…you’ll never guess…but
A small network of pro-Kremlin content creators have seen their audiences grow dramatically in recent months while spreading disinformation about the war in Ukraine, evading social media platforms’ efforts to curb Russian propaganda and paving a path to Western audiences, according to research published Wednesday.
The creators are self-described “independent journalists” whose reports are often made from Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine and amplify Kremlin talking points and downplay or deny reported Russian atrocities. Researchers say the on-the-ground reports — which come in English, French, German and other languages — have proved effective at circumnavigating commitments from European governments and U.S.-based social media platforms to stop the spread of Russian propaganda.
[…]
Most of these efforts focused on official Russian government and state media accounts. That plan, while partially effective, misses a major vector of Kremlin disinformation, according to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based think tank that produced the research.
“The current strategy is too focused on explicit affiliation with the Kremlin, state media accounts and outlets, journalists with explicit affiliations, and embassies and consulates,” said Melanie Smith, ISD’s director of digital analysis. “It misses a large volume of content coming from actors who can reach huge audiences very quickly and spread pro-Kremlin disinformation without the state actually having to be directly involved.”
[…]
The war against Ukraine has been a boon to once small-time, Kremlin-friendly content creators, some of whom have been active for years. The researchers identified a group of 12 of the most influential of these creators, who post to social sites including YouTube, Telegram, Facebook and Twitter.
[…]
Among the dozen most influential Western propagandists identified by ISD is Alina Lipp, a German creator who claims backing Ukraine is akin to supporting Nazism and reported the debunked claim that Ukrainians perpetrated a false flag massacre at a maternity hospital in Mariupol. Lipp’s following (mostly on Telegram, but also YouTube) grew from about 2,000 in February to over 160,000 in May. Lipp did not respond to a request for comment.
ISD also named Eva Bartlett, a Canadian activist who previously pushed conspiracy theories alleging Syrian rescue workers known as the White Helmets were staging fake attacks during the Syrian civil war. Bartlett isn’t employed by RT, the Russian state-controlled news network, but she has written op-eds on RT’s website, makes videos with RT correspondents and shares archived versions of RT content to get around the platforms’ blocking of Russian state media. Facebook has labeled Bartlett’s posts with a disclaimer that she “may be partially or wholly under the editorial control of the Russian government.” Bartlett did not respond to a request for comment.
Gonzalo Lira, a Chilean American who previously posted misogynistic content, now makes pro-Russian videos from inside Ukraine, including denying Russian involvement in what Ukrainian officials say was the killing of more than 400 people in the city of Bucha.
[…]
The most popular of the pro-Kremlin influencers identified by researchers is Patrick Lancaster, a Missouri-born Navy intelligence veteran and self-described independent crowdfunded journalist embedded with the Russian army. Since December, Lancaster’s YouTube channel has grown from 57,500 subscribers to more than 500,000, with daily dispatches from Russian-occupied Ukraine. His videos are often breathless reports with graphic footage of dead bodies, violence for which Lancaster claims Ukraine is responsible. The scene in at least one video was reportedly staged. Lancaster often appears on Russian state media and on the Texas-based conspiracy theory radio show “Infowars.”
[…]
“Some of the disinformation that we see spread quickly isn’t being fact-checked because they’re reaching an audience that is deemed to be smaller or less important than that reached by RT and Sputnik, but the talking points are the same and the evidence being presented is the same,” Smith said. “These are independent people who can speak freely within the bounds of the policies of the platforms. And sometimes, that spills over into incitement of violence, denying war crimes and spreading very blatant pieces of disinformation about the context of what’s happening and about how people are being victimized.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/russian-propaganda-efforts-aided-kremlin-content-creators-research
…&…not sayin’…but not not sayin’
A change to Facebook’s recommendation system likely accounted for a disproportionate boost in visibility and engagement to conservative political groups on the social media platform starting in 2018, according to research published Wednesday.
[…]
Researchers at Miami University and Wright State University, both in Ohio, used CrowdTangle, a social media analysis tool owned by Facebook’s parent company, Meta, to collect the data. They found that posts from local Democratic and Republican party pages generally had the same rate of interactions until 2018. By 2019, both parties were receiving more interactions, but a large gap formed. By July 2019, posts from local Republican parties were being shared more than three times as often as posts from local Democratic parties.
An author of the paper, Kevin Reuning, an assistant professor of political science at Miami University, pulled the data in 2020 for a different project. He said he initially didn’t understand the divergence in engagement. He said he considered that perhaps the Republican messages were just resonating more, but the same pattern wasn’t found on Twitter, and it was consistent on Facebook across over 1,000 Republican pages.
