gAlienLifeform

gAlienLifeform , 1 year ago

Yep, and the harmful policies from moderate Dems have continued

As the United States pours billions into the project of capturing carbon, though, it has few plans in place to ensure this gargantuan build-out of new infrastructure performs the heroic tasks that climate models say it will need to.

There are also few guardrails against letting polluters have a say in how, exactly, that infrastructure gets built. Last summer, the Texas Railroad Commission, or RRC—the state’s oil and gas regulator—applied to the Environmental Protection Agency for the ability to oversee a key part of this process: the wells where carbon dioxide gets injected into rock formations deep underground for storage. Granting the application would mean that rather than the EPA making sure the wells are safe, the responsibility would switch to the RRC.

The Biden EPA has encouraged states to take charge of the permitting process, inviting them to apply for $50 million provided by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act to administer that process. But last week, Texas Representatives Lloyd Doggett and Joaquin Castro, both Democrats, penned a letter to the EPA encouraging it to reject the RRC’s application.

“It would simplify matters to just send money directly to Exxon and ask them to self-report if they feel like,” Doggett told me over the phone, noting the uncapped donations the commission’s entirely Republican members receive from the fossil fuel industry.

gAlienLifeform OP , 1 year ago

Infuriating, but not surprising. They’re convinced the consequences of it are only going to hit poor and non-white people in the global south, and they don’t see them suffering and dying en masse as anything worth panicking about because they’re genocidal shitheads.

gAlienLifeform OP , 1 year ago

Who do you think appointed Garland?

gAlienLifeform OP , 1 year ago

That link isn’t working for me for some reason, could you please edit in the text of the comment you’re referencing here?

gAlienLifeform OP , 1 year ago

This bit of the article and the Washington Post report it links to really demonstrates our problem concisely

[Jack Smith] carried out his investigation and drafted Trump’s indictment at a remarkably swift pace—Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed him only last November—even as he was also overseeing the probe into Trump’s mishandling of sensitive federal documents at his Mar-a-Lago compound. So while it is indeed a relief to ponder the prospect that Trump may face actual consequences for his subversion of the Constitution and his governing oath, it’s also vital to ask ourselves just why and how a case this important for the rescue of whatever remains of our democracy, and founded on a great deal of already available public information, aroused such belated and half-hearted interest from the justice system.

…

Alas, the same basic profile of a sclerotic and unresponsive status quo holds for the federal enforcement of election law, as the institutional background behind Smith’s January 6 probe makes all too clear. From the outset of his tenure atop the Justice Department, Attorney General Merrick Garland evinced little interest in mounting any such investigation, fearing that the GOP’s permanently aggrieved MAGA base would view it as a weaponized, partisan effort to hound Trump into political irrelevance. As a blockbuster report by The Washington Post’s Carol D. Leonnig and Aaron C. Davis revealed this June, for a full year after the insurrection, Garland’s team looking into January 6 “consisted of just four prosecutors working with agents with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the National Archives and Records Administration.” Garland also shunned any wider probe into Trump’s coterie of political shills and hack-legal advisers building the case for him to gin up a bogus roster of alternate electors from swing states to throw Congress’s January 6 certification of results into chaos. Those sycophants and grifters are now unnamed co-conspirators in Smith’s indictment, and will be subject to future legal proceedings. In the end, Garland didn’t mount an investigation into the electors scheme until 15 months after the failed coup attempt.

gAlienLifeform OP , 1 year ago

Yeah, I think that’s a better way to put this. I’d also add that I don’t think progressives are going to be able to take on Republican fascism and win without having the moderates on our side, so calling them fucking stupid might not be helpful (though I fully understand the impulse because they’ve been making this same mistake since at least the Reagan years).

gAlienLifeform , 1 year ago

Update on this story, they ended up recovering two bodies. Haunting similarity to what happened with Emmet Till James Chaney, Andrew Goodman,and Michael Schwerner , when the FBI dredged the Mississippi for their bodies they found a number of lynching victims they weren’t even looking for.

e; I misremembered which hate crime the FBI was investigating when this happened, the Wikipedia article I linked under the correct names also notes

During the investigation, searchers including Navy divers and FBI agents discovered the bodies of Henry Hezekiah Dee and Charles Eddie Moore in the area (the first was found by a fisherman). They were college students who had disappeared in May 1964. Federal searchers also discovered 14-year-old Herbert Oarsby, and the bodies of five other deceased African Americans who were never identified.

gAlienLifeform , 1 year ago (edited 1 year ago)

I strongly feel I agree with this sentiment, people should be able to fix them if they’re able to, but I don’t know if I would be comfortable with a post getting removed because it used the original article’s clickbaity headline. Like, clickbait-iness is a little subjective, and re-writing a headline well can sometimes be tough if the story’s complex.

e; hopefully more clear language

gAlienLifeform , 1 year ago (edited 1 year ago)

I disagree, different perspectives from different reporters almost always add at least some new information and seeing how many outlets are reacting to a story gives me a sense of how “big” the story is. I’d make an exception if the article text is 100% identical because it’s an AP reprint or something, but otherwise I think the mods should leave this alone.

e; apologies for double post, having some site/app instability at the moment

gAlienLifeform , 1 year ago

So what does “a source” mean in this rule? So long as the article text isn’t a 100% copy of a story that’s already been posted (like with AP articles that get reprinted in dozens of papers) we’ll be ok to post it, right?

