Chile’s Atacama Desert – the driest nonpolar desert on the planet – is currently blanketed in swathes of pretty purple flowers. It may seem strange for plant life to bloom in such a hostile place, but, stranger still, it is happening in the dead of winter, several months earlier than anticipated.The phenomenon is known as “desierto florido” (the flowering desert), and it occurs every few years, carpeting the desert with flowers. The usually sandy, rocky, and barren landscape is transformed into a garden of 200 different species of pink, purple, and yellow blooms that span hundreds of kilometers.The event usually happens between September and November – springtime in Chile – when rainfall, temperature, and sunlight join forces to awaken dormant desert seeds. But this current bloom is unseasonably early – it’s currently the middle of winter in the Southern Hemisphere – and that is down to El Niño.    IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.El Niño, and its counterpart La Niña, are the extreme phases of the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) cycle – a recurring climate pattern that describes how changes in the water temperature in the Pacific Ocean have a global impact on the world. Everything from wind, temperature, and rainfall patterns to the intensity of hurricane seasons is affected. During El Niño – the “warm phase” of the ENSO – ocean surface temperature rises in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. This coincides with an increase in rainfall, explaining the recent heavy rains in the Atacama Desert that have caused flowers to spring to life.The blooms are not yet sufficient in number to be considered “desierto florido”, Cesar Pizarro, head of biodiversity conservation for the National Forestry Corporation (CONAF), an organization run by the Chilean government, told Reuters. But with more rain expected, they are likely to spread over a larger area. "In the meantime, we have to wait," Pizarro said.    IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.The Atacama is the driest nonpolar desert – but not the driest place on Earth, that title belongs to somewhere you might not expect – receiving just 1 to 3 millimeters (0.04 to 0.1 inches) of precipitation per year in some places. But that hasn’t stopped life from thriving there.Over the past 40 years, around 15 blooming events have taken place. The last time it happened this early, according to Reuters, was in 2015.In 2022, the Chilean government announced the creation of a new national park in the province of Copiapó, in an effort to protect these spectacular displays along with the wildlife they help support.

It's easy for a science website to get bogged down in the weirdest mysteries of the universe, while people really want the answers to more basic (but fun!) questions like "Why can't we power our cars with magnets?" and "If you fell from a skyscraper on the Moon, would you die or otherwise get badly injured?"One such question was asked in the Physics Is Fun Facebook group yesterday: "The nail sinks in water but the iron ship floats," the user wrote, "why is that so?"For the answer, we need to learn a bit about density and buoyancy. You may have been taught the answer in school, but there's no shame in forgetting and having a little refresher. Buoyancy is an upward force in a fluid (any flowing substance, including air) exerted on all bodies within it. The force comes from the pressure within the fluid being greater the further down in the fluid you go. The pressure on the bottom of an object within the fluid is higher than at its top, causing the upward force. The Archimedes principle states that a body submerged or partially submerged in a fluid is acted on by the buoyant force in a magnitude equal to the weight of the fluid it displaces.If the buoyant force of a fluid is greater than the downward force (its mass times the gravitational field strength) of an object placed within it, the object will float. But objects that are more dense than water (at the surface) will sink until the forces are equalized.So, the nail imagined above sinks because it is more dense than water. There are exceptions to this for smaller objects, which can be held up by the surface tension of water, but let's keep this simple. But what about ships? Surely, as steel is denser than water, and cargo ships are loaded with hundreds of thousands of tons of cargo, they should sink?  Well, as evidenced by the fact that they don't sink, this is not the case. A solid steel object would of course sink, but ships are not solid steel. They are filled with all kinds of other materials, including air, which is what keeps them afloat. The average density of the ship, including the air within it, is lower than that of water, and so the upward force is greater than the one drawing it to the bottom of the ocean, and so the boat floats. Place a ship weighing 100,000 tons in the water and it will sink until it displaces 100,000 tons of water. As you fill the ship up with objects denser than water, it sinks further into the water until it displaces the new weight. Keep displacing the air keeping you afloat, however, and eventually, the boat will sink and join the nail.All “explainer” articles are confirmed by fact checkers to be correct at time of publishing. Text, images, and links may be edited, removed, or added to at a later date to keep information current.  

