Barbara 🇺🇦 @babs_at_masto@qoto.org

#Russia is ready to carry out cyber attacks on the UK and other allies in a bid to weaken support for #Ukraine, acc to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Pat McFadden, whose role includes responsibility for natsec. In this latest warning he'll say the Kremlin could target British businesses and leave millions without power.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ceqxezer7nqo

The #plastics industry has heralded a type of #chemical #recycling it claims could replace new shopping bags and candy wrappers with recycled ones — but not much is being recycled at all, and this method won’t curb the #plastic crisis.

#News #Video #Environment #EPA #Business #Oil #Chemicals #Government

https://youtu.be/06wOoPngOwM?feature=shared

A lesson for journalists, scientists and really anybody who cares about #climatechange:
Using terms like
“Climate crisis”
“Climate emergency”
or
“Climate justice”
doesn’t increase people’s sense of urgency, willingness to support climate-friendly policies or willingness to act.
https://theconversation.com/if-you-want-americans-to-pay-attention-to-climate-change-just-call-it-climate-change-235002

BREAKING - Joe Biden proposes 3 major Supreme Court reforms

1) 18 year term limit
2) binding and enforceable ethics code
3) constitutional amendment stating that ex-presidents do NOT have immunity

Wonderful news — and then let’s add 4 more justices and a maximum age of 75

"Nowadays, autocracies are run not by one bad guy but by sophisticated networks relying on kleptocratic financial structures, a complex of security services — military, paramilitary, police — and experts in surveillance, propaganda, and disinformation.”
https://on.ft.com/3WRLWfT

My point here is that if you hate hate hate something Harris has done or said, ask yourself whether you're willing to help put a fascist in the White House by punishing her for that single transgression.

I beg you to see the bigger picture.

“What percentage of the American population has @realdonaldtrump sexually assaulted?”

-- JD Vance tweet, October 2016*

* since deleted, because Vance is a craven bootlicking flip-flopper

JD Vance, who previously said Trump could be "America's Hitler" has agreed to serve as VP for America's Hitler.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/07/15/who-is-jd-vance-what-to-know-about-trump-possible-vice-running-mate/74364451007/

Violent language invites violence.

Such language changes brains and can result in real world consequences.

The power of violent language far exceeds mere words.

And no one has done more to inject violent language into our politics than Donald Trump.

Analysis with @gilduran at the FrameLab Newsletter
https://www.theframelab.org/donald-trump-language-of-violence/

When a wild orangutan in Sumatra suffered a facial wound, he did something that caught the attention of the scientists around him:
He chewed the leaves of a liana vine, a plant not normally eaten by apes. Over several days, he carefully applied the juice to its wound, then covered it with a paste of chewed-up liana.
The tropical plant he selected has antibacterial and antioxidant properties and alleviates pain, fever, bleeding and inflammation.
https://theconversation.com/animals-self-medicate-with-plants-behavior-people-have-observed-and-emulated-for-millennia-229768
#science #health

“The forest welcomed us with all its beauty. In a region where winter is a far longer season than elsewhere, spring, summer, and autumn have about half a year left to share between the three of them. So, they each have to rush their seasonal rituals faster than elsewhere.”

https://theplanet.substack.com/p/how-weekly-walks-in-nature-help-me

This smells like a real story. The headline says “mystery fundraising firm,” but there’s no evidence of a fundraising firm. There is a Delaware LLC, apparently a ghost or a shell—no address except a post-office box—that has received $3.1 million in Trump campaign cash.

Where did the money go then? Into thin air?

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/mystery-fundraising-firm-takes-millions-trump-campaign-rcna156755

Rows of lace patterns left behind at the abandoned Scranton Lace Company in Scranton, PA. These huge sheets were essentially punchcard code that told the machinery how to produce the desired pattern. See the rest of the photos and read the history on Abandoned America: https://www.abandonedamerica.us/scranton-lace-factory

Meta is deploying chatbots powered by AI to impersonate humans in its discussion groups. The chatbots make stuff up—that is their nature. One invents a nonexistent child. Another pretends to have nonexistent merchandise. It shouldn’t be necessary to explain how vile and poisonous this is, but Casey Fiesler spells it out:

https://theconversation.com/ai-chatbots-are-intruding-into-online-communities-where-people-are-trying-to-connect-with-other-humans-229473

#Meta #AI

Facebook bots invading forums where people are trying to have conversations with other people is a genuinely evil development.

https://theconversation.com/ai-chatbots-are-intruding-into-online-communities-where-people-are-trying-to-connect-with-other-humans-229473

The Nation magazine devotes its current issue to how Trump and his army of extremist apparatchiks would turn the U.S. into a sicker, more violent version of Orban's Hungary -- or worse.

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/project-2025-democracy-fcc-fec/

This is journalism that does what we need right now.

It is journalism aimed at saving our democracy -- and, by extension, freedom expression, which is one of the most threatened rights should the right wing take full control.

It is the kind of reporting we need from all journalists.

"Rather than visiting red-state diners," writes Rick Perlstein with his standard brilliance, "reporters ought to journey to the venerable conservative message board where the talk after the Trump verdict was nihilistic and bloody."

https://americanprospect.bluelena.io/index.php?action=social&chash=e0688d13958a19e087e123148555e4b4.2748&s=cdaeb39801506c81595dd2c142301827

The extreme right -- increasingly endorsed by the Republican Party -- is already violent, and it's planning a massive escalation.

But Big Journalism refuses to see it.

Wake the hell up, media.

“Addressing modern environmental crises requires an understanding of deep history – not just written human records, but also ancient connections between humans and the natural world.”

More from an archaeologist who studies long-term human interactions with nature:

https://theconversation.com/humans-have-been-altering-nature-for-thousands-of-years-to-shape-a-sustainable-future-its-important-to-understand-that-deep-history-226106
#environment #climatechange

Dairy farmers get vast subsidies from taxpayers -- ridiculously high subsidies.You would imagine that would persuade them to do their civic duty in reporting possible bird flu cases. Nope.

https://www.notus.org/healthcare/farmer-bird-flu-cases-hide-cows-federal-government

If bird flu breaks out widely in humans, it will be beyond catastrophic.