Days after reinstating a group of Federal Emergency Management Agency employees who raised concerns about the government’s disaster preparedness, federal officials have placed those whistleblowers back on administrative leave.
Each month, we create a post to keep you abreast of news and happenings regarding the server, discuss recent events, and to act as town square for the community.
🌟 Community Highlights 🌟
!ireland@slrpnk.net - Solarpunk, climate, renewables and ecology related news and discussions related to the island of Ireland.
!storySeedLibrary@slrpnk.net - A community for the Story Seed Library, a repository of Solarpunk art and writing prompts helping us imagine a better tomorrow.
!coolzonemedia@slrpnk.net - A podcast network that includes in its offerings Behind the Bastards, It Could Happen Here, Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff, Hood Politics, and many more.
Meta Post Image: Member of an Ohio FnB featured in the Columbus Dispatch
Food not Bombs is a global network of grassroots volunteer organizations that "provide food for the hungry and support non-violent protests" as stated in the article featuring this picture in 2019. During winter they often also supply clothing and temporary shelter. Most of their winter drives ended on November 30th, but it may not be too late to bring warm clothing and tents for people in need. Contact your local FnB directly to arrange your donation.
📡 Technical Updates 📡
Last month we did some server OS updates, and there are still some pending plans to temporarily migrate the Lemmy instance to a slightly faster machine as the current server has some strange hardware issues that can't be properly checked while the instance is running on it. If we move the instance back afterwards depends on the outcome of this, but the other server should be equally capable of running it. For updates on this you can subscribe to our /c/meta community, or check the F-hub.org status page.
We also saw some performance issues from what appears to be renewed AI scraping (somehow circumventing our Anubis scraper block), but no easy way to block these could be found yet. It eased up in the last two weeks, so for now this is left a bit hanging.
💰 Update on donations 💸
The long promised option to donate to help running the SLRPNK servers is still not fully functional, but you can now do recurring donations to our mothership F-hub.org via LiberaPay. While this isn't exclusive to running the SLRPNK server, most of the running costs are shared and thus for now it is nearly the same. But in the near future we will also have an option to make one time donations specifically for SLRPNK.
💬 Open Discussion 💬
Now it’s your turn to share whatever you’d like down below; your thoughts, ideas, concerns, hopes, or anything related to the server. If you have a new community you’d like to shine a spotlight, shine away! If you’re a new user wanting to say hi, feel free to post an introduction 😀
SLRPNK Community Resources:
Community Wiki - Moderators, you can create your own Wiki here for your communities!
Movim Chat - Open to all members (use your SLRPNK login credentials)
Our Monthly Meta posts are sometimes home to more in-depth sections written by our admins. Many of our newer members may not be familiar with some of the past guides, so for those interested, we've compiled a list below.
February 2025 - How to avoid Big Tech and maximize your digital security & privacy
June 2025 - A brief guide on Security Culture & Adopting FOSS as prefiguration
July 2025 - How to build community with fun projects! :::
::: spoiler ⬛ Union Resources 🟥 These are unions from around the world who can train you to become an effective organizer to form a grassroots union with your co-workers!
Each month, we create a post to keep you abreast of news and happenings regarding the server, discuss recent events, and to act as town square for the community.
This June, we'll be discussing Security Culture, as well as the importance of Free & Open-Source Software in building the world we want to live in. And let's give a shoutout to Pride Month of course! 🏳️🌈
🌟 Community Highlights 🌟
!Cooperatives@[url=https://slrpnk.net/]SLRPNK[/url] - All things about democratic businesses that serve their communities first
!Zines@[url=https://slrpnk.net/]SLRPNK[/url] - A place to share tiny, self-published texts (usually small printable magazines)
!Abc@[url=https://slrpnk.net/]SLRPNK[/url] - News about incarcerated anarchists & resources for prisoner support.
🏳️🌈 The First Pride was a Riot ✊
The month of June is widely celebrated as Pride Month because of the Stonewall Inn riot on June 28, 1969. Just yesterday, videos are spreading across the internet of an ICE Raid on the Buona Forchetta restaurant was pushed back by a crowd of San Diego's South Park residents. It's important to reflect on the lasting systemic change that can be achieved through community cohesion and spontaneous revolt.
As transgender people are currently being specifically targeted by the current fascist wave, I'd like to draw attention to Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera - two prominent participants in the Stonewall Riot that created Pride. Pride has always been and must always be trans-inclusive. Attacks on transgender people are an attack on our communities, and if the attacks succeed, other sections of the queer community will soon follow.
To all our fellow solarpunks, happy Pride!
🤐 Security Culture 🛡️
Sometimes benign seeming efforts can turn into unexpected personal data collecting traps. Like an obscure website for exchanging contact info with other students turning into a global ad-tech surveillance network (Facebook), or innocent seeming online personality tests being use to harvest character profiles. Even Etsy, Reddit, Tinder, and Duolingo are feeding information to US Government Agencies like ICE.
Security culture is commonly used to describe the general awareness of such potential traps and how it can affect groups or entire communities. This goes beyond mere individual privacy efforts, as without joint efforts these often fail to work.
Especially in activist circles, security culture is paramount. For opsec reasons not everyone in the group might be aware of what clandestine efforts others are involved in, but with a general security culture many potential data leaks can be avoided.
Movements are made by the volume of their participants, and the easier and less dangerous it is to participate, the more people will get involved. As more people get involved, individual involvement becomes even less dangerous, creating a virtuous cycle.
Perhaps you, dear Solarpunk reader, could help boost that cycle by sharing your own examples of best practices, lessons learned, or traps to watch out for online in the comments below. Security culture is a collective effort, so our best defense is sharing our knowledge with others!
We'll start it off with some ::: spoiler General Advice * Mentally wall off personal uniquely identifying info from your online presence, actively build a habit of opsec so that withholding information is your default mental state * Be careful about who you meet online * Use different, unrelated usernames, passwords & emails for every account. And try not to connect to those accounts with your real IP address (use Tor or a VPN) * Be mindful that anything done online leaves a trail * agents provocateurs may seek to find patsies willing to perform an ill-advised illegal activity in order to legitimize police repression. If someone is trying to pressure you, especially if you don't have a long and proven history with them, be extremely wary. :::
But we're excited to see what ideas, suggestions and advice you may have for safer patterns of behavior to use online. 😀
💽 Free & Open-Source Software as Praxis 🖥️
I think it’s safe to assume most of us grew up surrounded by proprietary software, it was simply what software was. Normal. Cozy. Familiar.
Our current reality is anything but normal, with our lives dominated by , and much of it damned difficult to escape after dedicating years or even decades to committing it to muscle memory. But part of being a solarpunk is choosing to stare the failings of our society in the face and saying “No more. There has to be a better way.” Despite how difficult it may be to change our current habits.
Free & Open-Source Software (FOSS) is a candle in the dark, and luckily for us has never burned brighter than today. It gives us a pure example of mutual aid in action, built with the cooperation of tens of thousands of individuals who offer their work, often for free, to all who wish to use or build upon it. We won’t be able to achieve a solarpunk future without it, and any victory it achieves is a tangible step toward prefiguring the world toward our shared vision.
