The problem is that wealth correlates directly with power in the West. You'll never see a Western billionaire get Jack Ma'd, and that's the problem: Western billionaires have less accountability and more rights than the average citizen.

The only thing we know about the authors of Media Bias Fact Check is what they've posted on their website. There's no corroborating source, no evidence of background, and no indication that these people actually exist other than a business registration for a sole prop and a sparsely-populated mortgage for the lead editor. You can feel free to dig deeper (I've focused on the primary author and editor), but this wouldn't pass the sniff test.

Moreover, their methodology, frankly, doesn't hold up to any type of scientific method. It's a perversion of the scientific process. Their methodology is essentially surveying one of the authors and asking them to draw a point on a line. That's not science.

Based on their methodology, Electronic Intifada has never failed a fact check and should be "very factual"... But it's recorded as "mostly factual" because they have biased reporting. Reuters is recorded as "very factual," but they've gotten a number of things wrong without correction... Sort of comes with the territory of being a news wire service. CBC, which has also not failed a fact check, only gets a "highly factual" rating because of their supposed left-leaning bias. Essentially, their subjective analysis conflates factuality with bias.

This also raises a bigger problem: the lead author and editor is clearly American and guides ratings towards an American Overton window. Thus, bias is viewed on the left-to-right scale commonly used in the US, with the center defined as the American center. Normally, this wouldn't be a huge problem for American audiences, but as established MBFC conflates factuality with bias: essentially, any source that deviates from the "center of the American political spectrum" is seen as less factual. Their source for fact checks is a newspaper run out of a school that has received funding from the US state-funded Voice of America.

This is, of course, operating under the assumption that their methodology is actually valid... And that, in itself, is a dangerous assumption to make. There's a lack of transparency in who's doing what evaluation, and the end result of that is that the assessment itself is basically "what does one guy think about this site." Despite them defining what they mean by left and right, they give scant evidence to justify their "quantitative" evaluation of sources - this, itself, makes their evaluation qualitative.

Some of their details also show a lack of understanding of the media landscape. Calling CBC News a "TV station" is a joke. Their website is also, frankly, a mess, which bothers me because it's clear that they aren't following basic modern web development principles and that's really fucking annoying.

Their methodology is bunk, there's very little transparency within their organization to establish credibility, and they conflate factuality with their perception of bias.

Good. The problem falls at the hands of the companies making billions of dollars of excess profits, not on the individuals saving a tens or hundreds of dollars.

Just like how Biden saw pictures of beheaded babies, right?

Israeli prisoners and Hamas hostages.

More nuclear proliferation is obviously the solution.

Isn't he the guy being medicated for asthma, allergies, and ADHD... For which the medication just coincidentally happens to be performance-enhancing? Yeah forgive me if I have no sympathy for the guy.

Good. Rich billionaires fucked around and now they get to find out.

I always find it funny how there's some people who are extremely keen on advocating for a person with no established credentials and little to indicate that they actually exist. Almost like they feel personally attacked, or something.

Car infrastructure has always been funded out of public coffers. The personal automobile is not inherently a profitable enterprise to a country. It serves primarily as a way of improving personal mobility and thus second- and third- order economic productivity.

Subways and trains are vastly more efficient systems, but unfortunately they don't have the same military logistics benefits.

In terms of actual companies, we're seeing a bit of a renaissance with EVs because EVs are inherently simple, easy to commoditize, and don't require as significant amounts of government support. China has basically cut government backing out of their EV industry, which has led to some consolidation but somehow has not ended the price war.

Nobody knows anything except their names and what they themselves claim. The primary author and editor shares a name with a prominent American lawyer, and that's about all we know. I've tried digging into the guy (he claims to have a physiology degree and works in healthcare), but I can't find a single source that indicates he even exist.

Edit: anyone who tries to tell me that a name on a mortgage is an indication that someone exists should look a little bit more closely at those documents. I'll wait.

Evergrande is fucked, but China will pull off a soft landing.

Hamas claims they're buried under rubble from an Israeli airstrike. I sure wonder why there's difficulties recovering the bodies...

What security fears? The West has completely obliterated medium-term leverage in high tech exports. We've single-handedly done something that multiple levels of Chinese government have failed to: force Chinese companies to use domestic vendors despite inferior performance and higher cost. We've single-handedly pushed Made in China 2025 into a success story, driven millions of dollars into research investment, and contributed billions in dollars in sales into Chinese companies that people wouldn't even consider as vendors before.

Huawei was desperately trying to sell their Ascend AI accelerators before and to no avail. Today? They're swamped with orders. SMIC was barely usable except for research purposes and bottom-of-the-barrel development (and even research would prefer to use TSMC). Today? They're shipping millions of units at 7nm.

Globalization theory works to protect established powers so long as established powers continue to innovate, since newcomers have little incentive to invest in fields that established powers are both 1. Much more advanced in and 2. Constantly advancing in at a pace that's difficult to catch up to.

The Chang'e-5 samples originate from regions of the moon not yet sampled by NASA and are expected to provide valuable new scientific insight on the geological history of the moon, which could provide new understanding of the Earth-moon system and potentially inform NASA's future lunar exploration plans. Applying for samples will ensure that United States researchers have the same research opportunities as scientists around the world

AsiaFinancial needs to stop editorializing titles. It's a bad look from a site that's too lazy to do proper journalism or in-depth analysis.

So... I take it you know this guy, then?

That's pretty cool.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) says U.S. agency USADA broke the global code by letting several athletes it had caught between 2011 and 2014 violating drugs rules go undercover and keep on competing without prosecution in exchange for information on other violators.

US gold medals, 2000 to 2016:

2000 - 37 (300 events)

2004 - 36 (301 events)

2008 - 36 (302 events)

2012 - 48 (302 events)

2016 - 46 (306 events)

On one hand, we have clear US overperformance in gold medals from the 2012 and 2016 Olympics. On the other hand, we have proof that athletes CAUGHT DOPING between 2011 and 2014 were allowed to continue competing for years afterwards.

If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, maybe it's a duck?

religious fanaticism in all regards

That's $1 million per loitering munition? Meanwhile the Lancet is $20000, the Chinese equivalent is even less, and the Israeli-made IAI Harpy (sold to China, India, etc.) is about $70000.

I'd love to be a US defence contractor.

... lol

it's funny how often it happens lol

Why would I brigade a conversation with someone who clearly trusts whatever is given to them without critical thought?

https://archive.ph/mPrX7

Seeing aberrations isn't a good thing... I guess if everyone who disagrees with you is a bot with a bot farm, you can never be wrong?

Eat the rich

Sure

Isn't EEZ limited to 200nm under UNCLOS?

sucks to be you then

That's just how free speech works

Fiji's top export is water. Are these upgrades primarily servicing the tourism industry?

Haha no

Welcome to Poland

maintenance cost on F-35s are sort of absurd

tbh I'm not convinced that high-maintenance stealth aircraft will have a role in modern conflicts. The Russia-Ukraine war is highlighting the issues with over engineered Western weapons in sustained conflict. If you don't dominate the opponent logistically, they're impractical.

F-35s are absurdly expensive compared to F-16s though

Yes but it's pro-Western and thus good

Because us building a port would be unprofitable and thus uncapitalist.

they spent decades fighting off two superpowers playing around in their backyard

Is anyone surprised? Israel literally spent the better part of a month bombing out any infrastructure that could be used to keep babies alive.

Genocide is ok because it happened in the past? Glad to know how much you respect the rule of law and whatever.