The new paper adds to a growing collection of data-based research that shows Facebook has consistently amplified content from conservative accounts. It is the first to suggest that an algorithm change Facebook announced in 2018 amplified Republican causes at a hyperlocal level, allowing the Republican Party to reach a wider audience and potentially affect local and state elections. Reactions, comments and shares began to trend down on Republican posts by 2021, and the gap between local Republican parties and their Democratic counterparts began to narrow again. The data ends in April 2021.
[…]
A 2018 overhaul in Facebook’s News Feed product toward what it called “meaningful social interactions,” or MSI, boosted content using reactions, comments and shares, and it was meant to predict which posts users wanted to interact with and deprioritize public and news content. In practice, according to internal Facebook documents and outside researchers, letting MSI determine how content appeared to users made the platform an angrier, more polarized place, and it rewarded users and groups who shared the most divisive, shocking and misinformed content.
[…]
The impact MSI had on global politics was known within Facebook.
“Our aim to foster more meaningful interactions (MSI) with close friends is deeply laudable,” read a 2019 internal memo from a team of data scientists, which was included in the documents provided by Haugen and viewed by NBC News. “But our approach has had unhealthy side effects on important slices of public content, such as politics and news.” The data scientists wrote that there was “strong evidence” that the impacts were attributable to its algorithm.
The internal memo reported that political parties were engaging in increasingly harsh attacks on their political opponents and taking more extreme policy positions. The political parties were “trapped in an inescapable cycle of negative campaigning by the incentive structures of the platform,” according to the memo, which cited political parties in the European Union, India and Taiwan.
[…]
The Miami University research didn’t analyze the tone or the specific subject of the posted content, so it’s unclear whether local Republican Party pages may have been rewarded for existing levels of negativity or whether they may have noticed the increased engagement for the polarizing content and produced more of it, as the Facebook internal memo reported global political parties did.
Even as the reach of local Republican parties approached new heights, the national GOP messaging remained rooted in an ideologically opposed argument: that Facebook was somehow throttling conservative messages and hampering their ability to connect with supporters.
In a 2020 Pew Research Center survey, 90 percent of Republicans reported believing that social media platforms intentionally censored political opinions.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/facebooks-2018-algorithm-change-boosted-local-gop-groups-research-find
…which I’m sure you find entirely surprising…not to mention shocking…& totally not wildly predictable in an all-too-familiar way
Republican politicians are preparing a media onslaught to deflect, discredit and delegitimise Thursday’s opening hearing of the House of Representatives panel investigating the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol.
…& though I do hope these things manage to get some of the more overwhelming facts about quite how fucked up a thing went on that day…for folks who’ve been playing along at home in the sense of paying attention…I fear it may be a bit like watching a documentary about a subject you know a fair bit about…in the sense that it might feel like kind of a dumbed down explanation of something that’s by way of seeming like it could have said a lot more…but…hope springs eternal & all that sort of thing…including, apparently, the hope that some people might just…not bother?
While major TV networks broadcast the first session live in prime time, Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News will stick with its usual show, Tucker Carlson Tonight, which has long pushed Donald Trump’s talking points.
Trump loyalists are expected to flood the airwaves with claims that the January 6 select committee lacks credibility and Democrats are out of touch with more pressing concerns such as inflation, crime, border security and baby formula shortages.
[…]
In what amounted to an attempt at a prebuttal, Stefanik described the January 6 committee as “unconstitutional” and “illegitimate” and designed to “punish” the House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s opponents. She criticised its decision to hire James Goldston, the former president of ABC News, to help make its presentation compelling.
[…]
The comments set the template for Republican counter-programming on conservative media such as Fox News, Newsmax, the One America News Network, Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast and other outlets that will seek to portray the hearings as a sinister show trial in which Trump supporters are the victims.
Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the House judiciary committee, wrote on the Federalist website: “The committee’s real goal, and what it hopes to achieve with its unprecedented subpoenas and its bright-light hearings, is a repudiation of conservatism and all those who hold conservative values.”
[…]Republicans, who previously rejected an independent September 11-style bipartisan commission, have sought to downplay the attack and deny the legitimacy of the committee, alleging that it is driven by political motivations to abolish the electoral college and prevent Trump’s re-election.
[…]
Kinzinger responded to Fox News’s lack of planned coverage by tweeting: “If you work for @FoxNews and want to maintain your credibility as a journalist, now is a good time to speak out, or quit. Enough is enough.”
News coverage of the hearings will be relegated from Fox News to its sister channel, Fox Business Network, which has much lower ratings. Carlson, who will go head to head with the hearing at 8pm on Thursday, has claimed the insurrection “barely rates as a footnote” and described the committee as “wholly illegitimate”.
Tara Setmayer, a former Republican communications director on Capitol Hill turned Trump critic, said: “The Republican party and rightwing media is no longer interested in telling the truth, which is why they’re avoiding showing the hearings.
