Charlie Jane Anders Wiscon GoH speech. (Grokked from Justine Larbalestier)
"Two Russian cosmonauts stepped outside the International Space Station Wednesday, sent birthday greetings to former cosmonaut Alexey Leonov, the first man to walk in space, and then carried out a full slate of maintenance work." Waves to my Russian friends.
Before we welcome our robot overlords, you might want to read this by Annalee Newitz. "None of this should be surprising to anyone who has met a human and discovered our propensity for prejudice. AIs aren’t autonomous creatures with agendas of their own. They are learning from our data. Think of AI as prostheses – extensions of humanity, with slightly different strengths and weaknesses." The future will be dumber and more cruel than we think. (Grokked from Kathryn Cramer)
"As NPR reported in November, the pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co. Inc. announced it was ending a long-term agreement to supply its rotavirus vaccine, Rotateq, at a reduced price to families in four West African countries. At the same time, the company begun selling the vaccine in China, for more than 12 times the price." Fortunately some other companies have stepped up to the plate, but that doesn't mean Merk should get a free pass.
"In the hope of finding a new way to fight malaria, scientists have used a spider gene to genetically engineer a fungus to produce a venom that can quickly kill mosquitoes… The modified fungus was a highly effective mosquito killer in the first tests mimicking conditions in sub-Saharan Africa, where malaria remains a major public health problem, researchers reported Thursday in the journal Science."
"California regulators on Thursday approved allowing utilities to cut off electricity to possibly hundreds of thousands of customers to avoid catastrophic wildfires like the one sparked by power lines last year that killed 85 people and largely destroyed the city of Paradise."
From last year, but just in case someone tries to tell you how the market will fix itself and capitalism is the best economic system ever. "The Intercept has obtained evidence that chemical conglomerate 3M knew about the health dangers of perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) since the 1970s. These components were in thousands of everyday products, from water-repelling clothes to Teflon-coated non-stick pans, and they accumulate in your blood causing cancer, damaging your immune system, injuring your liver, spleen, bone marrow, and increasing cholesterol and triglycerides levels putting you at risk of heart attacks." (Grokked from Ferrett Steinmetz)
"As planet-warming gases reach levels not previously seen in human history, the Trump administration’s bid to restrict how federal scientists conduct the next National Climate Assessment risks delaying urgent action required to curb emissions and climate change… But the administration effort could also backfire, becoming yet another loss for a president whose deregulatory efforts struggle to meet basic legal standards while hardening the resolve of career government researchers trying to uphold the scientific method." They're trying to limit the forward view to 2040, because a lot of the bad stuff happens around 2045. They also really want to do this because they know they can't fight or bend the science, and the last report will be used to stop their roll-back of regulations (because climate change will affect the GDP). We're boned. (Grokked from Laura J Mixon)
"It may seem, to anyone who has driven long stretches of highway across the West, that there is plenty — maybe even more than enough — sagebrush. Sagebrush once covered 250 million acres of western North America, but today that ecosystem is half the size it once was, and it's burning more frequently." Now it's seas of cheatgrass, which burns more often.
"The Trump administration is committed to making fossil fuels cleaner rather than imposing 'draconian' regulations on oil, gas and coal, U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry said Thursday." The industry has had two decades of shouting "clean coal" and it's still just a phrase. There is no such thing as cleaner fossil fuels. The technology is not scalable.
How go the Trade Wars? "Retailers have seen their shares seesaw this week as they express concern over tariffs squeezing their businesses. The latest is PVH Corp., owner of the Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger brands, which said late Wednesday that it was cutting its full-year adjusted earnings forecast partly because of the U.S.-China trade dispute."
"China hopes Canada understands the consequences of siding with the United States and doing its bidding, China’s foreign ministry said on Friday, after U.S. Vice President Mike Pence called for the release of two Canadians detained in China."
"Costco became the latest retailer to say that the trade war between China and the U.S. will likely lead to higher prices, but the warehouse giant says it is taking steps to withstand the battle."
"The U.S. economy grew at a solid 3.1% rate in the first three months of the year, but much of that gain was based on temporary factors that will likely fade, leaving growth much slower in the current quarter."
That won't last. "President Donald Trump moved to use his broad executive authority in a new and unprecedented way this week, threatening to slap Mexico with punitive tariffs unless it slows the passage of migrants from Central America to the US." Trump is addressing this problem like our "War on Drugs" and it's bound to fail just as badly.
"US stock futures and global stock markets, including shares of Asian and European automakers, tumbled Friday after President Donald Trump said the United States will impose a 5% tariff on all Mexican imports." Ooo, we're close to breaking 25,000 on the dow… going the other way.
"Chinese buyers of U.S. state grain have stopped ordering and don’t expect to resume the purchases due to the disagreement over trade between the world’s two largest economies, a Bloomberg News report said, citing people familiar with the matter." That's okay, with all the flooding farmers haven't been able to get their seed in the ground. Expect to hear how your tax money will be used to bail them out.
"Initial sections of fencing for a privately funded border wall were installed last weekend in Sunland Park, N.M., as the result of a crowdfunding effort that went live in December." I wonder if they have enough money for liability insurance on that wall? Or even maintenance.
