icpolicy

The absolute gall of a Biden judge to claim that a policy based on actual evidence “undermines democracy” when his own patron single-handedly rewrote the meaning of “sex” by fiat to force women to be erased by men.

Do No Harm (@donoharm) “proposed the first code strictly for gender detransition, which was accepted by the CDC. The CDC plans to implement the code on Oct. 1.” An important step forward.

@DirkDaknife @brien_kyle @BenjiBacker Do you see the picture where there is no fencing in sight? Look man, there's nothing to argue about here. You agree "the fencing got knocked down." You agree the fencing was improved. That's it, you already agree with me. We're done.

@icpolicy @brien_kyle @BenjiBacker They did put up new fencing. But fencing was always there.

While we're discussing wildlife overpasses, let's discuss why they're important: They prevent ~97% of wildlife collisions They singlehandedly save wildlife populations (and migration patterns) They can save our country $10B per year BUT...they (should) cost $5-15M, not $100M

@DirkDaknife @brien_kyle @BenjiBacker THE FENCES GOT KNOCKED DOWN lmfao. Are you hearing yourself? The fences went up as part of the project, a few years before. It's understandable if you didn't know the relationship. FWIW they're working to continue the fencing down the mountain.

@icpolicy @brien_kyle @BenjiBacker There were fences prior to the project. I've lived in Utah most of my life. The fences got knocked down.

@DirkDaknife @brien_kyle @BenjiBacker Wrong again. The fences were added as part of the Parley wildlife overpass project. There were no fences prior to the project. Here's photo evidence: Why are you lying?

@icpolicy @brien_kyle @BenjiBacker They renewed the fencing that was already there, that the animals still got through or over.

@dandude2 @BenjiBacker Common sense matches reality: the fence does all the work. It's not a website, it's a post on x dot com. I guess you're confused about a lot of stuff huh?

@icpolicy @BenjiBacker I’m not mistaken, it’s common sense. And I’m not giving traffic to your website.

@dandude2 @BenjiBacker You're mistaken. Here's an article explaining exactly how and why with the relevant citations to the literature. Have a good one. x.com/icpolicy/statu…

@icpolicy @BenjiBacker Well if your only argument is that it doesn’t prevent collisions, you are wrong on that as well. Any similar projects have seen greatly reduced collision numbers. Even if there is fencing there, they will try to get around places where there isn’t fencing, and cause accidents.

@dandude2 @BenjiBacker Correct. Now you're agreeing with me - because my point was that the bridge isn't involved in protecting people or property. If you want to defend spending $114 million on the 10 mountain lions that live in the Simi then have at it - but don't pretend it benefits humans

@icpolicy @BenjiBacker Just because it hasn’t been done, doesn’t mean it’s not beneficial. That’s not how anything works 😂. You could put them in a cage and say they don’t need to leave the cage, because they’re always in the cage. But it’s beneficial to their health and ecosystem to have free range.

The problem isn’t just so-called “gender affirming care”. It’s the whole rotten mental health system. It’s all built on nothing.

Greta Thunberg in 2023: If we don't end fossil fuels, it will be a "death sentence." Greta Thunberg in 2026: President Trump must allow oil imports to Cuba. I guess the "climate crisis" has negotiable deadlines.

@dandude2 @BenjiBacker No, they don't. 101 was built around 60 years ago. It's a 10 lane freeway in Los Angeles. Animals haven't been able to cross here for decades. It's great to take animals into account when building new highways but animals have not been crossing HERE for a very long time.

@icpolicy @BenjiBacker Animals need to move across the highway dumbass, that's kinda the whole point

@shanaka86 Great post, small correction: Helium isn't the only element that escapes Earth's atmosphere permanently. Hydrogen does as well. We lose about 50x more Hydrogen than Helium though we only care about Helium due to its relative rarity.

