Addendae 2

“Disgusting:” Democratic Lawmakers Call on Corrupt Clarence Thomas to Resign

Supreme Court justice facing growing calls for resignation, as reports of his “corrupt as hell” lifestyle pile up

https://newrepublic.com/post/174969/disgusting-democratic-lawmakers-call-corrupt-clarence-thomas-resign

#ClarenceThomas #SCOTUS #JudicialMisconduct #DefundBillionaires

Deeply Unpopular Michael Cohen Wants to Run for Congress (as Democrat)

https://newrepublic.com/post/174965/deeply-unpopular-michael-cohen-wants-run-congress-as-democrat

Michael Cohen: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Cohen_(lawyer)

* served as VP of Trump Organization; personal counsel to Trump, described as his fixer

* pled guilty to 8 counts incl. campaign finance violations, tax fraud, bank fraud

https://persagen.com >> search: "Michael Cohen"

#MichaelCohen #GOP #PolitcalCorruption #neofascism #ConvictedCriminals

Addendae 16

DeSantis Is Heckled During Iowa Bus Tour

Florida governor greeted by 2 women w. cowbells and bullhorn shouting criticism of his policies as he visits Iowa State Fair

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/11/us/politics/desantis-heckled-iowa-bus-tour.html

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/C-ee3tYhKII

#DeSantis #GOP #neofascism #CultureWars #Iowa

Addendae 6

Chemical Company-Funded Senators Float Watered-Down PFAS Bill

A new draft bill from Sens. Carper and Capito would exempt 1,000s of PFAS f. regulation

* senators who drafted legislation among U.S. Senate’s top recipients of chemical industry donations

* Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelley_Moore_Capito

* Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Carper

https://readsludge.com/2023/03/30/republican-energy-bill-follows-massive-increase-in-fossil-fuel-donations

https://persagen.com >> search:

capito

carper

#PFAS #ForeverChemicals #capitalism #PublicHealth

Addendae 1

Idaho’s Teacher of the Year Leaving State Following Right-Wing Harassment

Attacked for discussing world cultures, recognizing existence of United Nations

https://truthout.org/articles/idahos-teacher-of-the-year-winner-leaving-state-following-right-wing-harassment

* 2022 Idaho Teacher of the Year harassed so frequently by right-wing parents, community members she decided to leave Idaho to pursue different career

MAGA Republicans are destroying public schools

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2023/04/13/ron-desantis-republicans-trying-destroy-public-schools/11640432002

#Idaho #IdahoEducation #CultureWars #GOP #neofascism #censorship #education #FarRight

Hoax! Record idiocy

https://www.thenation.com/article/environment/hoax

#ClimateChange ##ClimateChangeDenial #humor #ClimateCatastrophe #GlobalWarming #ExtremeWeather

Addendae 2

Poverty experts find that where you grow up largely determines how you do in life

How decades-old factors turned parts of rural America into poorest places, where women most disadvantaged

https://19thnews.org/2023/08/injustice-of-place-poverty-life-rural-america

Kathryn Edin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathryn_Edin

* sociologist, prof. sociology & public affairs at Princeton University

* specializes in study of people on welfare

The Injustice of Place: Uncovering the Legacy of Poverty in America

https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-injustice-of-place-kathryn-j-edinh-luke-shaefertimothy-j-nelson

#poverty #KathrynEdin

Addendae 1 cont'd 3/3

Doe v. Thornbury: Challenge to Transgender Health Care Ban

https://www.aclu-ky.org/en/cases/doe-v-thornbury-challenge-trans-health-care-ban

* ACLU suing in Federal court to block ban on essential health care for Kentucky trans youth

* Senate Bill 150, 1 of U.S.' worst anti-trans laws, passed in 2023 Kentucky General Assembly

* trans youth/families entitled to equal protection under law, freedom to live full & authentic lives - guaranteed by the national, state constitutions

#ACLU #Kentucky #SB150 #transphobia #TransLivesMatter

Addendae 1 cont'd 2/3

* Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) vetoed the bill, saying it “strips freedom from parents” and will “endanger the children of Kentucky”

* his veto overridden; bill passed 2023-03-29

* same day, American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky announced that it was planning to file a lawsuit against “one of the worst anti-trans bills in the country”

#ACLU #KentuckySB150 #lgbt #transphobia #TransLivesMatter #CultureWars

Addendae 1 cont'd 1/3

Kentucky SB150: https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/23rs/sb150.html

* would ban gender-affirming care for trans minors, require them to use bathroom that aligns w. gender at birth, recommend that teachers use incorrect pronouns, limit education on “human sexuality or sexually transmitted diseases”

* passed Kentucky House and Senate

#ACLU #KentuckySB150 #lgbt #transphobia #TransLivesMatter #CultureWars

Addendae 1

Kentucky’s Anti-LGBTQ Parental Rights Law a Disaster for Families, Teachers, Kids

SB150 recommends that schools use incorrect pronouns; limits sex education; bans gender-affirming care for trans minors

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/kentucky-anti-lgbtq-trans-parental-rights-law-sb150