[…]
Setmayer added: “The truth is s so damning for the Republican party and they know it. We’re hearing about everything else because they know they can’t stand on the merits of the other side. That’s why we’re hearing about caravans and crime and all of the hot-button cultural issues that fuel the Republican party and get their people riled up instead of the truth of January 6. They can’t handle it.”
[…]
Charlie Sykes, founder and editor-at-large of the Bulwark website and author of How the Right Lost Its Mind, said: “There’s going to be a full-court press to delegitimise the hearings, to throw up as much smoke and dust as possible, which is interesting to me. The conventional wisdom is that these hearings are not likely to move a lot of votes or change the midterm elections but Donald Trump and the Republicans are certainly acting as if they pose a threat. Otherwise, why would they be mobilising like this?
“Obviously they see the hearings as somewhat dangerous. From Trump’s point of view, what he is most concerned about is the fact that it’s going to be on primetime television. He’s a television guy and he understands the power of this and I’m guessing the fact that they’ve hired a guy who’s a documentary maker really got his attention down at Mar-a-Lago.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/08/house-capitol-attack-hearings-republicans-trump
…anyone remember what it was like when there was a quiet part?
…because the part where the guy who got punched…knocked down by the candidate…all that stuff…on video no less…is the sole person that got cited (for trespass & simple assault)…that seems to say some stuff pretty loudly in that instance…& yet seems like a mere drop in the ocean when it comes to the surfeit of stuff that ought to disqualify people from office plays precisely to the voters they hope will provide them with it…then again…maybe there is a quiet part…sort of?
The Supreme Court handed down a decision on Wednesday which effectively gives Border Patrol agents who violate the Constitution total immunity from lawsuits seeking to hold them accountable.
Justice Clarence Thomas’s majority opinion in Egbert v. Boule, moreover, has implications that stretch far beyond the border. Egbert guts a seminal Supreme Court precedent, Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents (1971), which established that federal law enforcement officers who violate the Constitution may be individually sued — and potentially be required to compensate their victims for their illegal actions.
Egbert is a severe blow to the broader project of police accountability. While it does not target lawsuits against state law enforcement officers who violate the Constitution, it all but eliminates the public’s ability to sue Border Patrol officers — and possibly all federal officers — who commit similar violations.
In fairness, Egbert does indicate that people who believe their rights were violated by federal law enforcement may file a grievance with the law enforcement agency that employs the officer who allegedly violated the Constitution. But such grievances will be investigated by other law enforcement officers, and no court or other agency can review a law enforcement officer’s decision to exonerate a fellow officer.
And, perhaps most importantly, Egbert most likely shuts down a civil rights plaintiff’s ability to be compensated if their rights are violated.
[…]
These facts, as Justice Sonia Sotomayor notes in dissent, closely track the facts of the Bivens case. In that case, Sotomayor explains, “the plaintiff alleged that Federal Bureau of Narcotics agents unlawfully entered his apartment in New York City and used constitutionally unreasonable force to arrest him.” And Bivens determined that this plaintiff could sue the officer who allegedly used excessive force.
The Fourth Amendment prohibits “unreasonable searches and seizures.” And Bivens established that a violation of this amendment “by a federal agent acting under color of his authority gives rise to a cause of action for damages.”
Before Wednesday’s decision in Egbert, in other words, it was well-established that federal law enforcement officers who use unconstitutionally excessive force may be sued in federal court. Egbert explicitly exempts all Border Patrol agents from this rule, and it could be read to exempt nearly all — if not all — federal law enforcement officers from Bivens suits.
[…]
Shortly after Bivens was decided, however, President Richard Nixon made two appointments to the Supreme Court, giving the Court a new majority that was far less sympathetic to the rights of criminal defendants. And, in large part due to the Electoral College and a malapportioned Senate that gives Republicans an unfair advantage in the fight for control over the judiciary, the Court has marched steadily rightward ever since.
As a result, the Court’s most recent decisions, including Egbert, describe Bivens suits as a “disfavored judicial activity.” Indeed, the Court has signaled that it is eager to overrule Bivens — although Egbert doesn’t go quite that far.
In Hernández v. Mesa (2020), the Supreme Court held that the family of a Mexican child could not sue a Border Patrol agent who shot and killed their 15-year-old son — even if they could prove that the officer shot the child in cold blood and without provocation. The five justices who joined the majority opinion in Hernández concluded that it is “doubtful that we would have reached the same result” if Bivens were “decided today.”
Egbert echoes this view, stating that “we have indicated that if we were called to decide Bivens today, we would decline to discover any implied causes of action in the Constitution.” Thus, while Egbert puts off until another day the question of whether to overrule Bivens in its entirety, it’s not hard to see where this train is headed.