So how can we help it along its way? The first step is to use it! Let’s give some examples of alternatives to popular software you may use or even rely upon (click the spoiler below to expand it):
::: spoiler 🔽 FOSS Alternatives 🔽 | Proprietary 🚫 | FOSS ✅ | Links 🌐 | |:--- | :--- | ---:| | WIndows & MacOS | Linux - Perhaps the most essential piece of software to switch to to avoid extreme surveillance with the addition of Recall in Windows, making it a huge liability if you're are an activist of any kind, or even anyone you talk to who also uses Windows 11, as it'll be recording on their end as well. Linux Mint is the most beginner friendly version of Linux, and it's what I'll be recommending and link to. | Linux Mint Website & | | Google Android | GrapheneOS & LineageOS - GrapheneOS is only available for Google Pixel Phones, but it's the most secure option. LineageOS is available to a much wider variety of phones. | GrapheneOS Website & LineageOS Website & | | Google Maps | CoMaps - Currently in the process of forking from Organic Maps, but should become the premier alternative soon, so keep an eye out for its release | CoMaps Website | | Google Chrome | LibreWolf - A security and privacy focused version of Firefox. Can sometimes break websites, so have an install of Firefox too! | LibreWolf Website | | Adobe Photoshop | Krita - with the recent addition of the G’mic Toolset which adds powerful features like and Crop Assist, it can serve admirably as a Photoshop replacement, especially if you enable the Photoshop shortcuts! | Krita Website & | | Adobe Premiere | Kdenlive - not quite 1-to-1 in a professional sense, but with the use of Proxy Clips, should cover most people's needs. | Kdenlive Website & | | Adobe Illustrator | Inkscape - Excellent vector art editor that even does things Adobe Illustrator can't. | Inkscape Website & | | Paint.NET | Pinta | Pinta Website | | Obsidian Notes | TrilliumNext Notes | TrilliumNext Github & | | Scrivener | NovelWriter - A bit different since it uses Markdown instead of being a WYSIWYG editor, but mimics most of the functionality of Scrivener in other ways. Very stable and well made app. | NovelWriter Website & | :::
Alright, so now we're using some sweet FOSS stuff, but if we want the FOSS ecosystem to improve or gain more adoption even faster, here's what else we can do to help:
If you're financially able to, seriously consider donating to the projects you use! Most are almost entirely reliant on user contributions to support themselves, meaning you'd have a big impact even with a small donation!
Contribute to projects directly with your fancy skills: Most projects would be elated by volunteers capable of translating documentation or apps into different languages, contributing code, or even just providing good bug reports.
Spread the word! Show your circle how well these alternatives work, make cool stuff with it, and mention what you used if you share it around to help prove that it's a viable alternative.
We're likely at a critical crossroads in history as we tackle the polycrisis that's encroaching into our lives more each year. If we're to successfully tackle them and free ourselves from the grip that is our current system of exploitation and domination, we'll need to preconfigure as much of the world as we can, as quickly as we can. FOSS is a foundational component of that preparation, without which we expose ourselves to the likely possibility of our tools betraying us, derailing our attempts before they have a chance to gain a foothold.
If you're able to set aside an afternoon, I implore you to try out these alternatives with the hopes of switching over. There is nothing else they fear more.
🗣️ Open Discussion 🗪
Now it’s your turn to share whatever you’d like down below; your thoughts, ideas, concerns, hopes, or anything related to the server. If you have a new community you’d like to shine a spotlight, shine away! If you’re a new user wanting to say hi, feel free to post an introduction 😀
SLRPNK Community Resources:
Community Wiki - Moderators: you can create your own Wiki here for your communities!
Movim Chat - Open to all members (use your SLRPNK login credentials)
A well-written bug report is essential in software testing to facilitate effective communication between testers and developers, leading to improved program quality and user satisfaction.
What surprised the ranking member of the DHS House Subcommittee, which in part oversees DHS' funding, is that there were no detainees present nor detention officers. ... "They have a television and the largest holding cell has three showers. The shower works. And then each holding cell had a toilet. The toilet was not in any way something any of us would be comfortable using, certainly not in an area that is open to others," she said. ... According to Underwood, DHS told her detainees are provided food from either Subway or Walmart or are given food from a previous facility they were at. ... She also noted there is no permanent food vendor and no contract for providing medical care
What surprised the ranking member of the DHS House Subcommittee, which in part oversees DHS' funding, is that there were no detainees present nor detention officers. ... "They have a television and the largest holding cell has three showers. The shower works. And then each holding cell had a toilet. The toilet was not in any way something any of us would be comfortable using, certainly not in an area that is open to others," she said. ... According to Underwood, DHS told her detainees are provided food from either Subway or Walmart or are given food from a previous facility they were at. ... She also noted there is no permanent food vendor and no contract for providing medical care
Il nuovo logo di mensileOSM, realizzato da giopera Iniziative di mapping Il progetto comunitario di novembre riguardava la mappatura delle attività commerciali.
Ah, yes ... back to the scare tactics that the only use of a VPN is to access CSAM.
Almost Everyone Uses VPNs
Let’s talk about who lawmakers are hurting with these bills, because it sure isn’t just people trying to watch porn without handing over their driver’s license.
Businesses run on VPNs. Every company with remote employees uses VPNs. Every business traveler connecting through sketchy hotel Wi-Fi needs one. Companies use VPNs to protect client and employee data, secure internal communications, and prevent cyberattacks.
Students need VPNs for school. Universities require students to use VPNs to access research databases, course materials, and library resources. These aren’t optional, and many professors literally assign work that can only be accessed through the school VPN. The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s WiscVPN, for example, “allows UW–Madison faculty, staff and students to access University resources even when they are using a commercial Internet Service Provider (ISP).”
Vulnerable people rely on VPNs for safety. Domestic abuse survivors use VPNs to hide their location from their abusers. Journalists use them to protect their sources. Activists use them to organize without government surveillance. LGBTQ+ people in hostile environments—both in the US and around the world—use them to access health resources, support groups, and community. For people living under censorship regimes, VPNs are often their only connection to vital resources and information their governments have banned.
Regular people just want privacy. Maybe you don’t want every website you visit tracking your location and selling that data to advertisers. Maybe you don’t want your internet service provider (ISP) building a complete profile of your browsing history. Maybe you just think it’s creepy that corporations know everywhere you go online. VPNs can protect everyday users from everyday tracking and surveillance.
Remember when you thought age verification laws couldn’t get any worse? Well, lawmakers in Wisconsin, Michigan, and beyond are about to blow you away. It’s unfo…
not neseserily just this artical but over the past few months I have noticed RNZ with a number of articles along the lines of "10 steps to change party leadership" with their target firmly on Luxon.
Not that i disagree with thier assesment. The dude is little more than an empty suit. It is funny that RNZ is trying to manufacture it, although maybe its a case of "where there is smoke there is fire"
It would be election suicide though. One of Nationals big cards are that they are not the Greens party or Te Pati Maori. Rolling Luxon would send a signal that only Labour is solid. Then again if they already think this election is a loss then rolling Luxon now is a great idea.
The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has asked smartphone companies in India to preinstall a state-developed cybersecurity application that allows users to report fraudulent calls and messages, and stolen mobile phones, The Indian Express has learnt. Users should not be able to delete the application, the Department has told smartphone companies.
I thought making calls and sending SMS was one of the least secure things you could do regarding communication? That secure and encrypted communication with messaging apps was the only way.
At least if you just do phone calls the attack surface is reduced... They can scan your calls maybe, but not your entire chat history with all of your contacts and give it to an AI which could profile you based on that + you are not scanned on everything else you do on your phone / locked into proprietary ecosystems.
The ideal would just be using a Linux platform and using something like xmpp, but who are you gonna convince to use it? People use what they are used to use, if it's not popular messaging apps is phone calls.. And now it seems a more private alternative..
Can someone help me understand the likely outcome in countries that implement chat control? Will those governments force Google and Apple to remove apps that do not comply (e.g. Signal) from their official app stores? Will those governments somehow detect users who find workarounds and go after them? I figure most people in those countries will shrug their shoulders and move on with their lives, but how will this impact citizens who do not wish to comply?
I'm missing a bit the fact that this is not a law yet. This is the position of the commission, which the parliament will then need to approve and has to get past the ECHR as well most likely.
But it was temporary, so it will expire in April 2026. With this new law the intention is to make that "voluntary detection" a permanent thing they allow service providers to do, as a norm. The providers still have the choice to not do it, so I don't think this affects services like signal, as far as I understand.
The later. However, they could still be fines for not doing what is needed to reduce "the risks of the of the chat app", whatever the fuck that can mean when talking about illegal.content
Where is this explained? the article might be wrong then, because it does state the opposite:
scanning is now “voluntary” for individual EU states to decide upon
It makes it sound like it's each state/country the one deciding, and that the reason "companies can still be pressured to scan chats to avoid heavy fines or being blocked in the EU" was because of those countries forcing them.
