ceoln @ceoln@qoto.org

Hi Fedi Family,

In 2008 Californians voted for Prop8 that defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman in the California constitution. While this was defeated in courts this draconian Prop8 language is still in the California constitution. Justice tHomas and the right wing SCOTUS is openly hinting at destroying precedent and trampling rights. If they overturned Obergefell - the Prop8 language in the California Constitution will act as a “trigger law”, raining havoc on queer families like mine across California.

Please spread the word to vote “YES” to repeal Prop8 (2008) from the California constitution in Nov 2024. Talk to your friends, family and colleagues about it.

Boosts appreciated.

https://ballotpedia.org/California_Right_to_Marry_and_Repeal_Proposition_8_Amendment_(2024)

#lgbt #lgbtq #California #marriageequality #Prop8 #gay #lesbian #bisexual #transgender #queer #nonbinary #enby #HumanRights #Politics #USpol #scotus #lgbtqia #indivisible #equality #trans #love

"Musk, Tesla’s CEO and largest shareholder, moved the company’s headquarters from Silicon Valley to Austin, Texas, in 2021, partly because of tensions with various California agencies over practices at the Fremont factory."

Racist practices. That adjective is missing, yet important.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/mar/16/tesla-settles-racial-discrimination-claims

A snow-covered stage in an abandoned tuberculosis sanatorium's theater.

See the rest: https://www.abandonedamerica.us/undercliff-sanatorium

😆

Trump informed a rally in Ohio yesterday that there will be a "bloodbath" if he's not elected. Robert Reich responds:

"Trump is clearly desperate. He knows that his future freedom and his fortune both depend on winning in November. He has no qualms about turning Americans against Americans to achieve this goal. Apparently he is even willing to fuel violence, a second civil war."

#Trump #authoritarianism #fascism #violence

https://robertreich.substack.com/p/trump-is-out-of-his-mind-and-desperate

Study indicating students don’t learn well in rooms with over 700ppm carbon dioxide. And over 1300 they definitely can’t learn (I’ve flown in planes with levels that high).

Study was done in 1893.

Like global warming, this stuff has been known for more than a century. It was just inconvenient to making excess profit. https://bird.makeup/users/mdc_martinus/statuses/1768598494216864164

Birth control pills will be found on retail shelves in the US for the first time in a few weeks.

#Opill is 98% effective, quite affordable and is a progestin-only pills, which carries a very minimal risk of blood clots.

Quick explainer from a pharmacy professor:
https://theconversation.com/opill-the-first-over-the-counter-birth-control-pill-will-be-on-shelves-soon-here-are-some-key-things-to-know-225245
#birthcontrol #health

If you are asking about beautiful geese, here's the anser.

Graylag geese (Anser anser) in Barcelona last month.

#birdphotography #birdwatching

This is a welcome recognition by Majority Leader Schumer that the Netanyahu government cannot continue along its horrendous path. It’s time for the US to use our leverage to back this up with action. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/14/chuck-schumer-israel-speech

Things AI is good at now:
✔️ analyzing a massive log file
✔️ illustrating Will Smith eating spaghetti
✔️ fixing grammar and phrasing

Things AI is not good at now:
❌ medical or psychiatric advice
❌ driving
❌ illustrating people in cars

From the fabulous If, Then series: On Friday, March 22 at 1PM Angela Chang will lead If, Then-ers in a Remix-a-thon for Taper, an online literary magazine for small computational pieces, published by Bad Quarto. Taper is "a twice-yearly journal that hosts very short computational poems and other sorts of digital literary work, composed under the strictures of poetic compression and using practices of sizecoding. org by Carly Schnitzler and Lillian-Yvonne Bertram

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScr_VqI7As7gQvYaDVgYBiKzLbGGNi_Cy85FjqVITm12mWjMw/viewform

Yesterday the Rachel Maddow Show featured my scoop on a Russian disinformation op: Fake news sites meant to look legitimate sharing allegedly "leaked" audio of 2 US officials discussing backing Russian opposition. Take watch, and read: https://www.thedailybeast.com/victoria-nuland-and-jim-obrien-impersonated-in-russian-influence-hoax

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar notes that GOP gubernatorial candidate in North Carolina, Mark Robinson, has said, “I don’t care if you’re 24 hours pregnant. I don’t care if you’re 24 weeks pregnant. I don’t care. If you kill that young’un, it is murder.”

But Robinson admits he himself has paid for an abortion — so he's admitting to murder.

Kareem concludes, "Bad for Black people. Bad for North Carolina. Bad for America. But good enough for Republicans."

#MarkRobinson #GOP

https://kareem.substack.com/p/france-just-took-over-as-world-leader

Josh Kovensky reports,

"A men-only, Christian-only, right-wing secret society with the aim of installing certain kinds of Christians in a future U.S. government does not want to be called Christian nationalist."

#ChristianNationalism
/1

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/experts-place-new-secret-society-squarely-in-the-christian-nationalist-revival

Billionaires are taking over everything. How can we stop them? I have some thoughts. https://youtube.com/shorts/0BKGYKboVZQ?feature=shared

When eight-year-old Emma Glenfield wanted to know more about why magpies swoop at people, her teacher (Luke Carr) encouraged her to gather data and analyse it.

She noted that the birds seemed to target tall balding men, and created an online survey with the help of her mum. The survey went viral, with over 30,000 respondents.

The results, as shown in a brilliant Lego graph, demonstrated that the birds do target balding men more frequently (with less than 1% margin of error, thanks to the large sample size).

"According to magpie expert Darryl Jones, professor emeritus at Griffith University, it's the first time anyone has ever examined the link between magpie swooping and appearance."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-09/magpies-swoop-bald-more-often-survey-finds/103297520

The ABC article includes more details, along with this excellent Lego graph (and other great pictures).

#MathEd #Magpie #Lego #Australia

Gravity waves caused by complex terrain over the Tibetan Plateau can enhance the intensity of spring rainfall https://phys.org/news/2024-03-gravity-complex-terrain-tibetan-plateau.html #science

in honor of women's day, here is an extremely incomplete list of fellow women on Wikipedia who are iconic to me