Egbert also makes explicit what was probably implicit in the Hernández decision — that Border Patrol agents in particular have total immunity from Bivens suits, and thus may not be sued for constitutional violations. “We ask here whether a court is competent to authorize a damages action not just against Agent Egbert but against Border Patrol agents generally,” Thomas writes, adding, “the answer, plainly, is no.”
More than that, Thomas announces a new rule that federal courts must apply in all Bivens lawsuits moving forward. The Court should reject the lawsuit if there is “any rational reason (even one)” to deny the claim.
…why is it that the “rational” part doesn’t seem…well…rational?
As Sotomayor notes in dissent, both Bivens and Egbert involved similar excessive force claims brought against law enforcement. And the holding of Bivens was that any “federal agent acting under color of his authority” may be sued if they violate the Fourth Amendment. But Egbert denies Boule’s Bivens claim, largely because Boule’s claim involves a Border Patrol agent, while Bivens involved a claim against officers from the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, an agency that ceased to exist in 1968.
Egbert, in other words, can plausibly be read to forbid all Fourth Amendment lawsuits against federal officers who do not work for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics — which no longer exists! At the very least, Egbert means that federal judges must go hunting for any possible reason to deny a Bivens suit.
https://www.vox.com/23159672/supreme-court-egbert-boule-bivens-law-enforcement-border-patrol-immunity
[insert this-is-fine.jpg here]
…so I’m sure you’re all very relieved that susan collins is currently confident that
“We’ve made a lot of major decisions,” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, a leader of the [bipartisan] group [of senators huddled Wednesday in the Capitol to negotiate new laws to prevent future candidates from stealing elections], said in an interview before the meeting. “We’ve resolved a lot of issues, but we have some more work to do, which I hope we’ll finish up this week.”
The senators haven’t reached a final agreement, and success would mean avoiding a number of potential political pitfalls. In addition, any bill would require at least 60 votes to break a filibuster and pass the Senate.
[…]
The main issue the Senate group hasn’t resolved, two sources familiar with its work said, is how to address the “safe harbor” deadline — the date by which states must certify their presidential election results to ensure they are counted without interference from Congress. But what if a state misses the deadline? What if it sends an “alternate slate” of electors for a losing candidate?
The Senate negotiations have occurred on a parallel track to the House Jan. 6 committee’s highly anticipated prime-time hearings, which begin Thursday. They began this year after Democrats failed to pass a party-line bill to overhaul voting rights laws across the country. The bipartisan talks focus not on ballot access but rather on counting votes and making sure winners take power.
[…]
“We were fortunate that the last election wasn’t close, that Biden won commandingly. But if it should come down in the future to a single state and an interpretation of the Electoral Count Act, then God help us,” said Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. “There’s so much ambiguity in that law. It could lead to a real constitutional crisis.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senate-bipartisan-group-eyes-deal-week-bill-prevent-future-coups
…but with susan collins & her limitless troves of grade-A prime concern on the case…I’m sure we need not concern ourselves with such things
Two U.N. food agencies issued stark warnings Monday about multiple, looming food crises on the planet, driven by climate “shocks” like drought and worsened by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine that have sent fuel and food prices soaring.
The glum assessment came in a report by two Rome-based food agencies: the World Food Program (WFP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
[…]
“The effects are expected to be particularly acute where economic instability and spiraling prices combine with drops in food production due to climate shocks such as recurrent droughts or flooding,” the joint statement from the U.N. agencies said.
Among critical areas cited is East Africa, where the United Nations said an “unprecedented” drought is afflicting Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya. South Sudan, meanwhile, faces a fourth straight year of large-scale flooding.
The report cited other sobering climate impacts: above-average rain and a risk of localized flooding in the Sahel, a vast swath of Africa stretching south of the Sahara Desert.
It also cited a more intense hurricane season in the Caribbean and below-average rainfall in Afghanistan. That Asian country is already suffering through multiple seasons of drought, violence and political upheaval, including after the return of Taliban rule last summer.
https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/climate-shocks-fueling-multiple-looming-food-crises-un-says
…I bet none of that particularly concerns ol’ susan, though…not with all the “major decisions” that have been taken
The US Department of the Interior will halt the sale of single-use plastics in national parks, wildlife refuges and other public lands, though not entirely until 2032, with a reduction planned in the meantime. The government will look to identify environmentally preferable alternatives to plastic bottles, packaging and other products, such as compostable materials.
Previously, national parks were able to ban the sale of plastic water bottles but this was stopped by Donald Trump when he was president. The Trump administration echoed the sentiments of the bottled water industry in preventing the ban.
[…]
Plastic pollution is now widespread across the US and the rest of the world, with trillions of tiny pieces of plastic found in the oceans, where much of the waste ends up. Plastics are so pervasive they have been found in the lungs of people and in freshly fallen snow in Antarctica.