Who's the one deciding what is needed to reduce “the risks of the of the chat app”? if it's each country the ones deciding this, then it's each country who can opt to enforce chat scanning.. so to me that means the former, not the latter.
In fact, isn't the latter already a thing? ...I believe companies can already scan chats voluntarily, as long as they include this in their terms, and many do. A clear example is AI chats.
And yes, the latter is currently a thing (but in a weaker form) but will no longer be allowed in april 2026, which is why this law is getting pushed so hard. Currently chats can be asked by police/interpol/... But they need good reasons, and the results can be varying because chat platforms like signal do not keep chat messages/stuff. The new law forces them to have systems in place to catch or have data for law inforcements. It just allows for 'any system to get the needed info', it no longer says chat scanning is needed directly, but is rather indirectly which is as stupid and bad as before.
Thanks for the link, and the clarification (I didn't know about april 2026).. although it's still confusing, to be honest. In your link they seem to allude to this just being a way to maintain a voluntary detection that is "already part of the current practice"...
If that were the case, then at which point "the new law forces [chat providers] to have systems in place to catch or have data for law inforcements"? will services like signal, simplex, etc. really be forced to monitor the contents of the chats?
I don't find in the link discussion about situations in which providers will be forced to do chat detection. My understanding from reading that transcript is that there's no forced requirement on the providers to do this, or am I misunderstanding?
Just for reference, below is the relevant section translated (emphasis mine).
In what form does voluntary detection by providers take place, she asks. The exception to the e-Privacy Directive makes it possible for services to detect online sexual images and grooming on their services. The choice to do this lies with the providers of services themselves. They need to inform users in a clear, explicit and understandable way about the fact that they are doing this. This can be done, for example, through the general terms and conditions that must be accepted by the user. This is the current practice. Many platforms are already doing this and investing in improving detection techniques. For voluntary detection, think of Apple Child Safety — which is built into every iPhone by default — Instagram Teen Accounts and the protection settings for minors built into Snapchat and other large platforms. We want services to take responsibility for ourselves. That is an important starting point. According to the current proposal, this possibility would be made permanent.
My impression from reading the dutch, is that they are opposing this because of the lack of "periodic review" power that the EU would have if they make this voluntary detection a permanent thing. So they aren't worried about services like signal/simplex which wouldn't do detection anyway, but about the services that might opt to actually do detection but might do so without proper care for privacy/security.. or that will use detection for purposes that don't warrant it. At least that's what I understand from the below statement:
Nevertheless, the government sees an important risk in permanently making this voluntary detection. By permanently making the voluntary detection, the periodic review of the balance between the purpose of the detection and privacy and security considerations disappears. That is a concern for the cabinet. As a result, we as the Netherlands cannot fully support the proposal.
Id need to look for it again, but i remember reading she was saying that the current proposal is vague in what it sees as required to prevent what she calls risks. I remember them asking her multiple times if she was against a law to prevent csa and the sharing there off, in which she replied multiple times that she was not, but that the law was too vague about what it constitutes as necessary to prevent it. Did i dream it? ><
Edit: found it!
Mevrouw Kathmann (GroenLinks-PvdA):
Het is niet per se alleen zo dat de huidige praktijk wordt voortgezet. Er zitten bijvoorbeeld ook zinnen in het voorstel die aangeven dat álle risico's moeten worden weggenomen. Het is ongelofelijk vaag, een heel grijs gebied, wat dat betekent. Dat is één. Dat is echt een heel groot risico. Daarnaast noemde de heer Van Houwelingen net al het punt van de leeftijdsverificatie. We hebben niet goed met elkaar kunnen bespreken wat daar nou precies in voorligt en hoe wij daar verder mee om moeten gaan. Dit zijn twee dingen die ik er nu zo uitpik.
Ah, I see. Sorry, the text was too long and I'm not dutch so it was hard to spot that for me too.
But I interpret that part differently. I think them saying that there's an ambiguous section about risks does not necessarily mean that the ambiguity is in the responsibility of those who choose to not implement the detection.. it could be the opposite: risks related to the detection mechanism, when a service has chosen to add it.
I think we would need to actually see the text of the proposal to see where is that vague expression used that she's referring to.
Ah, i see. Ye it can be interpreted in different ways, and reading the proposal might clear it up, but i doubt it. Its written extremely vague on purpose
The thing is.. that even if there are countries publicly rejecting this, once the infrastructure is in place and a backdoor exists due to it being enforced by some other country, how can you be sure it's not being used / exploited?
Even in the (hypothetical) case that the government is not using it (regardless of what they might say to the public), I wouldn't trust that this backdoor would be so secure that nobody else than a government could make use of it.
misleading headline, this isn't a list of countries in which the law will (if it passes) be different (it won't be, it's an EU law, so will be the same in all EU countries), it's a list of countries that currently support/oppose the law
The law will be the same in all EU countries, including whichever parts you think will be "not mandatory" (I did read those news articles and am fully aware that mandatory scanning is no longer on the table).
Write your own E2E encrypted peer-to-peer chat app (nobody has got time for that) or use some that doesn't care about the law (pretty risky if it's not open source, I doubt they'll survive for long in the open), I guess
We are essentially manipulated into the belief that centralised internet is good and all. This is a push driven by the governments where the whole infrastructure is redesigned into essentially a police state where the only thing left is fascism.
Decentralisation must stay, and developments towards decentralisation must flow faster than ever. If the whole premise of the internet gets breached then it will be officially over, and we will all suffer in oppression.
I dont see fdroid blocking the app. I think signal is in the guardian project repos. Anyway a repo can just be hosted in switzerland or on tor or something. I would be more worried about govenments blocking access to the signal servers.
All this theatre in the name of protecting kids, Yet the pedo formally known as prince andrew is still walking free.
It’s an open, decentralized protocol used for real-time messaging, so you can find many apps using this protocol, on android there is conversations which is very light and modern, just choose a pseudo and chat, no other registration, it is a paid app on the app store but free on fdroid. I also used simplex before but it didn't work well enough, the video calls were laggy.
I believe Germany is now in favor of this new proposal, according to fightchatcontrol.eu/
Only Italy, Netherlands, Czech Republic and Poland are against. This seems to be based on "leaked documents from the September 12 meeting of the EU Council's Law Enforcement Working Party".
For years the plan was to make this scanning mandatory. In early November 2025, however, the Danish government amended the text: scanning is now “voluntary” for individual EU states to decide upon. That small word change was enough for the 27 EU countries to agree on November 26.
If chat control would have been made mandatory, you can bet (and i'd be willing to bet a lot of money on it) that you're going to have AfD in germany and FPÖ in austria (since they're already pretty anti-EU) making a lot of noise about how evil the EU is for infringing on people's privacy. (And they would be right about this, as much as i don't like to agree with them.) This would give them more votes, than they already have.
Making it voluntary is a clever trick of the EU to not make yourself extremely unpopular among the population. Well done, i'd say.
It seems the article is misinterpreting things. It's not that it's "voluntary for individual EU states".. but rather "voluntary" for service providers. The service providers don't have to implement this chat detection if they don't want to.
The thing is that if they don't pass something like this, then by April 2026 a bunch of current services that are already doing CP detection would be breaking the law, since the temporary derogation of the e-Privacy Directive will expire. But I don't think this affects services like signal/simplex who voluntarily choose to not try to detect it.
The act also requires platforms – including end-to-end encrypted message providers – to scan for child pornography and terrorism content, which experts say is not possible to implement without undermining users' privacy.
people miss the most important problem with this. chat control is a fascist tool that can and will be used against us minorities. this is especially dangerous when more and more countries are starting to lean right.
hitler would have had a field day with this kind of tech.
It also makes what the Stasi in Socialist East Germany did to its citizens look harmless in comparison. It's literally Big Brother, but you carry him around with you.
