• 9 Posts
  • 916 Comments
Joined 10 months ago
Cake day: August 20th, 2023
  • Ranvier@sopuli.xyztoNews@lemmy.world•Senate Republicans block bill that establishes right to IVF across the US
    12·
    8 days ago

    Presidents don’t make laws, congress does. There would have to be something in the constitution or in a law already passed that gives the executive branch the power to do that. An executive order is just an enforcement, a more specific guidance of application of already existing laws or powers. If the law the article is talking about is passed, he could issue executive orders to delineate more specific actions to help make sure it is enforced.

    If Biden just sat down in a chair one day and wrote “I declare state laws and state constitutions restricting ivf are void!” like some kind of dictator it would do literally nothing.

    Go on to the federal register and look at some executive orders. You’ll find most of them pertain to things the president directly controls, like the operations of executive department agencies. When it’s not something the president clearly controls in the constitution, it will cite the authority of which specific laws it’s basing this on.

    https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2021/12/03/2021-26459/the-national-space-council

    Purpose.

    The National Space Council (Council), as authorized under Title V of Public Law 100-685, advises and assists the President regarding national space policy and strategy. This order sets forth the Council’s membership, duties, and responsibilities.

    So for an example, here’s what law passed by congress this executive order is fulfilling, here are my more specific instructions about how we as the executive branch are going to fulfill that law. Clearly the authority to establish a national space council does not come from the constitution, so it’s a law passed by congress that makes this order possible.

    If congress passes a law protecting ivf and gives some power to the executive branch to enforce those protections, then maybe there would be situations where an executive order would be helpful.

    And Biden clearly supports this law, has repeatedly urged congress to pass it, and headlined the issue in his state of the union address.

    https://time.com/6898688/biden-ivf-abortion-state-of-the-union/

  • Ranvier@sopuli.xyztoWorld News@lemmy.world•G7 agrees to loan Ukraine $50 billion from the interest on frozen Russian assetsEnglish
    131·
    8 days ago

    France, Germany and the ECB worry about Russian retaliation targeting European assets, and also the potential impact on financial stability and the euro’s status as a reserve currency. There’s concern that depositors from emerging economies may be encouraged to pull money out of western banks, fragmenting the global financial system.

    US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen downplayed such risks in February, arguing that “there are not alternatives to the dollar, euro, yen.” She said that if the G-7 acted together then the group would be representing half of the global economy and all of the currencies that really have the capacity at this point to serve as reserve currencies.

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/why-seizing-russian-assets-to-fund-ukraine-is-fraught/ar-BB1jHeKz

    I agree with you, they should just be able to tap the assets directly. Basically some European countries are worried about the effects seizing assets could have on the Euro. Most of these assets are held in Europe as euros. The loan is actually an improvement over the original proposal though. Originally France Germany, etc were pushing only for the 3 billion in interest a year on the assets to be given to Ukraine. The loan solution was pushed by other countries who wanted to give them more cash from the Russian assets as a way to give $50 billion in cash immediately, with those yearly interest payments from Russian assets being used to pay off the loan.

  • Ranvier@sopuli.xyztoScience Memes@mander.xyz•"Theory" of Evolution (SMBC)English
    17·
    9 days ago

    I get the impression there is not model for why sometimes thousands of base pairs can fuck off with no impact, and sometimes it changes the organism unrecognizably.

    No there’s many known reasons that can happen. Here’s just some of them, but in the end it all comes down to understanding that genes code for proteins, little molecular machines. Sometimes there are multiple copies of genes that code for similar proteins or even the same protein, so losing one or even more doesn’t really do anything as there’s more where that came from. Sometimes there are genes that used to be important but no longer have a role or were made redundant, and are free to sedit. If a gene codes for a protein called an enzyme, sometimes a change in the active site that binds the chemicals for the reaction it assists might be catastrophic, but a change elsewhere doesn’t do much because it’s not as necessary to the function of the protein. Sometimes changes even result in the a similar amino acid or the exact same amino acid getting put at thag spot (since the genetic code has some redundancies, a different combo might still end up being the same).

    Many genes code for proteins called transcription factors. Transcription factors help control expression of many other genes, some of which might also be transcription factors that in turn affect other genes, etc. This can create huge cascades. For instance there are things called hox genes that are very important for creating a cascade that leads to the formation of different body segments, and differentiating the different body segments. Mutations in these genes can be devastating, in some animals leading to the dissappearance or redundant addition of whole body segments.

    There is tons more to learn of course on specifics in terms of evolution, genetics, and molecular biology of course. I don’t think it’s comparable to gravity though, which we seem to have a fundamental gap and irreconcilable theories.

    At least coming from a background of life sciences personally, it seems to me evolution is probably better understood than gravity. I think a better comparison to gravity in the life sciences might be abiogenesis (how pre life conditions give rise to life to begin with). Once life is going, evolution, that we have a ton on. Not that we know nothing about abiogenesis, but that it’s a difficult outstanding problem.

  • Ranvier@sopuli.xyztoWorld News@lemmy.world•US will send Ukraine another Patriot missile system after Kyiv's desperate calls for air defensesEnglish
    12·
    10 days ago

    Sure there’s economies of scale, but that is an absolutely ridiculous mind boggling number of a single surface to air missile system. Even Ukraine at it’s highest ask says 25 (though they estimate all major cities would be covered by 7), and you think they should make 100,000 batteries?! Every year?! What would be the point of that? Who on earth would buy that many and why?

    Even if they were manufactured at 20% of their current cost, a massive markdown, that would be $20 trillion a year dedicated to a single kind of a single weapon type, nearly as much as the entire gdp of the United States, and you still need the entire rest of your military paid for! They going to make 100,000 f35s and train 50,000 pilots too or something?

    I’m gonna stop, this must be trolling.

  • Ranvier@sopuli.xyztopolitics @lemmy.world•Trump says he'll work "side by side" with religious group that wants to "eradicate" abortion
    2·
    10 days ago

    I think that’s a misreading of one statement, I think in context he’s communicating, the president cannot pass laws. He’s done everything he can within the powers of the executive branch to support reproductive rights. Without a congress that is willing to pass a law he can sign (including senators willing to overturn the filibuster), there is not much more he can do at this point.

    I guess you could say maybe he could veto all legislation unless they pass something codifying Roe v Wade? But I think that would backfire, as people begin suffering from massive government shutdowns and a few people just splinter to start voting with Republicans to over ride the vetos and effectively the Republicans are in control now and Roe v Wade still isn’t codified.

    In the end Biden is right, at least with this form of government and this Supreme Court, a pro choice president isn’t enough no matter how ferverent (though I would argue Biden has been the most ardent pro choice president there’s ever been). We need a pro choice congress too, and senators with the courage to scrap the filibuster to protect a fundamental right and pass a law. Or a congress that is willing to pass a bill to expand the supreme court. It’s just not something the president can do on his/her own.