The growing production of cheap, disposable plastics has been exacerbated by a falling recycling rate, which has dipped to about 5% in the US following some countries’ refusal to take shipments of American waste.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/08/biden-ban-single-use-plastic-national-parks-public-lands
…after all…what’s the harm?
The city pulls its water deep underground from the Southern Hills aquifer, which requires little to no treatment to drink, unlike other Louisiana communities such as New Orleans, which draws its water from the Mississippi River and requires heavy treatment.
But the pristine water source for the predominantly Black city of Baton Rouge is facing a serious and worsening threat from over pumping: saltwater intrusion. Much of it can be attributed to unchecked water use by the industrial sector, including by the oil and chemicals corporation Exxon, the toilet paper producer Georgia-Pacific and the power company Entergy. Without intervention, the currently clean water source for more than 500,000 people in six parishes could become undrinkable for residents, according to a Louisiana legislative auditor report. It could also be detrimental to Rogers’ livelihood.
[…]
Across the globe, the industrial sector is the second largest freshwater user after agriculture. The processes of refining oil into gasoline, making petrochemical products and cooling power plants requires billions of gallons of water every day.
In Louisiana, industry uses more groundwater than in any other state except California, according to the US Geological Survey. For decades, industrial users have been able to pump water out of Baton Rouge’s aquifer effectively without limitations – no withdrawal caps on individual wells and no metering requirement, according to a 2019 report by the state legislative auditor. Some similar groundwater districts in Florida and Texas, in comparison, do restrict how much water can be withdrawn from individual wells.
[…]
In 2020 alone, Exxon’s chemical facility in north Baton Rouge used 7.3bn gallons of water from the aquifer, enough to fill the Superdome stadium about eight times. The only company to use more was the Baton Rouge Water Co, which sells water to residential users.
[…]
The threat of saltwater intrusion has been well known and documented for years, but those fighting for more oversight and restrictions on industrial water use say they have met stiff resistance. A bill vetoed by the Louisiana governor last year would have made it legal for employees of Exxon and other companies to be members of the regulatory body overseeing water use in the Baton Rouge area. A similar bill introduced this legislative session passed the Louisiana senate and house and and was sent to the governor on June 2.
[…]
In 2021, state lawmakers passed a symbolic, non-binding house resolution urging and requesting the Louisiana department of natural resources to limit the amount of groundwater that any industrial or commercial facility can draw from the aquifer to 5m gallons per day by 2026. That would be a steep decrease from the 50m gallons per day commercial and industrial facilities used on average in 2020.
[…]
For most of its history, the Capital Area Groundwater Conservation Commission, which is tasked with managing the aquifer, was chaired by someone employed by one of the companies it regulates. From 1975 to 2004, 80% of commission chairs worked for ExxonMobil, Entergy, Georgia-Pacific or another large commercial or industrial water user, according to a report from the Louisiana department of natural resources. From 2013 to 2020, employees of regulated businesses held the chairmanship three times, and others served as committee chairs or vice-chairs. Commissioners are appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Louisiana senate.
[…]
The conflicts were so apparent that in a rare instance, five water commissioners were hit with ethics charges in 2020 for working for companies the water commission regulates. But the charges were dropped this past February after their terms ran out or they resigned.
[…]
A 2020 audit of the state legislature found that Louisiana spent more than $5m on a dozen water resource and management studies but still lacked a comprehensive water management plan.
In an effort to verify the water use of industry, in May last year the commission approved a measure requiring a meter on every well in the district. Previously, the commission relied on companies to estimate their water use. But in February, the Baton Rouge Water Co sued the commission over the metering measure, arguing that the meters would be inaccurate because of turbulence inside the twisting pipes that transport the water.
[…]
Gary Beard, executive director of the Capital Area Groundwater Conservation Commission, disputed the claims. Beard has more than 40 years of experience as a civil engineer, specializing in environmental treatment systems.
“These meters are used throughout the world,” he said.
There remain no measures to limit how much freshwater is pulled from each well.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/08/louisiana-saltwater-intrusion-water-exxon-georgia-pacific
…studies do show that denial is the most cost effective form of business-as-usual
In 1980, a report circulated to a division of one of the biggest coal-burning utilities in the US warned that “fossil fuel combustion” was rapidly warming the atmosphere and could cause a “massive extinction of plant and animal species” along with a “5 to 6-meter rise in sea level” across the world.
[…]
Not only did Southern Company fail to adjust its business model towards cleaner energy sources, it began paying for print advertisements saying climate change was not real. “Who told you the earth was warming,” asks one ad from 1991.
Years after receiving multiple credible warnings about the atmospheric damage caused by its reliance on burning fossil fuels, Southern Company paid over $62m to organizations with a long record of spreading disinformation about climate change, a report released today by a fossil fuel watchdog called the Energy and Policy Institute has found.