Getting multiple perspectives on a story is a big part of why I come to forums like these, and I worry that it’s just going to get ugly if we have a situation where you’re removing the NPR article about something because someone posted the Wall Street Journal coverage of it first (or vice versa).

gAlienLifeform , 1 year ago

I think unless there’s a demonstrable factual inaccuracy in an article or if the source is on the blacklist a post shouldn’t be removed under rule 2. One person’s obvious ____ wing source is another person’s unbiased reporting.

I also think there should be some kind of notice when a site gets added to the blacklist where you lay out your reasoning and users can either challenge or support the decision.

I’m not trying to support the spread of misinformation and there are definitely some publications out there I don’t think anyone should ever read again, but this kind of rule can get out of control quickly and can create a lot of bitterness and chaos in a community if it’s not handled carefully imo.

gAlienLifeform , 1 year ago

Ah, I must have missed the part about things not being automatically deleted, that makes all this feel a bit better.

We would love to do that, but we simply don’t have the time

That is totally fair, and thank you for all the time you already spend on this! So long as the blacklist is in the sidebar or some other prominent place that’s a reasonable time saving compromise.

gAlienLifeform , 1 year ago

Very good, thank you for clarifying that!

gAlienLifeform OP , 1 year ago

Yeah, ok, the US Department of Commerce is buddying around with arms manufacturers at conventions in Vegas because they want to protect the ability of peoples’ movements to resist their governments, this definitely isn’t about arming right wing death squads financed by oligarchs or anything like that /s

gAlienLifeform OP , 1 year ago

Yeah, that’s fair, I was being lazy and in a rush when I posted this but I’ll do an edit

gAlienLifeform OP , 1 year ago

And whether or not we have a monopoly, we contribute to it in unacceptable ways. The United States having bad policies that harm innocent people doesn’t mean other governments don’t also have bad policies that harm innocent people, but those other governments’ policies absolutely do not justify turning a blind eye to our own.

gAlienLifeform , 1 year ago

Bush did 9/11

gAlienLifeform OP , 1 year ago

Actually, trans people have been more likely to be brutalized by police for a long time

reuters.com/…/us-usa-lgbt-police-idUSKBN0M02JM201…

www.vox.com/…/police-black-trans-people-violence

gAlienLifeform , 1 year ago (edited 1 year ago)

Those less responsible authors should be shown this study from the same organization last month showing similar problems on Twitter

In the course of the investigation, researchers found that despite the availability of image hashes to identify and remove known CSAM, Twitter experienced an apparent regression in its mitigation of the problem. Using PhotoDNA, a common detection system for identified instances of known CSAM, matches were identified on public profiles, bypassing safeguards that should have been in place to prevent the spread of such content. This gap was disclosed to Twitter’s Trust & Safety team which responded to address the issue. However, the failure highlights the need for platforms to prioritize user safety and the importance of collaborative research efforts to mitigate and proactively counter online child abuse and exploitation.

That being said, people who code for the Fediverse should see this report and pay particular attention to things like

Current tools for addressing child sexual exploitation and abuse online—such as PhotoDNA and mechanisms for detecting abusive accounts or recidivism—were developed for centrally managed services and must be adapted for the unique architecture of the Fediverse and similar decentralized social media projects.

I honestly don’t know crap about coding, but this seems like a very solvable problem and something I’d very much like for the people who do to engage with. I would absolutely donate some money to support a project like this.

e; I guess what I meant to say is I would absolutely donate some money to purchase API keys from Microsoft

gAlienLifeform , 1 year ago

Oh, surely they don’t charge for a tool to stop child abus-

“PhotoDNA Cloud Service is free for qualified customers”

Wow, say what you will about capitalism, but it really is an engine for innovation and coming up with new ways to make me lose faith in humanity

gAlienLifeform , 1 year ago

Yeah, I’m just discovering that it’s proprietary

In 2009, Microsoft partnered with Dartmouth College to develop PhotoDNA,

Good to know my tax dollars went to helping Microsoft develop another product! /s

gAlienLifeform , 1 year ago

Nice, yeah hopefully this feature or something that accomplishes the same spreads* throughout the Fediverse quickly

