News gathered 2024-06-22
(date: 2024-06-22 11:16:32)
Leading from the front: Kuhlman’s tenure with Hart school district built on relationships
date: 2024-06-22, from: The Signal
As Superintendent Mike Kuhlman’s time with the William S. Hart Union High School District is coming to a close after 27 years, Erin Wilson had an idea. Appointed to the […]
The post Leading from the front: Kuhlman’s tenure with Hart school district built on relationships appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
Fashion shows and lunches at Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga
date: 2024-06-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
The Montalvo Service Group is hosting another series of Wednesday lunches at the historic villa at the Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga during July and August.
Hitting climate goals needs clean energy permitting reform: Letter to the editor
date: 2024-06-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
“Members of Congress are influenced by their constituents. Please urge yours to support permitting reform.”
Helicopters scramble to rescue people in flooded Iowa town while much of US toils again in heat
date: 2024-06-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
The governor of Iowa sent helicopters to a small town to evacuate people from flooded homes Saturday, the result of weeks of rain, while much of the United States longed for relief from yet another round of extraordinary heat.
ON Culture | Everybody Dance for Pride Month and Pianos on State
date: 2024-06-22, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
This edition of ON Culture was originally emailed to subscribers on June 21, 2024. To receive Leslie Dinaberg’s arts newsletter
The post ON Culture | Everybody Dance for Pride Month and Pianos on State appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-22, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
To people who say you get wrong answers from ChatGPT, if I wanted my car to kill me I could drive into oncoming traffic. That's the problem with reporters discovering ChatGPT gives incorrect answers. So does Google. As do reporters.
http://scripting.com/2024/06/02.html#a023044
Sergey Durmanov commented on issue #141 at Felix Oliver Friedrich / Oberon A2
date: 2024-06-22, updated: 2024-06-22, from: Oberon A2 at CAS
the SystemTool module has been renamed to System
https://gitlab.inf.ethz.ch/felixf/oberon/-/issues/141#note_192234
Sergey Durmanov commented on issue #140 at Felix Oliver Friedrich / Oberon A2
date: 2024-06-22, updated: 2024-06-22, from: Oberon A2 at CAS
Because StringGridModel is not an extension of Models.Model. This needs to be checked when generating code.
https://gitlab.inf.ethz.ch/felixf/oberon/-/issues/140#note_192233
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-22, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
There are 2 kinds of people: Those who find AI absolutely revolutionary and indispensable and integral to their workflows, and those who haven't learned how to use it yet. #amen
https://www.threads.net/@_ericelliott/post/C8fTI3LSbOl
Copters scramble to rescue people in flooded town; heat bears down
date: 2024-06-22, from: VOA News USA
San Jose performance connects teens to legends of their parents
date: 2024-06-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
San Jose’s Ópera Cultura wants teens to immerse themselves and reconnect with their heritage in the tragic legend of La Llorona with their new musical drama “La Llorona: The Weeping Woman.
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-22, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Don't let them tell you what to think.
https://werd.io/2024/dont-let-them-tell-you-what-to-think
Cool temperatures to follow Bay Area weekend heat wave
date: 2024-06-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
Temperatures will fall better upper 80s to low 90s by Monday.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/22/cool-temperatures-to-follow-bay-area-weekend-heat-wave/
Flag giveaway in San Jose dishonors Old Glory: Letter to the editor
date: 2024-06-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
“In my Almaden neighborhood, two competing real estate firms have been placing small American flags (complete with business cards) in front of each house. I assume it is an effort to inspire patriotism, or just maybe it’s for advertising.”
Denise Lite | Socialism Must Be Rejected in America
date: 2024-06-22, from: The Signal
In the realm of economic systems, socialism and capitalism stand as two fundamentally different approaches to organizing and managing the economy, each with its own set of principles, strengths, and […]
The post Denise Lite | Socialism Must Be Rejected in America appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/denise-lite-socialism-must-be-rejected-in-america/
Arthur Saginian | Voting for a Felon? Sure
date: 2024-06-22, from: The Signal
I am not a devout supporter of former President Donald Trump or the Republican Party, but I would have no problem voting for a convicted felon just so long as […]
The post Arthur Saginian | Voting for a Felon? Sure appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/arthur-saginian-voting-for-a-felon-sure/
Rob Kerchner | An Interesting Array of Agencies
date: 2024-06-22, from: The Signal
Check out the list of federal agencies who were present for the Jan. 6 riot. There’s the Department of Defense, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the Bureau of […]
The post Rob Kerchner | An Interesting Array of Agencies appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/rob-kerchner-an-interesting-array-of-agencies/
Michael Reagan | ‘The View’ Hosts Are for Trump?
date: 2024-06-22, from: The Signal
Who do the liberal ladies of “The View” think they’re kidding? This week Joy Behar and her ragged troop of pretend political pundits were again acting terrified by the specter […]
The post Michael Reagan | ‘The View’ Hosts Are for Trump? appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/michael-reagan-the-view-hosts-are-for-trump/
Exclusive: US confirms Iran will run absentee ballot stations in US
date: 2024-06-22, from: VOA News USA
Washington — The Biden administration will again allow Iran to run absentee voter stations on U.S. soil for next week’s Iranian presidential election, VOA has learned, prompting the Islamic republic’s critics to denounce the plan as absurd and shameful.
Iranian Foreign Ministry official Alireza Mahmoudi told state media on Sunday that Tehran is planning to set up more than 30 ballot stations across the United States for the June 28 vote to replace Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash last month.
Mahmoudi said ballot boxes for Iranian absentee voters would be set up at the Iranian Interests Section of the Pakistani embassy in Washington and in New York but did not identify other locations.
Iranian state media say the United States is home to the largest proportion of overseas-based Iranians at 30%. The U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey estimates there are about half a million people born in Iran or of Iranian origin in the U.S., while the Iranian American nonprofit group National Union for Democracy in Iran, or NUFDI, says it has a higher estimate of more than 1 million.
Canada and Turkey follow with 12% shares of the Iranian diaspora, according to Iranian state media. Mahmoudi said Iran is arranging absentee voting in other diaspora locations as well.
In a statement reported exclusively by VOA, the U.S. State Department said on Friday it has no expectation that Iran’s presidential election will be free or fair. The Islamic republic’s ruling clerics permit only loyalists of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to run for offices such as president and parliament, which are subservient to him on key policy issues.
Iran’s last parliamentary and presidential elections, in March and 2021, respectively, drew record-low official turnouts, with the lack of choices leaving much of the electorate disinterested.
Opponents of Iran’s clerical rulers at home and abroad repeatedly have called for boycotts of Iranian elections, which they view as shams, and they have done so again for the June 28 vote. They also have noted that the Islamic republic seeks legitimacy for its 45-year authoritarian rule by trying to boost turnout for such elections.
VOA asked the State Department how authorizing ballot stations in the U.S. for Iran, whose poor human rights record it has strongly criticized, is consistent with the U.S. view of Iranian elections as neither free nor fair.
A spokesperson responded by noting that Iran set up U.S.-based ballot stations for previous presidential elections, in 2021 and 2017, with approval from the Biden administration and its predecessor, the Trump administration, respectively.
“This is nothing new,” the spokesman said, in reference to the planned ballot stations for next week’s vote.
Richard Goldberg, a senior adviser to the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, countered that permitting Iran to engage in another round of absentee balloting on U.S. soil is a “theater of the absurd.”
In a statement to VOA, Goldberg wrote: “How and why we would facilitate such a charade for a state sponsor of terrorism that is hunting Americans every day is beyond me.” He also questioned who would be operating Iran’s ballot stations in the U.S. and what relationship they have to the Iranian government.
VOA put those questions to Iran’s U.N. mission, which responded by saying it declines to comment because it “believes the issue is not of interest to an American audience.”
A day before Iran’s 2021 presidential election, the Iranian Interests Section in Washington published an online chart showing the addresses of ballot stations in 29 U.S. cities where Iranian citizens could vote. Besides the Interests Section, the other listed venues included 20 properties of U.S. and British hotel companies and eight Islamic centers. There was no indication of who operated the stations.
VOA contacted three hotels that hosted the 2021 ballot stations on Friday to ask if they were planning to host such stations again next week. Staff members who answered the phones at the Marriott Spring Hill Suites in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and at the Hilton Garden Inn Irvine-Orange County Airport in California said they had no record of such events on their schedules. A woman who answered the phone at the Comfort Inn Sandy Springs in Atlanta, Georgia, repeatedly hung up when asked if it is hosting an event next Friday.
Cameron Khansarinia, vice president of the Iranian American group NUFDI, told VOA that diaspora Iranians have a responsibility to protest the Islamic republic’s “shameful” absentee voter stations wherever they are set up.
In reference to those who operate and vote at the planned ballot stations, Khansarinia said, “While we should respect the physical safety of these individuals and U.S. law, they deserve to be publicly shamed for their absolutely amorality.”
VOA also asked the State Department whether U.S. authorities have granted licenses to businesses and nonprofit groups that plan to host the Iranian ballot stations to exempt them from U.S. sanctions that generally prohibit the provision of commercial services to Iran.
The spokesperson replied, “Foreign governments carrying out election-related activities in the U.S. must do so in a manner consistent with U.S. law and regulations.”
The Treasury Department did not respond to similar questions sent by VOA on Tuesday, regarding the granting of licenses for Iranian ballot stations.
Brian O’Toole, a former senior adviser in the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, or OFAC, told VOA it is a gray area.
O’Toole, a nonresident senior fellow at the Washington-based Atlantic Council, identified two U.S. regulations, OFAC’s General License E and the Code of Federal Regulations section 560.545, as potentially permitting election activity and democracy-building in Iran.
“Despite the Iranian government’s issues with elections, the U.S. has a clear interest in promoting democracy,” said O’Toole, who managed OFAC’s sanctions program during former President Barack Obama’s administration.
“What this administration probably would lean toward is the principle that people who are eligible to vote [in Iran’s election] should make the decision as to whether they should or should not,” he said.
California is a leader on a host of issues: Letter to the editor
date: 2024-06-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
“Our state is ahead of the game on a number of issues across the nation: climate change, women’s health care rights, attempts at gun control, LGBTQ rights, et al.
Chevron isn’t the main cause of pollution in Richmond: Letter to the editor
date: 2024-06-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
“I worked at Chevron Research in the lab on the sixth floor. On hot days I would go on the balcony and look east and I could see where freeways 80 and 580 were because of all the smog over the freeways.”
Don’t let screens raise our children: Letter to the editor
date: 2024-06-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
“Have the demands of parenthood become so enormous that we’re choosing to ignore our feeling that all this screen time is harmful?”
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/22/dont-let-screens-raise-our-children-letter-to-the-editor/
Mother and Son Santa Barbara Walkers Take On Challenges
date: 2024-06-22, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Marathons and ascents are a passion for Mary and Jonathan Maguire, a mother and son who have taken their love of the outdoors to new levels.
The post Mother and Son Santa Barbara Walkers Take On Challenges appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/06/22/mother-and-son-santa-barbara-walkers-take-on-challenges/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-22, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
What to Read This Summer.
https://stanfordmag.org/contents/what-to-read-this-summer-2024
Bake an LLM with custom prompts into your app? Sure! Here’s how to get started
date: 2024-06-22, updated: 2024-06-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
In Rust, we trust. But in gen-AI to not hallucinate? Eh, that’s another story
Hands on Large language models (LLMs) are generally associated with chatbots such as ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini, but they’re by no means limited to Q&A-style interactions. Increasingly, LLMs are being integrated into everything from IDEs to office productivity suites.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/22/llm_rust_ai/
This San Jose business district embraces a new identity with a new name
date: 2024-06-22, from: San Jose Mercury News
New murals are making a name for East Village San Jose, which includes retail shops, eateries and a number of vegan and vegetarian options.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/22/san-jose-business-district-embraces-a-new-identity/
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-06-22, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Every once in a while you read a piece that explains and reorganizes your worldview- this is one of those pieces for me:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/21/off-the-menu/
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112660608957549088
It’s Always Sunny For Clean Energy
date: 2024-06-22, from: The Lever News
Plus, a judge rejects a fossil-fueled lawsuit, the IRS keeps going after the rich, shots are fired against a deadly disease, and cannabis convictions vanish.
https://www.levernews.com/you-love-to-see-it-its-always-sunny-for-clean-energy/
Heavy rain, flash flooding prompt evacuations in New Mexico
date: 2024-06-22, from: VOA News USA
LAS VEGAS, NEW MEXICO — Heavy rain and flash flood warnings in the U.S. state of New Mexico prompted officials to order mandatory evacuations Saturday, with shelters set up for displaced residents.
The National Weather Service announced a flash flood emergency on Friday night through early Saturday. The impacted areas included the city of Las Vegas and communities near Albuquerque.
Up to 5 centimeters (2 inches) of rain had fallen by late Friday, with additional rainfall up to 3.8 centimeters (1.5 inches) expected overnight, the weather service said.
There was flash flooding with multiple road closures on the north and west sides of Las Vegas, the weather service said.
The Las Vegas municipal government announced mandatory evacuations of parts of the city in social media posts, warning residents to prepare for overnight stays. The city said it established shelters for residents on the west and east sides of the city.
The city government asked residents to limit nonessential water use, while also clarifying that online rumors suggesting the city’s dams had broken were false and that the dams “are currently intact.”
New Mexico also suffered devastating wildfires this week that killed at least two people and forced thousands to flee from the flames. The South Fork and Salt fires in south-central New Mexico destroyed or damaged an estimated 1,400 structures. FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell and New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham planned to tour the disaster area Saturday.
https://www.voanews.com/a/heavy-rain-flash-flooding-prompt-evacuations-in-new-mexico/7666159.html
The Time Ranger | Grave Robbers, Nuclear War & Spencer Tracy
date: 2024-06-22, from: The Signal
C’mon, dear saddlepals. Roll out of the bunks and hop into those jeans. Don’t make me say the obvious. You get double minus bonus points if we catch you in […]
The post The Time Ranger | Grave Robbers, Nuclear War & Spencer Tracy appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/the-time-ranger-grave-robbers-nuclear-war-spencer-tracy/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-22, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
What will climate feel like in 60 years?
https://fitzlab.shinyapps.io/cityapp/
The Amazing Michael Gonzalez
date: 2024-06-22, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
But every Solstice I think of Michael dancing up the street that day, in his pure soulmate blissful sharing mode.
The post The Amazing Michael Gonzalez appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/06/22/the-amazing-michael-gonzalez/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-22, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
All these points are good, but add this — Trump will surrender to Putin on day one. He’s a loser. Proud of being a loser. A sickness for America.
Humans and machines
date: 2024-06-22, from: Enlightenment Economics
My colleague Neil Lawrence’s new book, The Atomic Human: Understanding Ourselves in the Age of AI, is a terrific account of why ‘artificial intelligence’ is fundamentally different from embodied human intelligence – which makes it on the one hand an … Continue reading
http://www.enlightenmenteconomics.com/blog/index.php/2024/06/humans-and-machines/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-22, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Many people don’t pay full price for their news subscription. Most don’t want to pay anything at all.
Ask the Motor Cop | Seeking U-turn and 15 mph clarification
date: 2024-06-22, from: The Signal
Question: Is a U-turn allowed from a left turning lane in front of an apartment complex driveway? — Toni Answer: Hi Toni. Referring to last week’s article, apartments are considered […]
The post Ask the Motor Cop | Seeking U-turn and 15 mph clarification appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/ask-the-motor-cop-seeking-u-turn-and-15-mph-clarification/
Paul Butler | Whistle while you work
date: 2024-06-22, from: The Signal
I love singing, but for some reason, I don’t like whistling — there’s something about whistling that sounds like chalk scratching on a blackboard to me. I enjoy singing so […]
The post Paul Butler | Whistle while you work appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/paul-butler-whistle-while-you-work-2/
Robert Lamoureux | Stairs throwing a curve ball on Pergo install
date: 2024-06-22, from: The Signal
Question: Hello Robert, my name is Gary P. I live in Saugus in a two-story, larger home. Our stairs are curved, currently covered in carpet, and we are in the […]
The post Robert Lamoureux | Stairs throwing a curve ball on Pergo install appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/robert-lamoureux-stairs-throwing-a-curve-ball-on-pergo-install/
US aircraft carrier arrives in South Korea as show of force against North
date: 2024-06-22, from: VOA News USA
SEOUL, South Korea — A nuclear-powered United States aircraft carrier arrived Saturday in South Korea for a three-way exercise stepping up their military training to cope with North Korean threats that escalated with its alignment with Russia.
The arrival of the USS Theodore Roosevelt strike group in Busan came a day after South Korea summoned the Russian ambassador to protest a pact reached between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this week that pledges mutual defense assistance in the event of war. South Korea says the deal poses a threat to its security and warned that it could consider sending arms to Ukraine to help fight off the Russian invasion as a response — a move that would surely ruin its relations with Moscow.
Following a meeting between their defense chiefs in Singapore earlier in June, the United States, South Korea and Japan announced Freedom Edge. The new multidomain exercise is aimed at sharpening the countries’ combined response in various areas of operation, including air, sea and cyberspace.
The Theodore Roosevelt strike group will participate in the exercise that is expected to start within June. South Korea’s military didn’t immediately confirm specific details of the training.
South Korea’s navy said in a statement that the arrival of the Theodore Roosevelt demonstrates the strong defense posture of the allies and “stern willingness to respond to advancing North Korean threats.” The carrier’s visit comes seven months after another U.S. aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson, came to South Korea in a show of strength against the North.
The Theodore Roosevelt strike group also participated in a three-way exercise with South Korean and Japanese naval forces in April in the disputed East China Sea, where worries about China’s territorial claims are rising.
In the face of growing North Korean threats, the United States, South Korea and Japan have expanded their combined training and boosted the visibility of strategic U.S. military assets in the region, seeking to intimidate the North. The United States and South Korea have also been updating their nuclear deterrence strategies, with Seoul seeking stronger assurances that Washington would swiftly and decisively use its nuclear capabilities to defend its ally from a North Korean nuclear attack.
