is really happening, but the official media will never tell you about it or show it to you.”

Egg prices are back on the rise as a devastating bird flu outbreak and swelling consumer demand eats into supply.

Wholesale egg prices surpassed about $3 per dozen in August, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, up from the usual $1 to $2 range. Retail egg prices were up 19% in August compared to last year, according to the latest Consumer Price Index data, while the broader grocery category increased only 1%.

highly pathogenic avian influenza, or bird flu, has forced egg supplies to be “less robust than normal.” At the same time, U.S. sales have jumped to levels not seen since the pandemic.

Despite the price fluctuations, consumers continue to buy eggs — and more of them, as of the last few months. August egg sales were up more than 5% compared to 2023, and producers sold 237 million eggs in the most recent four-week period. “We haven’t seen that number since the first year of COVID,” he said, when sales soared as consumers stocked up on staples including eggs and toilet paper.

As domestic demand stays strong, other countries are also buying more U.S. eggs. According to the U.S. Egg Export Council, total exports for the first four months of the year increased by 22% to 63.5 million dozen eggs, though values were down 22%.

Demand is expected to rise further during the fall and winter months with the holiday baking season entering full swing. That could further pressure the commercial egg supply, especially as bird flu also spreads more easily in colder climates.

Is anyone self-hosting a genuinely snappy and robust media hosting service for themselves? What's your setup look like?

The best thing about Apple's Photos on my iDevices is the speed at which everything loads. Even videos (usually) load reasonably fast over LTE. The user interface is decent enough and has a high percentage of features I'd like to have on the go. The on-device AI is awesome (recognizing / organizing faces and objects and locations).

I'd like to get away from iCloud for numerous reasons: the subscription, the chance the UX gets worse, privacy, ease of data ownership and organization, OS independence, etc.

I currently have a QNAP TS-253A with 8GB RAM, Celeron N3160 1.6GHz 4 core, (2) Seagate IronWolf 8TB ST8000VN0022 at about 98% capacity, Raid 1 . I mostly use it for streaming music and videos at home but I also stream music outside the house without issue. Movies don't stream at HD immediately but once they cache up they're good within a minute.

Some people have suggested this hardware should be sufficient. I feel like it's archaic. What do you think?

I've tried Immich but find it to be slow and very limited with features. I've even tested hosting it on Elestio but that didn't go too well. I'm not opposed to paying for offsite services but at that point it just seems like I should stick with iCloud.

I already have Plex running on my NAS so I use that for archiving but it's way too slow to use for looking at pictures, even locally. QNAP has the photo app QuMagie with facial recognition and it seems alright but it's agonizingly slow, if it works at all.

All of the self-hosted apps, in my experience, are well outside the scope of iCloud Photos' speed and feature set. If I could even just test one that matched its speed, I could better assess whatever features they have.

What I'm not sure of is if I'm hitting a wall based on the apps, my hardware, or even my ISP (Speedtest reports upload: 250mpbs). The fact that apps like Plex and QuMagie suck even locally suggests to me it's not an ISP issue (yet).

My NAS is already at capacity so it's time for an upgrade of some sort. While I'm in the mindset, I wanted to see if there's a better product I could use for hosting. My space and finances are not without limits but I'm open to ideas.

I realize I'm not a multi billion dollar company with data centers around the world but I feel like I should be able to piece something together that's relatively comparable for less than an arm and a leg. Am I wrong?

I'm on MacOS and typically use Safari as my main browser. I have several other browsers installed on my computer which I use for different things or just to try out from time to time. Orion is one I haven't tried in a while.

I've launched Orion and found that when I previously used it I saved some tabs - one of them being Ebay. I am not signed into my Ebay account in Orion but when I open this tab I'm seeing "Your Recently Viewed Items" and it's very much showing me the items I viewed in Safari just moments earlier.

Orion promotes itself as a privacy focused web browser.

Privacy by design, like no other browser.
Orion has been engineered from ground up as a truly privacy-respecting browser. We did it by embracing a simple principle - Orion is a zero telemetry browser. Your private information will never leave Orion by default.
And to protect your privacy on the web, Orion comes with industry-leading anti-tracking technology as well as a powerful built-in ad-blocker.

How does one browser know what the other browser is doing regardless if I'm, signed into my account on a particular website?