US Capitol Police says its officers confiscated an M-4 style “ghost gun” and a Glock handgun with full auto switch while they were patrolling the perimeter of the Capitol Complex, near the Senate Parks. https://www.uscp.gov/media-center/press-releases/uscp-officers-confiscate-m-4-style-ghost-gun-handgun-during-arrests
Time to stay out of Florida... it's nazi central down there. Desantis is working with the 1931 Germany playbook and it's working.
All the fascists around the country and slathering to get started in their own states following his lead since no one is pushing back against him.
The ever dependable Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic) with a blistering diatribe against corporate “recycling” programs...
_______________________________
Plastic recycling’s origin story starts in 1973, when Exxon’s scientists concluded that plastic recycling would never, ever be cost-effective.
Exxon sprang into action: they popularized the recycling arrow logo and backed “anti-littering” campaigns that blamed the rising tide of immortal toxic garbage on peoples’ laziness.
When I was a kid in Ontario, we had centralized, regulated, reusable bottle depots — beer and soda bottles came in standard sizes, differentiated by paper labels that could be pressure-washed off. When you were done with your bottle, you returned it for a deposit and it got washed and returned to bottlers to be refilled again and again and again.
After intense lobbying from soda companies, brewers and the plastic industry, that program was replaced with curbside “blue boxes” that promised to recycle our plastic waste. 90% of the plastics created has never been — and will never be — recycled. Today, the plastic industry plans on *tripling* the amount of single-use plastic in use worldwide.
Think of the billions of human labor hours we all spent washing and sorting our plastics for a recycling program that didn’t exist and will never exist — imagine if we’d spent that time and energy demanding that our politicians hold petrochemical companies to account instead.
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FULL ARTICLE HERE -- https://doctorow.medium.com/dow-promised-to-turn-sneakers-into-playground-surfaces-then-dumped-them-in-indonesia-ef7e1168a0c1
Sad news - Daniel Ellsberg, the whistleblower of the Pentagon Papers, has incurable cancer. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and Ellsberg brought much needed light on the Vietnam War. The publication of the docs he leaked in the NYT and WaPo led to a critical Supreme Court decision on freedom of the pres. Justice Hugo Black (concurring in the judgment) frames the reasons why we need a strong press, which necessarily relies on whistleblowers, shedding light on the government.
Florida's anti-blogging bill would attempt to restrict what we can say here about Florida's politicians:
https://www.thedailybeast.com/floridas-anti-political-blogging-bill-is-just-as-crazy-as-it-sounds
A “news” agency pushing the “big lie” knowing that it was false. You got to feel bad for the people who get their information from them. What else are they being lied to about? How many other daily lies are they being innocently fed? It’s a huge betrayal to them & the rest of us.
“Murdoch said Fox News hosts Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro all endorsed the notion that the election was stolen.”
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/murdoch-dominion-lawsuit-election-lies_n_63fd2a38e4b0db7a1f675085
PEI is also banning TikTok from government devices.
---
RT @InfoPEI
Province banning TikTok on Government connected devices #peigovnewsrelease https://www.princeedwardisland.ca/en/news/province-banning-tiktok-on-government-connected-devices
https://twitter.com/InfoPEI/status/1631034249842249732
Calling on Cable Companies to Shut Down #FoxNews #Newsmax, #OAN
WHY?
SEDITION/RACISM/LIES
#Comcast
#Xfinity
#ATT
#CharterCommunications
#Spectrum
#DishAndSlingTV
#CoxCommunications
#Verizon
#AlticeUSA
#FrontierCommunications
#Mediacom
#CableOne
GREED or DEMOCRACY
The day before Jan. 6 attack, top Fox execs discussed whether to make primetime hosts dispel election lies
Rupert understood that Fox could do something about the false claims… uniquely positioned to state the message that the election was not stolen
#MOG
https://www.rawstory.com/fox-news-discussed-dispelling-lies/
Musk’s defense of Scott Adams shows why he is misguided and dangerous https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/01/elon-musks-defense-of-scott-adams-shows-why-he-is-misguided-and-dangerous?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
#RonDeSantis is now boasting that, with his cronies and contributors holding improvement district control over #WaltDisneyWorld, he can start forcing Disney to produce non-"woke" stuff that he and his base want to see.
Yes, Ron is escalating from "I'm going to punish you for criticising my agenda" to "I'm going to force you to vocally support me and mine," all through the coercive power of the state.
He's a budding #autocrat and he's probably running for #President .
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/03/desantis-promises-florida-will-control-disney-content.html
BREAKING: Napa mechanic Ian Rogers was sentenced to 9 years in prison today for plotting to blow up the Democrats Sacramento HQ in retaliation for the 2020 election. A co-defendant is scheduled to be sentenced later today. https://www.vallejosun.com/napa-mechanic-who-plotted-to-bomb-democrat-hq-sentenced-to-9-years/
Biden has the GOP cornered on Social Security cuts, so why would any Democrat try to help them out? Ridiculous.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/1/2155678/-Why-is-this-Democrat-helping-bail-out-Republicans-on-Social-Security
Republicans are 'emboldened' because there has been no accountability for J6: ex-White House lawyer - Raw Story - Celebrating 19 Years of Independent Journalism https://www.rawstory.com/republican-party-emboldened-january-6/
RT @Andrew__Roth
Horrific story of a girl whose father was arrested and is facing placement in an orphanage because she refused to take part in a school-mandated campaign. to support the war and drew a picture in support of Ukraine instead. https://twitter.com/ovdinfo_en/status/1630876575829721090
I've never subscribed to the New York Times, not even when I lived in New York. Though I did buy it most days at the newstand, back when those existed.
But I've also never told people I thought they should cancel their subscriptions.
I'm saying it now. The Times has gone increasingly right wing ever since 9/11: the paper today is on balance more a force for evil than for good.
https://xtramagazine.com/power/what-went-wrong-at-the-new-york-times-246409
Senator Joe Manchin and the Pipeline
So. Cal. engineer (hardware/software since 1968, retired, he/him), born at 313 ppm, musician, chef, now living in West Virginia. KW2P ham radio (the original social network), father of three, grandfather, astronomy, solar dynamics, photography, writing, birding, birdwatching, eBird, fountain pens, cats and dog, reader of banned books, scary fast Python jockey, Chairman of the Charcuterie Board, Whisk Manager, Compuserve refugee, founder of The Church of The Unwarranted Assumption. Crypto is short for cryptography. Blog: shuttersparks.net
#HamRadio
#Morse
#MorseCode
#Birding
#BirdWatching
#eBird
#wv
#WestVirginia
#food
#cooking
#astronomy
#physics
#engineering
#photography
#FountainPens
"To hold a pen is to be at war." --Voltaire
"I never understood wind. You know, I know windmills very much. Gases are spewing into the atmosphere. You know we have a world, right? So the world is tiny compared to the universe. So tremendous amount of fumes and everything." --Donald Trump