From network security to nyet work in perpetuity: What’s up with the Kaspersky US ban?
date: 2024-06-22, updated: 2024-06-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
It’s been a long time coming. Now our journos speak their brains
Kettle The US government on Thursday banned Kaspersky Lab from selling its antivirus and other products in America from late July, and from issuing updates and malware signatures from October.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/22/kaspersky_kettle/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-22, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Trump botched America’s response to one killer virus. Now he wants a second chance to botch our response to another.
Today in SCV History (June 22)
date: 2024-06-22, from: SCV New (TV Station)
1972 – Vasquez Rocks added to National Register of Historic Places. [list
https://scvnews.com/today-in-scv-history-june-22/
After mass killings, complex question follows: Demolish, or press on?
date: 2024-06-22, from: VOA News USA
PITTSBURGH — Last week in Parkland, Florida, wrecking equipment began demolishing the building at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School where a gunman’s rampage in 2018 ended with 17 people dead. As the rumble of destruction echoed, people in the community set to explaining exactly why ripping the building down was so meaningful — and so crucial.
From former student Bryan Lequerique: “It’s something that we all need. It’s time to bring an end to this very hurtful chapter in everyone’s lives.” And Eric Garner, a broadcasting and film teacher, said: “For 6½ years we have been looking at this monument to mass murder that has been on campus every day. … So coming down, that’s the monumental event.”
Parkland. Uvalde. Columbine. Sandy Hook. A supermarket in Buffalo. A church in South Carolina. A synagogue in Pittsburgh. A nightclub in Orlando, Florida. When violence comes to a public place, as it does all too often in our era, a delicate question lingers in the quiet afterward: What should be done with the buildings where blood was shed, where lives were upended, where loved ones were lost forever?
Which is the appropriate choice — the defiance of keeping them standing, or the deep comfort that can come with wiping them off the map? Is it best to keep pain right in front of us, or at a distance?
How different communities have approached the problem
This question has been answered differently over the years.
The most obvious example in recent history is the decision to preserve the concentration camps run by Nazi Germany during World War II where millions of Jews and others died — an approach consistent with the post-Holocaust mantras of “never forget” and “never again.” But that was an event of global significance, with meaning for both the descendants of survivors and the public at large.
For individual American communities, approaches have varied. Parkland and others chose demolition. In Pittsburgh, the Tree of Life synagogue, site of a 2018 shooting, was torn down to make way for a new sanctuary and memorial.
But the Tops Friendly Markets in Buffalo, New York, and the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, where racist mass shootings happened, both reopened. And Columbine High School still stands, though its library, where so much bloodshed occurred, was replaced after much impassioned debate. “Finding a balance between its function as a high school and the need for memorialization has been a long process,” former student Riley Burkhart wrote earlier this year in an essay.
What goes into these decisions? Not only emotion and heartbreak. Sometimes it’s simply a question of resources; not all school districts can afford to demolish and rebuild. Sometimes it’s about not wanting to give those who might support the shooter a place to focus their attention.
“Denying such opportunities for those who celebrate the persecution and deaths of those different from themselves is a perfectly sound reason to tear down buildings where mass killings occurred,” Daniel Fountain, a professor of history at Meredith College in North Carolina, said in a email.
Perhaps the most significant driving force, though, is the increasing discussion in recent years about the role of mental health.
“There are changing norms about things like trauma and closure that are at play that today encourage the notion of demolishing these spaces,” said Timothy Recuber, a sociologist at Smith College in Massachusetts and author of “Consuming Catastrophe: Mass Culture in America’s Decade of Disaster.”
For many years, he said, “the prevailing idea of how to get past a tragedy was to put your head down and push past it. Today, people are more likely to believe that having to return to the scene of the crime, so to speak, is liable to re-inflict harm.”
In Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood, a fence masks the site where the Tree of Life synagogue stood until it was razed earlier this year, more than five years after a gunman killed 11 people in the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history.
David Michael Slater grew up across the street from the synagogue. He understands the ambivalence that can come with choosing whether to knock down.
“It’s easy to see why decision-makers might have chosen one path or the other. And to me, it seems presumptuous for anyone not part of, or directly affected by, the choice to quibble with it,” said Slater, who retired this month after 30 years of teaching middle and high school English. “That said, the decision to demolish such sites, when seen in the context of our escalating culture of erasure, should raise concern.”
The power of memory cuts both ways
From World War II to 9/11, the politics of American memory are powerful — and nowhere more intricate than in the case of mass shootings. The loss of loved ones, societal disagreements over gun laws and differing approaches to protecting children create a landscape where the smallest of issues can give rise to dozens of passionate and angry opinions.
To some, keeping a building standing is the ultimate defiance: You are not bowing to horror nor capitulating to those who caused it. You are choosing to continue in the face of unimaginable circumstances — a robust thread in the American narrative.
To others, the possibility of being retraumatized is central. Why, the thinking goes, should a building where people met violent ends continue to be a looming — literally — force in the lives of those who must go on?
It stands to reason, then, that a key factor in deciding the fates of such buildings coalesces around one question: Who is the audience?
“It’s not a simple choice of should we knock it down or renovate or let it be,” said Jennifer Talarico, a psychology professor at Lafayette College in Pennsylvania who studies how people form personal memories of public events.
“If we’re interested in the memories of the people who directly experienced the event, that physical space will serve as a specific and powerful reminder. But if we’re talking about remembering or commemorating an event for other people, those who did not experience it, that’s a slightly different calculus,” Talarico said. “Remembering and forgetting are both powerful forces.”
Ultimately, of course, there is a middle ground: eliminating the building itself but erecting a lasting memorial to those who were lost, as Uvalde and other communities have chosen. In that way, the virtues of mental health and memory can both be honored. Life can go on — not obliviously, but not impeded by a daily, visceral reminder of the heartbreak that once visited.
That approach sits well with Slater, who has contemplated such tragedies both from the standpoint of his hometown synagogue and the classrooms where he spent decades teaching and keeping kids safe.
“Like every problem in life that matters, simple answers are hard to come by,” Slater said. “If what replaces the Tree of Life, or Parkland, or the next defiled place of worship or learning or commerce, can be made to serve both as proof of our indomitable spirit and as memorialized evidence of what we strive to overcome, perhaps we can have the best of both worst worlds.”
TikTok legal filing details case against potential US ban
date: 2024-06-22, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/tiktok-legal-filing-details-case-against-potential-us-ban/7665733.html
Immigrant families rejoice over move toward citizenship, but some are left out
date: 2024-06-22, from: VOA News USA
HOUSTON, TEXAS — Hundreds of thousands of immigrants had reason to rejoice when U.S. President Joe Biden unveiled a highly expansive plan to extend legal status to spouses of U.S. citizens, but, inevitably, some were left out.
Claudia Zuniga, 35, married in 2017, which was 10 years after her husband came to the United States. He moved to Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, after they wed, knowing that, by law, he had to live outside the country for years to gain legal status. “Our lives took a 180-degree turn,” she said.
Biden announced Tuesday that his administration will, in coming months, allow U.S. citizens’ spouses without legal status to apply for permanent residency and eventually citizenship without having to first depart the country for up to 10 years. Some 500,000 immigrants may benefit, according to senior administration officials.
To qualify, an immigrant must have lived in the United States for 10 years and be married to a U.S. citizen, both as of Monday. Zuniga’s husband is ineligible because he wasn’t in the United States.
“Imagine, it would be a dream come true,” said Zuniga, who works part time in her father’s transportation business in Houston. “My husband could be with us. We could focus on the well-being of our children.”
Every immigration benefit — even those as sweeping as Biden’s election-year offer — has a cutoff date and other eligibility requirements. In September, the Democratic president expanded temporary status for nearly 500,000 Venezuelans who were living in the United States on July 31, 2023. Those who had arrived a day later were out of luck.
The Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which has shielded from deportation hundreds of thousands of people who came to the United States as young children and is popularly known as DACA, required applicants be in the United States on June 15, 2012, and continuously for the previous five years.
About 1.1 million spouses who are in the country illegally are married to U.S. citizens, according to advocacy group FWD.us., meaning hundreds of thousands won’t qualify because they were in the United States for less than 10 years.
Immigration advocates were generally thrilled with the scope of Tuesday’s announcement, just as Biden’s critics called it a horribly misguided giveaway.
Angelica Martinez, 36, wiped away tears as she sat next to her children, ages 14 and 6, and watched Biden’s announcement at the Houston office of FIEL, an immigrant advocacy group. A U.S. citizen since 2013, she described a flood of emotions, including regret that her husband couldn’t travel to Mexico when his mother died five years ago.
“Sadness, joy all at the same time,” said Martinez, whose husband arrived in Houston 18 years ago.
Brenda Valle of Los Angeles, whose husband has been a U.S. citizen since 2001 and, like her, was born in Mexico, renews her DACA permit every two years. “We can start planning more long-term for the future instead of what we can do for the next two years,” she said.
Magdalena Gutierrez of Chicago, who has been married to a U.S. citizen for 22 years and has three daughters who are U.S. citizens, said she had “a little more hope” after Biden’s announcement. Gutierrez, 43, is eager to travel more across the United States without fearing an encounter with law enforcement could lead to her being deported.
Allyson Batista, a retired Philadelphia teacher and U.S. citizen who married her Brazilian husband 20 years ago, recalled being told by a lawyer that he could leave the country for 10 years or “remain in the shadows and wait for a change in the law.”
“Initially, when we got married, I was naive and thought, ‘OK, but I’m American. This isn’t going to be a problem. We’re going to fix this,’” Batista said. “I learned very early on that we were facing a pretty dire circumstance and that there would be no way for us to move forward in an immigration process successfully.”
The couple raised three children who are pursuing higher education. Batista is waiting for the details of how her husband can apply for a green card.
“I’m hopeful,” Batista said. “The next 60 days will really tell. But, obviously, more than thrilled because every step forward is a step toward a final resolution for all kinds of immigrant families.”
About 50,000 noncitizen children with parents who are married to a U.S. citizen could also potentially qualify, according to senior administration officials who briefed reporters on the condition of anonymity. Biden also announced new regulations that will allow some DACA beneficiaries and other young immigrants to more easily qualify for long-established work visas.
Women’s gymnastics league aims to expand athletes’ careers
date: 2024-06-22, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/women-s-gymnastics-league-aims-to-expand-athletes-careers/7666015.html
Garcia, county discuss frustration over Chiquita Canyon
date: 2024-06-22, from: The Signal
Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Santa Clarita, implored L.A. County officials to declare a state of emergency over Chiquita Canyon Landfill and again asked the state to do the same during a […]
The post Garcia, county discuss frustration over Chiquita Canyon appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/garcia-county-discuss-frustration-over-chiquita-canyon/
Finish The Job, Adam
date: 2024-06-22, from: Tedium feed
If Meta is going to support the fediverse, it needs to actually support people who don’t live on Threads. No lip service. No half-finished betas.
https://feed.tedium.co/link/15204/16722041/meta-threads-fediverse-unfinished-business
Sols 4222-4224: A Particularly Prickly Power Puzzle
date: 2024-06-22, from: NASA breaking news
Earth planning date: Friday, June 21, 2024 All our patient waiting has been rewarded, as we were greeted with the news that our drill attempt of “Mammoth Lakes 2” was successful! You can see the drill hole in the image above, as well as the first place we attempted just to the left. The actual […]
https://science.nasa.gov/blogs/sols-4222-4224-a-particularly-prickly-power-puzzle/
Trump departs from anti-immigrant rhetoric with green card proposal
date: 2024-06-22, from: VOA News USA
Miami, florida — Former President Donald Trump said in an interview posted Thursday he wants to give automatic green cards to foreign students who graduate from U.S. colleges, a sharp departure from the anti-immigrant rhetoric he typically uses on the campaign trail.
Trump was asked about plans for companies to be able to import the “best and brightest” in a podcast taped Wednesday with venture capitalists and tech investors called the “All-In.”
“What I want to do, and what I will do is, you graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically as part of your diploma a green card to be able to stay in this country. And that includes junior colleges, too, anybody graduates from a college. You go there for two years or four years,” he said, vowing to address this concern on day one if he is elected president in November.
Immigration has been Trump’s signature issue during his 2024 bid to return to the White House. His suggestion that he would offer green cards — documents that confer a pathway to U.S. citizenship — to potentially hundreds of thousands of foreign graduates would represent a sweeping expansion of America’s immigration system that sharply diverges from his most common messages on foreigners.
Trump often says during his rallies that immigrants who are in the country illegally endanger public safety and steal jobs and government resources. He once suggested that they are “poisoning the blood of our country.” He has promised to carry out the largest deportation operation in U.S. history if elected.
Trump and his allies often say they distinguish between people entering illegally versus legally. But during his administration, Trump also proposed curbs on legal immigration such as family-based visas and the visa lottery program.
Right after taking office in 2017, he issued his “Buy American and Hire American” executive order, directing Cabinet members to suggest reforms to ensure that business visas were awarded only to the highest-paid or most-skilled applicants to protect American workers.
He has previously said the H1-B program commonly used by companies to hire foreign workers temporarily — a program he has used in the past — was “very bad” and used by tech companies to get foreign workers for lower pay.
During the conversation with “All-In,” Trump blamed the coronavirus pandemic for being unable to implement these measures while he was president. He said he knew of stories of people who graduated from top colleges and want to stay in the U.S. but can’t secure visas to do so, forcing them to return to their native countries, specifically naming India and China. He said they go on and become multibillionaires, employing thousands of workers.
“You need a pool of people to work for your company,” Trump said. “And they have to be smart people. Not everybody can be less than smart. You need brilliant people.”
In a statement released hours after the podcast was posted, campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “President Trump has outlined the most aggressive vetting process in U.S. history, to exclude all communists, radical Islamists, Hamas supporters, America haters and public charges. He believes, only after such vetting has taken place, we ought to keep the most skilled graduates who can make significant contributions to America. This would only apply to the most thoroughly vetted college graduates who would never undercut American wages or workers.”
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-22, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
RSS: The forgotten protocol that still matters.
Judge dismisses Nevada fake elector case over venue question
date: 2024-06-22, from: VOA News USA
las vegas, nevada — A Nevada judge dismissed an indictment Friday against six Republicans accused of submitting certificates to the U.S. Congress falsely declaring Donald Trump the winner of the state’s 2020 presidential election.
Nevada was one of four states with criminal charges pending against so-called fake electors.
Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford stood after Clark County District Judge Mary Kay Holthus ruled that Las Vegas was the wrong venue for the case and said he’d take the case to the state Supreme Court.
“The judge got it wrong, and we’ll be appealing immediately,” Ford, a Democrat, told reporters, declining additional comment.
Defense attorneys bluntly declared the case dead, saying that to bring it now before another grand jury in another venue such as Nevada’s capital of Carson City would violate a three-year statute of limitations that expired last December.
“They’re done,” said Margaret McLetchie, attorney for Clark County Republican Party chairman Jesse Law, one of the defendants in the case.
‘Society is the victim’
The judge called off the trial, which had been scheduled for January, for defendants who included state GOP chairman Michael McDonald; national party committee member Jim DeGraffenreid; national and Douglas County committee member Shawn Meehan; Storey County clerk Jim Hindle; and Eileen Rice, a party member from the Lake Tahoe area. Each was accused of offering a false instrument for filing and uttering a forged instrument — felonies carrying a penalty of up to four or five years in prison.
Defense attorneys led by McDonald’s lawyer, Richard Wright, contended that Ford improperly brought the case before a grand jury in Las Vegas — Nevada’s largest and most Democratic-leaning city — instead of Carson City or Reno, northern Nevada cities in a more Republican region where the alleged crimes occurred.
Challenged by Holthus to respond, Deputy State Attorney General Matthew Rashbrook argued that “no one county contains the entirety of these crimes.”
“Society is the victim of these crimes,” the prosecutor said. “Voters who would have been disenfranchised by these acts … would have been victims of these crimes.”
But the judge decided that even though McDonald and Law live in Las Vegas, “everything took place up north.”
After the court hearing, Hindle’s attorney, Brian Hardy, declined to comment on calls from advocacy groups for his client to resign from his elected position as overseer of elections in Story County.
Meehan is the only defendant not to have been named by the state party as a Nevada delegate to the 2024 Republican National Convention next month in Milwaukee. His defense attorney, Sigal Chattah, said her client chose not to seek the position. Chattah ran as a Republican in 2022 for state attorney general and lost to Ford by just under 8% of the vote.
False certifications
Nevada is one of seven presidential battleground states where slates of fake electors falsely certified that Trump had won in 2020, not Democrat Joe Biden. The others were Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Nevada’s case, filed last December, focused on the actions of six defendants. Criminal cases in three other states focus on many more — 16 in Michigan, 19 in Georgia and 18 in Arizona.
Kenneth Chesebro, a lawyer who pleaded guilty in Georgia last October of helping to orchestrate the Trump campaign fake elector scheme in 2020, cooperated with prosecutors in the Nevada criminal investigation and was not charged.
In testimony before the grand jury that met in Las Vegas in November, Chesebro said he provided the state GOP with an “organized step-by-step explanation of what they would have to do” to sign and submit certificates falsely stating that Trump, not Biden, won in Nevada.
He also called Nevada “extremely problematic” to the fake elector plot, compared with other states, because the meeting of electors was overseen by the secretary of state. Also, unlike other states, Nevada did not have a legal challenge pending in courts at the time.
Trump lost Nevada in 2020 by more than 30,000 votes to Biden and the state’s Democratic electors certified the results in the presence of Nevada Secretary of State Barbara Cegavske, a Republican.
https://www.voanews.com/a/judge-dismisses-nevada-fake-elector-case-over-venue-question-/7665721.html
US sanctions 12 Kaspersky Lab leaders
date: 2024-06-22, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-sanctions-12-kaspersky-lab-leaders-/7665981.html
MOXI Celebrates Millionth Visitor
date: 2024-06-21, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Santa Barbara’s MOXI Museum marks the milestone with music, fun, and prizes.
The post MOXI Celebrates Millionth Visitor appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/06/21/moxi-celebrates-millionth-visitor/
NY prosecutors urge judge to keep parts of Trump gag order
date: 2024-06-21, from: VOA News USA
new york — Prosecutors on Friday urged the judge overseeing Donald Trump’s criminal hush money case to continue provisions of a gag order aimed at some of the former president’s public statements.
