Gaythia Weis @Gaythia@qoto.org

So... in the US we now have an "anti-library" party. It's remarkable how many ways republicans keep coming for libraries and librarians. From the stuff in Houston where they are turning libraries into "discipline centers" and firing librarians. To the books bans and empty shelves in Florida.

Libraries are powerful and important, and if this doesn't make that clear? I don't know what will.

Kids can detect what you really think of them. What is says about them that their school has a "discipline center" not a library. What that says about what the adults in their life expect from them. What the education system has to offer for them.

They see it all. Adapt to meet your expectations.

Build a discipline center have discipline problems. Dutifully the children will not want it to go to waste.

And they will remember "libraries aren't for kids like us." for the rest of their lives.

“The Republican Party used to always support the military, but today, they are undermining the military. The senior senator from Alabama, who claims to support our troops, is now blocking more than 300 military [nominations] with his extreme political agenda."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/28/biden-tuberville-military-clash/

The Suncor refinery in Commerce City in June recorded PFAS “forever chemicals” in its discharge water into Sand Creek at more than 10,000 times the EPA health advisory level for the substance set last year, according to monthly reports to state health officials.

Read more: https://coloradosun.com/2023/07/28/suncor-pfas-forever-chemicals-discharge-health/?utm_content=buffer7862d&utm_medium=social&utm_source=Mastodon&utm_campaign=buffer

@slothrop

Teachers need to be enthusiastic learners of the subjects they teach-- often elementary school math is taught by people who... don't really like it much.

Add to that large classes and inflexible curriculums (so even the teachers who are enthusiastic can't adjust to meet their students) and you have something of a mess.

There is a lot of talk in math education about these issues -- but often it comes down to just not really investing in the schools enough to meet these basics.

One of the pathways of intercontinental transport in the #SouthernHemisphere is shown in today's GOES image with surface winds.

Southbound winds provide no only the lifting mechanism for dust in the #Patagonia desert but also the rapid delivery to the Antarctica Pla. This is not the most common pattern but it does happen and more importantly it is super effective because the short distances involved.

Even in winter, Patagonia desert is so dry that #highlatitudedust emission occurs.

And I say to Justice Alito, no provision in the Constitution gives him the authority to regulate women's bodies.

#Lewis County #WA seeks to restrict any #Library literature they find offensive, including books focused on race, racism, and/or characters of color or #LGBTQ community.https://chronline.com/stories/lewis-county-commission-urges-rating-system-for-kids-library-books,322344

President Biden today will sign an executive order “to implement historic, bipartisan military justice reforms that significantly strengthen how the military handles sexual assault cases,” according to the White House. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/07/28/fact-sheet-president-biden-to-sign-executive-order-implementing-bipartisan-military-justice-reforms/

A study by the University of Colorado estimates a 24 percent increase in maternal deaths if the United States bans #abortion federally. They predicted the increase would be even higher for Black patients, at 39 percent.

But Kavitha Surana of @ProPublica warns that tracking changes to this vital data could be harder than it seems:
https://www.texasobserver.org/maternal-mortality-abortion-roe-dobbs/

#RoeVWade #SCOTUS #HumanRights #Healthcare #health #ReproductiveRIghts

A defunded IRS means a tax evasion free-for-all for the ultra-rich.

The richest 1% already evade as much as $163 billion a year in taxes.

This is why the GOP relentlessly tries to gut IRS.

It’s all a ploy to help their wealthy mega-donors.

Warming stripes for Hamburg / Bremen / Niedersachsen revealing a year to year internal climate variability in the overall positive temperature trend.

Thanks @ed_hawkins for originating the warming stripes.
#showyourstripes
https://climatejustice.rocks/@climatenews/110788748990879184

Wildlife surveys using 'DNA vacuums'! 🌳 💨 🦊 🦅 🐸

With just 3 days of ‘vacuuming’ airborne eDNA in a Danish forest, we detected 64 animals - domestic, exotic pets and.. over 50 species of wild birds, mammals and amphibians! This was our first exploration of airborne eDNA in a natural setting and we were especially surprised by the high number of bird taxa detected.

You can find the paper here: https://doi.org/10.1111/1755-0998.13840

Thank you to all coauthors and to VILLUM FONDEN for the support.

Children strive to become who you expect them to be. They learn so quickly I often feel envious!

They are doing the binary arithmetic, counting permutations and combinations and knowing the difference, build circuits to solve problems and using the concept of functions in computer programs.

They're 6th graders.

Suncor “forever chemicals” releases spike again as more PFAS hits Sand Creek and Adams County https://coloradosun.com/2023/07/28/suncor-pfas-forever-chemicals-discharge-health/?utm_content=bufferacb43&utm_medium=social&utm_source=Mastodon&utm_campaign=buffer

@alexwild @taylorlorenz

It's insane. But it's really happening.

When the Texas state #GOP forcibly took control over the Houston Independent School District, they decided to eliminate librarians and turn libraries into school jails.

Here's a post with a link to another article about it, with a video:
https://newsie.social/@ZhiZhu/110784123730243822

#Texas #Education #Libraries #Politics #USA #News

@NoTwit

It's like people's brains fall out of their heads.

"I don't understand why these kids are so bad, they have 90min of math every day and 90min of reading and never go outside. They have no art class and no school sports teams. There are police in the halls not hall monitors. Why oh why are they acting like children?"

Bjørn, R. (2022). Indo-European loanwords and exchange in Bronze Age Central and East Asia: Six new perspectives on prehistoric exchange in the Eastern Steppe Zone. Evolutionary Human Sciences, 4, E23. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/ehs.2022.16 #OpenAccess #OA #Journal #Research #Article #IndoEuropean #History #Histodon #Histodons #Linguistics #Archaeology #Genetics #BronzeAge #CentralAsia #Loanwords #Uralic #Turkic #OldChinese #Language #Languages #Culture #Academia #Academic #Academics @histodon @histodon @archaeodons @science
@linguistics