Dear mods, watch what you remove from these chats, our freedoms are getting fucked, people should be allowed to be indignant.
That being said i hope the legislators sit on cacti all day every day, those fucking assholes are exempt from this bullshit.
They will take my data out of my cold dead hands. It was a matter of time, sure, but I was actually holding on to hope for this one. I am pissed, dismayed even.
Session, signal, simplex are your friends. If those give up the ghost and bend the knee then we are going back to irc and aliases. Fucking shit!
And here I was thinking the EU was winning its fight against authoritarianism. Guess nowhere is safe, everyone's gotta push back no matter where you are. Fucking exhausting that they can't just leave us the fuck alone.
We are embracing authoritarianism everywhere. Democracies are dying.
Politicians are not ignorant of the risks; as the article mentions, they had several advisors, including scientists, who warned of the danger. If our leaders didn't know it, they wouldn't exclude themselves from the proposal.
Sociopaths will be sociopaths. They'll continue saying that protesting and violece are never the answer, while eroding our basic rights and ignoring all pushback.
EU officials are, incidentally, exempt from chat monitoring – which is quite convenient for someone like von der Leyen. Their communication is explicitly NOT to be monitored. The mere fact that those who drafted this law don't want it to apply to them tells you everything you need to know about it.
These pathetic morons think they'll be safe through this exemption. In reality these deliberate security holes will affect everyone. How will these morons be safe when every person they have contact with IRL is a walking microphone for every foreign intelligence agency?
So you're telling me the one person who's been making deals behind closed doors (illegal), and then 'accidentally' deleting all messages regarding said deals (also illegal) will be exempt from having all their communication scanned?
Everyone who originally proposed this or otherwise helped in drafting this should be thoroughly investigated under suspicion of foreign affiliation. Chat Control doesn't just start the EU's transformation into a surveillance state. It also weakens its digital defenses. No matter how you look at it, this is treason both towards the European people, as well as towards the individual countries and the Union as a whole.
[quote][h2][url=https://grapheneos.org/hiring#qualifications]Qualifications[/url][/h2][ul]
[li]Prior experience working on one or more of Android/AOSP-based operating systems, the Linux kernel and its hardening, memory allocators, or Android app developme
Prior experience working on one or more of Android/AOSP-based operating systems, the Linux kernel and its hardening, memory allocators, or Android app development
Strong programming skills in relevant languages (in order from most to least common: Java, Kotlin, C++, C, Rust, JavaScript, TypeScript, arm64 assembly, Bash, Python)
Need to have enough experience to be comfortable to self direct workloads and submit finished features and fixes ready for review
Commitment to privacy and security principles
Ideally prior experience contributing to free and open source projects
Salary and remuneration will be commensurate with experience and aligned with industry standards. You will be employed as an independent contractor
DANVILLE, Pennsylvania, Dec 1 (Reuters) - The residents came in camouflage hats and red shirts signaling unity, more than 300 of them packing into a rural Pennsylvania planning commission meeting to protest a proposed data center they feared would carve up their farmland and upend the quiet rhythms of their valley. Most were loyal supporters of President Donald Trump, who carried their home of Montour County by 20 percentage points in the 2024 election. But they bristled at Washington’s push to fast-track artificial intelligence infrastructure, which has driven data-center growth in rural areas around the U.S. where land is cheap.
On a recent November evening, residents in this county of 18,000 people stepped to the microphone, questioning Talen Energy (TLN.O), opens new tab officials about how their planned data center might raise residents' utility bills, reduce working farmland, and strain local water and natural resources. "Say no to rezoning, so water keeps flowing and crops keep growing," two women sang in a riff on Woody Guthrie's folk song "This Land Is Your Land."
Political leaders across the U.S. are urging a rapid expansion of data-center capacity and new power production to keep the country competitive in AI. Trump, a Republican, is promoting the build-out as an economic and national security priority and has directed his administration to bypass environmental rules and permitting that give local communities a voice. In Pennsylvania, Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro and Republican Senator Dave McCormick are courting developers with incentives and infrastructure upgrades to attract investment in the fast-growing industry.
Some communities welcome the economic boost. But the backlash in Montour County, nestled in central Pennsylvania, reflects a growing coalition of farmers, environmentalists and homeowners who have united across partisan lines to resist data-center expansion.
A report by Data Center Watch earlier this year found that about $64 billion worth of data center projects have been blocked or delayed amid local pushback in states including Texas, Oregon and Tennessee. Critics in Pennsylvania worry that their region could turn into northern Virginia’s “data center alley,” with its vast, sprawling complexes.
If successful, the pushback threatens to slow efforts by the administration and the tech industry to build AI infrastructure fast enough to keep pace with global rivals. Political strategists say anger over the projects also could add to the problems Republicans face as they grapple with affordability worries going into the 2026 midterm elections. “It’s an issue that can be exploited by whoever’s out of power,” said Chris Borick, a political science professor at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. The politics of AI infrastructure, he added, remain unsettled: “The industry’s still evolving, and politicians are figuring out where to stand. It’s like social media — everyone rushed in before understanding the consequences.”
PRESERVING CULTURE Talen Energy is requesting to rezone roughly 1,300 acres in Montour County from agricultural to industrial use, the first step toward building a large data center that would include 12 to 15 buildings. The site would sit in the shadow of the company's 1,528-megawatt natural-gas-fired power plant, tucked among farmland and dirt roads used heavily by the region’s Amish community.
Talen Energy has said the project would take 350 acres of farmland supporting soybeans, corn and livestock. Residents worry that losing this land would weaken the local farm economy, including a nearby plant that processes soybeans for regional food and feed. Montour County Commissioner Rebecca Dressler, a Republican, said the concerns are rooted less in ideology than in preserving the region’s character. “Small-town character defines our community,” Dressler said. “People aren’t anti-development - they just want growth that fits who we are.”
At its recent November meeting, the county planning commission recommended against approving the rezoning by a 6-1 vote - a decision that drew thunderous applause. The issue now goes to Dressler and the other two county commissioners for a final decision in mid-December.
Rather than blaming Trump, residents are pointing their fingers at the billion-dollar companies behind the data-center boom - firms they say have the money to snap up farmland, reshape rural landscapes and leave locals to absorb the higher utility costs.
“I think it’s a society that has forgotten about the small person - the people who live here, the farmers who are struggling with the economy,” said Theresa McCollum, a 70-year-old Trump supporter. In a place that prides itself on local control, the shift in power to Washington does not sit well. “Stay out. We wouldn’t even be having this conversation without federal involvement,” said Craig High, 39, also a Trump supporter. “Both (political) parties are pushing data centers and giving regulatory relief — water permits, permitting, all of it.”
PENNSYLVANIA BOOM Pennsylvania’s abundant, stable electricity has made it a hot spot for data centers, attracting tens of billions in investments from Amazon.com (AMZN.O), opens new tab, Alphabet's (GOOGL.O), opens new tab Google, and Microsoft (MSFT.O), opens new tab, with Constellation Energy (CEG.O), opens new tab even eying the old Three Mile Island nuclear power plant to power new server farms. But residents fear they may end up paying for it. Pennsylvania utilities project a sharp rise in electricity demand from data centers by the end of the decade - enough to power several million additional homes, according to data from PJM Interconnection, the region’s grid operator.
Electricity prices in Pennsylvania increased by about 15% in the past year - roughly double the national average, according to federal data. That surge is already rippling through the regional grid. Capacity prices, which help determine what power plants are paid to ensure supply during peak demand, have spiked in recent auctions, and utilities have begun raising rates to cover growing infrastructure needs. Analysts warn that customers' bills could climb significantly in the years ahead.
For many families, the strain is already visible. Overdue utility balances have risen far faster than inflation since 2022, and Pennsylvania ranks among the states with the highest levels of household energy debt, according to the Century Foundation, a progressive research organization. Those pocketbook pressures are starting to reshape politics in some parts of the United States. Earlier this year, Alicia Johnson became one of two Democrats elected to Georgia’s utility board since 2007 after her campaign highlighted frustration over rising power bills and unchecked growth of data centers. She said the issues in her campaign were a preview of what states like Pennsylvania may face in next year's U.S. midterm elections.