On a humid Tuesday in February, a 42-year-old Harvard Kennedy School graduate and former economics professor found himself accused of terrorism. Surprisingly, his calls for peaceful protest in the previous weeks had sparked the accusation that he was encouraging violence. Leopoldo López had always considered himself an advocate for political change through peaceful and legal means.But now, prosecutors likened the father of two young children to a Nazi and the president called him a fascist. In a nationwide televised address, that same president called for López to turn himself in. These accusations also had international ramifications. In the address, the president announced the expulsion of three foreign diplomats for allegedly facilitating the protests.The Biden regime believes America’s future is not for the American people to decide. It’s for Joe Biden (and his handlers) to decide.In response to the expulsion of diplomats, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki called Venezuelan President Maduro’s accusation that U.S. diplomats facilitated the protest “baseless and false.” These events took place in 2014 in Caracas, Venezuela — an actual banana republic — but you might think this sounds like the United States in the 2020s.López's protest was intended to call for the removal of President Maduro through constitutional and democratic means, such as a recall referendum. The protests turned violent after López was arrested. While he was behind bars and unable to communicate publicly, the Venezuelan government blamed López for the violence.The accusations against him should sound absurdly recognizable. According to the journal Foreign Policy:The star witness for the government was a linguistics professor named Rosa Amelia Asuaje, who claimed López had used “subliminal” messages in his speeches and writings which called for violence. But when cross-examined by the defense, Asuaje recanted, stating that “López’s messages are not subliminal; they are clear, direct, and specific. They call for non-violence. There was never a call to violence by López.” Not even one. Sound familiar?Regarding the accusations that the United States had anything to do with the protests, Psaki went on to say, “As we have long said, Venezuela’s political future is for the Venezuelan people to decide. We urge their government to engage all parties in meaningful dialogue.” I find it interesting that Psaki, speaking for the Obama-Biden administration, said that the future of a nation is for its people to decide, presumably through the electoral process. That was what López was encouraging!Fast forward to November 9, 2022, the day after the midterm elections, when Joe Biden, addressing the possibility of former President Donald Trump running again, said, “We just have to demonstrate that he will not take power, if he does run, making sure he, under legitimate efforts of our Constitution, does not become the next president again [sic].”Keep in mind that Biden’s statement preceded the no-holds-barred lawfare campaign that was unleashed against President Trump. Two things are clear from that statement. First, the Biden regime believes America’s future is not for the American people to decide. It’s for Joe Biden (and his handlers) to decide. Second, the entire purpose of the Biden regime’s lawfare against President Trump is to prevent his return to office. There’s no question about it. Joe Biden himself specifically acknowledged that as the intent.But one thing is less than clear. The lawyer in me can’t help but wonder what Biden meant in this context when using the word “legitimate”? Nothing about the prosecution of Trump seems like it can be lumped in with “legitimate efforts” “under ... our Constitution.”The Leopoldo López example in Venezuela is just one example of many indicating that President Biden and key members of his administration know what they’re doing to the country. They know it reflects many hallmark characteristics of a banana republic. They’re intimately familiar with how business operates in illegitimate, despotic regimes. As we say in Utah, “This isn’t their first rodeo.”Less than one week after Biden’s statement, on November 15, 2022, President Trump announced his intention to run again in 2024. This was seemingly the trigger the Biden regime had been waiting for to launch its nuclear lawfare initiative. Three days later, three significant events occurred in each of the prosecutions of Donald Trump, demonstrating a coordinated effort to obstruct Trump’s return to power.First, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Jack Smith as special counsel to oversee the U.S. Department of Justice’s cases against Trump. Then, Nathan Wade, one of the top Fulton County Trump prosecutors, had eight hours of meetings at the White House, signaling a high level of cooperation. And finally, Matthew Colangelo left his prominent position as the number three at the DOJ to join Alvin Bragg’s office in New York City to help lead Bragg’s witch hunt against Trump. What a grand coincidence that these things happened on the same day!These actions, meticulously detailed by Breitbart News reporter Bradley Jaye, underscore a deliberate strategy to block Trump’s return to power using constitutional pretenses.What this meansI suspect that many Americans find the Trump prosecutions shocking for the same reason that I do. These prosecutions lack any regard for prudence and care for the stability of our nation. For the first time in American history, a president has brought criminal charges against his leading political opponent, a former president. Leaders motivated by what’s in the best interests of our country would depart from such precedent only if the cases were legally airtight, watertight, and patently necessary in a way that was obvious to the public. A true statesman would recognize that this dangerous precedent could completely undermine the public’s faith in our legal and political systems. A true statesman would take such steps only if unambiguously compelled to do so by the circumstances — and even then, reluctantly.The Biden regime, on the other hand, seems eager to “get Trump,” regardless of the societal cost. Rather than proceeding only with patently compelling charges, each of the prosecutions has had to manipulate statutes, interpret the law broadly, and engage in legal creativity to target Trump. This reflects a reckless disregard for the stability of our political system.'Rule of law' means whatever they say it means. They have the power; therefore, they are the law.Such a manipulative prosecution would be bad enough under ordinary circumstances. But in this case, the intention of the prosecution, as indicated by Biden’s statement on November 9, 2022, is to undermine the will of the voters. This puts the electorate and elected officials on unequal footing. The Biden regime is using the power of the executive branch to thwart and actively counteract the will of voters.This calls into question the legitimacy of so many actions taken by the Biden administration. For if the Biden regime was unconcerned with winning re-election based on popular will, why would the regime concern itself with popular will on any other matter? This, in turn, uproots the idea that the execution of our laws is based in the law as enacted by legislators acting on the will of the people. In other words, in the minds of the populace, this threatens the rule of law.Legendary political philosopher Harry V. Jaffa described the problem with such regimes as this, “Caesarism ... destroyed the balance of Rome’s mixed or republican constitution by destroying the senate and patrician class. It thereby destroyed all rule of law, overthrowing all republican equality between government and the governed within Rome.” In our present case, the Biden regime is “overthrowing republican equality between government and the governed” by explicitly undermining the will