In court papers, prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office argued that parts of the gag order remained necessary given the Republican’s “singular history of inflammatory and threatening public statements,” as well as efforts by his supporters to “identify jurors and threaten violence against them.”
“Since the verdict in this case, defendant has not exempted the jurors from his alarming rhetoric that he would have ‘every right’ to seek retribution as president against the participants in this trial as a consequence of his conviction because ‘sometimes revenge can be justified,’” the filing states.
The gag order, issued in March, prohibited Trump from making or directing others to make public statements about witnesses, jurors and others connected to the case. It does not restrict comments about the judge, Juan M. Merchan, or Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office prosecuted the case.
Attorneys for Trump have called on the judge to lift the order following the culmination of his trial last month, which ended in his conviction on 34 felony counts for falsifying records to cover up a potential sex scandal. Trump, who has denied any wrongdoing, is set to be sentenced on July 11.
Defense attorneys argue Trump should be free to fully address the case as he campaigns for the White House, pointing to comments made by President Joe Biden and the continued public criticism of him by his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen and adult film actor Stormy Daniels, both key prosecution witnesses.
“Now that the trial is concluded, the concerns articulated by the government and the court do not justify continued restrictions on the First Amendment rights” of Trump, they wrote earlier this month.
In their letter, prosecutors agreed that the provision barring statements about trial witnesses no longer needed to be enforced but said the restrictions on statements about court staff and members of the prosecution, excluding Bragg, should remain in place.
They cited an “intensified” threat situation in recent months, with more than 60 “actionable threats” directed against Bragg, his family and court staff since April. The threats include social media posts disclosing the address of an employee of the district attorney’s office and a photo showing sniper sights aimed at people involved in the case, according to police.
Merchan is expected to rule soon, possibly before Trump’s June 27 debate with President Joe Biden.
Earlier this week, New York’s top court declined to hear Trump’s appeal on the gag order, finding it did not raise “substantial” constitutional issues that would warrant an immediate intervention.
https://www.voanews.com/a/ny-prosecutors-urge-judge-to-keep-parts-of-trump-gag-order/7665715.html
Hollow Communities
date: 2024-06-21, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Token efforts at affordable housing won’t suffice unless rents and real estate prices align with economic realities.
The post Hollow Communities appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/06/21/hollow-communities/
Trump lawyers in classified files case challenge prosecutor’s appointment
date: 2024-06-21, from: VOA News USA
fort pierce, florida — Lawyers for Donald Trump argued Friday that the Justice Department prosecutor who charged the former president with hoarding classified documents at his Florida estate was illegally appointed and that the case should therefore be dismissed.
The challenge to the legality of special counsel Jack Smith’s appointment kicked off a three-day hearing that will further delay a criminal case that had been scheduled for trial last month but has been snarled by unresolved legal disputes. The motion questioning Smith’s selection by the Justice Department is one of multiple challenges to the indictment the defense has raised, so far unsuccessfully, in the year since the charges were brought.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon heard hours of arguments Friday from lawyers for both sides, with Trump attorney Emil Bove asserting that the Justice Department risked creating a “shadow government” through the appointment of special counsels to prosecute select criminal cases. Prosecutors say there was nothing improper or unusual about Smith’s appointment, with James Pearce, a member of Smith’s team at one point saying: “We are in compliance. We have complied with all of the department’s policies.”
Cannon did not immediately rule, but in an apparent sign that she was taking seriously the Trump team motion, she grilled Pearce on what oversight role Attorney General Merrick Garland — who appointed Smith — had in seeking the indictment.
Pearce said he was not in a position to answer the question but noted, “I don’t want to make it seem like I’m hiding something.”
Even as Smith’s team looks to press forward on a prosecution seen by many legal experts as the most straightforward and clear-cut of the four prosecutions against Trump, Friday’s arguments didn’t concern the allegations against the former president. They centered instead on arcane regulations governing the appointment of Justice Department special counsels like Smith, reflecting the judge’s continued willingness to entertain defense arguments that prosecutors say are frivolous and meritless, contributing to the delay of a trial date.
Arbiter’s review ordered
Cannon, a Trump appointee, had exasperated prosecutors even before the June 2023 indictment by granting a Trump request to have an independent arbiter review the classified documents taken from Mar-a-Lago — an order that was overturned by a unanimous federal appeals panel.
Since then, she has been intensely scrutinized over her handling of the case, including for taking months to issue rulings and for scheduling hearings on legally specious claims — all of which have combined to make a trial before the November presidential election a virtual impossibility. She was rebuked in March by prosecutors after she asked both sides to formulate jury instructions and to respond to a premise of the case that Smith’s team called “fundamentally flawed.”
The New York Times, citing two anonymous sources, reported Thursday that two judges — including the chief federal judge in the Southern District of Florida — urged Cannon to step aside from the case shortly after she was assigned to it.
The hearing is unfolding just weeks after Trump was convicted in a separate state case in New York of falsifying business records to cover up a hush money payment to a porn actor who has said she had sex with him. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is poised to issue within days an opinion on whether Trump is immune from prosecution for acts he took in office or whether he can be prosecuted by Smith’s team on charges that he schemed to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
At issue in Friday’s hearing was a Trump team claim that Smith was illegally appointed in November 2022 by Garland because he was not first approved by Congress and because the special counsel office that he was assigned to lead was not also created by Congress.
Smith’s team has said Garland was fully empowered as the head of the Justice Department to make the appointment and to delegate prosecutorial decisions to him. They note that a similar argument failed in a challenge to the appointment of Robert Mueller, who was tapped as special counsel by the Trump administration Justice Department to investigate potential ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign.
On Monday, the two sides will again discuss matters related to Smith’s appointment, as well as a limited gag order that prosecutors have requested to bar Trump from comments they fear could endanger the safety of FBI agents and other law enforcement officials involved in the case.
The restrictions were sought after Trump falsely claimed the agents who searched his Mar-a-Lago estate for classified documents in August 2022 were prepared to kill him even though he was citing boilerplate language from standard FBI policy about use of force during the execution of search warrants. The FBI had intentionally selected a day for the search when it knew Trump and his family would be out of town, and the policy he was citing is meant to limit, rather than encourage, the use of force.
Trump’s lawyers have said any speech restrictions would infringe on his free-speech rights. Cannon initially rejected the prosecution’s request on technical grounds, saying Smith’s team had not sufficiently conferred with defense lawyers before seeking the restrictions. Prosecutors subsequently renewed the request.
Supes Urge Newsom Not to Cut L.A. County Inmate Firefighting Crews
date: 2024-06-21, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger and Board of Supervisors Chair Lindsey Horvath have sent an open letter to Governor Gavin Newsom urging him to continue funding the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitations hand crews who currently help the Los Angeles County Fire Department tackle wildland fires.
https://scvnews.com/supes-urge-newsom-not-to-cut-l-a-county-inmate-firefighting-crews/
Review | Adrianne Lenker
date: 2024-06-21, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The indie singer-songwriter plays a sold-out show in Los Angeles, successfully capturing every heart.
The post Review | Adrianne Lenker appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/06/21/review-adrianne-lenker/
June 28: City Hosts Blood Drive at The Centre
date: 2024-06-21, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Give the gift of life, an upcoming blood drive is scheduled for Friday, June 28, from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m., at The Centre, 20880 Centre Pointe Parkway, Santa Clarita, CA 91350. The blood drive will be held in Cedar Hall.
https://scvnews.com/june-28-city-hosts-blood-drive-at-the-centre/
Refugio State Beach’s Shoreline Reduced to Graveyard of Stumps
date: 2024-06-21, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
California State Parks removes 14 palm trees over safety concerns following winter storms and says park should reopen “early this summer” after culvert and sinkhole repairs.
The post Refugio State Beach’s Shoreline Reduced to Graveyard of Stumps appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
Pentagon changes rhetoric on Ukraine crossfire into Russia
date: 2024-06-21, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/pentagon-changes-rhetoric-on-ukraine-crossfire-into-russia/7665656.html
Apple Intelligence won’t be available in Europe because Tim’s terrified of watchdogs
date: 2024-06-21, updated: 2024-06-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
These privacy rules might harm privacy! No, really, that’s totally why we’re doing this
Apple has delayed plans to deploy artificial intelligence features in Europe because the American giant is unhappy with the continent’s privacy regulations.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/21/apple_intelligence_eu/
Santa Clarita Now Accepting Project Proposals for Make A Difference Day
date: 2024-06-21, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The city of Santa Clarita invites local schools and nonprofits to submit a proposal outlining a project that can benefit from volunteer support as part of Make A Difference Day on Saturday, Oct. 26.
https://scvnews.com/santa-clarita-now-accepting-project-proposals-for-make-a-difference-day/
EasyOS: an experimental Linux distribution
date: 2024-06-21, from: OS News
There’s really a Linux distribution for everyone, it seems. EasyOS sounds like it’s going to be some Debian derivative with a theme or something, but it’s truly something different – in fact, it has such a unique philosophy and approach to everything I barely know where to even start. Everything in EasyOS runs in containers, in the distribution’s own custom container format, even entire desktop environments, and containers are configured entirely graphically. EasyOS runs every application in RAM, making it insanely fast, and you can save the contents of RAM to disk whenever you want. You can also choose a special boot option where the entire session is only loaded in RAM, with disk access entirely disabled, for maximum security. Now things are going to get weird. In EasyOS, you always run as root, which may seem like a stupid thing to do, and I’m sure some people will find this offputting. The idea, however, is you run every application as its own user (e.g. Firefox runs as the “firefox” user), entirely isolated from every other user, or in containers with further constraints applied. I honestly kind of like this approach. If these first few details of what EasyOS is going for tickles your fancy, I really urge you to read the rest of their detailed explanation of what, exactly, EasyOS is going for. It’s an opinionated distribution, for sure, but it’s opinionated in a way where they’re clearly putting a lot of thought into the decisions they make. I’m definitely feeling the pull to give it a try and see if it’s something for me.
https://www.osnews.com/story/140037/easyos-an-experimental-linux-distribution/
June 25: City Council Meets on Open Space, Budget, Town Center Specific Plan
date: 2024-06-21, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Santa Clarita City Council will hold a regular meeting on Tuesday, June 25 at 6 p.m. that includes a host of issues including assessments, taxes, fees and budgets in addition to continued hearings on the Town Center Specific Plan
https://scvnews.com/june-25-city-council-meets-on-open-space-budget-town-center-specific-plan/
Election Season Starts Early at Santa Barbara’s Ensemble Theatre Company
date: 2024-06-21, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Summer productions of ‘Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground’ and ‘What the Constitution Means to Me’ put American politics at the forefront.
The post Election Season Starts Early at Santa Barbara’s Ensemble Theatre Company appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
No Apple Intelligence or iPhone Mirroring in EU at Launch
date: 2024-06-21, from: Michael Tsai
Juli Clover (Hacker News, ArsTechnica): Apple today said that European customers will not get access to the Apple Intelligence, iPhone Mirroring, and SharePlay Screen Sharing features that are coming to the iPhone, iPad, and Mac this September due to regulatory issues related to the Digital Markets Act. John Gruber (Mastodon): Kudos to Apple for breaking […]
https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/06/21/no-apple-intelligence-or-iphone-mirroring-in-eu-at-launch/
City Now Accepting Project Proposals for Make a Difference Day
date: 2024-06-21, from: City of Santa Clarita
Partner with Residents to Make a Difference in Our Community! The City of Santa Clarita invites local schools and nonprofits to submit a proposal outlining a project that can benefit from volunteer support as part of Make A Difference Day on Saturday, October 26. This annual event, held on the fourth Saturday of October, unites […]
The post City Now Accepting Project Proposals for Make a Difference Day appeared first on City of Santa Clarita.
The MAIN Presents ‘An Evening of Absurdity’
date: 2024-06-21, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Part of the Summer Theatre Festival by Santa Clarita Shakespeare, “An Evening of Absurdity” will run July 12-21 at the MAIN, 24266 Main Street., Newhall, CA 91321.
https://scvnews.com/the-main-presents-an-evening-of-absurdity/
This Week in the IndieWeb
date: 2024-06-21, from: This week in Indie Web
June 14-21, 2024
Recent Events
From events.indieweb.org/archive:
Join us online in Zoom for demos of personal sites, recent breakthroughs, discussions about the independent web, and meet IndieWeb community members! Homebrew Website club is for all levels and areas of IndieWeb interest, whether curious, creative, a coder, or all the above.
Front End Study Hall is an HTML + CSS focused group meeting, held on Zoom to learn from each other about how to make code do what we want.
Come prepared to teach and learn!
Upcoming Events
From events.indieweb.org:
Join us online in Zoom for demos of personal sites, recent breakthroughs, discussions about the independent web, and meet IndieWeb community members! Homebrew Website club is for all levels and areas of IndieWeb interest, whether curious, creative, a coder, or all the above.
The Homebrew Website Club to discuss the writing and writing-related topics. If you write on the web, whenever this is short message, detailed blog posts, reviews, rantings or fiction, come join us.
Front End Study Hall is an HTML + CSS focused group meeting, held on Zoom to learn from each other about how to make code do what we want.
Come prepared to teach and learn!
- NÜRNBERG, Bayern: LEONARDO – Zentrum für Kreativität und Innovation
HWC Nuremberg is a in-person meeting for everybody who is interested in setting up a personal website and talk about web-related issues.
Join us online in Zoom for demos of personal sites, recent breakthroughs, discussions about the independent web, and meet IndieWeb community members! Homebrew Website club is for all levels and areas of IndieWeb interest, whether curious, creative, a coder, or all the above.
- NÜRNBERG, Bayern: LEONARDO – Zentrum für Kreativität und Innovation
HWC Nuremberg is a in-person meeting for everybody who is interested in setting up a personal website and talk about web-related issues.
- NÜRNBERG, Bayern: LEONARDO – Zentrum für Kreativität und Innovation
HWC Nuremberg is a in-person meeting for everybody who is interested in setting up a personal website and talk about web-related issues.
What We’re Reading
From news.indieweb.org:
New Event Notes
From IndieWeb Wiki: New Pages:
Homebrew Website Club Europe/London: 2024-06-19
Homebrew Website Club - Pacific: 2024-06-19
Front End Study Hall #005: 2024-06-18
Top Edited Wiki Pages
From IndieWeb Wiki: Recent Changes:
- Letterboxd 7 edits by gregorlove.com, tantek.com, davidjohnmead.com, and aramzuckerscharff.com
- Planning 5 edits by werd.io and david.shanske.com
- rel-me 3 edits by gregorlove.com and tantek.com
- rel-author 3 edits by tantek.com and gregorlove.com
- Front End Study Hall 3 edits by artlung.com
- H2VX 3 edits by loqi.me and tantek.com
- events/2024-08-22-xoxo 2 edits by tantek.com
- chat-names 2 edits by mat.tl and www.ottorask.com
- phprc 2 edits by loqi.me and tantek.com
https://indieweb.org/this-week/2024-06-21.html
June 24: Traffic Advisory Lane Closures Copper Hill/Rio Norte Drive
date: 2024-06-21, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The city of Santa Clarita has issued a traffic advisory for daytime lane closures at Copper Hill and Rio Norte Drive beginning Monday, June
https://scvnews.com/june-24-traffic-advisory-lane-closures-copper-hill-rio-norte-drive/
Change Healthcare finally spills the tea on what medical data was stolen by cyber-crew
date: 2024-06-21, updated: 2024-06-22, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
‘Substantial proportion’ of America to get a little note from next month
Change Healthcare is formally notifying some of its pharmacy and hospital customers that their patients’ data was stolen from it by ransomware criminals back in February – and for the first time has concretely disclosed the types of information swiped during that IT intrusion.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/21/change_healthcare_patients/
California Congressmembers Look to Build off Santa Barbara Channel’s Blue Whales and Blue Skies Program
date: 2024-06-21, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Representatives Salud Carbajal and Jared Huffman introduce a federal bill to protect marine life and cut air pollution across the entire Pacific Coast.
The post California Congressmembers Look to Build off Santa Barbara Channel’s Blue Whales and Blue Skies Program appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
‽ #205 - How much we don’t know
date: 2024-06-21, from: Interesting, a blog on writing
When is world-building filling in gaps vs. expanding the universe of the story?
https://inneresting.substack.com/p/205-how-much-we-dont-know
Fourth of July Events in Santa Clarita
date: 2024-06-21, from: SCV New (TV Station)
Santa Clarita will celebrate this year’s Fourth of July with the Santa Clarita Valley Rotary Club’s pancake breakfast, Santa Clarita Valley Parade Committee’s Fourth of July Parade and city of Santa Clarita fireworks show.
https://scvnews.com/fourth-of-july-events-in-santa-clarita/
Tree-Hugging Their Way to the Top
date: 2024-06-21, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Western Chapter ISA Tree-Climbing Championship competition was held at Alameda Park in Santa Barbara.
