Gaythia Weis @Gaythia@qoto.org
Retired Analytical Chemist
League of Women Voters -voting methods, election security
Board Member Colorado Citizens for Science
Joined Oct 2022
Gaythia Weis
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The great thing about being the self-appointed "paper of record" is that you get to write your own revisionist history that completely ignores the role your editors and reporters played in minimizing the threat of COVID— time, and time, and time, and time again
Gaythia Weis
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I have that book for my daughter. It’s fantastic. If anything, the book teaches children to be unashamedly themselves.
Telling someone they can't be who they are is wrong. The fact that we are in such shortage of teachers and she was fired for it is ridiculously short sighted.
Being open to acceptance, understanding, empathy, and inclusion benefits everyone.
A Georgia school board fires a teacher for reading a book to students about gender identity |
https://apnews.com/article/georgia-teacher-fired-reading-book-gender-identity-64f8428af86ed47bea093fba5167506a
Gaythia Weis
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#Introduction I'm a professor of public policy at Georgetown University, studying government performance and people's experiences of government #AdministrativeBurden.
Also blog at https://donmoynihan.substack.com/
Gaythia Weis
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BREAKING -- It is now once again legal to provide food and water to people waiting in line to vote in Georgia.
A federal court just struck down Governor Brian Kemp's attempt at voter suppression.
Gaythia Weis
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🏳️🌈🖖🏽
Young people: The GOP is floating an amendment to raise the voting age from 18 to 25. Vivek Ramaswamy is openly promoting it. They’re scared of your votes and want to silence you. Act appropriately in 2024.
Gaythia Weis
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#Maui sued #BigOil 3 years ago, saying #ClimateChange would lead to #wildfires of “increased frequency, intensity and destructive force.” https://news.yahoo.com/maui-sued-big-oil-2020-113828101.html
Gaythia Weis
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I remember the 2000 Election. There were enough votes for Ralph Nader to hand the election to George W. Bush.
I remember the 2016 Election. There were enough votes for Jill Stein to hand the election to Donald Trump.
In 2024 the Green Party is running Cornell West. Let’s not repeat this history, friends
Your vote is not a marriage. You’re not choosing a life partner. It’s a chess move for what’s best for the country and the world.
Gaythia Weis
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Data brokers are launching an attack on proposed CA legislation #SB362 that would let people opt out from all #databroker services en masse. Because they know everyone will do it if they can. The #DELETEAct would be good for Californians. Tell your legislator you support it and don't let these dodgy businesses kill it. https://www.politico.com/news/2023/08/16/ad-industry-tries-to-quash-proposed-data-broker-regulations-00111513
"The Donnie Creek wildfire, the largest ever recorded in the province’s history, is burning in one of the world’s biggest gas deposits, suspending fracking operations and raising questions about potential dangers to human health " https://thenarwhal.ca/bc-donnie-creek-wildfire-fracking/
Gaythia Weis
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This is Arp 271, a pair of spiral galaxies locked in a gravitational dance. In a few billion years the #MilkyWay and the Andromeda galaxy might look like this!
This is the very last #photo ever taken with the VIMOS instrument at ESO's Very Large #Telescope in #Chile, back in 2018. After I finished the decommissioning procedures that night, I decided to take one last image as a farewell, and this was the result.
Gaythia Weis
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Updates from the Mayor of #Yellowknife, Rebecca Alty:
- Please Evacuate
- if you can drive out, please do so asap
- if you don't have a vehicle, please register now for air lift evacuation (free)
- commercial flights are still running, you can also buy a flight out on a commercial flight
Gaythia Weis
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Why was there no water to fight the fire in Maui?
"Big corporations, golf courses and hotels have been taking water from locals for years. Now the fire may result in even more devastating water theft."
"All over Maui, golf courses glisten emerald green, hotels manage to fill their pools and corporations stockpile water to sell to luxury estates. And yet, when it came time to fight the fires, some hoses ran dry. Why?"
"This is a classic case of the most craven disaster capitalism: a small elite group using a profound human tragedy as their window to roll back a hard-won grassroots victory for water rights, while removing civil servants who pose a political inconvenience to the administration’s pro-developer agenda."...
by Naomi Klein and Kapuaʻala Sproat
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/17/hawaii-fires-maui-water-rights-disaster-capitalism
#bushfires #disasters #water #rights #theft #golf #plantations #developers #resorts #SettlerCulture
Maui Water Rights: "Tereariʻi, a grassroots attorney, already knew that the fight for Maui’s future was about to intensify, and at its heart would not be fire, but another element entirely: water. Specifically, the water rights of Native Hawaiians, rights that a long parade of plantations, real estate developers, and luxury resorts have been stifling for nearly two centuries. As the flames approached, Tereariʻi feared that, under cover of emergency, those large players might finally get their chance to grab west Maui’s water for good." https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/17/hawaii-fires-maui-water-rights-disaster-capitalism
Gaythia Weis
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@mrcompletely the evacuation going on in Yellowknife, NWT Canada is an interesting case in point. The mayor was telling people it was not time to evacuate all the way up to when it was. To do that, they had to protect the long exit route, with pilot cars, tow trucks and fueling stations en-route, and to come up with air evacuation for those who could not make the drive. I think that they were trying to avoid a panicked exodus jam up.
Gaythia Weis
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@Gaythia my understanding is that's not quite accurate even though the thought process was as you say. The siren definitely was intended to be an "all hazard" warning and not just a tsunami siren; it's described that way on official state emergency response pages and in discussion of the system from before the fire. But I think the idea that in the moment many people wouldn't realize that distinction and would react *as if it was* a tsunami warning is at least plausible. So a minor point here.
@mrcompletely I agree. I think that is the problem with sirens, insufficient information. The issue with cell phone alerts is not knowing how many people have them or have them handy. And in cases like this one, having an escape route is crucial. And, if everyone who had a car had tried to exit all at ones, gridlock would have been even worse than it was.
Gaythia Weis
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The decision to take away the ability to block on Twitter epitomizes the rightwing project to restore dominance: It creates a paradise for racists, misogynists, bigots of all kind to attack and abuse anyone they refuse to accept as equal, anyone who has the audacity to demand respect.
The siren was a tsunami warning system. The natural reaction would be to head for the hills. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/17/hawaii-fires-maui-schools-search-death-toll
Gaythia Weis
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JUST IN: Federal appeals court derails Uinta Basin Railway plan to send billions more gallons of Utah crude through Colorado
Retired Analytical Chemist
League of Women Voters -voting methods, election security
Board Member Colorado Citizens for Science
Joined Oct 2022