Power prices have surged in Georgia in recent years, in large part because of massive cost overruns at the new Vogtle nuclear plant. “Data centers and utility costs were the top two issues on the ballot, and people are angry,” Johnson said. “They don’t want data centers without guardrails, and they don’t want to be the ones paying for them. This is going to be part of the national affordability debate in 2026."
Ginny Marcille-Kerslake, an organizer with Food and Water Watch, an environmental nonprofit group, has spent months mobilizing opposition to data centers in places like Montour County. She predicted a political reckoning next year. "Communities - red, blue, and everything in between - are united in opposition," she said, referring to so-called red areas dominated by Republicans and blue areas controlled by Democrats. "At a time when we’re so divided, this issue is bringing people together." Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw in Danville, Pennsylvania, and Laila Kearney in New York; Additional reporting by Tim McLaughlin in New York; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Matthew Lewis
I want to take it as a tool for reading/writing/studying and super basic browsing. My phone just broke, chat control just got approved and I'm sick of proprietary shit: I decided I'm not gonna buy anything which doesn't hold free software anymore.
I love e-ink and I love Linux, but how usable is the pinenote with Linux? How hard is the install process? Can an average Linux user/self hoster use it daily? How's battery? Couldn't find many reviews online..
The first batch of the PineNote will be great to write software for, but not great to write notes on. Wait for a later batch with better preinstalled software if you just want to use the device as an e-reader, e-note, or your everyday computing device.
I also looked into supernote, it's expansive, but it's totally worth the money if they can offer a full Linux support with an e ink device, and it's better than the pinenote because of the repairable hardware and the pen which doesn't need tips replacements.
But they have kinda pulled back on the Linux development, it looks like it was more marketing than other, they have been promising it for a while but they've stated it's harder than they thought.
I won't buy an Android device so I'll wait until a real Linux support is added.
thanks for this, so it's not that bad and it seems to be working fairly good enough.. Mmmh I might think about that, how's the battery life? How long do the tips last? The pen is active or passive?
I have used the same tip for a year and it's still fine. It also comes with 2 replacement tips and all of the generic pens for EMR screens work on the Pinenote.
Can't say much about the battery life but I'm going to leave it running once it's fully charged and report back.
I also have one and agree with your conclusion. My PineNote is so cool and really fun to use!
I use mine most often for displaying and editing my character sheet while playing tabletop RPGs.
The display looks great and mine doesn't have the stuck pixel or the buggy lines issue you experienced, though I do have very noticeable ghosting artifacts. Probably this is because I mainly use the "performance" optimization setting rather than "quality". Animations play very poorly, so I found it necessary to use extensions to disable animations wherever possible.
Also, of course, the screen is only black and white so sometimes you lose out on information. E.g. if my GM says "the goblin that stole the flask is highlighted yellow. The one highlighted pink is standing his ground. What do you do?" I would not be able to tell them apart.
I get acceptable but not fantastic battery life. Usually after about 3 hours I'll have around 60% life left. It would probably be better if I was using a lighter program than Firefox. Mine also has phantom battery drain and loses maybe 15% battery life per day if left unplugged while suspended.
I paid $460 USD for mine, shortly before the import tariffs were implemented.
Overall, I would recommend it for someone who meets these criteria:
is a Linux enthusiast comfortable with the command line and willing to read and follow various guides (there's a long README that opens on boot which has crucial information in it, like how to fix critical bugs)
wants to avoid proprietary lock in wherever possible
wants to avoid shovel ware and use mainline Linux
wants to support FOSS development and doesn't mind paying extra to do so
understands the severe limitations of an e-ink display
I would not recommend it to most people because it is an enthusiast Linux device with an e-ink display. If you're the kind of person that specifically wants an enthusiast Linux device with an e-ink display then I think you'll love it
The EU store ships from the EU with warranty, support, etc. for quite a hefty premium. I ordered from the global store which ships from Hong Kong. Paid ~500€ a year ago (including taxes).
The display looks great and mine doesn’t have the stuck pixel or the buggy lines issue you experienced
They have since fixed that.
though I do have very noticeable ghosting artifacts
Unfortunately just the nature of the technology. If you're just reading, DU4:3 works the best, for manga I use the full G:4 mode with screen refresh for every page flip enabled.
I wrote some custom profiles for each (Default, Book, Manga, Notes, Notes (Landscape) which I have on my desktop, I can send you the scripts if you want.
Couldn't find a good way to use browsers on it yet since they all smooth scroll instead of jumping in fixed intervals.
For web browsing I can navigate alright using spacebar to scroll. Naturally, that works best with a bluetooth keyboard attached, but you could resize the window and use the soft keyboard if you prefer. The "vimium" extension for Firefox makes keyboard navigation much nicer.
I've bought several Pine products over the years, and they're all on a shelf gathering dust. If you like writing software to make a cost-engineered piece of hardware with basically no useful software at all work as you might expect an actual product you paid for from a shop, they're great.
If you're expecting a useful out of box experience, or even a useful experience after hours of hacking and tuning, they are not for you.
Notable exceptions IME: the Pinecil, Pinepower, and Rockpro64. I haven't tried their other SBCs though, and the Rockpro64 may be outdated at this point.
People say its going to suck to use but like, surely it doesn't suck to use basic linuxy apps that tend to work well on linux. Like for using as a ereader, the main thing is ability to handle file formats and there's plenty of simple file management tools for this, for notes nothing gets easier than markdown for text files, idk about handwriting things on them but I saw a couple demos showcasing how good it is specifically on the pine note and from the looks of it, it is definitely useable and seems to not be hacky out of the box. I saw some mention of pine note coming with Debian out of the box but there seems to be much more active development for it on arch and they basically develop on arch and put it on Debian when its good or something like that but I've still seen most people reccomend using arch.
I lile my pinenote a lot. I mostly use it for reading.
As long as I'm reading or doing any touch-screen-y things (taking notes, viewing images, etc) it's great! For anything that involves writing/copying/pasting text, it's not very usable with just the on-screen keyboard, you really need an external bluetooth interface. I find web browsing very tedious if I have to type anything in the url bar without a physical keyboard.
Also, it's still very much a WIP. The version of Debian it shipped with had a bug where I couldn't install any software updates without deleting some random lib64 directory. Once I did that, everything was fine. The device has no security by default, so I created a new user with an encrypted HOME.
With import tariffs to the US, I ended up paying $500 for it, which really got me down. As a $400 open hardware machine, it would have been easier to look past the rougher edges. And I wish it had more RAM.
But overall it's worth it to me because I've wanted a more libre e-reader for a long time. It's gotten me back into reading books, which has been a lot of fun. Plus, because it's an actual computer, I set it up as a tablet-like interface to my home automations.
The version of Debian it shipped with had a bug where I couldn’t install any software updates without deleting some random lib64 directory. Once I did that, everything was fine.
Neat, I'm still running the stock Android but I'll try. How long ago did you do that? Is your fix documented somewhere?
Had one from the start and also had a reMarkable 1, 2, Pro and e-readers with e-ink. I did discuss all that before so feel free to check my comment history. You can also check related prorotypes at fabien.benetou.fr/Tools/Eink including for the PineNote.
Now on your questions :
how usable is the pinenote with Linux?
Last time I check it didn't run well enough (basically CLI only) so I'm still on their stock Android OS. Worked great. According to other comments it seems fine now and I'm familiar with KOReader and a bit Xournal++ so I'll try again.
How hard is the install process?
Easy, I didn't do anything ;)
Can an average Linux user/self hoster use it daily?
Well in my case yes but again Android, so if you are familiar with it, e.g. adb then it's easy.
How’s battery?
Fine but power management kind of sucks so it will not go to sleep properly and thus waste battery. It's also heavy so honestly I wouldn't travel with it.