*Like, it would be really cool if there was a way to fight child porn that didn’t involve relying on a for profit company, but chipping away at our screwed up economic system is a lower priority than stopping child abuse

gAlienLifeform , 1 year ago

That’s good, but it is still just mind blowing to me that we let a bunch of private for profit companies take the lead on this. This is the sort of thing the FBI ought to be all over developing and maintaining and handing out to everyone if they weren’t a bunch of stupid assholes busy harassing environmentalists and police brutality protesters.

gAlienLifeform , 1 year ago

And, in a development that should come as zero surprise to anyone who hasn’t been in a coma for like a decade, Texas immediately threw this sternly worded letter back in DOJ’s face and kept on doing exactly as they have been doing.

Can we just skip to filing the lawsuits the next time Abbot or DeSantis or whichever fascist in this country feels like pulling a campaign stunt with taxpayer dollars?

gAlienLifeform OP , 1 year ago (edited 1 year ago)

This is about bottled water at the commissary, but

Because of the ongoing heatwave TDCJ guards pass out glasses of cold water each day, and TDCJ has pointed out the men have access to tap water. But many current and former inmates have expressed concern about the water quality of the aging prisons — many older then 50 years.

“I would never drink the water at the tap,” said Don Aldaco, a recently paroled man who spent 24 years in various TDCJ facilities. “I would always get a piece of a sheet and I would tie it on the actual spigot, like a filter. I would have to change it like every other day because of all the rust and all the crud coming out.

Other current inmates commented on the smell of tap water in specific facilities resembling sewage. A TDCJ spokeswoman called the claim false.

“I actually begged him not to [drink the tap water],” said Amy Aguilar, whose loved one is at TDCJ’s Ferguson Unit. Her significant other — whose name she asked TPR to not use — has described the water as “rancid” smelling. And she said she was concerned about the quality.

“Do you smell the sewer?” Aguilar said she asked him, “And he goes, ‘you kind of just smell it all. It’s just this big ole rich mix of rancid smell.’ ”

Water quality in prisons nationwide have been characterized as very low, due to the age of the facilities and the often remote locations.

e; this is over a decade old now, but this bit from a documentary where they check out a convention for prison vendors gives you an idea of how much money’s going on behind this whole evil system

gAlienLifeform OP , 1 year ago

I mean, with how our system works I’d bet this company (Commissary vendor Royal Pacific Tea Company) and TM share some investors at least, but this sort of thing is not unique to Texas prisons or limited to commissary fees.

gAlienLifeform OP , 1 year ago

The Republican party has been running on fascism since Goldwater made his 1964 presidential campaign all about opposing the Civil Rights Acts imo, the fact that we weren’t all talking about it so directly until Trump tore the mask off was a combination of it being a really disturbing thing we just didn’t want to admit and our culture being guided by privileged pundits and media executives and poloticians and think tank members and etc. who are too wealthy and white to experience the consequences of Republican racism

gAlienLifeform OP , 1 year ago (edited 1 year ago)

I’m definitely no libertarian, but I do have one quibble with this - entirely private prisons are actually very little of the prison space in the United States. However, government run prisons do hundreds of millions of dollars in business with private vendors for things like the commissary and healthcare and phones &c., and all those businesses gouge taxpayers and inmates for substandard goods and services, because they’re able to negotiate sweetheart contracts with government bureaucrats who don’t give a shit and get lobbied like crazy (vendor salesperson: “Oh, your annual salary is only what? Ha, I’ve gotten commission checks higher than that! Let me get the tab for our lunch today.”).

So it’s a bit complicated but at the end of the day underfunding government services and throwing all of our responsibilities for things like taking care of our prisoners to for-profit companies is what’s caused all of this, so the solutions to these problems aren’t going to be coming out of a libertarian playbook imo.

gAlienLifeform OP , 1 year ago

Y’know, you had a bit of a point with your first comment, and I can definitely sympathize with getting frustrated when you’re trying to talk about serious issues and it feels like people aren’t listening to you (and I don’t know the history you’ve had in this community with that), but I don’t think you’re doing your ideas any favors with this

gAlienLifeform OP , 1 year ago

Yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve read any British history but let’s just say this is far from the first time an organization with the words “Royal” and “Tea Company” in their name made a pile of money from the suffering of captive people

gAlienLifeform OP , 1 year ago

Not on Lemmy anyway, but I think this commenter is coming from Mastodon and idk how that works

gAlienLifeform OP , 1 year ago

Oh yeah, I think I knew that at one point and then forgot it, thank you for reminding me

gAlienLifeform OP , 1 year ago

Putting people at risk of dehydration and death is obviously very rehabilitative /s

gAlienLifeform , 1 year ago

“Best I can do is persecute asylum seekers.”