The post Tree-Hugging Their Way to the Top appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/06/21/tree-hugging-their-way-to-the-top/
US high court upholds gun law intended to protect domestic violence victims
date: 2024-06-21, from: VOA News USA
NASA’s SLS Rocket: Block 1 vs. Block 1B Configuration
date: 2024-06-21, from: NASA breaking news
NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) rocket in the Block 1B cargo configuration will launch for the first time beginning with Artemis IV. This upgraded and more powerful SLS rocket will enable SLS to send over 38 metric tons (83,700 lbs.) to the Moon, including NASA’s Orion spacecraft and its crew, along with heavy payloads for […]
https://www.nasa.gov/image-article/nasas-sls-rocket-block-1-vs-block-1b-configuration/
California Public Health Warns Consumers About Diamond Shruumz Products
date: 2024-06-21, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The California Department of Public Health is warning consumers not to eat, sell or serve any flavor of Diamond Shruumz brand chocolate bars, cones and gummies, which contain a proprietary mushroom blend. These products, known as microdose products, have led to multiple illnesses and hospitalizations in 16 states, including at least one poisoning in California
https://scvnews.com/california-public-health-warns-consumers-about-diamond-shruumz-products/
Hypersonic Technology Project Overview
date: 2024-06-21, from: NASA breaking news
Vehicles that travel at hypersonic speeds fly faster than five times the speed of sound. NASA studies the fundamental science of hypersonics to understand it better and applies this understanding to enable point-to-point and space access hypersonic vehicles. These vehicles would use airbreathing engines, which utilize oxygen in the atmosphere. In the long term, NASA […]
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/armd/aavp/ht/hypersonic-tech-overview/
Hypersonics Technical Challenges
date: 2024-06-21, from: NASA breaking news
Technical Challenges (TCs) are finite-duration research and development endeavors supporting the strategic goals of NASA. The Hypersonic Technology project’s Technical Challenges include estimation of uncertainty for hypersonic research problems and vehicle systems, testing controls for switching engines mid-flight, and researching more efficient fuel combustors for large ramjets, which will be needed by future commercial high-speed […]
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/armd/aavp/ht/hypersonic-tech-challenges/
Hypersonic Research Topics
date: 2024-06-21, from: NASA breaking news
The Hypersonic Technology project is divided into four research topic areas. The first research topic is system-level design, analysis, and validation, which explores the impacts of technologies on vehicle performance. The second and third topics focus more specifically on propulsion technologies and vehicle technologies enabling hypersonic flight. The fourth topic area explores material technology that […]
https://www.nasa.gov/directorates/armd/aavp/ht/hypersonic-research-topics/
Uncle Sam sanctions Kaspersky’s top bosses – but not Mr K himself
date: 2024-06-21, updated: 2024-06-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Here’s America’s list of the supposedly dirty dozen
Uncle Sam took another swing at Kaspersky Lab today and sanctioned a dozen C-suite and senior-level executives at the antivirus maker, but spared CEO and co-founder Eugene Kaspersky.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/21/kaspersky_sanctions_ceo/
@Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed (date: 2024-06-21, from: Miguel de Icaza Mastondon feed)
Friend of the show Jeremy Scahill said this was an incredible documentary about Gaza.
I haven’t watched it yet, will do tonight:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ECFpW5zoFXA
https://mastodon.social/@Migueldeicaza/112656415407558805
Watch Blood-Sucking Leeches Leap From Leaves and Soar Through the Air
date: 2024-06-21, from: Smithsonian Magazine
New videos may help settle scientists’ long-standing debate over whether leeches can jump
June 22: The Cube Hosts Inaugural Girls, Women’s Hockey Tourney
date: 2024-06-21, from: SCV New (TV Station)
The Cube – Ice and Entertainment Center, Powered by FivePoint Valencia, will hold the inaugural Girls and Women’s Three-on-Three Hockey Tournament on Saturday, June 22.
https://scvnews.com/june-22-the-cube-hosts-inaugural-girls-womens-hockey-tourney/
Avalon community celebrates PRIDE
date: 2024-06-21, from: Catalina Islander
Avalon showed its Pride and support for the LGBTQ+ community and allies on June 15. “Love Catalina, Jim Luttjohann and I would like to thank everyone who did attend Pride,” said Councilmember Michael Ponce during the June 18 City Council meeting. “It was a great event; year three, looking forward to year four, and we […]
https://thecatalinaislander.com/avalon-community-celebrates-pride/
World’s Oldest Deep-Sea Shipwreck Discovered a Mile Beneath the Mediterranean Sea
date: 2024-06-21, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Archaeologists recovered two amphorae from the 3,300-year-old wreck site, which sheds new light on ancient maritime navigation
Relaxing Day on Catalina
date: 2024-06-21, from: Catalina Islander
Bob Kanter was visiting friends on Avalon recently, when they happened upon this Catalina Bison taking a rest. Kanter said he took a tour of the island interior and even got to visit the marine laboratory at Big Fishermans Cove, where he spent several months in the ’70s working on his graduate research.
https://thecatalinaislander.com/relaxing-day-on-catalina/
The Cube Hosts Inaugural Girls and Women, Three-on-Three Hockey Tournament
date: 2024-06-21, from: City of Santa Clarita
The Cube – Ice and Entertainment Center, Powered by FivePoint Valencia, is excited to announce its first-ever Girls and Women’s Three-on-Three Hockey Tournament. This exciting event will take place on Saturday, June 22, with a series of games culminating in championship matches at 6:15 p.m., 6:45 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., on The Pond ice rink. […]
The post The Cube Hosts Inaugural Girls and Women, Three-on-Three Hockey Tournament appeared first on City of Santa Clarita.
Avalon boosts commuter subsidy
date: 2024-06-21, from: Catalina Islander
The Avalon City Council on June 18 voted unanimously to increase the commuter book subsidy by $20. The new total: $105 per book, according to City Manager David Maistros. Councilmember Yesenia De La Rosa was absent this week. The new subsidy begins this July, according to the staff report. “The important thing is: We never […]
https://thecatalinaislander.com/avalon-boosts-commuter-subsidy/
Tesla sued for ‘systemic’ racism at its Fremont, California plant
date: 2024-06-21, updated: 2024-06-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Campus faces yet another racial discrimination lawsuit as Clean Air Act violations claims also hit the fan
Yet another lawsuit was this week filed against Tesla citing a “systemically … racially hostile work environment” at the company’s Fremont, California plant. …
Sheriff’s Log: June 13 to June 19, 2024
date: 2024-06-21, from: Catalina Islander
The following is the Avalon’s Sheriff’s Stations significant incidents report for the period of June 13 to June 19, 2024. All suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Many people who are arrested do not get prosecuted in the first place and many who are prosecuted do not get convicted. […]
https://thecatalinaislander.com/sheriffs-log-june-13-to-june-19-2024/
See 12 Captivating Bird Images From the Audubon Photography Awards
date: 2024-06-21, from: Smithsonian Magazine
In its 15th year, the contest showcases diverse avian species, their fascinating behaviors and the habitats needed to keep them alive
Fourth of July with USC Marching Band
date: 2024-06-21, from: Catalina Islander
For the Islander Catalina Museum for Art & History announces a collaboration with the University of Southern California Trojan Marching Band over the upcoming Fourth of July holiday. They invite visitors, locals and SC alumni alike to celebrate America and island traditions over Independence Day. “We are thrilled to host an event with the beloved […]
https://thecatalinaislander.com/fourth-of-july-with-usc-marching-band/
Mysterious Monolith Appears Outside of Las Vegas
date: 2024-06-21, from: Smithsonian Magazine
The reflective metal structure was found on a hiking trail in the Desert National Wildlife Refuge
Traffic Advisory Upcoming Lane Closures on Copper Hill Drive and Rio Norte Drive
date: 2024-06-21, from: City of Santa Clarita
Median Modifications to Begin June 24 Part of the federally funded Traffic and Pedestrian Circulation and Safety Improvement Project, construction on Copper Hill Drive at Rio Norte Drive will begin Monday, June 24. Crews will begin the construction of median modifications, paving, grinding and overlay operations which will result in the extension of the existing […]
The post Traffic Advisory Upcoming Lane Closures on Copper Hill Drive and Rio Norte Drive appeared first on City of Santa Clarita.
NASA’s ELaNa 43 Prepares for Firefly Aerospace Launch
date: 2024-06-21, from: NASA breaking news
NASA is readying for the launch of several small satellites to space, built with the help of students, educators, and researchers from across the country, as part of the agency’s CubeSat Launch Initiative. The ELaNa 43 (Educational Launch of Nanosatellites 43) mission includes eight CubeSats flying on Firefly Aerospace’s Alpha rocket for its “Noise of […]
Apple won’t release its new AI features in the EU because they don’t comply with EU privacy and competition laws
date: 2024-06-21, from: OS News
Apple has announced it’s not shipping three of its tentpole new features, announced during WWDC, in the European Union: Apple Intelligence, iPhone Mirroring, and SharePlay Screen Sharing. Ever since the introduction of especially Apple Intelligence, the company has been in hot water over the sourcing of its training data – Apple admitted it’s been scraping everyone’s data for years and now used it to train its AI features. This will obviously have included vasts amounts of data from European websites and citizens, and with the strict EU privacy laws, there’s a very real chance that such scraping is simply not legal. As such, it’s simpler to just not comply with such stricter privacy laws than to design your products with privacy in mind. As Steven Troughton-Smith quips: How many EU-based sites did Apple scrape to build the feature it now says it can’t ship in the EU because of legal uncertainty? ↫ Steven Troughton-Smith Other massive corporations like Google and Facebook seem to have little issue shipping AI features in the EU, and have been doing so for quite a while now. And mind you, as Tim Cook has been very keen to reiterate in every single interview for the past two years or so, Apple has been shipping AI features similar to what they announced at WWDC for years as well, but it’s only now that the European Union is actually imposing regulations on them – instead of letting corporatism run wild – that it can no longer ship such features in the EU? Apple is throwing its users under the bus because Tim Cook is big mad that someone told him no. As I keep reiterating, consent is something Silicon Valley simply does not understand.
Privacy features lose their way in latest Firefox update
date: 2024-06-21, updated: 2024-06-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Mozilla backtracking on private window changes after uproar
Firefox remains the browser of choice for many, but the latest update has lost users’ tabs and makes it much more apparent when they have private tabs open, missing the point of privacy.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/21/firefox_127_private_window/
So Your EV Maker Goes Bankrupt. Now What?
date: 2024-06-21, from: Heatmap News
When I visited the Electrify Expo in Long Beach, California last month, the traditional automakers had set up tents and booths buzzing with happy representatives ready to show off their electric and electrified vehicles to the media and the public. And then there was Fisker, where one lonely man sat amid a group of Ocean EVs, wondering whether anyone would talk to him.
The writing was already on the wall that day. This week, the electric startup filed for its inevitable Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
In March, Fisker slashed the prices of its vehicles in a desperate attempt to stave off bankruptcy. It did not succeed, nor was there ever a real chance that it would. The collapse marks the second failed car company for founder Henrik Fisker, and the list of reasons makes for an excellent business school case study in what not to do. But for those of us who own an electric vehicle, or may soon buy one, Fisker’s downfall brings up a question that’s especially pointed for anyone buying a car from an EV startup: What happens if the company that made your car isn’t around anymore?
The problem is as old as the car industry. While Ford and Chevrolet feel like they’ve been around since the dawn of time, automotive history is littered with car brands that don’t make cars anymore. Studebaker. Hudson. Pontiac. Oldsmobile. Saturn. Packard. One could go on. When the companies disappeared, their vehicles became “orphan cars” with no parent company around to make parts for or fix them.
Not every orphanage looks the same. Pontiac and Oldsmobile, for example, were divisions of General Motors by the time they were killed off, so GM remained to honor warranty claims on the cars. Plymouth owners had parent company Chrysler to turn to when that marque went to the chrome mausoleum. Sometimes, a car brand like Isuzu or Suzuki quits selling cars in the American market but the company itself remains intact, and so many have been sold previously that plenty of shops and mechanics who know how to work on those vehicles remain.
When a car company that hasn’t operated in the United States for many years disappears entirely, things get dicier. Enthusiasts still collect and drive vehicles from long-dead carmakers. But acquiring parts for them can be a wild goose chase, and maintaining them relies on knowledge passed down among a select few.
Here in the EV era, the few-thousand people who bought (and actually received) a Fisker Ocean are in a tight spot. Their warranty coverage will technically endure as long as Fisker’s court proceedings are ongoing, since it’s always possible that the company could emerge from Chapter 11 and still exist on the other side. As long as Fisker is in limbo, Ocean owners might be able to get the company to fix their cars.
If the company truly goes belly-up, though — which seems like the likeliest outcome — then all bets are off. Fisker’s assets would be liquidated, and owners may be lost in the shuffle as the automaker’s pieces are sold off for pennies on the dollar to anybody who might want them.
Any Fisker-specific parts would be extremely hard to come by if the company (which was slow on its production goals in the first place) vanishes. There would be no more over-the-air software updates to add features or fix bugs; that’s more bad news since right up to the point of bankruptcy, the company was sending out updates just to fix basic operations. Even relatively simple repairs may be hard to achieve once Fisker is no more. The U.S. faces an ongoing shortage of auto mechanics trained to fix electric vehicles, which are an entirely different beast compared to internal combustion. It’s not like any old garage down the street could or would work on an Ocean.
Ocean owners are not silently accepting this crappy outcome. A bunch of them just banded together to form the Fisker Owners Association in the hopes of collectively keeping their rides driveable and viable long after Fisker the company is no more. They are fighting for ongoing support of the Ocean’s software and continued access to the 4G internet the vehicle needs for its in-car navigation system to work. They are tearing apart their Oceans to find out which parts are common and which are proprietary, and using that knowledge to build a database for all Fisker drivers.
Their troubles — and their collective action to take more control over their own cars — should be a note of both warning and hope to other EV drivers. Perhaps the disarray at Fisker makes it a special case that was doomed to fail at some point. But even respected and well-regarded EV startups like Lucid and Rivian aren’t in the rosiest financial situation. The former had to severely slow down its production projections; the latter is trying to navigate the “valley of death” until it can get its mass-market R2 and R3 vehicles on sale. Even EV king Tesla was reportedly “about a month” from bankruptcy during the dire months of 2020 when it tried to scale up manufacturing of the Model 3. Oh, and there was that time in the 2000s that Detroit’s Big Three nearly collapsed.
Rivian and Lucid owners are surely in a better spot than their Fisker counterparts — both companies are in a better position to succeed than Fisker ever was, and are more likely to receive the investment they’ll need to avoid going to bankruptcy court, should it ever come to that. But there’s never a sure thing in life, and owning an EV from a new company inherently generates some risk of becoming an orphan.
https://heatmap.news/electric-vehicles/fisker-bankruptcy
An Ancient Beach Buried by Mount Vesuvius’ Eruption Is Now Open to the Public
date: 2024-06-21, from: Smithsonian Magazine
In the seaside resort town of Herculaneum, the beach is the final resting place of more than 330 residents who tried to flee
NASA Invites Public to Share Excitement of NOAA GOES-U Launch
date: 2024-06-21, from: NASA breaking news
NASA invites the public to participate in virtual activities and events leading up to the launch of the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) GOES-U (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-U) mission. NASA is targeting a two-hour window opening at 5:16 p.m. EDT Tuesday, June 25, for the launch of the weather satellite aboard a SpaceX Falcon […]
Lilbits: Apple Intelligence skips the EU
date: 2024-06-21, from: Liliputing
Earlier this month Apple unveiled some of the new AI features coming to its smartphones, tablets, and laptop and desktop computers. But it looks like not everyone will get these so-called “Apple Intelligence” features. We already knew that you’d need an Apple A17 Pro or faster processor, which leaves behind anyone that doesn’t have an […]
The post Lilbits: Apple Intelligence skips the EU appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/lilbits-apple-intelligence-skips-the-eu/
AT&T forbidden from cutting landline services to large parts of California
date: 2024-06-21, updated: 2024-06-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Telecoms company will remain a carrier of last resort per CPUC ruling
AT&T will have to continue operating landlines in California despite its wish to cut off the less lucrative line of business, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has ruled.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/21/atts_request_to_withdraw_landline/
The Climate Jobs Biden Doesn’t Want to Talk About
date: 2024-06-21, from: Heatmap News
In 1933, with unemployment running at 25%, President Franklin Roosevelt established the Civilian Conservation Corps, an idea with both practical and symbolic significance. It put young men to work (at a wage of $30 per month, $25 of which would be sent to their families); by the time it was shut down during World War II, 3 million volunteers had participated. They planted trees, created trails, fought fires, aided in flood control and soil erosion, and shored up infrastructure around the country. The program helped show the public that a dynamic, aggressive federal government could work to solve problems large and small.
The CCC was so popular that creating a new version of it has long been a feature of ambitious climate proposals like the Green New Deal. Can we recapture that spirit, with an army of young people fanning out through the country to work on today’s key environmental challenges at the same time as they remind us that government can be the solution, not the problem? Wouldn’t that be a boon not just to achieving climate goals but also to the entire progressive project?
It might be. But now that the Biden administration has finally rolled out the American Climate Corps (with explicit inspiration from the CCC) three-and-a-half years into the president’s term, everything about the program — from the number of people it’s supposed to employ to the manner in which it was launched — seems awfully modest. It’s a start, but only that — and it’s a good bet that just a tiny portion of the public has heard about it.
Given how important job creation is to Biden’s governing philosophy and reelection effort, one might think he’d be trumpeting the ACC in campaign ads, interviews, and at every speech he gives. And yet he has not. The administration announced this week that the ACC is now underway, with a website people can visit to find climate-related jobs. The program will deploy 9,000 workers initially, with a target of 20,000 in the first year. Those numbers are pretty small, especially compared to what the CCC looked like in its heyday. To a great extent, though there is a program now in place, it remains mostly aspirational.
The original ambitions for a climate corps were much grander. One bill introduced in 2021 by Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey and New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Democrats both) sought to employ 1.5 million workers. Just days after taking office, Biden issued an executive order on climate that instructed agencies to create a plan for a “Civilian Climate Corps Initiative.” Democrats wanted to include it in the Inflation Reduction Act, but by the time that bill worked its way through the legislative meat-grinder and passed in 2022, the funding had been dropped. So the administration cobbled together the ACC from existing climate initiatives, announcing last fall that it would finally come to fruition; this week’s swearing-in was virtual. While the launch got some write-ups in news outlets devoted to the environment (see here or here), it was hardly front-page news.
And where the ACC meets the ground, it will likely not have much of a recognizable identity. The federal government is channeling the money through multiple cabinet departments and then on to a network of public and private organizations, meaning that someone who got a job through the ACC will, as far as anyone in local communities can see, be working for the Michigan Department of Agriculture, the Appalachian Mountain Club, or whichever organization is their ultimate destination. There hasn’t been any American Climate Corps uniform unveiled, so you may not be able to spot an ACC worker in your town even if they’re there.
That has its benefits: Local organizations are connected to their communities, and they could avoid the kind of backlash a program explicitly associated with Joe Biden might produce in some places. One wouldn’t want to see young people in official ACC jackets getting harassed by locals telling them to get Biden’s radical left agenda to destroy America out of their town. Sometimes, the best way to get support for a project is to depoliticize it as much as possible.
