British pounds were the global reserve currency, then when they took too much debt it stopped and it was very bad for them.

People will stop using your currency as a reserve currency if you abuse it too much.

Drought doesn't mean "abnormally dry" though, it means lack of rain resulting in water shortage. And California has had a lot of water shortages.

It's not quite as simple as that though - in most places, especially California, water shortages are not a simple natural imbalance between the amount of rain that falls and how much flows out in rivers and streams.

If demand is far higher than supply due to overuse by industry that's definitely a water shortage - there isn't enough of it, and something is probably suffering as a result. I don't think that's a useful definition of drought though. If someone builds a massive factory consuming 100s of millions of gallons of water per day that's definitely going to cause a problem but I'm not sure it's reasonable to say that there's suddenly a drought.

I think the definition of drought is instead current rainfall compared to historical average - which then leads to the question of if the change is just that rainfall has now been low for so long the historical average has changed, or if rainfall has actually improved. I don't think the article addressed this, but I only skimmed it so maybe I missed it.

> If someone builds a massive factory consuming 100s of millions of gallons of water per day that's definitely going to cause a problem

Lots of factories in Washington, seemingly no problem.

Are you implying 800 miles worth of latitude, along with North Pacific weather in general, is irrelevant?

It’s very relevant,

and the next 200 years of settlers should probably take note,

instead of just continuing to barrel into a place that was unreasonable to live in when it started, and hasn’t changed much in that regard.

I think what he is getting at is : deserts are already dry, what makes a drought in the desert?

It isn't just, a lot of people moved to the desert, so now there is a drought because there isn't enough water.

I don't have reference, but I think there is some definition around change from average.

Drought it something like X months with Y% less precipitation than last 5 year average. or some such calculation.

If you have a fertile abundant landscape covered in old growth forests and marshes, and then cut all the forests, put roads everywhere, and plough up the marshes for farming, the landscape then holds a lot less water and the weather becomes less stable, which can exacerbate natural fluctuations in rainfall and temperature making droughts more common and more severe.

This is effectively what happened to large parts of the middle east that were once fertile and lush. It's a trend all over the world really.

There are many ways humans can work the opposite direction to increase the ability of the land to stabilize the weather and increase hydrological robustness to mitigate droughts, e.g. regenerative agriculture or projects in asia and africa to green the desert, I don't know enough about them but it's a good idea and I hope it's executed well.

All I'm saying is that people or no people, wet or dry, there is an actual calculation and a drought scale. The conversation seems to be wanting to place 'blame', but you can have droughts anywhere, under a lot of conditions (like people moved in) for lots of reasons.

I looked it up

Calculating drought involves comparing current conditions (precipitation, temperature, soil moisture, water levels) to historical norms using standardized indices like the Palmer Drought Index (PDSI) or the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI), which measure water supply/demand imbalances over short or long periods to assign severity levels (e.g., D0 Abnormally Dry to D4 Exceptional Drought).

A common method uses indices that turn negative as drought intensifies, with thresholds indicating different drought stages, often combined with expert analysis for the official U.S. Drought Monitor.

Common Drought Indices

Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI):

Uses precipitation, temperature, and soil moisture. Calculates water supply and demand. Values: Below -0.5 indicates drought; below -2.0 is moderate.

Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI):

Focuses on precipitation deficits at various timescales (e.g., 1, 3, 6 months). Classifies drought: e.g., -1.0 to -1.49 is Moderate, -2.0 or less is Extreme.

Yes exactly, saudi arabia doesn't have an ideal amount of rainfall for providing water to people and growing crops, but nobody say it's in a "drought".

It would be nice if it rained more in california, but we can't base definitions on what we'd ideally like to happen

> If it was just for ads they wouldn't even bother announcing it as a "feature", they'd just do it.

Its a feature for advertisers, and investors also wanna know. Did you think you are the customer?

"you can target ads by demographic" is table stakes

Does this factoid contradict their motivation in publishing this information?

> Most of the realpolitik of “states rights” is really about wielding tyrannical power locally.

I thought it was so states could knowingly house illegal aliens or illegal drug businesses without doing anything.

Normally states wouldn't have that right, but I see many who think they should have it. Marijuana is still illegal and those undocumented immigrants are also illegal, more federal influence would make it so states cannot legalize those any more, is that what you want?

So states rights goes both ways, it lets states both be more progressive and more conservative than the average.

Many states have made it such that there is no functional distinction between legal and illegal immigrants. Identical drivers licenses, access to the same services, and indeed protection from federal enforcement of immigration law.

Not helping arrest them != protecting them.

All of those things you’re mentioning are state services that they can offer to anyone because it’s not a federal issue.

This is what states rights look like and why the right is mocked for referencing it when they foam at the mouth once it’s used for things they don’t like.

It’s similar to people who claim the civil war was over states rights when southern states were pushing to have other state sovereignty ignored over their own laws when it came to returning slaves.

States cannot send their police officers to enforce immigration law, correct (see Arizona v. United States), but many states have gone further to make it illegal for their police forces to honor immigration detainers that federal agencies request when an illegal immigrant is arrested for a crime. That sure looks and sounds like a protection to me.