* They're actively targeting us

* Kentucky SB150 opposed by

American Medical Association

American Psychological Association

American Academy of Pediatrics

Human Rights Commission

71% Kentuckians

#KentuckySB150 #lgbt #transphobia #TransLivesMatter #CultureWars

Addendae 1 cont'd

Dancer's killing over voguing highlights dangers Black LGBTQ Americans face

https://www.npr.org/2023/08/11/1192987300/oshae-sibley-stabbed-voguing-beyonce

* Friends, family, activists mourning death of O'Shae Sibley

* Black gay man stabbed 2023-07 wh. voguing to Beyoncé's music at NYC gas station

Paris Is Burning: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Is_Burning_(film)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI7EhpY2yaA

* 1990 film; chronicles NYC ball culture & Black, Latino, gay, transgender communities involved

Madonna: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuJQSAiODqI

#BLM #ParisIsBurning #OShaeSibley

Ecosocialism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eco-socialism

* ecosocialists assert capitalism causes social exclusion, poverty, war, environmental degradation

*capitalism fundamentally incompatible w. ecological/social sustainability

Ecosocialism in radicalizing Climate Justice movement

https://www.fighthefire.net/ecosocialism-in-a-radicalizing-climate-justice-movement

Ecosocialist Bookshelf, July 2023

https://mastodon.social/@persagen/110651043280465381

#ecosocialism #socialism #capitalism #ClimateJustice #ecology #GreenPolitics #AntiGlobalization #sustainability #SocialJustice #EnvironmentalHealth

Addendae 1

Canadian businesses seek extension on 2024 rules targeting slavery in supply chains

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/modern-slavery-supply-chain-businesses-1.6933594

* John McKay, Liberal MP who put forward Canada's Modern Slavery Act, has expressed concerns about how ready the government and businesses are to implement it

* https://www.parl.ca/legisinfo/en/bill/44-1/s-211

[Britain] Modern Slavery Act 2015: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_Slavery_Act_2015

#Canada #ModernSlaveryAct #slavery #WorkersRights #HumanRights #capitalism #profiteering #CorporateEthics #neocolonialism

Addendae 1

RIP Bram Moolenaar: Coding world mourns Vim creator

https://www.theregister.com/2023/08/07/bram_moolenaar_obituary/

Comment: I love 💜 Vim! I use it for everything text related, including programming (coding IDE). I've opened, worked with TXT files with millions of lines (genomic data) with zero issues.

Vim stewardship

The future of the Vim project

34615 views

Christian Brabandt's profile photo

Christian Brabandt

The future of the Vim project

Christian Brabandt

Passing: Bram Moolenaar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bram_Moolenaar

* 1961-08-26 – 2023-08-03; Dutch software engineer, activist

* creator, maintainer of vi-derivative text editor Vim

* advocated for ICCF Holland (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICCF_Holland), NGO supporting AIDS victims in Uganda

* used popularity of Vim to encourage donations

Legacy of Bram Moolenaar

https://j11g.com/2023/08/07/the-legacy-of-bram-moolenaar/

Vim Boss

https://neovim.io/news/2023/08

Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37078719

#vim #BramMoolenaar #ICCFholland #NGO #Uganda #linux

Establishing Trust in ChatGPT Biomedical Generated Text

Ontology-Based Knowledge Graph to Validate Disease-Symptom Links

https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.03929

* ontology-based knowledge graphs (KG)

* goal: distinguish factual information f. unverified data

* 1 dataset f. PubMed; vs. ChatGPT simulated articles (AI-generated content)

* striking number of links among terms in ChatGPT KG, surpassing some of those in PubMed KG

#LLM #LargeLanguageModels #ChatGPT #KnowledgeGraph #SyntheticData #PubMed #biomedical

Addendae 2

GPT-4 Can't Reason

https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.03762

* GPT-4 released 2023-03 to wide acclaim

* v. subst. improvement over GPT-3.5 wh. initially powered ChatGPT

* easons to be skeptical of GPT-4 ability to reason

* introduces 21 diverse reasoning problems

* detailed qualitative evaluation GPT-4 performance

* occasional flashes of analytical brilliance, h/e GPT-4 presently utterly incapable of reasoning

#GPT #GPT3 #reasoning nostr:npub1yvqx0rhf3z5amnp6htfxfq53ngnq3pkugwafuvj7g3k34ku0cq8qhwlxhd #LLM #LargeLanguageModels #OpenAI #ChatGPT

🎵 Morning ☮-in

Weather Report - Birdland

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Fm10whccto

Live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqashW66D7o

* Stadthalle Offenbach Concert 1978-09-29

* Weather Report (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weather_Report): one of great Jazz Fusion bands

* Jaco Pastorius (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaco_Pastorius), one of the best bass player of his time

Namaste 🙏 🕊

#MorningPeaceIn #WeatherReport #JazzPop #Birdland #JazzFusion #JacoPastorius

Addendae 4

Good place/timing for this, here.

Private equity gets into oil/gas. Bankruptcies, abandoned wells on public land

https://www.hcn.org/articles/energy-industry-private-equity-gets-into-oil-and-gas

* where private equity makes acquisitions bankruptcies follow

* new target: oil & gas companies operating on U.S. public land

Private Profits, Public Risks

P.E. Funds Oil/Gas Drilling on Public Lands; Taxpayer $380M Cleanup

https://www.citizen.org/article/private-profits-public-risks/

#capitalism #PrivateEquity #FossilFuels #EcologicalDestruction #CorporateEthics #DefundBillionaires