"Last fall the landlord, Nelson Management, mailed residents a letter announcing plans to install a facial-recognition-technology system at the entrance of the (rent controlled) buildings. The letter asked tenants for their permission, but that request seemed less than genuine, for several reasons." Welcome to the panopticon in the US, privately funded naturally. (Grokked from Laura J Mixon)
"WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has suffered psychological torture from a defamation campaign and should not be extradited to the United States where he would face a 'politicized show trial', a U.N. human rights investigator said on Friday." Oddly I'm not all that concerned.
"The biggest effect of the Trump tax cuts is obvious: People who own businesses and other sources of concentrated wealth will have a lot more money, and the federal budget will have less. But the advocates of the tax cuts insisted it… was about incentivizing business to repatriate funds and ramp up its investments, thereby increasing growth and wages… The Congressional Research Service… finds that none of those secondary effects have materialized. Growth has not increased above the pre-tax-cut trend. Neither have wages. After a brief and much smaller than expected bump, repatriated corporate cash from abroad has leveled off." The "projected growth that would pay for this tax cut" amounted to 5%. The rest we're making up by adding to the debt. This is my shocked face. (Grokked from Kathryn Cramer)
Well look here, there's smoke coming out of this gun barrel. "Files on those drives showed that (Thomas B. Hofeller) wrote a study in 2015 concluding that adding a citizenship question to the census would allow Republicans to draft even more extreme gerrymandered maps to stymie Democrats. And months after urging President Trump’s transition team to tack the question onto the census, he wrote the key portion of a draft Justice Department letter claiming the question was needed to enforce the 1965 Voting Rights Act — the rationale the administration later used to justify its decision." Redmap 2020. (Grokked from Laura J Mixon)
"A new lawsuit by three African American residents of Mississippi seeks to block what it calls the state’s racist method of electing the governor and other statewide officials… The federal lawsuit being filed Thursday takes aim at Mississippi’s unique requirement that candidates for statewide office must win both a majority of the popular vote and at least 62 of the 122 state House of Representatives districts."
"Three U.S. officials confirmed to The Associated Press that the White House told the Navy to keep the warship named for McCain out of Trump’s sight during Trump’s visit Tuesday to a base outside of Tokyo." Not only are they habitual (and bad) liars, they're just so fucking petty.
"Democratic candidates are increasingly advocating 'court packing,' that is, upping the number of Supreme Court justices to balance the bench -- or ensure a liberal majority. The idea is unlikely to succeed for historical and practical reasons but its resonance on the campaign trail reflects Democrats' new emphasis on the judiciary during the Trump era." So first, there is no specified number of judges on SCOTUS (IIRC). Second, the conservatives bad behavior, Mitch McConnell's specifically, are driving liberals to this action. And thirdly, if this action is taken, it shouldn't be limited to SCOTUS.
"Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and GOP Sen. Ted Cruz came together Thursday on Twitter in a professed effort to ban former lawmakers from taking paid lobbying positions." Strange bedfellows indeed.
Foreign diplomacy is a high-stakes game. "North Korea executed its special nuclear envoy to the United States as part of a purge of senior officials over the failed summit between leader Kim Jong Un and President Donald Trump, South Korea's Chosun Ilbo newspaper claimed Friday… Kim Hyok Chol was executed by firing squad in March along with four other foreign ministry officials, the paper reported, citing an unidentified North Korean source." Someone tell president small-hands that if this is true, because of his petulance this is partially on him.
"Donald Trump complained 'the Jews always flip' after a number of former Jewish associates agreed to cooperate with the Mueller probe, according to an explosive new book by journalist Michael Wolff." There's a lot in this book that has been disputed, so I take this with a grain of salt, but man does it hit on my confirmation bias. (Grokked from Ellen Kushner)
"President Donald Trump assailed special counsel Robert Mueller as a 'never Trumper' and a rejected, conflicted job-seeker on Thursday, a day after Mueller bluntly rebuffed Trump’s repeated claims that the Russia investigation had cleared him of committing a federal crime of obstruction of justice." Please, sir, continue attacking Mueller until he realizes he must testify in public to Congress.
"One day after special counsel Robert Mueller publicly refused to exonerate President Donald Trump and hinted at potential impeachment, the President responded Thursday with an avalanche of widely debunked lies about the investigation and its findings." Fact checking the president has become a full time job and a career.
"'I don't see how... I can't imagine the courts allowing it,' Trump said. 'To me, it's a dirty word, the word "impeach." It's a dirty, filthy, disgusting word,' he said." He doesn't even know how an impeachment would work. JFC this is the dumbest timeline ever. (Grokked from Jim Wright)
"(Sen. Roy) Blunt’s response had nothing to do with the merit of the (election security) bills but was instead a reflection of the fact that Senate leadership would not allow them to receive votes. In a statement that stunned many, Blunt all but threw Majority Leader Mitch McConnell under the bus, saying: 'I don’t see any likelihood that those bills would get to the floor if we marked them up. I think the majority leader is of the view this debate reaches no conclusion.'" People are just lining up to be the first against the wall. And it is coming down to the choice between country and party. So far the vast majority of conservatives are throwing their lot behind "party."
No comments:
Post a Comment