Barbara 🇺🇦 @babs_at_masto@qoto.org
Joined Nov 2022
Barbara 
boosted
boosted
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.
Barbara
boosted
boosted
“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
Barbara
boosted
boosted
JD Vance, who previously said Trump could be "America's Hitler" has agreed to serve as VP for America's Hitler.
Barbara
boosted
boosted
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/
I think there could be a service that does this, though - a central sort of clearinghouse you might pay a monthly fee to (or get billed at the end) and then just charge against that fee or whatever.
But maybe there's just not a market for it, I don't know.
I have never had more than 1 streaming service at a time, myself! Can't imagine paying for more than one, but then I'm kind of cheap....
@Daojoan Netflix is $10/month, plain and simple. But nobody can subscribe to dozens of publications at that price.
What they need to do is start to charge per piece, a small amount. People would pay a dollar (for instance) to read one article they're especially interested in. I don't know why this hasn't already happened tbh.
Barbara
boosted
boosted
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
Barbara
boosted
boosted
“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
Barbara
boosted
boosted
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?
Barbara
boosted
boosted
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
@jerzone Sometimes they get stuck in there. Once I came home to see just the tail sticking up out of the metal tube feeder: I had to take it down and pour some oil into it so the fat thief could get himself unstuck....
Barbara
boosted
boosted
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:
Barbara
boosted
boosted
Facebook bots invading forums where people are trying to have conversations with other people is a genuinely evil development.
Barbara
boosted
boosted
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.
Barbara
boosted
boosted
"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."
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.
Barbara
boosted
boosted
“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
Barbara
boosted
boosted
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.