Southern has now become the third-largest greenhouse gas polluter in the US due to its fleet of coal and gas-burning power plants, and until relatively recently was still denying the science behind global temperature rise. “Do you think it’s been proven that CO2 is the primary climate control knob?” the Southern Company CEO, Tom Fanning, was asked on CNBC in 2017. “No, certainly not,” he replied.
[…]
Watchdog researchers found that the electric utility paid more than $20m alone to the Edison Electric Institute, a trade group that in 1991 helped create one of the first ever media campaigns designed to “directly attack the proponents of global warming,” according to internal documents.
Southern Company also worked directly with the Center for Energy and Economic Development – an industry group which received at least $200,000 from the utility to spread pro-coal messages to the public. In 1994 and 1995, they collaborated on energy workshops that were broadcast across the US with Southern’s satellite technology. Hundreds of middle school and high school teachers attended.
“After the program,” reads a digital newsletter summarizing the event, “one government official who attended one of the sites was heard to exclaim, ‘I didn’t hear anything that would make me vote to spend any money on this problem (of global climate change).’”
[…]
These denial efforts are all the more striking because in the early 1970s, several Southern affiliates joined with dozens of other US utilities on a research effort whose goals including studying the “effects of CO2” on the climate.
Utility research groups funded in part by Southern Company released a 1988 study warning that “climate changes possible over the next 30 years may significantly affect the electric utility industry”.
[…]
The total of $62.1m is probably just a small snapshot of Southern Company’s denial funding too, the report explains, because after 2005 Congress changed SEC filing requirements for utility holding companies “and the money trail largely faded”.
[…]
Exxon, by comparison, paid over $33m to such groups over a period of 18 years.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/08/georgia-southern-company-climate-denial-ads
…still & all…it might be worth a watch?
The New York Times will provide live video of the hearing at nytimes.com along with live discussion and analysis from Times reporters. All of the major broadcast networks plan to carry the hearing live, as do the major cable news networks, with the exception of Fox News.
Committee leaders have indicated that the focus on Thursday will be on presenting a complete timeline of the riot, beginning with the 2020 election and extending through the riot itself and its aftermath.
[…]
The hearing is also likely to highlight the involvement of the Proud Boys, the far-right group whose members played a critical role in the storming of the Capitol. The committee said the witnesses at the session would include Nick Quested, a documentary filmmaker who was embedded with the group in the run-up to Jan. 6, and Caroline Edwards, a Capitol Police officer who was injured at the start of the violence.
[…]
Future hearings this month are expected to focus on other issues, such as the effort by Mr. Trump to install a loyalist atop the Justice Department, the pressure campaign on Vice President Mike Pence to prevent Congress from certifying the Electoral College count and the way Mr. Trump encouraged supporters — including far-right and militia groups — to come to Washington for the rally on Jan. 6 that immediately preceded the attack.
[…]
The committee’s next hearing is scheduled for Monday at 10 a.m. The panel has yet to announce dates and times for subsequent sessions, but it is expected to hold two more next week and others the following week.
[…]
The committee plans to release its final report in September, ahead of the midterm elections.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/07/us/politics/jan-6-hearings-watch-tv-channel.html
…things like truth & justice may well be priceless…but…less comfortably…there’s another way to think of that term
The Hospital Price Transparency Law is intended to make the hidden costs of services such as X-rays, medical tests or colonoscopies clear to patients before they enter the hospital.
But a study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association added to mounting evidence that hospitals are largely ignoring the law.
[…]
The report analyzed 5,000 hospitals nationwide and found that just 300, or fewer than 6 percent, were fully compliant with the rule, meaning they had publicly published both machine-readable files and separate price estimators for shoppable items. Many hospitals were partly compliant, but 50 percent had neither of the two required components.
[…]
A recent audit that included 1,000 randomly selected hospitals found that as of early 2022, 99.5 percent of hospitals owned by the three largest hospital systems in the country — HCA Healthcare, CommonSpirit Health and Ascension — aren’t abiding by the new law. No hospital with HCA Healthcare, the largest system in the country, was compliant by early 2022.
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/hospitals-are-required-post-prices-common-procedures
…still…at least now I figure I know what they mean when they talk about “rude health”?
Countries around the world are pouring funds into new natural gas facilities that could destroy the chances of limiting global heating, in response to soaring energy prices and the war in Ukraine.
[…]
The findings, from the Climate Action Tracker research initiative, show a dash for gas under way that will lock countries into fossil fuel use at a crucial time, when scientists have warned that a decisive turn towards lower-carbon alternatives within the next few years is the only way to stave off climate breakdown.
[…]
The report highlighted the US, which has signed a deal to export additional LNG to the EU, through an increased effort on fracking. Germany and Italy have also signed deals with Qatar as a gas supplier, as has Egypt, the host of the world’s next climate summit, Cop27 in Sharm El-Sheikh this November.