That’s true even if on its face the ACC seems so unobjectionable. Who could be against giving young people jobs putting up solar panels or maintaining forests? The basic idea of hiring people to work on environmental projects is almost absurdly popular; one 2020 poll from the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication found 85% of respondents in favor of “Reestablish[ing] the Civilian Conservation Corps, which would employ workers to protect natural ecosystems, plant trees in rural and urban areas, and restore the soil on farmlands.”
But conservative elites are not on board. After the White House released its 2025 budget request proposing $8 billion in funding over the next decade for the ACC to expand it to create 50,000 jobs per year, Republicans pounced. Oklahoma Rep. Josh Brecheen called it “a radical green energy training program,” and Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw said “It’s just some big, useless government agency with no real direction.” Crenshaw has sponsored a bill, the Canceling Climate Crusaders Act, to prohibit the government from creating anything like the ACC; another GOP bill to do the same is called the No American Climate Corps Act.
Those bills are purely symbolic, representing opposition not just to the ACC but to whatever this administration wants to do on climate, or anything else for that matter. Biden could declare August to be “Puppies Are Cute Month” and Fox News would do a dozen segments on the terrifying conspiracy to turn your dog woke. That kind of opposition may be inevitable — but not necessarily persuasive to the average voter.
There’s also a cost to depriving the ACC of a visible identity. Building and maintaining support for strong government action on climate means convincing people that government is capable of doing important things, and doing them right. When it succeeds, it makes it easier to create the next program, and the one after that. The more visible those initiatives are to people, especially right where they live, the more they’ll be favorably inclined toward other programs to address climate change. It’s why you don’t see many activists talking about the loss of polar bear habitat anymore: They realized that manifestations of climate change that seem remote and abstract are less meaningful to people than what they can see in their own communities and their own lives.
The ACC can’t be a true successor to the CCC unless it scales up, and that means significant independent funding. Even the $8 billion in the 2025 Biden budget would be just a down payment to get to 50,000 ACC workers; multiply that by 10, and you might achieve something people could really see working.
That’s what made the New Deal so powerful: At a time of crisis, Americans understood that their government was doing monumental things to save the country, and the programs it created could be seen everywhere they looked. If the ACC affects enough lives and communities, the public will see its value. The trick is getting it big enough — and singing its praises loudly enough — so they’ll notice.
https://heatmap.news/politics/biden-american-climate-corps
Article Spotlight: New Horned Dinosaur Lokiceratops from the Campanian Judith River Formation of Montana
date: 2024-06-21, from: PeerJ blog
Contracts and Acquisition Integrity Law
date: 2024-06-21, from: NASA breaking news
About In its functional leadership role, the Contracts and Acquisition Integrity Law Practice Group supports policy-level interactions with other elements of Government; provides specialized guidance and advice to the Offices of the General Counsel at NASA Field Centers regarding contract award, administration and litigation matters; and develops and coordinates NASA legal policy in these areas. […]
https://www.nasa.gov/organizations/contracts-and-acquisition-integrity-law/
Acquisition Integrity Program
date: 2024-06-21, from: NASA breaking news
In its functional leadership role, the Acquisition and Integrity Program (AIP) supports policy-level interactions with other governmental agencies combating procurement fraud. This Program provides specialized guidance and advice to the Office of the Chief Counsel at NASA Field Centers regarding procurement fraud matters; advises on affirmative litigation in the recovery of monies resulting from fraudulent […]
https://www.nasa.gov/organizations/acquisition-integrity-program/
Your Guide to Another Record-Breaking Summer
date: 2024-06-21, from: Heatmap News
Last
summer was the hottest in
two
millennia. We won’t get any relief this year.
An overwhelming majority of Americans will experience above-average heat this summer, and temperatures in more than half of the contiguous United States are expected to top the historical average by at least 2 degrees Fahrenheit, according to AccuWeather. New York is expected to endure twice as many 90-plus-degree days as last year; Boston could experience up to four times as many.
Americans got a taste of what’s to come this week, with a blistering heat wave that began in the Southwest and has scorched the East Coast for the past three days. That heat may have come early based on the historical averages, but considering more recent trends, it’s right on track.
“The biggest changes that we have seen in recent decades is that the heat wave season has been expanding, starting earlier in the late spring and ending later into early fall, on average,” AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Brett Anderson told Heatmap.
The northern Rockies, Great Lakes, and the Northeast are areas of particular concern, Paul Pastelok, AccuWeather’s Lead Long-Range Forecaster, told Heatmap. Those regions will likely experience less precipitation and more intense heat this summer compared to their historical average. “The Northern Plains and Upper Midwest are tricky,” Pastelok said. “Right now, this area is getting rain, but this could cut off by the very end of June into July, and turn around to dryness with the heat following.”
While temperatures will most likely peak in the interior Southwest — Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico — by early July, the region can expect temperatures between 112 and 118 degrees until then. Monsoon season, which brings warm winds and rainfall inland, will likely arrive in late July instead of the usual late June, Pastelok said. Peak heat could come much later — anytime between July and September — for those in the Great Lakes, the Ohio Valley, and the Northeast.
The biggest “warm anomalies” are expected in the Southwest and central Rockies, the Great Lakes, the Ohio Valley and the Northeast, according Tom Kines, a senior meteorologist at AccuWeather. “We are looking at anomalies for the entire summer of +4 degrees (F) which is pretty significant over a 3 month period,” Kines wrote in an email to Heatmap.
Heat won’t be the only extreme weather this season. Drought could be severe, particularly in the Southwest — including parts of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas, where rainfall could come in below 50% of the historical average. That dry spell could intensify over the northern Plains, Great Lakes, and the Northeast later in the summer. The Gulf Coast, meanwhile, can anticipate a staggering 22 to 36 inches of rain this season — compared to its usual 15 to 24 inches — which will likely make flooding an issue.
After a wetter winter, meteorologists anticipated a slow start to the wildfire season in California and the Southwest. In fact, the number of wildfires this year is expected to come in below average: AccuWeather meteorologists predict 35,000 to 50,000 wildfires this year, compared to a historical average of about 69,000. Yet the fires in California also seem to have picked up speed a little earlier than normal. Last week saw more than two dozen fires in the state, perhaps heralding increased fire activity to come.
So how will we deal with all this? Northern cities, especially, tend to be less equipped to deal with extreme summer heat. In Boston, temperatures reached a record-breaking 98 degrees on Wednesday, a day after Mayor Michelle Wu declared a heat emergency. The city opened cooling centers this week in an attempt to minimize the number of heat-related medical emergencies.
Boston Green New Deal Director Oliver Sellers-Garcia told Heatmap that the city is bringing more government agencies into the heat management effort. The Fire and Parks departments plan to set up misting stations, and the city will continue to provide extra pop-up cooling centers in coordination with Boston’s Centers for Youth and Families. Those strategies, Sellers-Garcia said, “can have an instant benefit for someone, whether it’s just a super hot day and they have to get to work or it’s a declared heat wave.”
In Florida, people are used to chronic heat, Miami-Dade County’s Chief Heat Officer Jane Gilbert told Heatmap. Last year the county had 42 heat advisories (which happens when the thermometer reaches 105) and 70 warnings (110), Gilbert said, and this season is already proving more intense: May was the warmest ever on record in the state. To protect residents, the county has established a comprehensive public awareness campaign that targets those most affected by the heat, including outdoor workers, children, pregnant women, the elderly, and people with chronic illnesses. It also runs more than 30 cooling centers.
According to Gilbert, the goal is to educate people about the extent of heat impacts so they can make better choices — drink more water, find shade, limit physical activity — and protect their health. “We haven’t fully appreciated, historically as a community, how it impacts our lives,” she said.
Here’s what’s happened so far …
The U.S. celebrated the official start of summer with a scorching heat dome
June 21: Communities from Kansas to Maine experienced record-breaking temperatures, with heat indices above 100 degrees Fahrenheit in some places. Cities including Philadelphia, Cleveland, and Burlington, Vermont opened cooling centers, and Boston and New York activated heat emergency plans. Schools in Buffalo, New York moved to half-day schedules for the week in response to temperature advisories.
The heat wave was expected to hold into the weekend, increasing the risk of emergencies. But ensuring that at-risk residents are aware of public services and heat mitigation strategies is often more difficult than simply providing amenities like cooling centers and air conditioners, Benjamin Zaitchik, a professor of climate dynamics at Johns Hopkins University, told Heatmap. “Preventing heat deaths — in principle, at least — is easy,” Zaitchik said. “It just requires good planning, good communication, good networks.”
The same heatwave afflicted much of the Southwestern United States the week before. Temperatures in Phoenix and Las Vegas exceeded 110 degrees, breaking records and prompting cities to issue heat advisories covering tens of millions of people. At a Trump rally in Las Vegas, 24 people received treatment for heat-related complications and six were hospitalized, The Guardian reported.
Hundreds died on the road to Mecca
June 14-19: More than 1,000 people died during the sacred Muslim pilgrimage known as the hajj as extreme heat gripped Saudi Arabia in mid-June. In Mecca, where temperatures exceed 120 degrees Fahrenheit, worshippers gripped umbrellas and water bottles to combat the heat. A study from 2019 predicted that hajj conditions would exceed an “extreme danger heat threshold” more frequently in the coming decades, especially when the pilgrimage — which is scheduled according to the lunar calendar — coincides with the warmer months of the year.
The death toll was about five times higher than last year, according to CNN.
Greece shut down
June 10: Passengers on a Qatar Airways flight passed out from heat as their plane sat on the tarmac at Athens International Airport. Flight 204, which was delayed for three hours with passengers stuck inside, experienced a malfunction in its air conditioning. Two days later, authorities shut down the Acropolis for five hours due to the 102 degree weather, which marked Greece’s earliest heat wave on record. Many schools were also closed for the day, and several air-conditioned spaces were opened to the public. Greece’s Health Ministry advised older people and those with chronic illnesses to stay indoors.
The intense weather continued throughout the weekend, and at least five tourists were reported to have died due to extreme heat.
Other parts of Southern Europe, such as Cyprus and Turk, have also suffered through heat waves this year. During the second week of June, temperatures in Cyprus exceeded 104 degrees every day and classes ended early. On June 14, some areas experienced their hottest June day ever, reaching 113 degrees. That same week, Turkey also battled record temperatures — they were 8 to 12 degrees higher than the average for the season.
Hundreds of millions voted in extreme heat
May and June: Both Mexico and India faced extreme temperatures during national elections.
Record-breaking heat waves have scorched Mexico since late March, causing blackouts, wildfires, heat strokes, and animal deaths. On May 25, Mexico City set a new heat record, with the temperature there surpassing 94.4 degrees, while other cities in the country registered even higher temperatures — well above 115 degrees. As of June 12, at least 125 deaths had been attributed to the heat, which has been made worse by an intense drought linked to El Niño. With reservoirs at less than 27% capacity, millions could run out of water by the end of this month.
World Weather Attribution, a research group that analyzes the degree to which climate change is causing extreme weather events, estimated that global warming has made extreme temperatures in the region 35 times more likely. “These trends will continue with future warming and events like the one observed in 2024 will be very common” in a world where average temperatures are 2 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels, the group stated in a release.
Despite sweltering conditions, about 100 million voters elected Claudia Sheinbaum, Mexico’s first female president, on June 2. In her victory speech, Sheinbaum, a climate scientist with a focus on energy engineering, said she will work to maintain the country’s energy sovereignty. While Sheinbaum has vouched to expand the country’s renewable energy, she has also been criticized for her support of Pemex, the state-owned oil company.
Two days later, on June 4, India re-elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi for a third term during the country’s longest-ever heatwave. By the time the weeks-long voting process wrapped, extreme heat had killed more than 100 people. In Uttar Pradesh, at least 33 poll workers died in a single day, CNN reported. In response, local governments have imposed measures to prevent water waste and protect construction workers. Yet, according to analysis by the Centre for Policy Research found in 2023, most of India’s heatwave policies are underfunded and fail to target the country’s most vulnerable groups.
More extreme weather hammered Mexico beginning June 20 as tropical storm Alberto brought torrential rain and flooding to the country’s east. AccuWeather meteorologists said the storm is just the start of a predicted intense hurricane season in the area. Most of India is still under heatwave alerts, but the weather is set to improve in the next few days as the monsoon finally advances after a week-long delay.
Drought is still threatening China’s wheat belt
May: Scarce rainfall and soaring heat have led to drought conditions that are threatening China’s food production and water supply. The provinces of Shandong and Henan — crucial to the country’s wheat production — are some of the most affected, and the State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters has dispatched two disaster relief guidance teams. New technology, such as multi-functional seeders, and multiple reservoirs have been deployed to ameliorate conditions.
Also on Wednesday, the China Meteorological Administration reported that several regional weather stations recorded the highest temperatures ever in mid-June. Conditions are expected to worsen, as some Chinese provinces are expected to reach 111 degrees this week.
https://heatmap.news/climate/summer-2024-heat
This Rubens Masterpiece Was Significantly Altered by Another Artist
date: 2024-06-21, from: Smithsonian Magazine
Important details in “The Judgement of Paris” appear to have been changed several decades after the artist’s death
Why A Gay California Senator Is Annoyed By His Own LGBTQ Health Info Bill
date: 2024-06-21, updated: 2024-06-21, from: The LAist
Sen. Scott Wiener is irked that he had to introduce a bill that would require health officials to ask LGBTQ people for demographic info on state health forms. He says they should have been doing it anyway.
Military paper moves to defend its 1st Amendment rights
date: 2024-06-21, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/military-paper-moves-to-defend-its-1st-amendment-rights/7665204.html
Phoenix UEFI flaw puts long list of Intel chips in hot seat
date: 2024-06-21, updated: 2024-06-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Researchers discuss it in same breath as BlackLotus and MosaicRegressor
A new vulnerability in UEFI firmware is threatening the security of a wide range of Intel chip families in a similar fashion to BlackLotus and others like it.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/21/uefi_vulnerability_intel_chips/
MINISFORUM DEG1 barebones eGPU dock with OCuLink now available for $99
date: 2024-06-21, from: Liliputing
The MINISFORUM DEG1 is an external graphics dock with an OCuLink connector that provides a 63 Gbps connection to a laptop, handheld or mini PC. And that’s literally all this compact eGPU dock with a minimalist design does. It doesn’t act as a USB hub or port extender. It doesn’t even have a case. But it’s a […]
The post MINISFORUM DEG1 barebones eGPU dock with OCuLink now available for $99 appeared first on Liliputing.
https://liliputing.com/minisforum-deg1-barebones-egpu-dock-with-oculink-now-available-for-99/
Behind the Blog: Presidential ‘Cheapfakes’ and Internet Addiction
date: 2024-06-21, from: 404 Media Group
This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss Joe Biden “cheapfakes,” the idea of porn-addicted tribes, and feedback.
https://www.404media.co/behind-the-blog-presidential-cheapfakes-and-internet-addiction/
Waymo robotaxis set to cruise past red tape into LA and beyond
date: 2024-06-21, updated: 2024-06-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Google’s self-driving cars can be tested in way mo’ streets now
The way is paved for autonomous vehicle company Waymo to extend taxi services beyond San Francisco and into the San Francisco Peninsula and Los Angeles.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/21/waymo_expansion/
US charity sends medical help to Ukraine’s frontline towns
date: 2024-06-21, from: VOA News USA
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, U.S. humanitarian group Project HOPE has provided aid to Ukrainian health clinics and residents of the country’s frontline towns and villages. Yaroslava Movchan has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. Videographer: Dmytro Hlushko.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-charity-sends-medical-help-to-ukraine-s-frontline-towns/7665056.html
Coordinating an Airborne Lab Across the Globe with NASA’s Earth Science Project Office
date: 2024-06-21, from: NASA breaking news
Tracking the spread of harmful air pollutants across large regions requires aircraft, satellites, and diverse team of scientists. NASA’s global interest in the threat of air pollution extends into Asia, where it works with partners on the Airborne and Satellite Investigation of Asian Air Quality (ASIA-AQ). This international mission integrates satellite data and aircraft measurements […]
Trump, Biden woo voters on TikTok. Will it make a difference?
date: 2024-06-21, from: VOA News USA
President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump agree on few things, but a ban of the Beijing-based social network TikTok is one of them. Now with a presidential election at stake, both are joining the platform they previously attempted to take down. Will it make a difference on Election Day? Tina Trinh reports.
https://www.voanews.com/a/trump-biden-woo-voters-on-tiktok-will-it-make-a-difference-/7665058.html
A Bridge for Ukraine into NATO
date: 2024-06-21, updated: 2024-06-21, from: RAND blog
If NATO is serious about bringing Ukraine in as a member, then it must be clear-eyed about the risks, develop a concrete plan in support of a broader strategy, and commit itself to success. Anything less is likely to lead to failure.
https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2024/06/a-bridge-for-ukraine-into-nato.html
This Climate Justice Policy Has Gotten Weird
date: 2024-06-21, from: Heatmap News
It takes about 45 minutes to circumnavigate Odessa, Texas. There’s a
highway — 338, known locally as “The Loop” — that encircles the city of
113,000 people in West Texas. Drive along it and you’ll be treated to a
nearly unending parade of oil derricks jabbing their way into the
underlying Permian Basin, just as they have for roughly the past
century. You’d be forgiven for calling Odessa an “energy
community.”
You’d also be wrong, according to the Federal Government. On June 7, the Department of the Treasury published an updated list of energy communities. Included in that list were San Francisco, Barnstable County (which covers all of Cape Cod), and, in total, about 50% of the land area of the United States. Conspicuously absent were famously oily localities such as Odessa, Midland, and Oklahoma City.
So how did San Francisco — where sea lions outnumber oil wells — become an energy community instead of Odessa?
To understand the new guidance, it’s worth exploring why the federal government is concerned about energy communities in the first place. Scattered across the U.S. are hundreds of towns that depend on coal, oil, and gas production for their livelihoods. Towns like these — often located next to coal mines or on top of oil reserves — stand to lose vital jobs and tax revenues should the country transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. In the eyes of lawmakers, this presents an unacceptable risk to both local economies and to any hope of durable support for climate action.
The Inflation Reduction Act sought to remedy that by making any clean energy project located in one of these communities eligible for a 10% tax credit, on top of whatever other tax credits it was already collecting. This bonus, it was hoped, could allow clean energy to replace some of the economic activity lost to the eventual decline of fossil fuels.