of voters and manipulating the judicial system to that end. Jaffa goes on to say, “Yet Caesarism presented itself as the most democratic of regimes, because Caesar’s power was ostensibly exercised entirely for the benefit of the people.”The good news is that the increase in President Trump’s poll numbers and fundraising in response to each step of the prosecution shows that much of the country sees right through it. Still, we are left wondering what powerful people with such reckless disregard for our political and judicial systems will do next.What comes nextIn a case of irony that could inspire an Alanis Morissette song, the Democrats have framed each indictment and conviction of Donald Trump as a matter of upholding the “rule of law.” In the days after the New York Trump conviction, I noticed this phrasing was used consistently by a wide number of Democrat politicians and leftist pundits in response to Alvin Bragg’s conviction of President Trump. Here are a few examples:My longtime Senate colleague Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) posted on X, “As I’ve said all along: no one is above the law—not even a former president. Consistent with the rule of law, a jury of his peers found the former president guilty on all counts.”Also on X, another colleague, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), posted, “It’s simple. He broke the law. He got caught. He got convicted. Is this crime as serious as the others he committed? No. But the rule of law applies to everyone. And this won’t be the last conviction.”Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.) posted on X, “Donald Trump is a convicted felon. This verdict is not a win for any single person. It’s a win for an idea. The idea that we all follow the same rules. The rule of law won today.”These are just a few examples of many leftists using this exact phrase, “rule of law.” Did they have some sort of strategy meeting to decide to all post the same thing on X? Conservatives are often tempted to “own the libs” by pointing the hypocrisy of such statements. While it may be fun to own the libs, it is unwise to underestimate their contortions of language.Each time the Supreme Court overturns any aspect of a prosecution against President Trump, leftists will attack the court as illegitimate. They’re already laying the groundwork.The question we must ask is what do they mean by “rule of law”? Understand, the ideology of progressivism is founded in relativism. To them, words have no objective meaning, only the subjective meaning they intend in their use of the phrase. All of this to say, “rule of law” means whatever they say it means. They have the power; therefore, they are the law. To them, the “rule of law” means the rule of those with power. They may be using the phrase to refer to their act of dressing these prosecutions in the norms of our legal system, but on another level, what they mean is that Donald Trump is not above their power.Sanctimonious use of the phrase “rule of law” allows them to characterize anyone who disagrees with or even questions the verdict or indictments as opposing the rule of law. Take for instance my Republican colleague from Maine, Sen. Susan Collins. She is perhaps the most moderate member of the Republican Senate conference. Anyone who has met her would describe her as professional and competent. In response to the verdict in the New York case against President Trump, Collins said, “The district attorney brought these charges because of who the defendant was rather than because of any specific criminal conduct.”This was a reasonable noninflammatory statement. In response, on her MSNBC show, Jen Psaki accused Collins of “undermining faith in our justice system,” endangering the people serving in the justice system, and “fueling the potential for violence.” Just as with Leopoldo López in Venezuela, anything the regime disagrees with can be characterized as instigating violence. This is not to pick on Psaki in particular. I’m using her as an example because we know from earlier that Psaki is intimately familiar with how business is done in banana republics. She knew what she was doing here. In that same segment, Psaki accused the entire Republican Party of undermining the rule of law, saying, “This is a party that once prided itself on being ‘defenders of the law.’ Law and order was basically their campaign refrain.” She went on to say, “It's clear that Trump is not going to end this assault on the rule of law anytime soon.”Most interestingly, in that very same segment, Psaki played a clip of House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) in which he said something undeniably true: “I do believe the Supreme Court should step in, obviously, this is totally unprecedented. And it’s dangerous to our system. I think that the justices on the court, I know many of them personally, I think they’re deeply concerned about that as we are. So, I think they’ll set this straight.”Psaki attacked Johnson for saying this, not on the merits of his argument that the conviction of Trump is unprecedented and dangerous for our system, but by mischaracterizing his statement. She said, “So Speaker Mike Johnson is essentially saying there — and I think this is so important to repeat — ‘I know these guys. They’re on our team. They’ll quote, set things straight.’” The message she’s sending here is that Supreme Court justices are on the same team as Republican politicians and that team, according to her, is the anti-rule-of-law team.Not only are they seeking to delegitimize anyone who disagrees with them as opposing the rule of law, they are actively characterizing any higher court who may disagree on the legal merits as partisans who oppose the rule of law. Each time the Supreme Court overturns any aspect of a prosecution against President Trump, leftists will attack the court as illegitimate. They’re already laying the groundwork. Paul Morigi/Stringer/Getty ImagesAssailing the judiciaryThis is part of a larger pattern. The left has systematically attacked conservative Supreme Court justices for years. Most recently, the left has attacked Justice Samuel Alito because his wife briefly flew an upside-down U.S. flag at their Virginia home and an Appeal to Heaven flag at their New Jersey home. Democrats insisted this was evidence that Alito should recuse himself from January 6-related cases pending before the court. Similarly, the left has called for Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from January 6-related cases because his wife, Ginny, in her professional career as a conservative activist, was involved in exploring the irregularities of the 2020 election.Undoubtedly, the left will repeat these calls for recusal anytime a case related to the Trump prosecution is pending before the court. I expect they will also call for Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett to recuse themselves from any Trump prosecution-related cases on the grounds that they were each appointed by the 45th president.Fortunately, the decision to recuse rests with each individual justice. Still, the left will accuse each of them of not respecting the rule of law and declare any ruling that undermines the left's prosecution of Trump as illegitimate.If Democrats have complete political power, they will go to extreme lengths to destroy the court and the judicial system.Let’s go back to Biden’s November 9, 2022, statement where he made that point that he will make sure “under legitimate efforts of our Constitution” that Trump doesn’t become president again. This is emblematic of the mentality of the people in Biden's regime. Anything they do is legitimate in their minds. Anything that stands in their way is illegitimate. As such, it’s likely that leftists will not only call rulings that undermine their effort to prosecute Trump illegitimate, but they will also likely declare that the Supreme Court itself is illegitimate.In this scenario, Democrat lawmakers will call for reforms to the Supreme Court, impeachment of justices, and court packing. For this reason, we must all hope and pray that Democrats do not win the White House and both chambers of Congress in November. If they have complete political power, they will go to extreme lengths to destroy the court and the judicial system.In fact, the left is already far down this path. In response to the court’s July 1 ruling in the Trump immunity case acknowledging that a president has absolute immunity for actions stemming from his core constitutional authority and presumed immunity from prosecution for all other official actions, Democrats attacked and threatened the Supreme Court.Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) blasted the ruling, saying, “This disgraceful decision by the MAGA SCOTUS — which is comprised of 3 justices appointed by Trump himself — enables the former President to weaken our democracy by breaking the law. It undermines SCOTUS's credibility and suggests political influence trumps all in our courts today.” In other words, Schumer is arguing that the court is illegitimate because three justices (Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Barrett) were appointed by Trump.House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) went even further. “The Framers of the Constitution envisioned a democracy governed by the rule of law and the consent of the American people,” he said in a statement. “They did not intend for our nation to be ruled by a king or monarch who could act with absolute impunity. House Democrats will engage in aggressive oversight and legislative activity with respect to the Supreme Court to ensure that the extreme, far-right justices in the majority are brought into compliance with the Constitution.”Rather than provide any argument against the opinion of the court, Jeffries merely attacked the justices as “far right” and threatened to legislate in a way to bring them “into compliance with the Constitution.” Based on the lack of substance to Jeffries’ argument, compliance with the Constitution can be fairly interpreted as compliance with what Democrats want.They’ve already signaled their intentions for the reforms to the Supreme Court that Jeffries described. Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) have already introduced legislation that would subject justices to onerous recusal requirements.In just the last few weeks, on June 12, 2024, Senate Judiciary Chairman Dick Durbin attempted to pass the Supreme Court Ethics, Recusal, and Transparency Act of 2023. This legislation, among other things, would allow anyone to file a complaint against a Supreme Court justice that would then be adjudicated by a panel of judges. It would require any group — including nonprofit conservative groups — filing an amicus brief to disclose anyone who has donated to that group, which would expose those donors to harassment by the left. And it would establish a requirement for justices to recuse themselves in certain instances. This bill could take conservative justices and lawyers off the playing field in important cases such as those resulting from the prosecution of President Trump.Sens. Lindsey Graham, John Cornyn, John Kennedy, and I blocked the passage of this bill on the Senate floor. I’m sure any of my Republican colleagues would have done the same. Thankfully, the Senate filibuster, which would require 60 votes to pass such legislation, remains in place for now, preventing this type of bill from passing.But, with only a two-seat Republican majority in the House at the time of this writing, it’s easy to imagine a scenario where, by some unfortunate accident, Democrats obtain a majority. Combined with their control of the Senate and the White House, Democrats could nuke the filibuster and impose such a law before the November election.Anyone who dares dissent from this action would be labeled an opponent of the so-called rule of law and a threat to “our democracy” as Democrats are fond of calling our constitutional republic. Much like Leopoldo López in Venezuela, those of us who would stand against it would be accused of instigating violence. They’re already accusing us of that.This isn’t conspiratorial “doomerism.” These are just the facts about the situation in which we find ourselves. This could spin out of control quite easily. While we will all pray and do everything that we can to ensure that President Trump returns to the White House through a fair election, we can’t put all our eggs in one basket. The stakes are too high. We must win a majority in the Senate.Understanding the situationThe Democrats' strategy seems to be unfolding in a series of steps:1. Frame their efforts in the Trump prosecution as upholding the so-called “rule of law.”2. Portray anyone on the right who disagrees with the verdict as opposing the “rule of law.”3. Accuse conservative justices of not respecting the “rule of law” for not recusing themselves and for overturning Trump convictions.4. Declare the Supreme Court illegitimate for not upholding the “rule of law,” leading to calls for impeachment, court packing, etc.5. Label anyone who disagrees with their actions in the name of the “rule of law” as a threat to “our democracy.”The Democrats have already begun attacking the Supreme Court, targeting Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas. They aim to sow doubt about the court’s impartiality and integrity. These attacks undermine the court’s credibility and prepare the ground for potential court packing or impeachment efforts. Their ultimate goal is to lock conservatives out of the White House, maintain long-term control over key institutions, and prevent conservative influence in the nation’s highest court.When Biden refers to “legitimate efforts of the Constitution,” he aligns with the left's interpretation of legitimacy. Should lawfare against Trump succeed, the GOP-controlled Senate would be the last significant obstacle in the left's path to achieving these aims. This alignment underscores the Democrats’ intention to reshape the political and legal landscape in their favor.A Republican-controlled Senate may stand as the last line of defense against potential efforts by the Democrats to impeach Supreme Court justices and pack the court. If Trump loses the election, the Democrats will intensify their efforts to reshape the judiciary to maintain long-term political dominance.A Republican Senate could block such attempts, preserving the integrity and independence of the Supreme Court. This balance of power is crucial in preventing one party from wielding disproportionate influence over the nation’s highest judicial body, thus maintaining the checks and balances essential to our republic. I explain the profound risks presented by court packing in my 2022 book, “Saving Nine: The Fight Against the Left’s Audacious Plan to Pack the Supreme Court and Destroy American Liberty.”The prosecution of Donald Trump by the Democrats is a calculated move to destabilize the nation by undermining trust in political and judicial systems. This strategy, cloaked in the rhetoric of the “rule of law,” risks undermining the very principles of democracy they claim to defend.The future of America hangs in the balance as these legal battles unfold. The outcome will determine not only the next four years but also the integrity of the nation's Madisonian institutions. As the Democrats continue their calculated destabilization, it is imperative to recognize the long-term consequences for national stability and the rule of law.Editor’s note: This article is adapted from a longer essay titled “American Injustice and Donald Trump” that will appear in an upcoming book spearheaded by U.S. Sen. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.) and eight Republican Senate colleagues entitled “We Do Not Consent.” The collection of essays will be published later in July.