Canada also plans new LNG production, fast-tracking construction to meet export demand. Overall, fossil fuel production has increased in Canada, the US, Norway, Italy and Japan, according to Climate Action Tracker.
The UK is also facing a massive expansion of oil and gas production in the North Sea, as the government has imposed a windfall tax on the industry that contains a loophole encouraging companies to invest in new production.
[…]
Oil and gas companies around the world are enjoying a bonanza after the war in Ukraine sent energy prices – already rising as the world recovered from the economic shock of Covid-19 – to fresh highs.
The dash for gas comes as scientists have warned it is “now or never” on the climate. Global greenhouse gas emissions must be halved by 2030, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, to give the world a chance of limiting global temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, the target agreed at last year’s Cop26 climate summit.
Some countries have argued that gas production has a role in the transition to a clean energy future, as gas produces less carbon dioxide than coal. But the International Energy Agency warned a year ago that no new oil and gas exploration could take place from this year on, if the world was to limit global heating to 1.5C.
Separate research has also found that moving directly to renewable energy from coal is cheaper than using gas as a “transition” fuel.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jun/08/gold-rush-for-gas-production-threatens-to-lock-in-global-heating
…at least tomorrow’s friday?
[…I’ll try to find some tunes when I get a chance]
I was watching Meltdown about the Three Mile Island Meltdown on Netflix. Same mendacity and corporate greed with environmental disaster on the line. Especially regarding cutting costs on the cleanup bill to save money and increase corporate profits plus regulatory chumminess and denial about the dangers. Some things never change.
As for Russian disinfo, that’s all they got. They’re destroying their army in the Ukraine (both sides losses are huge) as the Russians have pretty much drained their pool of trained infantrymen and modern armor. They’ve been seen pulling old T-62 tanks out of storage (which have older weaker armor, less capable electronics and same turret flipping/crew killing capabilities with ammo storage around the turret ring.) It doesn’t help that their stocks of western electronics for spares and replacements have dwindled down to nothing so they have nothing to replace their lost/damaged modern equipment.
They can keep denying reality, but reality keeps punching them in the gut (much like what reality is doing to their Americanski puppets, the GOPers, these days.)
…if I’m honest, though…I might be less optimistic about how badly the bad guys are doing?
…like…ok, things in ukraine haven’t gone the way it seems the russians wanted/expected…but…they haven’t exactly gone anyone else’s way…which is one of those things about proxy wars, I guess…& in some respects
…leaving aside all the other ways that driving a refugee population into EU countries while disrupting supply chains of various sorts that include fundamentals like energy & food might arguably provoke some stuff vlad & co. likely look pretty favorably on…that strip along the south that wants to run from russia along the top of crimea clear across to moldova?
…between that & this sort of thing
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/ng-interactive/2022/jun/09/the-black-sea-blockade-mapping-the-impact-of-war-in-ukraine-on-the-worlds-food-supply-interactive
…I find it hard to ignore that a lot of signs point towards us collectively continuing to not knock it off with the fossil fuel business…& there was a thing I linked to way back when this was still a relatively recent invasion that painted an unpleasant picture of one way that could play out in which the long term picture in which the vast majority of surviving arable land capable of sustaining the kind of harvests global food supply relies upon wound up being territory no one really disputes is & has been russian pretty much forever?
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-big-thaw-how-russia-could-dominate-a-warming-world
…I’m no expert on the subject…but the russian sense of humor can be pretty bleak…& I don’t much relish contemplating what might qualify to some of them as “having the last laugh”?
…so…I dunno…I don’t exactly think things should be going well for russia…or lack sympathy for the people of ukraine bearing the brunt of this war…but I’m pretty sure things are in fact going pretty badly for all of us…it’s sort of like a fractal that way?
…but I’ll shut up now…there’s only so much friday can be expected to make up for without me going all out to hamstring its chances of getting a jump on any of it?
The “Power to the People/Protest Songs” image featuring the Sacco and Venzetti image reminded me of a grim factoid I picked up somewhere:
Sacco, Venzetti, and another man were scheduled to be executed on a midnight. The other man went first, then Sacco, then Venzetti, about eight minutes apart. If you happened to be awake that night at that hour in Boston you would have been aware of this: the electric chair drew so much power so suddenly that your lights would have dimmed.
Welcome to today’s production from the fine folks at NYC’s Covid Theater. We hope you’ll enjoy this performance of “Schrödinger’s Pandemic,” which poses two intriguing, and perhaps unanswerable, questions: Is it now safe to cluster in cubicle farms and “open plan” offices, or not? Is it possible to remotely work and collaborate effectively, or not?
https://www.thecity.nyc/work/2022/6/8/23160396/remote-meetings-nyc-board-health-staff-office
This just keeps playing out over and over and over, and it’s like nobody follows what happens to other organizations that don’t adopt at least a hybrid schedule. My former company has seen over 50% turnover since the current administration revoked the prior administration’s work from home policy. Plus that whole “can’t work in your pajamas” really pisses me off. What the fuck does what I’m wearing have to do with my work?