These people are released, which does make the job of federal agencies more difficult, requiring immigration enforcement action in the streets as opposed to the jailhouse. You prefer it in the street, apparently, but I can certainly understand how others may see how these types of actions start to look like States actively frustrating legal immigration enforcement action. Or that it is de facto circumvention if not de jure.

Sure sure, the street raids shall continue for as long as it makes people feel better to point out some sort of implied hypocrisy by conservatives.

No, the street raids will continue while this admin continues their authoritarian streak.

Whether or not the states help them be authoritarian is orthogonal to the chaos in the streets.

If you just want blue states to bend the knee and capitulate, you should say so.

Look, I’m not the one who supports street raids, that’s you. I’m not understanding your point anymore. Do you not want immigration law enforced at all?

An illegal immigrant commits a crime, say vehicular homicide. ICE lodges a detainer against this person, and the local PD refuses and instead releases the offender. As a result, ICE runs a tactical team out to go pick him up.

This is the outcome that you appear to believe is optimal, and you are intentionally using emotionally loaded words like "lenient" to attempt to guilt me into retreating from my position that this is, in fact, not an optimal outcome. In many cases like this additional crimes are committed before the offender is apprehended, crimes which are of course 100% preventable, without you and your "leniency".

>Tell me you at least recognize the difference between actively doing something against some group, and merely not helping them?

Technically speaking, you are right. These states are actively working against their own citizens, not the Federal government.

Your initial claim was that some States are merely "not assisting" the Federal government with their immigration duties, which is actually not a choice they get to make since the controlling caselaw (again, Arizona v. United States) prevents them from doing this even if they wanted to. Local cops cannot investigate immigration status, full stop. I point it out that some states actually go further, and passed laws that bar their police from doing the following.

Feds: hey you arrested individual_x, he's in the country illegally and oh by the way has a few other outstanding warrants, can you please hold him at the jail house, we're going to pick him up for immigration proceedings.

Cops: sure thing, let us know when you get here

And now we get.

Feds: hey hold that guy you arrested, he's got a standing deportation order from years ago, hold him until we get there.

Cops: No, in fact, we're going to let him go.

You continued to imply that banning the former is somehow preferable, even though the latter results in ... street raids.

I'm not really seeing how I'm the bad guy here, and honestly I think your real policy preference is simply that no immigration law is enforced at all. You should have the courage to say so, since that is quite clearly the policy preference for a large portion of the electorate, and possibly a majority of the Democratic Party.

The states have nothing to do with your ignorant hysteria about foreigners. Unfortunately, the reactionary types have turned that into a dog whistle for their imposition on tyranny to deliver freedom, someday, maybe.

Marijuana is illegal. The states have largely chosen to change their laws on the subject as it was determined that it was creating more problems than it was solving. Additionally, the Federal government, while incapable of changing the law, loosened some of the disincentives for the states laws on the subject.

I see conservatives actively oppressing blue states right now. Somehow states rights do not protect civilians from being mistreated, kidnapped and shot by violent agents sent by conservative minority.

Lincoln refused to negotiate with them, so not sure what you mean. He only accepted unconditional surrender by them. The southern states tried to negotiate with Lincoln before the war broke out but he refused and never budged on that.

I'm not sure where you've gotten this information, because it's completely untrue. For example, he made a quite famous offer to the southern states on September 22, 1862, in response to a major Union victory at Antietam. If any of them agreed to rejoin the Union before January 1, they would be welcomed back and allowed to keep their slaves under the pre-war status quo. But no state took him up on the offer, presumably because their leaders found it intolerable to live in a country where slavery might some day be banned.

> I'm not sure where you've gotten this information, because it's completely untrue. For example, he made a quite famous offer to the southern states on September 22, 1862

That offer was not to the confederacy, he refused to negotiate with the confederacy. Its very hostile if workers form a union and the employee gives a sweet deal to each of those workers to leave the union while refusing to talk to the union, its the same thing here refusing to negotiate with their representative is very hostile.

> If any of them agreed to rejoin the Union before January 1, they would be welcomed back and allowed to keep their slaves under the pre-war status quo. But no state took him up on the offer, presumably because their leaders found it intolerable to live in a country where slavery might some day be banned.

No, its because the states had formed a new union and they didn't want to betray that one. Lincoln refused to negotiate with them as a whole, he tried to negotiate with the parts. Its like telling enemy soldiers that they get a sweet deal if they betray their country and join yours instead, that will not get you many because most people refuse to betray their allies.

If Lincoln hadn't refused to negotiate with the confederacy as a whole likely the war would be much less bloody or maybe even fully avoided.

Good for him! The time for negotiation is before the war, not after you've been utterly destroyed. For him to give in to the slave-owning south having won a civil war at such high cost, would have been snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Women got their rights without a large group of violent female terrorists threatening violence, so you are wrong. Feminism has been the most successful liberating movement in history and it happened basically without any bloodshed.

The funny part is that most female world leaders are right wing, since right wing voters are more likely to vote for a woman than left wing voters. There are many more left wing female candidates, but those that win elections are mostly right wing.

In the US, the far-right party elects many fewer women than the center-right party[0]

[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/02/21/women-acc...

Depending on your state you vote for the winner regardless who you vote for since its winner takes all.

So now the last 90% is the last 99%.

The "HN is controlled by my enemies" conspiracy crowd is the only thing growing here.