How do I stop losing interest in my girlfriends? It is sad to keep going through the initial elation of following the chase, getting together, and then gradually tolerating them less and less until that eventually turns to resentment. What do I do to break the cycle and build a lasting relationship? How, indeed. As an ancient sorceress I have many powers, but “fixing” the standard avoidant is beyond even my capabilities. One thing you have to realize, which it appears you have begun to do, is that what you are addicted to is the “chase.” What appears to drive you is not the search for a mate with whom you can build a life but the period of infatuation in any new relationship during which you can project endless fantasies onto the other person. Naturally, once you actually get to know the other person, who also happens to be a flesh-and-blood human being with her own habits, idiosyncrasies, and desires, it becomes impossible to sustain those initial fantasies. No long-term relationship can ever survive on the expectation that everything will be as it was during the infatuation stage. At some point you have to accept that there is another person if front of you, and you have to take the good with the bad. And hopefully the good far outweighs the bad. If you can’t do that, then you will have to endure your fate as a romantic Flying Dutchman ship, doomed to sail the seas forever without ever successfully reaching port. Either way, you’re going to have to accept one version of reality or another, because by refusing to accept the first, in which you can truly love another person in spite of her imperfections, you will be accepting the second version by default. The choice is yours. How would you deal with a spouse who has a history of hiding credit card debt? A few years ago, I discovered my wife had racked up about $2,000 of credit card debt on her new card that we opened together. She never had a credit card before, so I let it slide and paid the bill. A year later, I was again blindsided by an $8,000 credit card bill on this same credit card. I had a newborn and the marriage was relatively new still, so I paid off the debt and took total control of our finances. That seemed to work and did not cause any issues between us. I would regularly check her card like a parent checking in on a teenager. Fast-forward five years and a few children, and I almost forgot it ever happened. My grip on finances loosened to the extent that I stopped asking to see her accounts. However, I recently discovered she had a new $6,000 balance, which she had been paying off slowly, completely destroying her credit score and piling up monthly fees and interest charges in the process. She had also been going into my wallet and making purchases on our grocery credit card to make it look like she never ordered anything. I have no interest in implementing strict rules or regular checks any more, and I am tired of it all. With all that said, she is an amazing mother, wife, and friend. That is a tough situation, and you’re not alone in this kind of conundrum. Financial infidelity affects something like 30%-40% of couples and definitely leads to damaged trust in a relationship. Let’s start with the positives first: You mentioned that your wife is, despite her less-than-desirable financial acumen, an amazing wife, mother, and friend and that you have a few children together. That definitely counts for a lot, and I think those positive qualities are worth keeping in mind when you decide how to work through this understandably very frustrating issue. You did not specify what exactly your wife is spending money on — is it on frivolities like collectible Stanley cups or on household needs that are simply not in the approved budget? Given that she was hiding the purchases, I will assume the former, but it is worth at least investigating the latter before implementing stricter budget measures. If you have an agreed-upon budget and your wife is just going over because she’s an impulsive spender and truly just seems incapable of managing finances despite her best efforts, you might want to consider getting her a credit card for household expenses that has a set limit that is in line with the monthly budget. This way, you won’t feel the need to babysit her spending every month, but if she does need to go over that limit sometimes, it will force you two to have a transparent conversation about how money is being spent. This won’t magically transform your wife into a financial sage, but it will perhaps restore some peace to that area of your lives so you can focus on more positive things. How do I massively improve my life in two years? The best piece of wisdom I’ve come across for undertaking any sort of massive overhaul is to approach it as you would approach renovating an old house: one area at a time and never all at once. Focus on three core areas, for example: health, relationships, and interests. Let’s say your goals are to improve your fitness, make more friends, and pick up a new hobby. You might be tempted to kill three birds with one stone and do something crazy like join a running club or get into pickleball, but this would be a terrible mistake. Two years from now, you will find yourself in slightly better shape but with many acquaintances who lack real common interests and a hobby that has now fallen out of fashion. And then you will be almost exactly where you started. Better to approach one thing at a time in three- to six-month increments. Join a gym. Once that becomes an integrated part of your routine (and you might have even made some friends), pick up an interesting hobby like cooking or, if you have a death wish, free climbing. In a year, you will be in better shape and have more entertaining topics to discuss than, say, someone who has only been playing pickleball. And now you can go about widening your social circle by attending events or activities in your city. If you follow this method, you will be far better off than someone who, in the midst of a crisis of meaning, just joined a running club. My girlfriend is Russian. Any advice for establishing deeper trust with a woman whose ethnic background is not exactly known for being warm and welcoming? The only advice I can give you is to practice sprinting fast enough to outrun her father’s shotgun. Best of luck. How do I lose weight? In a world of off-label semaglutide prescriptions, being overweight is a choice. I say this having happily made my choice while sitting in a cabin in Georgia, eating my second fried peach pie of the day. If you’re someone who has struggled with being overweight much of your life due to thyroid or hormonal issues, then I’m afraid I can’t in good faith offer you easy solutions. But if, like me, you’ve just been eating too many apple cider donuts and brisket sandwiches the last few weeks, you’re just going to have to suck it up for a few months and do the work. Download a calorie-tracking app, diligently track everything you consume, and hit the gym, or at least opt for long daily walks. And if you’re just the plain fat, lazy American that Europeans accuse you of being and you have some extra cash lying around, then call your doctor and say you want the good stuff. After you’ve cheated your way to your target weight, be sure to go on social media and tell everyone how you lost weight just from eating raw meat and cutting out carbs.