Unless you’re delivering a service to the public that requires you to directly interact with people, you can do it from home. Period. I’m so tired of these flimsy justifications that actually mean “we’re paying for all this fucking office space and somebody needs to use it.”
No, they don’t. Come up with another plan.
…is this what passes for a catch-22 these days?
…because it certainly seems like the application of cut&paste suggests it qualifies?
any [employee] requesting mental evaluation for insanity [on the basis that to be told attendance in person is to be mandatory by people who consider meeting in person to be unsafe due to “the continued presence of the COVID-19 pandemic” seems like it ought by rights to make a person crazy] —hoping to be found not sane enough to [attend] and thereby escape dangerous [meetings] —demonstrates his own sanity in creating the request and thus cannot be declared insane
…I’ve heard of pretzled logic…but “if you think it’s crazy to come to work that’s no excuse not to get your ass to the office…which we won’t be doing since we’re so sure it’s not crazy…that we feel the public health context necessitates that we’d in fact be well advised not to meet in person even this one time in order to require you to do so on the daily” isn’t so much a circular argument as some sort of möbius loop?
What. The. Fucking. Fuck.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/06/arizona-man-drowns-officers-watch
…I know…you’d think in a news cycle replete with the testimony of elementary schoolers testifying about what it’s like to hope in vain for swift assistance from law enforcement nothing else would really be able to compete in terms of implying the police might have a callous indifference to the lives of citizens…& yet
…I’m prepared to grudgingly admit that in many a case of drowning attempts to jump in after the victim can be as/more likely to add to the tally of victims than having the desired result…but…that doesn’t seem like it ought to be a defense here?
…if you’re joking with your fellow officer about how far the guy’s going to get then call the fucking boat at that point so it has a chance of getting to him if you aren’t going to risk getting wet & didn’t manage to dissuade the guy from getting in the water to begin with…if you’re the reason he’s taken to the lake in the first place you might…I don’t know…feel responsible…or is that just crazy talk in the era of today’s supreme court?
It amazes me that with the current scrutiny of do-nothing cops in Uvalde that these buffoons would just stand there and … do nothing. Did it not occur to one of them that maybe that wasn’t the best idea?
Maybe when climate crisis starts affecting our condiment staples more people will take it seriously. I don’t care for Sriracha but I love Sambal Oelek. Those of you who are growing your own chilies are on to something. Fuck the cherry tomatoes and strawberries that I am attempting to grow this year. I’m going to plant a bunch of chili bushes 🌶️🌶️🌶️.
My hot peppers are starting to fruit already and squirrels or something keeps picking them off and taking a bite or two then dropping the rest.
I’m hoping they learn and start leaving them alone.
Where’s my Florida Man news?
Florida man bitten by alligator after mistaking reptile for ‘dog with a long leash’
Ah, there it is.
Apologies to @bryanlsplinter. If I find some turtle content, I’ll add it.
LOL
I read that story earlier and thought welp no chance dude was sober.
“Wasting away again, in Marguaritaville….”
And this one’s for @MatthewCrawley.
The mayor thinks New York gets ‘special energy’ from crystals. Is he right?
“I”ll hang up and listen.”
Eric Adams is, unfortunately, somehow turning out to be worse than deBlasio, who set a very high bar indeed. Here’s a light-hearted take on Gotham’s First Buffoon:
https://www.hellgatenyc.com/eric-adams-versus-eric-adams-crime-nyc/
Hellgate is great, by the way. It reminds me of the old Gawker. It’s made up of a lot of refugees from Gothamist, which recently got the same treatment from WYNC/NPR that Get/Out Media got from Herb Spamfellow.
That’s the impression that I have been getting. I’m sorry that it has turned out that way.
well that was cheerful..here let me add my gubment giving a perfect example on how not to treat the people that helped you
https://nltimes.nl/2022/06/09/afghan-employees-dutch-embassy-pay-stay-asylum-center
i bet they feel apreciated…..
Oh holy shit. Do the Dutch government bureaucrats think they are Americans now?
now might be a stretch……its business as usual
its a pretty heartless system that does not consider circumstances at all…just rules is rules
It’s just so incongruous for me, because of all that beautiful bicycle infrastructure!
tbh..this is a nice place to live….long as you dont need to rely on the gubment for anything
working and earning enough to get by…all good…expensive…but good
need a handout of any kind from the gubment? regulatory hellhole with an added side of gubment incompetence and a mountain of paperwork written in legalese..not dutch or english..