Helium is the only element that escapes Earth’s atmosphere permanently. Once released, it rises through the troposphere, passes the stratosphere, and leaves the planet. It cannot be manufactured. It cannot be synthesised at industrial scale. It accumulates over billions of years in the same geological reservoirs as natural gas. And one third of the world’s supply just went offline because Iran hit the facility that extracts it. Qatar produced roughly 63 million cubic metres of helium in 2025, accounting for 30 to 36 percent of global supply from a total of approximately 190 million cubic metres. QatarEnergy’s three large helium purification plants at Ras Laffan form the world’s biggest helium production base. When LNG production stopped after Iranian drone strikes on March 2 and the subsequent missile damage on March 19, helium extraction stopped automatically because helium is recovered during natural gas liquefaction. You cannot produce helium without producing LNG. The byproduct dies with the primary product. Spot helium prices have roughly doubled since the crisis began. Industry consultants warn that prolonged disruption could push contract prices toward $2,000 per thousand cubic feet. A major industrial gas supplier has already begun assessing customers a helium surcharge. Phil Kornbluth, the most cited helium market consultant, stated the assessment directly: the world cannot compensate for the loss of a third of its helium supply. South Korea imports 64.7 percent of its helium from Qatar. SK Hynix and Samsung operate high-volume fabs producing the DRAM and high-bandwidth memory that power every AI accelerator, every data centre GPU, and every cloud computing cluster on Earth. Helium cools silicon wafers during fabrication. It serves as a carrier gas in deposition and etching tools. It enables leak detection in vacuum systems. Modern extreme ultraviolet lithography requires helium-cooled environments for precise temperature control. Without helium, the fabrication process degrades or stops. SK Hynix and Samsung hold two to three months of helium inventory. Two to three months is not a buffer. It is a countdown. If Ras Laffan remains offline beyond that window, South Korean memory production faces rationing. TSMC in Taiwan is somewhat more diversified but still uses Qatar-linked supply chains. The entire AI hardware supply chain, from HBM3E memory stacks to advanced logic chips, sits inside helium-dependent ecosystems. Beyond semiconductors, helium cools the superconducting magnets in more than 14,000 MRI machines operating worldwide. It pressurises rocket fuel tanks and purges propulsion systems in aerospace. CERN’s Large Hadron Collider depends on helium cryogenic systems. There is no substitute for helium in any of these applications at industrial scale. The United States and Qatar together account for more than 70 percent of global production. The US federal helium reserve and private suppliers offer partial relief, but global prices and spot availability are still governed by Qatar’s market share. Japan’s Iwatani has drawn on US reserves. Canada and the Rockies are seeing renewed investor interest. None of this replaces 63 million cubic metres in weeks. The war hit uranium first. Then oil. Then nitrogen. Then water. Then plastic. Then medicine. Then sulfur. Now helium. Eight layers. Each one deeper. Each one closer to the infrastructure that sustains modern civilisation. The chip that processes your data, the magnet that scans your body, and the rocket that launches your satellite all depend on an atom that leaves the planet when you lose it. open.substack.com/pub/shanakaans…

@DirkDaknife @BenjiBacker I guess you're a bit slow. The article itself (if you're able to read it) contains its own citations to the relevant literature. Have at it kiddo.

@icpolicy @BenjiBacker Citing your own article doesn't prove anything.

@DirkDaknife @brien_kyle @BenjiBacker Nope. The Parley's Canyon bridge built new 8-10' tall fencing as part of the project and it's this fencing that's responsible for the effect you're observing. Not the bridge itself.

@icpolicy @brien_kyle @BenjiBacker Wrong it is very protective of cars. Since they built one over I-80 near Park City Utah a few years ago, the cost of damaged and destroyed cars from collisions with Deer, Elk and Moose has virtually evaporated. They had fencing yet every year animals would find a way.

@DirkDaknife @BenjiBacker Not true. The study @BenjiBacker references (97% efficacy) found that fences alone are just as effective as I discuss in this article: x.com/icpolicy/statu… Give it a read, there's cites and everything.

@icpolicy @BenjiBacker Nope. Put a freeway with tall deer fences through a natural migration path and they will find their way onto the road. Give them a crossing that doesn't look like a crossing and they'll take the crossing rather than forcing a way through the fencing. These bridges work.

@brien_kyle @BenjiBacker Exactly. Put it in the same category as an obscenely expensive sculpture. It's not really about helping people or animals. Meanwhile, Caltrans is doing real work (there's already an underpass only 500' from the Anneberg crossing - they could've done this in LA)

@icpolicy @BenjiBacker It’s another wasteful slush fund for Gavin to play with.

I'm all for incorporating animal bridges into new highways, especially in rural areas. I don't think it's quite true that Americans don't have the stomach for disruption - this is a 10 lane highway and it's extremely disruptive already. Most Americans probably don't want mountain lions within a few miles of 'burbs. Reasonable highway projects fence and guide animals to existing underpasses. This is what Caltrans does along most of rural 101. Just a fence. This project is ... something else.

@icpolicy @BenjiBacker To an extent you’re correct. Americans don’t have the stomach to cause irreparable harm to animal populations. I’m from Montana, where there is wildlife everywhere. We have a few of these overpasses at very high traffic areas, but for the most part, your on your own.

@brien_kyle @BenjiBacker If you want to prevent property damage and save human lives you build a fence. Simple and fast. Cost for this corridor probably under a million bucks. Everything else has absolutely nothing to do with cost savings. It's purely a cost of maintaining wild animals near a city.

@brien_kyle @BenjiBacker I'm not saying you can't spend $114 million on constructing a mountain lion habitat in LA. Certainly it's possible. But don't pretend this is about saving human lives or protecting cars. It's not. That's the point.