What followed, however, is a case study in the importance of defining terms.
The IRA defined an energy community as any one of the following:
- A brownfield site, meaning any location where redevelopment is made more difficult by the presence of a hazardous substance;
- A coal community, meaning any census tract where a coal mine or generator has closed in the past 15 years (as well as all adjacent census tracts); or
- A high fossil fuel employment area—specifically, any metropolitan or non-metropolitan statistical area (“MSA” or “NMSA,” respectively) that has (i) 0.17% or more of its workforce in the fossil fuels industry and (ii) an unemployment rate at or above the national average.
It’s this third category where things get sticky. Treasury was charged with interpreting these rules, and by its methodology, fossil fuel employment in the United States represents 0.41% of the workforce, or more than double the level specified in the IRA. That means that a city could have a fossil fuel workforce far smaller, proportionally, than the national average and still qualify as an energy community.
But the issues don’t stop there, according to Daniel Raimi. Raimi directs the Equity in the Energy Transition Initiative at Resources for the Future, a DC-based think tank. He’s been warning about the flaws in the energy communities framework since 2022. He told me there are two main problems with how the government defines an energy community.
First, MSAs and NMSAs are a crude tool for capturing geographic variation. In some parts of the country, their boundaries roughly track city limits. But in other parts — Alaska, for example — they can be the size of Germany. That means that two towns 700 miles apart with little in common economically could nevertheless count themselves as part of the same basic geographic unit.
Second, hitching the definition of an energy community to the national unemployment rate exposes it to wild fluctuations. Areas where the local unemployment is close to the national rate could gain and lose their status as an energy community from year to year, depending on which side of the threshold they find themselves. Moreover, said Raimi, “Since so many places exceed 0.17% fossil fuel employment, a relatively small change in national unemployment has a big effect on the map.”
That dynamic was on display this year. As national unemployment fell by 0.01% in 2023 compared to 2022, large swaths of the country — such as western Wyoming and eastern Mississippi — lost their status, while other regions — such as northern Idaho and northern Arkansas — suddenly qualified. On net, an area the size of New Mexico got added to the map of energy communities this year. Meanwhile, much of the nation’s oil country — including Texas and Oklahoma’s Permian Basin, Colorado’s Denver-Julesburg Basin, and large part of North Dakota’s Bakken Formation — was excluded.
I spoke with a Treasury official, who agreed to speak only on background and acknowledged Raimi’s concerns but stressed that the Department was merely executing the letter of the law. Given the specificity of the statute, they pointed out, there was little Treasury could do to more accurately target the benefits. The Department did issue a rule last year clarifying that any clean energy project that qualified for the tax credit when it began construction would retain that tax credit even if the location subsequently lost its status as an energy community, insulating it from year-to-year changes.
Still, Raimi worries that the current approach will prevent government support from reaching the communities that need it most. “Because they’re not carefully targeted, they are unlikely to receive lots of new investment from this tax credit,” Raimi told me.
And it could get expensive. With roughly half of the country qualifying for the bonus, said Raimi, “I think we’re going to be spending tens of billions of dollars in places where we don’t need to spend that money.” (The Treasury official downplayed concerns over the program’s costliness.)
What would a more precise approach look like? For starters, abandon the MSAs and NMSAs. “County level makes a lot of sense,” Raimi said. “Everybody knows what a county is, and developers and government officials can easily understand whether or not they’re going to be eligible for the credit.”
Beyond that, Raimi wishes public policy would focus more on future impacts. “We know that to get to a net-zero emissions future, we need to use less of all the fossil fuels,” he said. “The places that heavily rely on them — like the Bakken, like the Permian, like parts of Oklahoma — they’re going to need a long time to build new economic sectors. Now is the time to start trying to do that.”
https://heatmap.news/climate/energy-communities-map
The Supreme Court, tribes and online gambling
date: 2024-06-21, from: Marketplace Morning Report
In a flurry of recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions, the Justices’ lack of action on one case is a major victory for the tribal gaming industry. The court left in place an agreement between the Seminole Tribe of Florida and the state of Florida, and left the door open for tribal nations to expand into online gaming. We’ll delve into the impact. And we’ll also examine how immigration policy has shaped the U.S. economy.
NASA finds humanity would totally fumble asteroid defense
date: 2024-06-21, updated: 2024-06-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Earthly politics and mission planning no match for fast-moving rocky orb
Earth possesses “limited readiness” to “quickly implement” needed space missions to defend itself against a devastating asteroid strike, even with 14 years’ notice.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/21/nasa_asteroid_defence/
@Dave Winer’s linkblog (date: 2024-06-21, from: Dave Winer’s linkblog)
Putin threatens to arm North Korea, warns U.S. ally South against 'big mistake.'
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/us-incredibly-concerned-putin-may-arm-north-korea-rcna158233
US and China hold first informal nuclear talks in 5 years, eyeing Taiwan
date: 2024-06-21, from: VOA News USA
HONG KONG — The United States and China resumed semi-official nuclear arms talks in March for the first time in five years, with Beijing’s representatives telling U.S. counterparts that they would not resort to atomic threats over Taiwan, according to two American delegates who attended.
The Chinese representatives offered reassurances after their U.S. interlocutors raised concerns that China might use, or threaten to use, nuclear weapons if it faced defeat in a conflict over Taiwan. Beijing views the democratically governed island as its territory, a claim rejected by the government in Taipei.
“They told the U.S. side that they were absolutely convinced that they are able to prevail in a conventional fight over Taiwan without using nuclear weapons,” said scholar David Santoro, the U.S. organizer of the Track Two talks, the details of which are being reported by Reuters for the first time.
Participants in Track Two talks are generally former officials and academics who can speak with authority on their government’s position, even if they are not directly involved with setting it. Government-to-government negotiations are known as Track One.
Washington was represented by about half a dozen delegates, including former officials and scholars at the two-day discussions, which took place in a Shanghai hotel conference room.
Beijing sent a delegation of scholars and analysts, which included several former People’s Liberation Army officers.
A State Department spokesperson said in response to Reuters’ questions that Track Two talks could be “beneficial.” The department did not participate in the March meeting though it was aware of it, the spokesperson said.
Such discussions cannot replace formal negotiations “that require participants to speak authoritatively on issues that are often highly compartmentalized within (Chinese) government circles,” the spokesperson said.
Members of the Chinese delegation and Beijing’s defense ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
The informal discussions between the nuclear-armed powers took place with the U.S. and China at odds over major economic and geopolitical issues, with leaders in Washington and Beijing accusing each other of dealing in bad faith.
The two countries briefly resumed Track One talks over nuclear arms in November but those negotiations have since stalled, with a top U.S. official publicly expressing frustration at China’s responsiveness.
The Pentagon, which estimates that Beijing’s nuclear arsenal increased by more than 20% between 2021 and 2023, said in October that China “would also consider nuclear use to restore deterrence if a conventional military defeat in Taiwan” threatened CCP rule.
China has never renounced the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control and has over the past four years stepped up military activity around the island.
The Track Two talks are part of a two-decade nuclear weapons and posture dialog that stalled after the Trump administration pulled funding in 2019.
After the COVID-19 pandemic, semi-official discussions resumed on broader security and energy issues, but only the Shanghai meeting dealt in detail with nuclear weapons and posture.
Santoro, who runs the Hawaii-based Pacific Forum think-tank, described “frustrations” on both sides during the latest discussions but said the two delegations saw reason to continue talking. More discussions were being planned in 2025, he said.
Nuclear policy analyst William Alberque of the Henry Stimson Centre think-tank, who was not involved in the March discussions, said the Track Two negotiations were useful at a time of glacial U.S.-Chinese relations.
“It’s important to continue talking with China with absolutely no expectations,” he said, when nuclear arms are at issue.
No first-use?
The U.S. Department of Defense estimated last year that Beijing has 500 operational nuclear warheads and will probably field more than 1,000 by 2030.
That compares to 1,770 and 1,710 operational warheads deployed by the U.S. and Russia respectively. The Pentagon said that by 2030, much of Beijing’s weapons will likely be held at higher readiness levels.
Since 2020, China has also modernized its arsenal, starting production of its next-generation ballistic missile submarine, testing hypersonic glide vehicle warheads and conducting regular nuclear-armed sea patrols.
Weapons on land, in the air and at sea give China the “nuclear triad” - a hallmark of a major nuclear power.
A key point the U.S. side wanted to discuss, according to Santoro, was whether China still stood by its no-first-use and minimal deterrence policies, which date from the creation of its first nuclear bomb in the early 1960s.
Minimal deterrence refers to having just enough atomic weapons to dissuade adversaries.
China is also one of two nuclear powers - the other being India - to have pledged not to initiate a nuclear exchange. Chinese military analysts have speculated that the no-first-use policy is conditional - and that nuclear arms could be used against Taiwan’s allies - but it remains Beijing’s stated stance.
Santoro said the Chinese delegates told U.S. representatives that Beijing maintained these policies and that “‘we are not interested in reaching nuclear parity with you, let alone superiority.’”
“‘Nothing has changed, business as usual, you guys are exaggerating’,” Santoro said in summarizing Beijing’s position.
His description of the discussions was corroborated by fellow U.S. delegate Lyle Morris, a security scholar at the Asia Society Policy Institute.
A report on the discussions is being prepared for the U.S. government but would not be made public, Santoro said.
‘Risk and Opacity’
Top U.S. arms control official Bonnie Jenkins told Congress in May that China had not responded to nuclear-weapons risk reduction proposals that Washington raised during last year’s formal talks.
China has yet to agree to further government-to-government meetings.
Bejing’s “refusal to substantively engage” in discussions over its nuclear build-up raises questions around its “already ambiguous stated”no-first-use” policy and its nuclear doctrine more broadly,” the State Department spokesperson told Reuters.
China’s Track Two delegation did not discuss specifics about Beijing’s modernization effort, Santoro and Morris said.
Alberque of the Henry Stimson Centre said that China relied heavily on “risk and opacity” to mitigate U.S. nuclear superiority and there was “no imperative” for Beijing to have constructive discussions.
China’s expanded arsenal - which includes anti-ship cruise missiles, bombers, intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarines - exceeded the needs of a state with a minimal deterrence and no-first-use policy, Alberque said.
Chinese talking points revolved around the “survivability” of Beijing’s nuclear weapons if it suffered a first strike, said Morris.
The U.S. delegates said the Chinese described their efforts as a deterrence-based modernization program to cope with developments such as improved U.S. missile defenses, better surveillance capabilities, and strengthened alliances.
The U.S., Britain and Australia last year signed a deal to share nuclear submarine technology and develop a new class of boats, while Washington is now working with Seoul to coordinate responses to a potential atomic attack.
Washington’s policy on nuclear weapons includes the possibility of using them if deterrence fails, though the Pentagon says it would only consider that in extreme circumstances. It did not provide specifics.
One Chinese delegate “pointed to studies that said Chinese nuclear weapons were still vulnerable to U.S. strikes - their second-strike capability was not enough,” said Morris.
How the Square Root of 2 Became a Number
date: 2024-06-21, from: Quanta Magazine
Useful mathematical concepts, like the number line, can linger for millennia before they are rigorously defined.The post How the Square Root of 2 Became a Number first appeared on Quanta Magazine
https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-the-square-root-of-2-became-a-number-20240621/
Starlink stuffs the internet into a backpack by invitation only
date: 2024-06-21, updated: 2024-06-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Satellite dishes not just for roofs anymore
SpaceX is inviting some customers to buy a new Starlink Mini receiver for its satellite broadband service offered as a portable option, with an introductory price tag of $599 in the US.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/21/starlink_mini_invitation/
Redwood City man arrested on suspicion of unlawfully firing gun on New Year’s Eve
date: 2024-06-21, from: San Jose Mercury News
Detectives found a .45-caliber handgun and ammunition during a search of the 23-year-old suspect’s home.
After Second Teen Is Killed, Montecito Neighbors Pressure Union Pacific to Block Party Access Point
date: 2024-06-21, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
Ryan Chapman, 15, was attending a birthday when he was fatally struck by a train near Fernald Point on Wednesday.
The post After Second Teen Is Killed, Montecito Neighbors Pressure Union Pacific to Block Party Access Point appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
Alleged crime ring shipped high-end bikes stolen in Silicon Valley to Mexico, sold them on Facebook
date: 2024-06-21, from: San Jose Mercury News
Stolen-bike tracker Bryan Hance believes 60 to 100 bikes worth $2,000 to $10,000 have been stolen from Bay Area garages and apartments as part of the operation.
Cricket is having its moment in the Bay Area. What does the future hold?
date: 2024-06-21, from: San Jose Mercury News
The cricket scene in the Bay Area is buzzing as the United States men’s national team makes a historic, unprecedented run. Could this propel the sport moving forward?
Africa defense chiefs to gather in Botswana for US military conference
date: 2024-06-21, from: VOA News USA
Gaborone, Botswana — Defense chiefs from 30 African countries will gather in Botswana next week for a two-day military conference to discuss the continent’s security and stability challenges. The meeting, organized by the United States Africa Command, or AFRICOM, will be the first to be held in Africa since the inaugural conference in 2017
“The aim [is] to tackle the pressing security challenges on the African continent and to find ways to work together for a safer, more secure Africa,” said Lt. Commander Bobby Dixon, a spokesman at AFRICOM. “From counterterrorism efforts to cyber threats and peacekeeping missions, this conference will cover it all. Experts and military leaders will share insights, strategies, and forge partnerships that will strengthen the collective defense capabilities for all of Africa. This is more than just a conference — it’s a significant step towards a unified approach in safeguarding the African continent.”
AFRICOM says the meeting will build on the success of previous conferences. Last year’s meeting held in Rome, Italy, attracted the highest turnout, with 43 countries in attendance.
“It is evident that Africa faces a series of challenges,” said Jakkie Cilliers, a political scientist at the Institute for Security Studies in Pretoria. “It is not always clear that the model that the U.S. presents is appropriate for Africa. In recent years, we have seen a variety of coups in Africa, sometimes executed by African forces that have been trained in the U.S., the U.K. and France. And it is also evident that a number of U.N. peacekeeping missions, such as that in the DR Congo and Mali, are withdrawing from Africa.
“On the other hand, the role of Russia and the so-called Africa Group [pls check the audio; it is usually called the Africa Corps] is expanding. So, it’s clear that Africa is facing a security challenge, and partners can and should do as much as possible to help.”
Cilliers added that there is a need for the Gaborone conference to come up with effective solutions to the continent’s security challenges.
“Are we seeing a new model developing where African governments are considering alternative security arrangements, mostly by other African countries?” he said. “And of course, the role of private companies is also increasing. These events occur at a time of significant shifts in the global balance of power, and Africa again is an area of competition. One hopes all these issues will be discussed at the upcoming conference in Gaborone, and that real solutions will come to the fore.”
In March, following its Peace and Security Council meeting, the African Union expressed “deep concern” over the scourge of conflicts on the continent and their impact on socioeconomic development.
How to escape VMware’s pricey clutches with Virt-v2v
date: 2024-06-21, updated: 2024-06-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Or any other hypervisors that might hypothetically be acquired or suddenly get more costly
Devconf.cz Moving a VM from one host machine to another is easy. Moving VMs from one hypervisor to another is less trivial – but help is at hand.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/21/virtv2v_helps_you_move_vms/
Walters: California lawmakers fast-track restaurant exemption to hidden fees law
date: 2024-06-21, from: San Jose Mercury News
After hailing 2023 law as major reform, sponsors push new bill so restaurants can continue bait-and-switch tactics.
Vast redevelopment of San Jose golf course gains community support
date: 2024-06-21, from: San Jose Mercury News
A potential vast redevelopment of a shuttered San Jose golf course has drawn support from residents.
How Solar Is Helping Keep the Lights On This Summer
date: 2024-06-21, from: Heatmap News
Current conditions: China issued a rainstorm warning for its already-sodden southern provinces • Two people were killed in severe storms in Moscow • America’s brutal heat wave will shift into the Mid-Atlantic this weekend.
THE TOP FIVE
- Solar to provide one-fifth of global electricity during peak summer
hours
During the sunniest hours of the longest days of the year, solar power can now provide about 20% of the world’s electricity, according to new estimates from energy think tank Ember. That’s up from 16% last year. Throughout the entire month of June, solar will account for roughly 8.2% of global electricity, up from 6.7% in the same month last year, and higher than the 5.5% annual average across the whole of 2023. The report underscores the rapid expansion of solar, which is now the fastest-growing source of electricity. “As solar continues to expand, it is poised to further transform the power sector and accelerate the world’s transition to renewable energy,” the authors said.
EMBER
- Hawaii agrees to ‘groundbreaking’ settlement with youth climate
activists
The state of Hawaii has committed to decarbonizing its transportation system by 2045 as part of a settlement in a lawsuit brought by a group of young climate activists. The “groundbreaking” agreement, which can be enforced in court, also calls for a youth council to be created to advise the transportation department. The 13 plaintiffs – most of whom are Indigenous – filed their lawsuit in 2022, accusing Hawaii’s department of transportation of harming their health and infringing on their right to a clean environment, thus violating the state constitution. “You have a constitutional right to fight for life-sustaining climate policy and you have mobilized our people in this case,” said the state’s governor, Josh Green. Denise Antolini, an emeritus professor of law at the University of Hawaii Law School, told The Guardian the settlement is important because of its focus on transportation specifically, which is a huge source of emissions but “tends to get ignored.”
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- Report connects climate change to recent Mexico heat wave
A report from World Weather Attribution concluded that the oppressive heat wave that baked Central America, Mexico, and some Southwestern states in recent weeks was made 35 times more likely due to climate change caused by burning fossil fuels. The analysis was packed with other statistics that tell an unsettling story:
- 125 – degrees Fahrenheit reached in the Sonoran Desert last week, the hottest day in Mexican history.
- 2.5 – degrees Fahrenheit by which climate change made the heat dome hotter.
- 3 – degrees Fahrenheit by which climate change increased nighttime temperatures during the heat wave.
- Every 15 years – the frequency with which this kind of extreme heat is now expected to occur.
- Every 60 years – the frequency with which this kind of extreme heat was expected to occur in the year 2000, when global temperatures were lower.
- 125 – number of people who are known to have died in the heat wave.