Couldn’t find many reviews online…
Again, I did share on Lemmy quite a bit. I do warmly recommend it if you are a tinkerer who doesn't travel too often. If you are a minimalist who wants to get things done then IMHO reMarkable is better.
Rollins has made a case for sweeping changes to SNAP by asserting her agency uncovered "massive fraud" in state data the agency demanded, and has emphasized statistics suggesting wrongdoing without providing the underlying data or details.
I would love to see the evidence they've gathered.
I may even use foiabuddy to ask for it. I suppose that'd make me a target.
According to the final agency decision, the President may now fire female federal workers like Ms. Nemer — because of their sex — and the law would have nothing to say about it
"Last year global arms revenues reached the highest level ever recorded by SIPRI as producers capitalized on high demand," said researcher behind annual report.
The alleged shooter of two National Guard members, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, was struggling with mental illness, his ability to support his family, and, according to an Afghan veteran who fought with him, his pleas for help to the CIA went unanswered.
Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national, served in a CIA-backed Afghan force unit, known as the “Zero Units,” in Kandahar. He is facing first-degree murder charges after Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died of her injuries following the Wednesday shooting near the Farragut West Metro station in Washington, D.C. Air Force Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe, 24, remains in critical condition.
Investigators are still working to establish a motive for the attack. Rolling Stone spoke to a former Afghan unit mate who pointed to financial pressure and ongoing apparent mental illness as a contributing factor. He also seems to have felt abandoned by the United States government.
“He’s very sad [depressed],” said Lakanwal’s Afghan unit mate, who is not a native English speaker. “He’s very worried. This problem, like, he’d say, ‘I am working nine years or 10 years with [the] U.S. government. [They] never answer my phone [call].’”
After the Taliban prevailed in America’s longest running war, Lakanwal resettled in Bellingham, Washington, with his wife and five sons in September 2021. His migration was aided by Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden-era initiative to resettle vulnerable Afghans, particularly those who worked alongside U.S. forces and faced reprisals from the Taliban.
OpenAI looks poised to repeat the same clangers that turned Amazon and YouTube into rolling billboards by shoving ads into ChatGPT.
The ChatGPT experience has so far been blissfully free of sales patter. There are paid tiers, but the bot never tried to flog you anything. Google Search went the other way and let ads steer buying choices, which trained people to skim past half the page.
Fresh code strings in the ChatGPT Android app show OpenAI drifting towards the same trap. Tibor spotted references to an “ads feature” with “bazaar content”, “search ad” and a “search ads carousel” in the 1.2025.329 beta. The whole thing looks like the same clutter that turned Amazon’s listings into a parade of sponsored tat.
If OpenAI pushes ahead, it could jolt the web economy because the outfit knows far more about users than Google ever did. It sees prompts that reveal what people want, dread and intend to buy. Personalised adverts wedged into that flow would make old-style targeting look prehistoric.
Ads creep into the bot that was meant to stay clean OpenAI looks poised to repeat the same clangers that turned Amazon and YouTube into rolling billboards by shoving ads into ChatGPT.
Among them was a stronger pay transparency law, aimed at helping to close persistent disparities in wages along gender and racial lines. Backed by groups that advocate for economic and social justice, including 9to5 Colorado and the Colorado Center on Law and Policy, Senate Bill 19-85, the Equal Pay For Equal Work Act, was passed on mostly party-line votes and was signed into law by Gov. Jared Polis in May 2019.
Democrats enacted the law, which required employers to list pay ranges for all job openings and to maintain detailed records of their pay rates, over the objections of a long list of business groups, who argued that the new burdens on employers would end up hurting the workers the bill was intended to help.
But six years later, there’s no evidence that those unintended negative consequences have come to pass in Colorado, a new working paper released this week by the National Bureau of Economic Research found. On the contrary, the study suggests positive “spillover” effects have led to across-the-board wage increases for Colorado workers.
The U.S. Transportation Security Administration said on Monday it will begin charging air travelers $45 on February 1 if their IDs do not meet stricter federal standards, a move aimed at encouraging travelers to get the enhanced identity documents.
In May 2025, the TSA began enforcing the standards known as "REAL ID" but gave warnings and conducted enhanced screening for passengers without the new IDs. TSA officials said they would urge passengers without REAL IDs to obtain them or pay the fee before arriving at the airport. The $45 fee will cover travel for a 10-day period.
Lawmakers from both parties said Sunday they support congressional reviews of U.S. military strikes against vessels suspected of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, citing a published report that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a verbal order for all crew members to be killed as part of a Sept. 2 attack.
The lawmakers said they did not know whether last week’s Washington Post report was true, and some Republicans were skeptical, but they said attacking survivors of an initial missile strike poses serious legal concerns.
Lawmakers from both parties said Sunday they support congressional reviews of U.S. military strikes against vessels suspected of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, citing a published report that Defense Secretary Pete Heg…
In less than a year, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has taken a bonesaw to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. While his supporters have touted it as the liberation of public health that will “make America healthy again,” a growing chorus of doctors and medical organizations are sounding the alarm that it will cost the lives of children, older adults and disabled people, mangling our medical system for generations.
Kennedy, 71, has no medical or government background, but since his appointment in February, he has undertaken massive changes to the nation’s many agencies tasked with keeping people alive and healthy. That includes the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which monitors for disease outbreaks, and the Food and Drug Administration, which approves new medications and treatments.
Kennedy approaches public health with the gravitas of a rabid raccoon.
Last week, at Kennedy’s behest, the CDC removed the statement “vaccines do not cause autism” from its vaccine safety page, tweaking it with “The claim ‘vaccines do not cause autism’ is not an evidence-based claim because studies have not ruled out the possibility that infant vaccines cause autism.” Apparently, Kennedy has never heard of the burden of proof or the extreme difficulty in proving a negative. This is no minor revision — it not only broke one of many promises Kennedy made to Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., the deciding vote in Kennedy’s confirmation, but it drew widespread outcry from doctors, scientists and other public health experts. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told KFF Health News that Kennedy and his “nihilistic Dark Age compatriots have transformed the CDC into an organ of anti-vaccine propaganda.”
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This is only one of dozens of ways in which Kennedy has crusaded against standards in science and health. Kennedy has fired thousands of employees across the board (including mere weeks after a mass shooting at CDC headquarters), gutted billions in research funds, attacked medications from antidepressants to acetaminophen (Tylenol), and dismantled and recast vaccine advisory bodies with “noted vaccine skeptics and conspiracy theorists,” as PBS reported. Kennedy has long railed against these institutions because, he says, they have been co-opted by industry and are dedicated to extracting profit from public health instead of fortifying it.
There’s no denying Americans’ health is dismal, and a big part of that is major conflicts of interest between pharmaceutical giants, corporate agriculture and the departments that regulate them. Kennedy is absolutely right that this system needs reform — but his prescriptions aren’t well-informed by evidence and seem poised to exacerbate the problem.
Still, Kennedy is beloved by many, and not just on the right. When he suspended his bid for president in 2024 and endorsed then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, many saw it as a perk that the current president would let him “go wild on health,” as Trump put it. And that’s just what he has done.
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Yet so much of the media coverage around Kennedy, especially lately, has focused more on his personality and lurid life history rather than the chaos and destruction he has sown. The Atlantic graced their latest cover with Kennedy, complete with a glamour shoot, fawning at the camera with a rosary in hand like a choir boy. The accompanying headline, “The most powerful man in science,” is more than a little misleading. Saying he’s the “most powerful” is a little like saying the fastest driver in NASCAR is a nuclear bomb. What are we even comparing here? Kennedy isn’t in science in the literal sense and certainly not from any sort of merit. He’s never run a clinical trial, treated a patient or published academic research. He landed his position because the current president returns favors like a Mafia boss and is enamored with the idea of a Kennedy being in his cabinet, not to mention the disdain Trump has for public health, as demonstrated during the botched reponse to COVID-19 in 2020.
To his credit, author Michael Scherer professes good intentions in featuring Kennedy in such an adulatory light: to help bridge some of the political division plaguing our country. Maybe if we can step inside Kennedy’s mind, we can find some middle ground and actually work toward a healthier America.