Not many people think of Larry Ellison, the irascible scion of tech giant Oracle, as a media mogul — much less a Hollywood heavyweight. But with his son David’s rise to head Paramount on the heels of a deal merging his Skydance Media production studio with Paramount, the elder Ellison now counts his second major family foray into the belly of the corporate cinema beast. His first, by way of daughter Megan’s once white-hot Annapurna Pictures, drew him in deeper than, no doubt, he’d planned. After an extraordinary spate of acclaimed hits — including some, like "Zero Dark Thirty," that put the company into an intimate, if temporary, relationship with deep state image shapers — Annapurna began bleeding cash on underwhelming films. In 2018, with the numbers in the tank and top brass racing for the lifeboats, Larry stepped in to right the ship. Since then, the whole film and television industry has been turned upside down. A bitterly ironic casualty of the revolutionary policies so many celebs and execs fanatically support, or supported, Hollywood still hasn’t recovered from the corporatist consolidation, COVID-era lockdowns, BLM-era wokeficiation, and #MeToo-era virtue-signaling that pushed so many Americans away from the comforting and escapist entertainment fare generations had grown up on. But what Hollywood wants to blame for its woes is technology: tech that scared the unions into mounting the strike from hell and tech that forced the industry out into the deep waters of streaming, where outsiders like Netflix and Amazon dominate but nobody really knows how to make money. It’s tech that turned teens into small-screen consumers with the cultural memory of a goldfish, squandering years of prime entertainment obsession on TikTok instead of the greatest films and shows in history — the pattern seemingly set by Spotify, where net listens overwhelmingly belong to an elite group of all-time most popular acts. Worst of all, tech has put Hollywood in the deeply unwelcome and foreign terrain of unpopularity, both internal and external. Inside the tent, writers hate the push to automate development and scripting in accordance with the new “content creation” ethos; producers hate the conglomerates’ penchant for simply canceling completed films that the computers say are a greater cost liability released than written off as a loss; creative executives feel set up for failure, pressured to spend until something hits or until they lose their job on their first flop. Then there’s the identity politics: Insiders know woke flicks and girlboss slop struggle, yet whichever way they turn for alternatives, some aggrieved group will drag them on socials. And outside the industry, consumers are skeptical, fatigued, and hungry for soulful, normie fare that Hollywood seems to have lost the ability to deliver. Theaters are now increasingly screening old classics, and some maverick outfits with a conservative or Christian bent are landing a hit or two here and there, but the public at large, which still relies on visual narratives more than books or computers to make sense of their place in the unfolding world, needs more. All told, the entertainment industry appears to be ripe for “disruption” of the type that tech has become so stereotypically good at producing … except for the fact that tech has already done this, and the situation seems to be more at an impasse than ever. Some insist that AI has already solved this problem, pointing to recent leaps in prompt-and-automate computer animation, which allegedly will become cinema-quality within a handful of years. But if OpenAI’s business model is any indication, all the best advancements will be sold or licensed to the same managerialist behemoths whose mergers and acquisitions have made them too big to win at human scale.The push toward gigantism is afflicting even more nimble companies that should know better. A24, which found success with smaller, cooler, more recognizably human films, recently seized on the chance to scale up with a big influx of cash and a seemingly bolder business plan — pivot more resources into more popular “genre” fare, inject its special sauce of edgy aesthetics and artful chops, and profit. Alas, its first big swing — an ambitious TV series spinning the Friday the 13th intellectual property into a sprawling origin story linking the franchise’s milestone films into a single tale — is on the brink of disaster, over budget, under-scripted, and the blame game in full swing. What’s a tech-monied movie mogul to do? It’s comforting to some to think this moment shows that, culturally, only digital “tech” can save us from televisual “media,” and comforting to others to think the reverse. But for ordinary Americans, and extraordinary artists, the truth is that oversized companies of either type are the problem — at least until some of them can prove they understand that the humane genius for soulful art grows from the soil up, not from the top down in a lab. If techies and their heirs can see that, they’ll soon sweep legacy Hollywood aside. If they don’t? The future of video art will belong to the people.