World
Weather Attribution
- Startup plans to use methane to make graphite
A California-based startup called Molten Industries is trying to transform natural gas into a key component for making lithium-ion batteries. The company has “developed a specialized technique to break methane into graphite and hydrogen, the latter of which can be used as a source of clean energy,” Bloomberg reported. Graphite is used to make batteries, but most of it comes from China, so Molten wants to onshore production at a competitive cost. The company says its graphite production was a sort of happy accident. “Our original focus was just to make the lowest-cost hydrogen with the most energy-efficient reactor possible,” said co-founder and CEO Kevin Bush. Molten announced this week a $25 million series A round of funding led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures. It plans to use the money to build its first modular commercial reactor.
- Amazon to replace plastic ‘air pillows’ in packages with recycled
paper filler
Amazon announced this week it will stop using plastic “air pillows” to protect the packages it ships in North America and instead switch to recycled paper. The shift will be completed by the end of 2024, and will mean 15 billion plastic air pillows are removed from use each year. The move is driven in part by support among investors for cutting waste, but it’s helped by the fact that Amazon discovered recycled paper protects packages better than the plastic pillows anyway.
THE KICKER
A new study found that monkeys living on an island off Puerto Rico responded to the destruction from 2017’s Hurricane Maria by becoming less aggressive and more cooperative with one another in order to share scarce resources, and that this shift in social behavior helped boost their survival.
https://heatmap.news/climate/solar-power-summer-hawaii-lawsuit
Raspberry Pi at Open Sauce 2024
date: 2024-06-21, from: Raspberry Pi News (.com)
We’re just back from Open Sauce 2024. We’ve never seen so many makers, tech enthusiasts, and YouTubers all in one place before.
The post Raspberry Pi at Open Sauce 2024 appeared first on Raspberry Pi.
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/raspberry-pi-at-open-sauce-2024/
Chippy the kitten stops highway traffic on Highway 1; CHP officers rescue wayward cat from engine of Prius
date: 2024-06-21, from: San Jose Mercury News
“A motorist saw the scared kitten and I was called to the scene,” said Officer Ryan Moore to the SPCA. “At first I stopped on the left hand side, but when I went to grab the kitten, she ran across the lanes. I immediately thought ‘oh gosh, please don’t get hit!’”
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/21/spca-cares-for-kitten-saved-by-chp-officers-on-highway/
Paul’s Slide on Highway 1 near Big Sur opens Sunday
date: 2024-06-21, from: San Jose Mercury News
“The challenge at Paul’s Slide has always been to repair Highway 1 while movement continues within the slide location,” said Caltrans Director Tony Tavares in a press release. “The completion of repairs and the reopening of a 4.3-mile section of this scenic byway will begin to restore some normalcy for business owners and residents in the area.”
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/21/pauls-slide-on-highway-1-near-big-sur-opens-sunday/
At 84, Phil Lesh reflects on Terrapin, aging and playing at his sons’ Daydream festivals
date: 2024-06-21, from: San Jose Mercury News
Former Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh will be headlining Sunday Daydream festivals in July and August with his Phil and Friends band. The outdoor shows at McNears Beach Park in San Rafael, produced by his sons, Grahame, 37, and Brian, 34, are aimed at reviving the community spirit of Terrapin Crossroads.
The spirit of Phil Lesh’s Terrapin Crossroads lives on at his sons’ Sunday Daydream festivals
date: 2024-06-21, from: San Jose Mercury News
“There’s a thousand different Grateful Dead offshoots, and this is our part of that,” Brian Lesh says.
Police link mother and her two children to Bay Area vehicle thefts
date: 2024-06-21, from: San Jose Mercury News
Authorities arrested three members of a San Rafael family who allegedly stole vehicles in separate cases.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/06/21/san-rafael-police-link-3-family-members-to-vehicle-thefts/
California’s New Educator Training Aims To Boost LGBTQ+ Student Safety
date: 2024-06-21, updated: 2024-06-21, from: The LAist
The state-mandated training for educators working with seventh to 12th grade students is coming in June 2025.
https://laist.com/news/education/lgbtq-los-angeles-california-la-lacoe-cde-prism-training-ab-5
Hubble Captures Infant Stars Transforming a Nebula
date: 2024-06-21, from: NASA breaking news
This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image presents a visually striking collection of interstellar gas and dust. Named RCW 7, the nebula is located just over 5,300 light-years from Earth in the constellation Puppis. Nebulae are areas rich in the raw material needed to form new stars. Under the influence of gravity, parts of these molecular […]
https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/hubble-captures-infant-stars-transforming-a-nebula/
The latest on that potential TikTok ban
date: 2024-06-21, from: Marketplace Morning Report
TikTok’s Chinese parent company, ByteDance, has six months to divest or the U.S. plans to ban the app for national security reasons. But in a new court filing, ByteDance calls the U.S. government’s demands unconstitutional and says government officials have refused to seriously negotiate for two years. Also, AI comes for banking jobs. And later, what if your deepfake was circulating halfway across the world in China?
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/the-latest-on-that-potential-tiktok-ban
John Boston | Going Nuts Over Donuts? Dough-nuts?
date: 2024-06-21, from: The Signal
It all started from one innocent story in The Mighty Signal. In the June 11 issue of America’s most resplendent periodical, an article was apparently riddled with errors. It was […]
The post John Boston | Going Nuts Over Donuts? Dough-nuts? appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/john-boston-going-nuts-over-donuts-dough-nuts/
Thomas Oatway | Risky Medical Advice
date: 2024-06-21, from: The Signal
I read the latest coronavirus nonsense opinion from Rob Kerchner (letters, May 26) with some apprehension due to his prior politicalization of this issue. He stated that the results of […]
The post Thomas Oatway | Risky Medical Advice appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/thomas-oatway-risky-medical-advice/
Derek Vineyard | There’s No Unifying
date: 2024-06-21, from: The Signal
Valerie Bradford at it again. Ms. Bradford, president of the Santa Clarita Valley NAACP, expressing her disdain for the residents of the SCV, but she does it by means of […]
The post Derek Vineyard | There’s No Unifying appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/derek-vineyard-theres-no-unifying/
Qilin cyber scum leak data they claim belongs to London hospitals’ pathology provider
date: 2024-06-21, updated: 2024-06-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
At least they didn’t get paid their $50M ransom demand
The ransomware gang responsible for the chaos at London hospitals kept true to its word and released a trove of data that it claims belongs to pathology services provider Synnovis.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/21/qilin_cyber_scum_leak_the/
Joe Guzzardi | Biden’s Border Policy Safety Gamble
date: 2024-06-21, from: The Signal
In a high stakes gamble with Americans’ safety and security at risk, President Joe Biden is rolling the dice again. Capitol Hill insiders confirm the administration is considering providing refugee […]
The post Joe Guzzardi | Biden’s Border Policy Safety Gamble appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/joe-guzzardi-bidens-border-policy-safety-gamble/
The World After Billionaire Media
date: 2024-06-21, from: The Lever News
David Sirota and Semafor’s Ben Smith dig into the journalism crisis and find signs of hope.
https://www.levernews.com/the-world-after-billionaire-media/
P&B: Jennifer Devastatia del Gato
date: 2024-06-21, from: Manu - I write blog
<p>This is the 43rd edition of <em>People and Blogs</em>, the series where I ask interesting people to talk about themselves and their blogs. Today we have Jennifer "💕 Devastatia 💕" del Gato and her blog, <a href="https://devastatia.com">devastatia.com</a></p>I think I have mentioned it before but I absolutely love her site because it’s precisely everything mine isn’t. My site is this super clean, super calm place, with no JS, no weirdness going on, and almost no images. Her site is a proper experience and you’ll understand what I mean when you click that link. And even though the containers are incredibly different we share an appreciation for a certain type of living the web which is why I’m very grateful to have her as a guest on this series.
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Let’s start from the basics: can you introduce yourself?
I was born and raised in the southern United States. I think I got a reasonably decent public education in an era just before the education system, both higher and lower, started becoming extremist indoctrination. You’ll find countless Gen Xers online these days reminiscing about the things we used to do as kids. There’s not much I can add to that as far as everyday life goes.
I became an avid fan of science fiction at an early age, and developed a fascination with history, science, electronics, and computers. The two latter were the same hobby back then, actually. You had to understand electronics to mess around with computers.
What’s the story behind your blog?
The funny thing is that I don’t really call my website a “blog” or consider myself to be a “blogger” per se. I didn’t really have a plan or goal for what I wanted to do with my personal website when I started it. I only knew that the social media paradigm wasn’t working for me, and I needed to do something else.
My stock in trade has long been shitposting on “free speech” forums and social media. I have a habit of getting banned from social media sites because the normies don’t get my sense of humor. I’m not interested in making my opinions “advertiser-friendly,” nor in virtue-signaling to censorious, self-righteous ideologues. It’s popular amongst the simple-minded these days to label people as bigots on the basis of colorful remarks. In so doing, the self-appointed thought police often completely miss the point the writer was trying to make. As a feral Gen Xer, I don’t have the patience to walk on eggshells around thin-skinned people. If I can’t be honest and authentic, then why bother?
An essential aspect of my modus operandi is to always return to a “last known good” state when current conditions aren’t yielding favorable results. I’ve been on the World Wide Web since 1994, and have owned personal websites before. I mean that’s what everybody did when the Internet was first opened to the public. The ever-growing litany of creative constraints imposed by social media over the years more or less forced my return to the “real” Internet.
The name “Devastatia” was a nickname I made up for a cat I used to have. Audrey and her big brother Elvis liked to tear things up, as cats do, so I gave them the nicknames Dr. Destructo and his lovely assistant, Devastatia. It had a gothy ring to it, and since I’m a goth, I thought it’d make a catchy screen name.
I thought it would be funny to spoof social media “influencers” — low-talent midwits with swollen egos — so I built a sort of role-playing character around that idea. That’s how Devastatia was born.
What does your creative process look like when it comes to blogging?
You’ve heard the expression, “The jokes write themselves,” right? Well, the Internet is basically one big lolcow for those of us who can see the humor in almost anything. Most of my social commentary and shitposting is in response to things I see online.
Nearly everything I write is my own opinion and shouldn’t be taken as fact. “Fact-checking” has acquired an unsavory connotation for me due to the way it’s ham-handedly rammed down our throats, sans nuance or context, by ideologues in the mainstream media and on social media. When I do research something, it’s usually just a quick Web search in which I choose a few links that have intriguing titles or summaries, not necessarily the “most relevant” results as decided by the search engines. Some of those links lead to fact-checking articles, but they’re not typically the agenda-driven kind.
I re-read and edit the crap out of an article after I publish it, usually for hours, and sometimes for days. I’m careful not to make spelling or grammatical errors, but some occasionally slip through. I catch most of them the same day by re-reading though. Most of my editing is done to improve the flow of a passage, to add content I forgot to include in the first draft, or to express something in a more picturesque way. Sometimes I’ll come up with a relevant joke hours later, and throw it in retroactively to liven the piece up.
I think the most glaring error I’ve made was a continuity error in one of my erotic short stories. A reader brought it to my attention months after the piece was published. A peripheral character, coincidentally named Manuel, was identified as the brother of a main character in one episode, but as his cousin in the following episode.
I write a lot about Web development because that’s what interests me. I decorate my pages with irrelevant naughty pictures because I like looking at them, and my readers tell me they do too. I aim to be nerdy, funny, and sexy at the same time. I think I mostly succeed at that.
Do you have an ideal creative environment? Also do you believe the physical space influences your creativity?
I just need for it to be reasonably quiet and dark. When I started messing with computers, everything was green or amber text in a fixed-width font on a black background — which, incidentally, is why my website resembles an old school terminal. I use a dark mode browser plugin on every site I visit. Staring at a page with a white background is like staring into a flashlight. Why would anybody do such a thing?
I usually don’t notice my physical surroundings at all once I get into the groove. I keep the temperature at around 77° Fahrenheit and wear as few clothes as possible, so I don’t even feel the air, really.
I’m also blind in my right eye and nearsighted in the left, so I sit pretty close to the monitor. Most of the items on my desk have dark colors, so I don’t really notice anything in my peripheral vision when there are no lights on nearby.
I use a 75% mechanical keyboard with Cherry MX switches, again because that’s what I’m used to from the early days of home computing. I detest touch screens and keyboards with short-travel switches.
A question for the techie readers: can you run us through your tech stack?
My basic tools are Geany, a coding text editor for Linux similar to UltraEdit or Notepad++ for Windows; FileZilla, an FTP client that’s ubiquitous on Windows, Mac, and Linux PCs; and Firefox. If I happen to be in the terminal and need to take a quick look at something, I’ll open it in vim. I haven’t used Github that much since I left the corporate world. The tools I use now are the same ones I used when I first started making personal websites years ago.
All of my sites are hosted on SiteGround. Page loads are very fast, their tech support is prompt and effective, and their “grow big” plan gives me everything I need. I don’t remember where I registered my domain name. It’s registered either through SiteGround or DreamHost.
I absolutely hate reading other people’s code. When I worked as a professional developer, I became disenchanted with the emphasis on integrating third-party software over writing custom code. I’m not an integrator, and I’m definitely not a “coder.” I’m a programmer. That’s what I got into this racket to do, and now that I have full creative control, that’s what I do.
With the exception of a couple of PHP packages and some code snippets borrowed from Stack Overflow and elsewhere, everything on my site is hand-coded by me. I don’t use third-party frameworks or general-purpose libraries period, let alone a third-party CMS. Everything is written either specifically for its task or as a component that I can reuse for multiple similar tasks.
Given your experience, if you were to start a blog today, would you do anything differently?
I think the question presumes I have a purpose or goal in mind when I start something, which isn’t necessarily the case. I’ll oftentimes start working on something because I find the technology interesting, and the use case will present itself later.
That said, my current website is showing its limitations, and I’m slowly developing the next version. This is only my second single-page application (SPA), and the first in which I got everything working as expected. I’ve constantly added features over the past seven or eight months, and it’s reached the point where it’d be easier to rewrite most of it from scratch than to keep adding onto the existing platform.
I won’t change my domain name or the name of my site because it’s the name I’m known by. One doesn’t change a trademark that has achieved brand recognition without a good reason. Companies only do so when they get a bad reputation due to scandal. Well, I’m not overly concerned about my reputation. I mean I have a slutty online persona and write naughty stories, both by choice. Those things are fun for me, and I don’t believe that’ll ever change.
Financial question since the Web is obsessed with money: how much does it cost to run your blog? Is it just a cost, or does it generate some revenue? And what’s your position on people monetising personal blogs?
It’d be difficult to separate the cost of running my personal site from the cost of running my other sites because they’re all on a single hosting plan. Moreover, the plan includes capabilities that aren’t available with the typical “basic” plan because, as somebody who compulsively tinkers with technology, I know I’ll use them. I also prefer traditional .com, .net, or .org domain names when available, which tend to cost a little more than some of the newer “personal website” top-level domains.
I have three sites at the moment, and will probably build others. As of now, simple division of the total cost by the number of sites yields an average cost of about 156 USD per year. That’s about what I’d pay for three domain names and individual hosting plans from the same company, and the per-site cost will decrease as I add more sites.
I don’t try to monetize my site, nor make any effort to promote it in the major search engines. This is a personal project that I work on for the fun of it. The Personal Web as a community has plenty of grassroots ways to help a website gain attention — webrings, listing sites, blog carnivals, etc. — from those who are interested in personal websites.
I don’t have anything against other people monetizing their blogs if they choose to do so, but it’s not for me. Again, this is all for fun and “at will.” I don’t want to be held to other people’s expectations regarding deadlines, messaging, or the type or quality of content I produce.
Time for some recommendations: any blog you think is worth checking out? And also, who do you think I should be interviewing next?
One of the most fascinating people I know on the Personal Web isn’t a blogger at all. Magill, or Fritzi as she’s known on the Personal Web, is a well-read 60s pop culture aficionado who, in addition to making charming little brochure sites, publishes erotic Beatles fan fiction on Archive of Our Own (AO3). Fritzi isn’t a professional Web designer, but you’d never guess it because she’s exceptionally talented.
And you’ll definitely want to interview Sara Jaksa. Sara is a brilliant woman whose correspondence I enjoy immensely. I’d love to hear from her more frequently, but I understand that her work keeps her very busy. What I like most about Sara is that she doesn’t give shallow answers, but considers things deeply before forming an opinion. It’d be interesting to read her answers to some of your questions.
Final question: is there anything you want to share with us?
I’m a blurter. Anything I want to share will most likely appear on my website the moment it wanders into my mind. I use my site the same way I’d use Twitter if I weren’t banned from there. I’m always throwing things at the wall to see what’ll stick.
As for projects, I’m working on a free RSS feed reader for personal website feeds called The Geekly Reader. Commercial readers making money from blogs that the authors themselves haven’t monetized just doesn’t sit well with me. In my view, they’re the same as low-effort YouTubers whose videos are nothing but a text-to-speech program reading a Reddit thread. The days of corporations profiting from other people’s free content need to end.
When I heard that 123Guestbook is shutting down in July, I started a project at Personal-Web.org to provide a replacement for static website owners who use 123Guestbook. Depending on how much utilization that service gets, I may provide other hosted widgets later.
This was the 43rd edition of People and Blogs. Hope you enjoyed this interview with Devastatia. Make sure to follow her blog (RSS) and get in touch with her if you have any questions.
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Kenyans push back against new taxes
date: 2024-06-21, from: Marketplace Morning Report
From the BBC World Service: Kenya’s government has been forced to drop some of its plans for new taxes, but widespread protests are continuing over its controversial finance bill. We’ll hear about the government’s intent behind the proposed new taxes, as well as which policies have now been scrapped. Also, what does a British court judgement on the climate impact of oil projects mean for future developments?
https://www.marketplace.org/shows/marketplace-morning-report/kenyans-push-back-against-new-taxes
Guess how much stored data is ever used or accessed
date: 2024-06-21, updated: 2024-06-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Not a lot, says NetApp’s Matt Watts as he talks file classification, wastage, and power consumption
Interview NetApp’s Chief Technology Evangelist, Matt Watts, is worried about sustainability and data wastage, even as his employer withdraws third-party support from BlueXP classification.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/21/netapp_matt_watts_interview/
China’s top prosecutor urges officials to focus on illicit drug trafficking
date: 2024-06-21, from: VOA News USA
BEIJING — China’s top prosecutor urged law enforcement officials across the country on Friday to focus efforts on combating drug trafficking, capping a week in which Beijing and Washington announced a rare joint counternarcotics investigation.
