Gaythia Weis @Gaythia@qoto.org

ICYMI - 2022 was the hottest year on record for our oceans...

+ Study: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00376-023-2385-2
+ Summary: https://carbonbrief.org/state-of-the-climate-how-the-world-warmed-in-2022/

Federal minimum wage in:

2009: $7.25
2010: $7.25
2011: $7.25
2012: $7.25
2013: $7.25
2014: $7.25
2015: $7.25
2016: $7.25
2017: $7.25
2018: $7.25
2019: $7.25
2020: $7.25
2021: $7.25
2022: $7.25

The result: It's now worth 41% less today than it was in *1968*.

The problem with charts such as this (from Edelman's Trust Barometer) is that they portray authoritarian regimes as not polarized--because there is little or no freedom to express dissent. And they lead to the assumption that the most polarized nations are the most troubled when, in fact, they are the ones fighting off authoritarianism because they are threatened by it. Another way to look at this is to see the danger of *not* being polarized.

Americans will really do anything to avoid using the metric system.

You know what I notice about the pics at the World Evonomic Forum in Davos? The HEPA filters in every room. And that they’re all sitting around in their coats. Because the windows are probably open (for ventilation).

Not to mention that we know a negative PCR test was required for their badges to work.

We now know how to gather safely. We’re just treating those things as luxuries afforded only to the rich, while our kids’ schools are full of every respiratory virus.

#Covid #WEF23 #Davos

A reminder of *why* people are leaving their countries in the first place: "UNHCR considers that the situation prevailing in Nicaragua may be characterized as a massive violation of human rights."

https://refworld.org/docid/63bc17264.html

#books #reading #libraries

'How you could build a search that the fediverse would welcome' by @anildash is such a good and thoughtful read. Really impressed to see so much good writing lately about the #fediverse and how to move this weird project of ours forward! :undefined::undefined: :undefined:
https://anildash.com/2023/01/16/a-fediverse-search/

I’m sick and tired of hearing this lie peddled by the GOP and corporate media. Raising the debt ceiling does not increase spending or the federal debt. It simply allows the government to pay bills it has already taken on— and defaulting on the debt would be catastrophic.

For those interested in #evolution, here's a blog post I wrote about Stephen Jay Gould's famous book "Wonderful Life" and the genesis of the #LTEE.

https://telliamedrevisited.wordpress.com/2022/11/22/its-a-wonderful-life/

It's not The Onion, just the Texas Legislature.

SB 471 would fine Texans for making complaints about ongoing pollution to the state agency that regulates pollution. Their mission: "Protecting Texas by reducing and preventing pollution."

Compliments of an elected official who receives legal bribes from oil and gas.

#ClimateEmergency #oilandgas

https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/88R/billtext/html/SB00471I.htm

This ancient Hawaiian multi-elevation polyculture system is extremely productive. European colonizers ruined most of them. They are coming back. #Permaculture instructor Andrew Millison journeys to #Hawaii to investigate the ecological and cultural #restoration work of actively rebuilding the traditional Ahupua'a watershed-scale agricultural system on Oahu. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7q8friw1p8

Mapping the coastal erosian in California caused by January's heavy rain, using aerial imagery and photogrammetry.
https://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2023/01/californian-coastal-erosion.html

The Long Fight for the King Holiday

The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, 1968 brought a rude re-awakening to Americans that their country’s commitment to racial equality was threadbare.

1/10

#BlackMastodon #BlackFedi #BlackExcellence #BlackTwitter #History #MlKDay #histodons #Holiday #CivilRights #BlackHistory #News

As DeSantis tries to impose an ideology of violent white supremacy on the University of Florida, accreditation agencies, collegiate athletic conferences, and national funding bodies should start thinking about their response.

Doing nothing is an endorsement of white supremacy and greenlights more extreme measures to come.

#Florida #academia

It's 2023 and Black people in the USA still don't have equal voting access. Like I said, the civil rights era didn't end. You are still in it.

People just pretended that the civil rights era ended once they had assassinated enough of the major civil rights leaders. But the objectives of the civil rights era have not yet been achieved.

Now we have to listen to racists that misquote MLK, and then disrespect modern day civil rights leaders like Kaepernick and Stacey Abrams the very next breathe.

Ron DeSantis is spearheading the red-state assault on the 1960s civil rights revolution - he has been the most effective champion of a white reactionary counter-mobilization against whatever racial and social progress has been achieved in America. It simply does not get any more shameless than this.

For those among us with an aversion to waking up before dawn (🙋🏻‍♂️), #comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) will be well-positioned in the northern hemisphere evening sky beginning in the last few days of January. Visual brightness is expected to peak on about1st February. #astronomy

📷: Stellarium simulation