Eric J. Korpela @SETIEric@qoto.org

The magnitude of the current sea ice extent (negative) anomaly in the #Antarctic clearly stands by itself relative to any other satellite year for May. Quite the opposite of the 2010s.

+ View other perspectives (including a narrower graph zoom): https://zacklabe.com/antarctic-sea-ice-extentconcentration/

It’s almost as if Evan Corcoran decided he didn’t want to be yet another Trump lawyer going to prison for Trump’s crimes. So he took notes. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/22/trump-warning-classified-documents-mar-a-lago

If you live in Minnesota and have a big heart, they are looking for host homes for LGBT youth.

https://www.mprnews.org/episode/2023/05/22/minneapolis-nonprofit-seeks-host-homes-for-transgender-youth-traveling-to-minnesota

You climb into a bed on which a cat is fast asleep.

They open one lazy eye, sigh, and stretch. They get up and move from their cozy spot to curl up against you, giving you a look of barely contained annoyance as they do so.

It is the greatest honour a feline can bestow. #cats

Was browsing pulp science fiction magazines and came across this gem of a classic cover.

The PA GOP’s new strategy is to defraud voters by hiding their Christofascist agenda. GOP Nominee for PA Supreme Court wipes anti-abortion views from her website. https://keystonenewsroom.com/story/republican-nominee-for-pennsylvania-supreme-court-wiped-anti-abortion-language-from-website/

Illinois state senator Neil Anderson said all gender bathrooms will cause violence

“I’m telling you right now, if a guy walks in there, I’m going to beat the living piss out of him. So this is going to cause violence, and it’s going to cause violence from dads like me.”

Meanwhile, in 2023:

16,514 gun violence deaths
232 mass shootings
687 children under 18 murdered

Where is their outrage over children being slaughtered by guns?

Lizards like this Republican do not care about kids.

You cannot negotiate with fascists.

@TonyStark GOP raised debt ceiling 3 times for Trump letting him add $7 trillion to the debt but now they lie that they worry about debt because Biden is a Dem and they want him to fail and the country as well.

Of course not because work requirements already exist.

But how about work requirements for corporate tax breaks? Work requirements for investors before getting carried interest breaks? And by work, I mean real work: not scheming on how to cut healthcare.

But Republicans would rather let the entire country collapse before raising taxes on billionaires.

House Republicans’ Work Requirements “Are Not About Work”-
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/05/house-republicans-work-requirements-harm-poor-matthew-desmond-poverty-america-interview/

If the 14th Amendment is open to question, as Republicans suggest, then the 2nd Amendment is open to question as well.

OK, maybe Trump can get away with shooting someone on 5th Ave., but what about a $2 million pardon bribery scheme?

Why was a scandal ignored for 28 months? And as Trump runs on a promise of 1/6 pardons, can we curb this dictatorial power?

If @willbunch wrote it, you should read it.© & I thread it. 1/...🧵

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/rudy-giuliani-selling-trump-pardons-20230521.html#loaded

Never take seriously those who ridicule low income people for having a smartphone or laptop.

“If they’re so poor how did they buy an iPhone???”

Because they’re trying to escape poverty, not the 1700s, genius. If you think basic tech access is luxury, try and survive a month without it.😐

there’s something extremely funny to me about claiming there is no such thing as reality, while using a device made of sand we convinced to do math and display pictures.

do y’all have any idea how mandatory it is to modern engineering that there is a unified reality with compressible models that can be converged on from any starting point? do y’all have any idea just how ridiculously many converging lines of evidence are behind the act of turning sand into high frequency mixed signal very large scale integrated circuits?

this shit isn’t fucking magic, it doesn’t happen because of vibes. it happens because tens of millions of engineers and technicians in a couple of dozen different disciplines understand the absolute shit out of reality. specifically, they understand the absolute shit out of a teeny tiny slice of reality, and if they weren’t all working on different slices of the exact same reality, none of this shit would ever function.

but carry on i guess. the sand that does math will keep doing it regardless of whether you believe in it.

Sometimes I think we live in bad times. Then "Operation Northwoods" pops into mind.

When you read about "Operation Northwoods" there is always a sentence "President Kennedy rejected the idea." I think this is supposed to make us feel better (?) but it has the opposite effect on me. Why would that even be on the president's desk? How did such mad men get so close to power that it was even... discussed?

I know there are other things bad, worse, but for some reason this one ... gets me.

#Garfield #music #DareToBeStupid
#bot #lyrics

“Pocket is getting a redesigned iOS app”

This is of interest to me because I am a *heavy* user of Pocket. They tell me I’m in the top 1% of their users at the end of each year so I looked forward to this redesign.

OMG

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a developer make such egregious UI decisions from one version to the next or TAKE OUT so many features that I relied on.

It’s so bad, I’m actively looking for alternatives to Pocket now.

Bravo Pocket, you asshats.

NC lawmaker’s words…- News &Observer https://apple.news/A26hgNE3uTRSejfPOTpnZRQ

“They don’t wear hoods. They are more likely to be caught praising Jesus than spouting racial epithets. In moments such as the 1 this past wk btwn McNeely &Jones on the House flr, they are even willing to sound humbled &apologize to a Black colleague they had demeaned w/a racial stereotype often deployed to put Black people back in their place. Not even Black men as accomplished as Jones can avoid such belittling.”

Justice Gorsuch calls Covid safety measures “the greatest peacetime intrusions on civil liberties in American history.”

White wealth privilege is ignoring 400 years of Native genocide, 265 years of Black slavery, & 99 years of Jim Crow—but lamenting 1 year of PTO during COVID.😑