Always and everywhere, power attempts to centralize. In his book “On Power,” the political theorist Bertrand de Jouvenel explains that power is always seeking to erode barriers to that process of centralization. In its most organic construction, civilization is formed out of overlapping spheres of social sovereignty. Man is a political animal, and none of us exist in complete isolation but instead find ourselves bound into a web of social dependencies and obligations. The family, church, tribe, guild, and fraternity each make demands on and provide for the needs of their members. Particular peoples with particular identities and ways of being are the enemy of universalized bureaucratic management. This network of voluntary and involuntary associations grants us identity and meaning while also providing us with a community within which we can practice virtue. Our dependency on and duty to these spheres sustain and define us, but they also serve as barriers to the centralization of power. Those with very specific familial, religious, and regional identities and obligations are far less likely to follow the dictates of centralized authority. Power must collapse these opposing spheres of power if it is to achieve its goals. Regional authorities, organic identity, and natural hierarchies are all barriers to the centralization of power. Meeting a massive challenge In the 1940s, James Burnham introduced the idea that a “managerial revolution” had radically altered the modern state. Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany, and liberal democracies like the United States may have significant differences, but ultimately each of these states rested on a managerial structure. After the Industrial Revolution, the paradigm of mass production and mass consumption required a shift in social organization. Large bureaucratic structures were required to meet the logistical, technical, and social challenges of mass society, and those organizations required a new class of experts to operate them. These mass bureaucratic structures promised a miraculous degree of material abundance. By operating at scale, logistical mastery would generate an enormous degree of wealth through efficiency. To reliably extract this degree of efficiency, the new class of experts would need to apply a standardized set of managerial techniques. Just as the uniformity of cogs in a machine is necessary for the operation of an assembly line, the mass managerial bureaucracy requires universalization to scale the massification of human organization. In his book “Leviathan and Its Enemies,” the paleoconservative theorist Samuel Francis continued Burnham’s critical work by outlining the process by which the managerial revolution dissolved the competing structures of bourgeois capitalism. While capital had already revolutionized many competing social spheres, managerialism required their complete abolition. Always and everywhere, power seeks to centralize, and managerialism gains strength through centralization via mass bureaucratic social organizations. Cultural and moral particularity from competing spheres of social sovereignty hinders the uniform application of managerial techniques. The individual worker who has a large family with many children may be unwilling to devote his entire life to the corporation. The devout Christian may oppose commerce on the Sabbath or the practice of usury. The devout Muslim may require the observance of certain dietary restrictions. An individual whose family has lived in a region for generations may be unwilling to sacrifice the well-being of that particular community in the name of economic efficiency. Particular peoples with particular identities and ways of being are the enemy of universalized bureaucratic management. From community to dependency Francis observed that the managerial elite attempt to break down barriers to universal application by homogenizing culture. Hedonistic and cosmopolitan identities are highly malleable, so the managerial elite desire a deracinated population that can be easily manipulated. By replacing dependency on morally and culturally particular structures like family or church with dependency on mass managerial structures like public education or the welfare state, the managerial class can gain power over individuals and separate them from other social spheres. By focusing on abstract issues, the managerial elite can locate their decision-making centers well outside the nation itself. This makes it almost impossible to hold real power accountable. Progressive secular humanism, or wokeness, allies with the managerial revolution by disincentivizing the creation of opposing spheres of sovereignty. It stigmatizes family formation and traditional religion, labeling them as low status. Organic identities are replaced with more general and commodifiable identities, which can be consumed and discarded. In the name of liberation, individuals are stripped of every natural duty and dependency, making them entirely reliant on the managerial regime. Without the protection of competing social spheres, deracinated individuals are left defenseless against the state and corporations that demand total allegiance. In addition to outlining the cultural assimilation required by managerialism, Samuel Francis predicted that its internal logic would compel it to pursue globalization. Managerial structures produce their abundance through large-scale organization, necessitating the continuous expansion of logistical networks. Nations’ boundaries are arbitrary barriers to the mass bureaucratic mindset, and once the managerial elite complete their revolution within their own borders, they will naturally turn outward. New markets mean access to new consumers, natural resources, and laborers, but the revolution is never purely economic. Managerial regimes find it easier to coordinate with other managerial regimes of the same order, which is why the United States and the wider West have been obsessed with the spread of liberal democracy. George W. Bush and other conservatives have often been mocked for the idea that at the heart of every nation lies a liberal democracy yearning to be free, but this is simply an extension of the universalism that the managerial revolution demands. Massified national organizations naturally seek to expand their power by becoming international organizations. The World Health Organization, International Monetary Fund, World Economic Forum, NATO, and several other international entities are constantly seeking to add new nodes to the managerial network, creating a loose globalized managerial order without any formal name. These organizations always emphasize problems of an international scale. Global warming, pandemic response, and world overpopulation are all issues that are too large for any one nation to address on its own. By focusing on large and abstract issues, the managerial elite can locate their decision-making centers well outside the nation itself. This makes it almost impossible for the citizens of that nation to hold real power accountable even as they continue to participate in the democratic process. McCulture trumps tradition For the ever-expanding network of managerial bureaucracy to spread profitably into new regions, it must successfully homogenize culture. It is not enough for