Eric J. Korpela @SETIEric@qoto.org

In the richest nation on earth, a man died in the freezing cold Mississippi woods on Christmas Day while trying to walk home to his family.

They had been unable to wire money to him or help him get a bus ticket because he didn’t have a current ID.
https://www.sunherald.com/news/weather-news/article270464302.html

It's pretty remarkable how much Elon's Twitter takeover is a textbook fascist takeover: leftists immediately purged, censorship regime imposed behind the scenes, secret police rooting out enemies, right wing terrorism supported by the state, etc and how uncannily similar the mainstream liberal response of pretending nothing is wrong is, even with *very low* costs of walking out the door and refusing to collaborate.

This is soul-crushing, but needs attention. #Amtrak called the cops on two elderly black women because their small emotional support dog had an accident on the train. Amtrak collected their money, allowed the dog on board, then stranded the three on the side of the tracks in life-threatening cold, far from their destination, at Christmas. And except for one protesting passenger, the rest sat in silent complicity. White people, this is NOT okay. #Racism #BLM #BlackMastodon https://twitter.com/viewofone/status/1606825555462062080?s=61&t=M2hA_QVG5-2tJQX-vdmzsg

Americans can help defeat a fascist billionaire oligarchy with the choices they make but instead are like “choosing a server is too hard!!” 😩

@AriCohn “I said ‘Jew-ish’, not ‘Jewish’” would once have been career-ending, because once we all pretended that candidate virtues mattered, but now it’s acknowledged openly that voters do not care about intelligence, honesty, or competence, just party affiliation, and there’s no reason to resign, no matter how many gaffes you make, because the people who vote for you don’t care, and the people who don’t vote for you don’t matter.

he tweeted this and got a search ban within 20 minutes. his name doesn't even appear in the search listings if you type his username. he has 1.2 million followers

George Santos should resign as Congressman-elect. If he refuses, Congress should expel him. He should also be investigated by authorities.
Just about every aspect of his life appears to be a lie. We’ve seen people fudge their resume but this is total fabrication.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/26/nyregion/george-santos-interview.html

I could keep going, but I feel that I'm wasting my time and probably yours as well.

I don't know whether the article @SpencrGreenberg wrote is an elaborate prank or whether he has made the mistake of confusing his own ignorance for that of the field, but suffice to say each and every one these "rarely-discussed" issues that he broaches are areas of major research interest.

So much for being "pro-life."

Maternal death rates in states that restricted abortion were 62% higher than in states where abortion was more easily accessible, new research showed.

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/abortion-restrictions-higher-maternal-infant-mortality-rcna61585

#abortion #AbortionIsHealthcare

A startup has gone full rogue, dumping sulfur dioxide into our shared atmosphere as a geoengineering proof of concept - without any consultation or oversight.

"Make Sunsets, appears to have moved forward with launches from a site in Mexico without any public engagement or scientific scrutiny. It’s already attempting to sell “cooling credits” for future balloon flights that could carry larger payloads."

Make Sunsets CEO refers to it as "geoengineering activism"

https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/12/24/1066041/a-startup-says-its-begun-releasing-particles-into-the-atmosphere-in-an-effort-to-tweak-the-climate/

The slow destruction of Twitter means I don’t have to limit myself to 280 characters anymore.

So this is a LONG-ASS post about having been online for decades & lost so many spaces to malfeasance and malice & what to do now, how angry I am & how hard this will never stop being.

Because I need to SCREAM ABOUT THIS TRASH.

https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other-and-start

The perfect storm Musk is hoping for in the flight tracking world may be coming…
Facts we know
- The Saudi Arabians own a large stake in Twitter
- The Saudi Arabians also don’t like flight tracking, they’ve contacted ADSBExchange to request to be blocked and offered money. They’ve also expressed there concerns to the ICAO.
(1/2)

It’s time to admit that I have accepted the role as Twitter’s new CEO. The age of light is over. I promise to usher in a thousand year reign of darkness and misery.
…
…
… still better than Musk

@rbreich So #ClarenceThomas already broke the law when he failed to recuse in the case of his traitorous wife #GinniThomas #January6 treason texts to #MarkMeadows, and neither the #Republicans nor the #Democrats are doing anything

Greg Abbot intentionally chose Christmas Eve to attack migrants seeking shelter. Fascist losers like him get off on the hypocrisy of claiming to be Christian.

To be fair, and as the article acknowledges, #Mastodon *is* harder to use than #Twitter or #Facebook. A lot of the difficulty is in deciding where to get started, the paralysis of choice, and that can leave a bad taste in your mouth which affects the whole experience. First impressions matter.

But it isn't *that* much harder, and there's real value in choice too. More to the point—again as the article says—there's value in, well, values. Nobody's getting rich off Mastodon. It exists because people think something like it would be neat to have, and they want to share that neatness with others who think the same. There are egos involved to be sure, but no one person's ego can bring it all crashing down.

As a practical matter, it is AFAICT the first and only open-source, distributed, not-for-profit social media platform that registers as a threat to the big players. That counts for a lot in my book.

Remember when the internet felt promising instead of overwhelming, depressing, and sometimes terrifying? Mastodon's bringing some of that back, at least for me.

It's December 24th and that means it's time for the ceremonial recitation of the annual vow that we are never ******* doing this ******* **** again. We're just going to go to ******* Hawaii. #Xmas

If your headline is "#Putin Says #Russia Ready to Negotiate", hours after his forces killed 16+ civilians & wounded 64 in #Kherson...

...stand in the corner and have a long think about responsible journalism.

(https://reuters.com/world/europe/putin-says-russia-ready-negotiate-over-ukraine-2022-12-25/)

#UkraineWar

He talked about electric cars. I don't know anything about cars, so when people said he was a genius I figured he must be a genius.

Then he talked about rockets. I don't know anything about rockets, so when people said he was a genius I figured he must be a genius.

Now he talks about software. I happen to know a lot about software & Elon Musk is saying the stupidest shit I've ever heard anyone say, so when people say he's a genius I figure I should stay the hell away from his cars and rockets.