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78 Following
380 Posts
Retired lawyer. Lover of the #sciences and good data. Love #books , #music, #audio , #Linux and other OSs, all things #computer . #Gardening , #cooking , #baking (esp bread) , #tea are also interests. Think people should be treated right.
So, I had the hubris to think that I belonged to the special group of people who would never get Covid. I reasoned that with my healthy diet and fitness level, I was exempt. Perhaps I even had resistant genes. Yeah, no. Today is the 20th day of Covid. I’ve lost so much weight that I had to go to the ER. I’m 5’7” and was down to 105 lbs. Please be careful. This virus isn’t kidding. #Covid #Elderly

Just an observation:
If we didn't already have them, the Republicans today would block the
Clean Air Act
Clean Water Act
Safe Drinking Water Act
Endangered Species Act
Toxic Substances Control Act
Resource Conservation and Recovery Act
Superfund Act

As it is, they're trying to roll back every one of these protections, and the SCOTUS is helping.

🚨 #MISSOURI: After a failed bill to CHARGE WOMEN WHO HAVE ABORTIONS WITH MURDER, Republicans have a bill to DENY MEDICAID COVERAGE FOR LIFE to any woman who's ever had one. Pregnant women CAN'T GET DIVORCED there either.

Donate to MO Dems today. #Blue24

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/moblue24?refcode=gabamasto

NEW: The seven-justice, all-Republican-appointee Florida Supreme Court, including five Ron DeSantis appointees, expanded DeSantis’s power to overturn the will of the voters on Thursday. https://www.lawdork.com/p/desantis-worrell-florida-supreme-court
DeSantis high court majority: DeSantis can easily oust people's elected prosecutors

The seven-justice, all-Republican-appointee Florida Supreme Court, including five Ron DeSantis appointees, expanded DeSantis’s power to overturn the will of the voters.

Law Dork
Kristian Andersen's mega thread in response to the recent NYT opinion piece on the origin of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic: https://bsky.app/profile/kgandersen.bsky.social/post/3ku7aov4pvd23 - a huge amount of work gathering together a huge amount of evidence.
Kristian G. Andersen (@kgandersen.bsky.social)

When dealing with pseudoscience, the devil is in the detail - in this case, narrowing down a specific "Lab Leak" hypothesis. In Dr. Chan's @nytimes.com OpEd there is, however, a very specific hypothesis for COVID-19 origin. It's a prime example of conspiracism vs empiricism, so let's dive in. 🧵 [contains quote post or other embedded content]

Bluesky Social

Most fake news on Twitter is spread by a tiny population called supersharers. Baribi-Bartov et al. identified a meaningful sample of supersharers during the 2020 US presidential election and asked who they were, where they lived, and what strategies they used:

 https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adl4435

The authors found that supersharers were disproportionately Republican, middle-aged White women residing in three conservative states, which are focus points of contentious abortion and immigration battles.

#US Secretary of State Antony #Blinken criticised Chinese support for #Russia's defence industry, saying #Beijing was currently the primary contributor to Moscow's war in #Ukraine though its provision of critical components for weaponry.

"#China can't have it both ways. It can't afford that. You want to have positive, friendly relations with countries in Europe, and at the same time, you are fueling the biggest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War,"

https://www.reuters.com/world/blinken-says-china-is-russias-primary-military-complex-supplier-2024-04-19/

Does your public library use Overdrive/Libby for ebooks or audiobooks? ⚠️

In the US and Canada, the answer is probably yes. And you should speak to your library staff and commission about it.

Libby is now owned by a private equity firm & making sketchy changes: https://buttondown.email/ninelives/archive/the-coming-enshittification-of-public-libraries/

The latest development is that their overbroad privacy policy allows them to sell your borrowing history to advertisers: https://infosec.exchange/@longobord/112243098104196246

Thank you @karawynn and @longobord!

#Privacy #Libraries

The Coming Enshittification of Public Libraries

Global investment vampires have positioned themselves to suck our libraries dry

If there's anybody interested in community conservation in Nepal, helping communities around Bardia National Park, to protect wildlife and minimize human-wildlife conflict, please share this crowdfunding link. Every cent goes to the community.
https://gofund.me/ed83556a
Read about the project here:
https://thelacandongringo.com/bardias-community-conservation-heroes/