a culture to become uniform inside a nation; it must become uniform across the entire international network. The conversion of nations into liberal democracies assists in this process. Democratic elites must introduce mass media, bureaucratic organization, and therapeutic amelioration if they are to achieve the kind of social engineering that is required to maintain power under a system of popular sovereignty. New democratic leaders in foreign countries thus benefit greatly from connecting their subjects to the global network of managers already established by the West. Mass media begins its work, and McDonald’s, Starbucks, and Apple stores soon follow. The good news for those who see the nation as the best social organization for human flourishing is that the current managerial order cannot last. The traditions and history of the nation are slowly worn away as a tide of foreign culture flows in. International organizations become major employers as well as cultural staples and grow in importance until they are so integral to the operation of the country that no one can imagine how they ever got along without them. Managers and personnel flow over borders as naturally as the goods those organizations produce. The very idea that the people differ in any significant way from those of any other country slowly disappears. No group has claim to any given nation because all nations are now part of the mass managerial network. The managerial elite develop international class interests because their interdependent networks make the nation itself an interchangeable unit. Managing a government is seen as no different from running an international corporation or a non-governmental organization. All these entities feature similar bureaucratic structures, and managers have an easy time moving between them. Humans aren’t widgets Just as it sought to homogenize culture inside its original borders, the global managerial order must break down the particularities of the nations to which it seeks to expand. This is why wokeness has gone international, with movements like Black Lives Matter gaining traction in countries like England or Ireland where no history of racialized conflict existed. Starbucks is running ads about transgenderism in India for a reason, and it has everything to do with coffee consumption when properly understood. The United States is using gay rights as part of its justification to send billions of dollars in military aid to both Ukraine and Israel.Progressive secular humanism is the universal acid meant to dissolve all cultural particularity and turn the people of each nation into blank slates onto which managerial techniques can be freely pressed. The good news for those who see the nation as the best social organization for human flourishing is that the current managerial order cannot last. Humans are not interchangeable widgets. We are not meant to lose our heritage, traditions, religions, and languages for a bureaucratic Tower of Babel. Like Soviet communism, managerial liberalism has made faulty assumptions about human nature that will doom it. Late-stage managerialism will eventually fall apart. The question is whether Western nations will have leaders ready to guide their people to a brighter future. Editor’s note: This article is adapted from a talk delivered on Tuesday, July 9, 2024, at the fourth National Conservatism Conference in Washington, D.C.

Some Black Americans are reclaiming antebellum estates as part of their family legacy, reflecting the power and possibility of these historic sites

A few months after Apple had to open up the iPhone's App Store to third-party marketplaces due to the European Union's Digital Markets Act, Cupertino has now committed to giving developers access to core NFC functionalities from its devices. Users will be able to choose from different wallets and payment methods in the region, such as Samsung Wallet, Google Wallet, or other apps. In addition, Apple will offer easy-to-use functionalities, such as making these apps default instead of the company's Wallet, double-clicking on the Side Button for quick access, and Face ID authentication. According to a letter from European Commission Vice-President Margrethe Vestager, Apple was wrong to limit NFC payments with only its built-in option since "NFC technology was not developed by Apple. It is a standardized technology. It is made available for free." That said, three were the reasons to make Cupertino open up this technology to third-party makers: Apple holds a significant position in the market for smart mobile devices; Apple is dominant in the market for NFC functionalities and for mobile wallets for iPhones; Apple refused to give access to the NFC technology on the iPhone to rival wallet developers. Instead, Apple reserved the use of the NFC technology on the iPhone for its own mobile wallet solution. Here's how third-party makers will take advantage of the iPhone's NFC functions Samsung Pay could come to the iPhone with new EU rules Image source: José Adorno for BGR After months of testing, Apple will now give third-party mobile wallets free access to NFC functionality. However, Apple won't open its Secure Enclave, as these wallets will use a "Hos Card Emulation Mode," although the European Commission says "it offers an equivalent solution in terms of security and user experience." In addition, double-click and face ID authentication will also work with third-party wallets. Also, Apple will let users choose their default iPhone Wallet. This will work for users registered in the European Economic Area and continue to work even when traveling abroad. Developers can even supercharge their wallets with transit cards, access control, concert tickets, and digital identity credentials. Image source: José Adorno for BGR The letter ends with a warning: "From now on, Apple can no longer use its control over the iPhone ecosystem to keep other mobile wallets out of the market. Competing wallet developers, as well as consumers, will benefit from these changes, opening up innovation and choice while keeping payments secure." These features will have to be available for iPhone users until July 25, so a software update is likely just around the corner. It could come with iOS 17.6. Don't Miss: Apple announces iPhone sideloading, third-party payments, and more for EU The post Apple dodges antitrust suit by opening Apple Pay and NFC in the EU appeared first on BGR. Today's Top Deals Today’s deals: Philips Hue sale, $30 Crest 3D Whitestrips, 50% off Echo Dot, Vitamix blenders, more Today’s deals: $120 off Ryzen 9 mini PC, $89 Apple AirPods, $25 portable neck fan, $79 23andMe DNA test, more Best July 4th deals: Apple sale, $30 mosquito repellent, $50 Waterpik, $70 SodaStream, 36% off eero, more Today’s deals: $140 AirPods 3, $348 Sony 4K smart TV, $50 off M2 iPad Air, $25 light bulb camera, more

Las Vegas baked Wednesday in its record fifth consecutive day of temperatures sizzling at 115 degrees Fahrenheit (46.1 Celsius) or greater amid a lengthening hot spell that is expected to broil much of the U.S. into the weekend.

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday denounced NATO's summit promise to grant eventual membership to Ukraine and said Russia should work toward the "disappearance" of both Ukraine and the military alliance.