The Supreme People’s Procuratorate published “six typical cases,” involving actions ranging from postal fraud to medical professionals selling illicit drugs on the side, and clarified the legal application standards to handle such cases.
The prosecutor said in a statement that the release was meant to show its “determination and attitude to intensify efforts to crack down on related crimes, while hoping that this batch of typical cases will serve as a warning to the society.”
The United States and China held high-level counternarcotics talks on Thursday following a breakthrough in bilateral cooperation this week in which both sides went after a major drug-linked money laundering operation.
The United States, where fentanyl abuse has been a major cause of death, has pushed China for deeper law enforcement cooperation, including tackling illicit finance and further controls on the chemicals that can be used to make fentanyl.
These chemicals are often shipped to the U.S. and other destinations from China using mail packages that have unverifiable addresses or are mislabeled, experts say. The U.S. Postal Service has for years struggled with the problem.
One of the examples highlighted in the prosecutor’s note on Friday involved a case of a Chinese buyer, surnamed Yan, purchasing date-rape drug triazolam from overseas and then selling it in China by mail using mislabeled packaging.
As a result, “the procuratorate issued a procuratorial suggestion to the postal administration department…urging the regulatory department to fulfill its main responsibility and perform its duties conscientiously.”
The postal administration then “urged the company to make timely rectifications,” the prosecutor said.
The note said “the procuratorate invited nearly 100 couriers and college students to attend the trial, focusing on the new characteristics and new forms of new drug cases to carry out anti-drug law publicity.”
Postal fraud was briefly mentioned in the opening remarks by Rahul Gupta, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, who on Thursday held talks in Beijing with China’s minister of public security, Wang Xiaohong.
Gupta said it was among the “areas where we’re both being negatively impacted,” listing it alongside illicit finance, “illegal drug trafficking and use, and the emergence of new and more dangerous drugs.”
The X Window System is still hanging on at 40
date: 2024-06-21, updated: 2024-06-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Never underestimate the stickiness of legacy technology
It is 40 years since Robert W Scheifler ushered in the era of the X Window System, a windowing system that continues to stick around despite many distributions looking for alternatives.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/21/x_window_system_is_40/
Cybersecurity firm Kaspersky denies it’s a hazard after the US bans its software
date: 2024-06-21, from: VOA News USA
You’re wrong, I’m right, and you’re hiding the data that proves it
date: 2024-06-21, updated: 2024-06-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
There should be honor among techies, but it can be hard to admit error
On Call Few among us are faultless, but more often than not it’s users and managers who are in the wrong when IT goes awry. Which is why each Friday The Register offers a fresh instalment of On Call – the reader-contributed column in which you share stories of being asked to bail out bores, brats and blockheads.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/21/on_call/
FLTK 1.4.x Weekly Snapshot (master)
date: 2024-06-21, from: Fast Light Tool Kit
A new weekly snapshot of FLTK 1.4.x (master) is now available
https://www.fltk.org/articles.php?L1928
JS Party podcast: Polypane-demonium
date: 2024-06-21, from: Kilian Valkhof’s blog
I was invited to the JS Party podcast to talk about all things Polypane, from the business side of things to nitty-gritty features that I’ve been working on. I had a lot of fun and I think Nick and Jerod did as well. Polypane purveyor Kilian Valkhof joins Nick & Jerod to tell us all […]
The post JS Party podcast: Polypane-demonium first appeared on Kilian Valkhof.
https://kilianvalkhof.com/2024/web/js-party-podcast-polypane-demonium/
Since joining NATO, Sweden claims Russia has been borking Nordic satellites
date: 2024-06-21, updated: 2024-06-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
If Putin likes jammin’, we hope NATO likes jammin’ too
Sweden says its satellites have been impacted by “harmful interference” from Russia ever since the Nordic nation joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) last March.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/21/sweden_russia_jamming/
How Europe can force Apple to support competition
date: 2024-06-21, updated: 2024-06-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Open Web Advocacy report calls for these extensive changes to iGiant’s rules
Exclusive The results of the European Commission’s inquiry into Apple’s response to the continent’s latest competition rules are expected to surface soon – and reports indicate regulators are less than enamored with Cook & Co.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/21/eu_apple_owa/
Escape velocity?
date: 2024-06-21, from: Enlightenment Economics
I’ve read Ray Kurweil’s jaw-dropping book, The Singularity is Nearer: When We Merge With AI, so you don’t have to. He does literally believe we will be injected with nanobots to create an AI super-cortex above our own neo-cortex, plugged … Continue reading
http://www.enlightenmenteconomics.com/blog/index.php/2024/06/escape-velocity/
Coding error in forgotten API blamed for massive data breach
date: 2024-06-21, updated: 2024-06-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Australian telco Optus allegedly left redundant website with poor access controls online for years
The data breach at Australian telco Optus, which saw over nine million customers’ personal information exposed, has been blamed on a coding error that broke API access controls, and was left in place for years.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/21/optus_data_breach_faulty_api/
Micron mega-fab mildly endangered by definitely endangered American bats
date: 2024-06-21, updated: 2024-06-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
Like a bat out of hell they’ll be gone when November comes
Updated Micron is reportedly facing a new hitch to starting work on its proposed fabrication center in New York State: Endangered bats.…
https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2024/06/21/micron_delays_bat/
GPT-5… now arriving Gate 8, Gate 9, Gate 10
date: 2024-06-21, from: Gary Marcus blog
The increasingly delayed countdown to GPT5
https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/gpt-5-now-arriving-gate-8-gate-9
Rain could potentially ease or worsen New Mexico wildfire
date: 2024-06-21, from: VOA News USA
https://www.voanews.com/a/rain-could-potentially-ease-or-worsen-new-mexico-wildfire/7664582.html
Meta warns bit flips, other hardware faults cause AI errors
date: 2024-06-21, updated: 2024-06-21, from: The Register (UK I.T. News)
It’s no hallucination: ‘4 in 1,000 inferences inaccurate’ due to this alone, depending on the setup
Meta has identified another reason AI might produce rubbish output: Hardware faults that corrupt data.…
Call for Computers and Writing 2024 Session Reviews
date: 2024-06-21, from: Digital Rhetoric Collaberative
Attending Computers and Writing 2024? Be a Session Reviewer! The Sweetland Digital Rhetoric Collaborative is seeking reviewers for the 2024 Computers and Writing Conference. If you would like to be a session reviewer for C&W 2024, please visit this Google Spreadsheet to sign up for a session to review. After you sign up, you will […]US bans Russia’s Kaspersky antivirus software
date: 2024-06-21, from: VOA News USA
Washington — U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration on Thursday banned Russia-based cybersecurity firm Kaspersky from providing its popular antivirus products in the United States over national security concerns, the U.S. Commerce Department said.
“Kaspersky will generally no longer be able to, among other activities, sell its software within the United States or provide updates to software already in use,” the agency said in a statement.
The announcement came after a lengthy investigation found Kaspersky’s “continued operations in the United States presented a national security risk due to the Russian Government’s offensive cyber capabilities and capacity to influence or direct Kaspersky’s operations,” it said.
U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said, “Russia has shown time and again they have the capability and intent to exploit Russian companies, like Kaspersky Lab, to collect and weaponize sensitive U.S. information.”
Kaspersky, in a statement to AFP, said the Commerce Department “made its decision based on the present geopolitical climate and theoretical concerns,” and vowed to “pursue all legally available options to preserve its current operations and relationships.”
“Kaspersky does not engage in activities which threaten U.S. national security and, in fact, has made significant contributions with its reporting and protection from a variety of threat actors that targeted U.S. interests and allies,” the company said.
The move is the first such action taken since an executive order issued under Donald Trump’s presidency gave the Commerce Department the power to investigate whether certain companies pose a national security risk.
Raimondo said the Commerce Department’s actions demonstrated to America’s adversaries that it would not hesitate to act when “their technology poses a risk to the United States and its citizens.”
While Kaspersky is headquartered in Moscow, it has offices in 31 countries around the world, servicing more than 400 million users and 270,000 corporate clients in more than 200 countries, the Commerce Department said.
As well as banning the sale of Kaspersky’s antivirus software, the Commerce Department also added three entities linked to the firm to a list of companies deemed to be a national security concern, “for their cooperation with Russian military and intelligence authorities in support of the Russian government’s cyber intelligence objectives.”
The Commerce Department said it “strongly encouraged” users to switch to new vendors, although its decision does not ban them from using the software should they choose to do so.
Kaspersky is allowed to continue certain operations in the United States, including providing antivirus updates, until September 29, “in order to minimize disruption to US consumers and businesses and to give them time to find suitable alternatives,” it added.
https://www.voanews.com/a/us-bans-russia-s-kaspersky-antivirus-software-/7664564.html
USC student will not be charged in fatal stabbing of carjacking suspect — live updates
date: 2024-06-21, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
The 19-year-old was arrested for stabbing a man who was attempting to break into a car near the Lambda Chi Alpha and Delta Tau Delta fraternity houses on Monday evening.
The post USC student will not be charged in fatal stabbing of carjacking suspect — live updates appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/06/20/usc-student-will-not-be-charged-in-fatal-stabbing/
Brush fire in Canyon Country stopped at 10 acres
date: 2024-06-21, from: The Signal
A brush fire that broke out Thursday afternoon between Canyon Country and Agua Dulce was stopped at 10 acres, according to L.A. County Fire Department officials. Firefighters were dispatched to […]
The post Brush fire in Canyon Country stopped at 10 acres appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/2-acre-brush-fire-breaks-out-in-canyon-country-2/
Border Patrol reports arrests down 25% since Biden announced asylum restrictions
date: 2024-06-21, from: VOA News USA
washington — The number of arrests by Border Patrol agents of people crossing illegally into the United States fell in May to the third lowest of any month during the Biden presidency, while preliminary figures released Thursday show encounters with migrants falling even more in the roughly two weeks since the president announced new rules restricting asylum.
The figures are likely welcome news for a White House that has been struggling to show to voters concerned about immigration that it has control of the southern border. But the number of people coming to the border is often in flux, dependent on conditions in countries far from the U.S. and on smugglers who profit from global migration.
The Border Patrol made 117,900 arrests of people entering the country between the official border crossing points in May, Customs and Border Protection said in a news release. That’s 9% lower than during April, the agency said. The agency said preliminary data since President Joe Biden’s June 4 announcement restricting asylum access show arrests have fallen by 25%.
“Our enforcement efforts are continuing to reduce Southwest border encounters. But the fact remains that our immigration system is not resourced for what we are seeing,” said Troy A. Miller, the acting head of CBP.
The U.S. has also benefited from aggressive enforcement on the Mexican side of the border, where Mexican authorities have been working to prevent migrants from making their way to the U.S.-Mexico border.
The figures are part of a range of data related to immigration, trade and drug seizures that the CBP releases monthly. The immigration-related figures are closely watched at a time of intense political scrutiny over who is entering the country and whether the Biden administration has a handle on the situation.
Immigration is a top concern for voters, with many saying Biden hasn’t been doing enough to secure the country’s borders. Former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, has made immigration a cornerstone of his campaign by saying he’s going to deport people in the country illegally en masse and take other measures to crack down on immigration.
After Biden announced his plan to restrict asylum access at the southern border, opponents sued, saying it was no different from a similar effort under Trump.
Profuse Thanks to Bloomsday
date: 2024-06-21, from: Santa Barbara Indenpent News
The Bloomsday celebration at the James Joyce pub on Sunday, June 16, was so well curated as to give a sweeping yet profound sampling of Joyce’s genius.
The post Profuse Thanks to Bloomsday appeared first on The Santa Barbara Independent.
https://www.independent.com/2024/06/20/profuse-thanks-to-bloomsday/
USC Health Center Pharmacy to close June 24 to June 28
date: 2024-06-21, from: The Daily Trojan (USC Student Paper)
Students are advised to contact the USC Medical Plaza Pharmacy or the CVS at University Gateway for prescription transfers.
The post USC Health Center Pharmacy to close June 24 to June 28 appeared first on Daily Trojan.
https://dailytrojan.com/2024/06/20/usc-health-center-pharmacy-to-close-june-24-to-june-28/
Deputies: Collision that killed 2 horses still under investigation
date: 2024-06-21, from: The Signal
Residents are reeling from the loss of horses Norma Jean and Husband, after they were struck and killed by a driver at the intersection of Sand Canyon and Iron Canyon […]
The post Deputies: Collision that killed 2 horses still under investigation appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/deputies-collision-that-killed-2-horses-still-under-investigation/
A US veteran died alone; hundreds of strangers came to say goodbye
date: 2024-06-21, from: VOA News USA
AUGUSTA, Maine — Former U.S. Marine Gerry Brooks died alone at a nursing home in Maine, abandoned and all but forgotten. Then the funeral home posted a notice asking if anyone would serve as a pallbearer or simply attend his burial.
Within minutes, it was turning away volunteers to carry his casket.
A bagpiper came forward to play at the service. A pilot offered to perform a flyover. Military groups across the state pledged a proper sendoff.
Hundreds of people who knew nothing about the 86-year-old beyond his name showed up on a sweltering afternoon and gave Brooks a final salute with full military honors Thursday at the Maine Veterans’ Memorial Cemetery in Augusta.
Patriot Guard Riders on motorcycles escorted his hearse on the 40-mile route from the funeral home in Belfast, Maine, to the cemetery. Members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars paid tribute with a 21-gun salute. Volunteers held American flags next to the casket while a crane hoisted a huge flag above the cemetery entrance.
Some saluted while filing by. Others sang The Marines’ Hymn.
“It’s an honor for us to be able to do this,” said Jim Roberts, commander of the VFW post in Belfast. “There’s so much negativity in the world. This is something people can feel good about and rally around. It’s just absolutely wonderful.” He said Brooks’ son, granddaughter and son-in-law came to the funeral but did not speak during the service.
‘We will always be there’
The VFW is called a couple times a year about a deceased veteran with no family or with one that isn’t willing to handle the funeral arrangements, said Roberts. But “we will always be there.” Like other veterans helping out Thursday, he hadn’t known Brooks.
So many groups volunteered to take part in paying tribute that there wasn’t enough space to fit them into the 20-minute burial service, said Katie Riposta, the funeral director who put out the call for help last week.
“It renews your faith in humanity,” she said.
More than 8 million of the U.S. veterans living are 65 or older, almost half the veteran population. They are overwhelmingly men. That’s according to a U.S. Census Bureau report last year. As this generation dies, it said, their collective memory of wartime experiences “will pass into history.”
A master of ‘dad jokes’
Much about Brooks’ life is unknown.
He was widowed and lived in Augusta. He died on May 18, less than a week after entering a nursing home, Riposta said. A cause of death was not released.
The funeral home and authorities reached his next of kin, but no one was willing to come forward or take responsibility for his body, she said.
“It sounds like he was a good person, but I know nothing about his life,” Riposta said, noting that after Brooks’ death, a woman contacted the funeral home to say he had once taken her in when she had no other place to go, with no details.
“It doesn’t matter if he served one day or made the military his career,” she said. “He still deserves to be respected and not alone.”
The crowd on Thursday wasn’t all strangers — and it turned out Brooks hadn’t been one, either.
Victoria Abbott, executive director of the Bread of Life shelter in Augusta, said he had come every day to eat at their soup kitchen, always ready to crack “dad jokes” and make the staff smile. He had a favorite table.
“Your quintessential 80-year-old, dad jokes every day,” Abbott said. “He was really great to have around. He was part of the soup kitchen family.”
But most people there Thursday met him too late. The memorial book posted online by Direct Cremation of Maine, which helped to arrange the burial, had a few strangers’ good wishes.
“Sir,” one began, and ended with “Semper Fi.”
The two others, a couple, thanked Brooks for his service. “We all deserve the love kindness and respect when we are called home. I hope that you lived a full beautiful life of Love, Kindness, Dreams and Hope,” they wrote.
They added: “Thank you to all those who will make this gentleman’s service a proper, well-deserved goodbye.”
Linda Laweryson, who served in the Marines, said this was the second funeral in little over a year that she has attended for a veteran who died alone. Everyone deserves to die with dignity and be buried with dignity, she said.
Laweryson read a poem during the graveside service written by a combat Marine who reflects on the spot where Marines graduate from boot camp.
“I walked the old parade ground, but I was not alone,” the poem reads. “I walked the old parade ground and knew that I was home.”
Castaic school district projecting to be OK despite decline in funding
date: 2024-06-21, from: The Signal
As school districts across the state continue to finalize their budgets for the upcoming school year, Castaic Union School District officials are confident that they will have no issues over […]
The post Castaic school district projecting to be OK despite decline in funding appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
Wind reduction helps firefighters in Gorman
date: 2024-06-21, from: The Signal
A reduction in wind helped firefighters keep the Post Fire within its 15,690-acre “footprint” as of Thursday, although hot spots remain in the south, according to Landon Haack, operations section […]
The post Wind reduction helps firefighters in Gorman appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/wind-reduction-helps-firefighters-in-gorman/
Planning OKs Promenade Flats with conditions
date: 2024-06-21, from: The Signal
The city of Santa Clarita’s Planning Commission denied an appeal by opponents of Promenade Flats, a live-work apartment complex with retail space planned for a shared IHOP parking lot — […]
The post Planning OKs Promenade Flats with conditions appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/planning-oks-promenade-flats-with-conditions/
Greek-owned ship sinks in Red Sea after Houthi missile attack
date: 2024-06-21, from: The Signal
By Aldgra Fredly Contributing Writer The M/V Tutor, a Greek-owned bulk carrier, has sunk after being attacked by Houthi terrorists in the Red Sea, authorities said Wednesday. The Liberian-flagged ship was […]
The post Greek-owned ship sinks in Red Sea after Houthi missile attack appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.
https://signalscv.com/2024/06/greek-owned-ship-sinks-in-red-sea-after-houthi-missile-attack/