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It’s a lofty goal, but it might not be very relevant, just like the absurd details of Kennedy’s melodramatic history. Even Scherer finds it hard not to profile the secretary without at least glancing at his many bizarre escapades, from dumping a dead bear in Central Park to allegedly eating barbecued dog, to hand-waving away sexual assault allegations with the explanation “I am not a church boy.” The article paints Kennedy’s long struggles with addiction and infidelity leading to his current position of influence as a sort of Dantesque excursion, “back from hell, still fighting to fulfill his birthright.”
It’s a fascinating profile, but we really don’t need any of these details any more than we need New York Magazine reporter Olivia Nuzzi gushing about her inappropriate personal relationship with Kennedy. Again, flush with cosmopolitan snapshots, the recent New York Times profile of Nuzzi glosses over some severe problems.
“Nuzzi did not want to discuss Kennedy’s tenure as secretary of health and human services,” Jacob Bernstein reports in the Times profile, while Nuzzi says, “I don’t have any interest in offering punditry.”
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That might be fine if people’s lives weren’t at stake. There are multiple public health crises stacked on top of each other, from overdose deaths to declines in life expectancy to heart disease and dementia to unnecessary deaths from abortion bans to still circulating COVID and ongoing measles outbreaks. It’s hard to argue Kennedy is doing much to address any of this when he’s busy firing people, dousing scientific research and picking fights over his convictions that mainstream medicine is wrong about nearly everything.
His credibility is worsened by numerous conflicts of interest, including receiving money from anti-vaccine organizations that he has worked for while positioning himself to profit from anti-vaccine lawsuits. Since becoming health secretary, Kennedy has distanced himself from these ventures, but there’s more at stake.
“His entire political project — his campaign, his hiring by Trump, his role at HHS — is entwined with his ability to prove that scientists were deceiving the public about vaccines. He would lose a lot if he changed his mind,” Scherer writes.
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In contrast, conflicts of interest among federal vaccine advisers are at historic lows and have been for years, according to research published in August in JAMA. “Secretary Kennedy is right that conflict of interest is an important issue, but he is wrong that it is present at substantial levels on HHS vaccine advisory committees,” study co-author Peter Lurie, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest and former FDA associate commissioner, said in a press release.
“‘Trusting the experts’ is not a feature of science,” Kennedy says in The Atlantic story. “It’s not a feature of democracy. It’s a feature of totalitarianism and religion.”
When you wipe away all the chaos and arguments over scientific data, or the lack of it — and do your best to ignore the salacious nature of Kennedy’s persona — the true mission behind Making America Healthy Again becomes apparent.
Rich words given the overt totalitarianism happening under Trump’s watch. Kennedy is conveniently ignoring the real mass surveillance in this country, and it’s not vaccines. Every major social media platform is owned by the richest people in history, who suck up so much data on you that they can weaponize it to sway elections and dull us with doomscrolling. Flock automatic license plate readers are being used to monitor protests and enable ICE raids. American citizens are now regularly detained by homeland security adviser Stephen Miller’s masked police force, while migrants are whisked away to dungeon-like prisons in El Salvador. Yeah, the Department of Homeland Security is threatening anyone who dares film them snatching people, but “trusting the experts” is pure Stalinism. Kennedy is no fool — he knows that his efforts are more antithetical to democracy than he lets on.
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And we knew all of Kennedy’s corruption long before he was appointed. But if we needed any reminder, we only need to look at his family relationships. Last week, Tatiana Schlossberg, granddaughter of former President John F. Kennedy, published a moving essay in The New Yorker detailing her battle with a terminal form of leukemia. It reads almost like an obituary, detailing the suffering and grief she’s experienced as she pushes through treatment she knows will do little to save her life. But she also took space to express the horror she’s felt witnessing her cousin’s ascent to power:
Bobby is a known skeptic of vaccines, and I was especially concerned that I wouldn’t be able to get mine again, leaving me to spend the rest of my life immunocompromised, along with millions of cancer survivors, small children, and the elderly. Bobby has said, “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective.” Bobby probably doesn’t remember the millions of people who were paralyzed or killed by polio before the vaccine was available. My dad, who grew up in New York City in the nineteen-forties and fifties, does remember. Recently, I asked him what it was like when he got the vaccine. He said that it felt like freedom.
…
I watched as Bobby cut nearly a half billion dollars for research into mRNA vaccines, technology that could be used against certain cancers; slashed billions in funding from the National Institutes of Health, the world’s largest sponsor of medical research; and threatened to oust the panel of medical experts charged with recommending preventive cancer screenings. Hundreds of N.I.H. grants and clinical trials were cancelled, affecting thousands of patients.
Kennedy’s endorsement of Trump shocked and dismayed his family, but it’s really not all that surprising that the two are bedfellows. Kennedy isn’t the reality TV showman Trump is, but they share many of the same apparent narcissistic tendencies. Consider the performative flourish and hubris it requires for Kennedy to have announced in April that the nation’s top health agency would find the cause of autism in mere months, then blaming it on Tylenol in September, despite there being no evidence for his claim. A month later, Kennedy backtracked on these remarks, saying “The causative association between Tylenol given in pregnancy … is not sufficient to say it definitely caused autism, but it is very suggestive.”
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You really don’t need to sympathize with Kennedy’s tragic backstory or his apparent charm to certain political correspondents to understand why he approaches public health with the gravitas of a rabid raccoon. The Atlantic story and other accounts of Kennedy make it clear he views himself as the lone hero of a great battle, a Beowulf intending to slay a dragon of dogma and lies. Kennedy has indeed faced a lot of opposition in life, perhaps now more than ever. But he’s more of a Don Quixote tilting at windmills because his solutions amount to the same level of self-delusion.
Take, for example, Kennedy’s staunch rejection of germ theory in favor of “miasma theory.” In his 2021 book, “The Real Anthony Fauci,” Kennedy defines this as “preventing disease by fortifying the immune system through nutrition and by reducing exposures to environmental toxins and stresses.” He posits that “Miasmists argue that malnutrition and inadequate access to clean water are the ultimate stressors that make infectious diseases lethal in impoverished locales. When a starving African child succumbs to measles, the miasmist attributes the death to malnutrition; germ theory proponents (a.k.a. virologists) blame the virus. The miasmist approach to public health is to boost individual immune response.”
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There’s some truth to this, but the overarching emphasis on miasma theory fundamentally ignores how the immune system works. It’s not a zero-sum game. Katherine Wu explained in a recent Atlantic piece: “The reality is that both environment and pathogens often influence the outcome of disease, and both should be addressed.”
When you wipe away all the chaos and arguments over scientific data, or the lack of it — and do your best to ignore the salacious nature of Kennedy’s persona — the true mission behind Making America Healthy Again becomes apparent. It’s not about whether vaccines really work; it’s whether the government should have any say in an individual’s health at all. What that translates to, intentionally or not, is you’re on your own now, bub. Health insurance, guidance, research — you don’t need that. Instead, there is an overwhelming emphasis on the individual. Eat better, exercise and take some supplements and you won’t even need a shot or a doctor. Anyone who can’t follow this advice is doomed to just die, I guess.
There are sometimes valid reasons to distrust experts. There were numerous institutional failures during the COVID pandemic and the tendrils of capitalism embedded in public health have given people good cause for skepticism. But just because a medicine or vaccine can be profitable does not mean it’s useless. Just because some advice was unhelpful or counterproductive during a global pandemic — school closures being an oft-cited example — does not mean that a novel virus is safe to breathe in.
But instead of strengthening the structures at HHS that work and encouraging the public to trust them, Kennedy has given people even less reason to trust the government on these issues. It’s becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy in which the “public” in public health is erased, ignoring the deeply rooted fact that an individual’s health cannot and never will be isolated from everyone else. That’s exactly why we train people to deeply study these problems and trust their judgment based on data that is transparent and peer-reviewed. We need more of that, not less. The lone warrior battling against insurmountable foes makes for a nice fairy tale, but it does not translate to protecting a nation’s health.
While lithium extraction technologies generally focus on ways to get the essential metal out of the ground, there's another source to mine: existing batteries that no longer work. A new technique could now make that process economically viable.
Blocked: vpn detected. Well, not really blocked, but anything that forces me to do images captcha for Google's benefit just isn't worth my time and patience
Marginally lower cost over 500 possible cycles under ideal conditions… this does not take into account other pollutants it may cause or the human element. Still, very positive as a total, as this is a resource a way hitherto untapped (unless you count risky social media innovatives who almost burn up their homes making lithium batteries from vapes and whatnot).
Without this kind of progress described (meaning reutilising, refining or reprocessing lithium), mining might become even more brutal to keep costs down for investors and corporate buyers, but remain ever more expensive for consumers.
The cost will come down further with scale. The great thing about that is that dead lithium batteries will have value, so people will be much less inclined to throw them in the trash or dump them elsewhere
What's more, the researchers say the method is much more affordable than other battery-based lithium-harvesting techniques, costing about US$12.70 per kilogram of lithium recovered.
Indeed, according to Daily Metal Prices, lithium costs $13.17 per kilo on the open market as of the time of writing. So this method actually comes out cheaper than just buying the stuff.
A very Happy Thanksgiving salutation to all of our Great American Citizens and Patriots who have been so nice in allowing our Country to be divided, disrupted, carved up, murdered, beaten, mugged, and laughed at, along with certain other foolish countries throughout the World, for being “Politically Correct,” and just plain STUPID, when it comes to Immigration. The official United States Foreign population stands at 53 million people (Census), most of which are on welfare, from failed nations, or from prisons, mental institutions, gangs, or drug cartels. They and their children are supported through massive payments from Patriotic American Citizens who, because of their beautiful hearts, do not want to openly complain or cause trouble in any way, shape, or form. They put up with what has happened to our Country, but it’s eating them alive to do so! A migrant earning $30,000 with a green card will get roughly $50,000 in yearly benefits for their family. The real migrant population is much higher. This refugee burden is the leading cause of social dysfunction in America, something that did not exist after World War II (Failed schools, high crime, urban decay, overcrowded hospitals, housing shortages, and large deficits, etc.). As an example, hundreds of thousands of refugees from Somalia are completely taking over the once great State of Minnesota. Somalian gangs are roving the streets looking for “prey” as our wonderful people stay locked in their apartments and houses hoping against hope that they will be left alone. The seriously retarded Governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, does nothing, either through fear, incompetence, or both, while the worst “Congressman/woman” in our Country, Ilhan Omar, always wrapped in her swaddling hijab, and who probably came into the U.S.A. illegally in that you are not allowed to marry your brother, does nothing but hatefully complain about our Country, its Constitution, and how “badly” she is treated, when her place of origin is a decadent, backward, and crime ridden nation, which is essentially not even a country for lack of Government, Military, Police, schools, etc…
A very Happy Thanksgiving salutation to all of our Great American Citizens and Patriots who have been so nice in allowing our Country to be divided, disrupted, carved up, murdered, beaten, mugged, and laughed at, along with certain other foolish coun…
The leaked assessment, obtained by the New York Post and prepared for both congressional Senate and House judiciary committees, is based on confidential accounts from 24 FBI sources.
They accuse Patel of lacking the experience to lead the FBI and that managers will not take initiative without explicit direction for fear of being fired. Patel’s first six months have produced a “troubling picture” of an organization described by insiders as a “rudderless ship”, with two sources independently characterizing the director as being “in over his head”. One stated he “lacks the requisite knowledge or deep understanding of all the FBI’s unique and complex investigative and intelligence programs”.
One key accusation is that the FBI has become “internally paralyzed by fear”. Managers are “afraid of losing their jobs”, and “waiting on directions from the FBI director” rather than taking initiative, according to multiple sources.
The Trump administration's latest campaign for SNAP changes comes as millions of recipients are already poised to lose benefits in the coming years as states begin to implement new work requirements and eligibility rules that Republicans in Congress passed over the summer that are the deepest cuts in history to the program.
In a Fox Business interview last month, Rollins said the further changes she is proposing will "make sure those vulnerable Americans who really need that benefit are going to get it. And for all the rest of the fraudsters and the people who are corrupt and taking advantage of it — we're going to protect the taxpayer, too."
Food policy experts say they are concerned that Rollins' talking points suggest a distorted view of the prevalence of SNAP recipients committing fraud, and seem to conflate fraud with payment errors of any kind.
Researchers at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute have argued this eligibility rule should be ended because states are using it to allow people with incomes above the limit set by the SNAP statute to receive the benefit. Though they also cautioned that eliminating broad-based categorical eligibility must be done in a way that addresses "benefit cliffs" that would disincentivize people from earning slightly more because they would lose benefits and become worse off.
[quote]Over the past year, Silicon Valley has gone fully mask off in favor of fascism and oligarchy. Gone are the days of the Valley’s veneer of idealistic futurism, where technology was supposed to level the playing field and make us more connected than
Over the past year, Silicon Valley has gone fully mask off in favor of fascism and oligarchy. Gone are the days of the Valley’s veneer of idealistic futurism, where technology was supposed to level the playing field and make us more connected than ever.
What we have instead is a technological playground catered to the whims of the ultra-wealthy. They throw billions behind designer gene edited babies and cryogenic freezing and consciousness uploading and sycophantic slop machines. They indulge in sci-fi fantasies of space colonization and metaverses and the technological singularity, repurposing dystopian warnings as aspirational goals. Their most “visionary” ambition is that of artificial techno-utopia, in which we merge with computers and become superior post-humans, our digital hands running through digital grass as we inhale the digital simulation of pine forests, scents and sights that have been fully subsumed by the capitalist religion of infinite growth.
Technology is often talked about as an inherent good, and the latest and greatest tech, be it surveillance or AI, are said to be inevitable. You must embrace these technologies or be left behind. If you bring up the real-world harms, you are dismissed as a closed-minded, anti-progress technology-hater.
The inevitability narrative obfuscates the fact that all of these technologies resulted from decisions. Decisions by out-of-touch, overwhelmingly white, male billionaires who refuse any and all ways of seeing the world that challenges their ability to increase their already obscene wealth.
Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.
NEVER EVER EVER pay anything to anyone if they are making claims like this.
Simply respond with "Our legal team's process requires a filed Cease and Desist to be sent directly to them with specific references to infringements based on your claims. Once they have received this, the offending content will be immediately rectified."
Even if it's your personal website. Don't even fucking bother with these people and waste your time and money worrying about it, be sure this is the very first step in any legal action over public content. They can't just jump to suing you or demanding money.
Just putting it here because they will spam the shit out of any domain registrar emails not hidden as well.
In this particular case, they were smart enough to actually have business emails on hand for the threat, knowing they'd never actually attempt to actually email this threat to any mail server as they would get filtered immediately.
President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer Alina Habba, whom the administration has maneuvered to keep in place as New Jersey top federal prosecutor, is disqualified from serving in the role, an appeal court said Monday.
A panel of judges from the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sitting in Philadelphia sided with a lower court judge’s ruling after hearing oral arguments at which Habba herself was present on Oct. 20.
The ruling comes amid the push by President Donald Trump’s Republican administration to keep Habba as the acting U.S. attorney for New Jersey, a powerful post charged with enforcing federal criminal and civil law. It also comes after the judges questioned the government’s moves to keep Habba in place after her interim appointment expired and without her getting Senate confirmation.
The ruling from a panel of judges from the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals comes amid the push by President Donald Trump's Republican administration to keep Habba as the acting U.S.
Indiana House Republicans released a proposed map with new congressional district lines Dec. 1 that could lead to the elimination of the two Democrats from the state's congressional delegation if passed.
vegeta
in reply to vegeta • • •US admiral to retire amid military strikes in Caribbean and tensions with Venezuela
Robert Mackey (The Guardian)