Linkee-poo Thursday July1

Delia Fiallo and Donald Rumsfeld, and so it goes.

The outgoing SFWA president, Mary Robinette Kowal, is asking for donations to SFWA

"How Twitter can ruin a life… Isabel Fall’s sci-fi story 'I Sexually Identify as an Attack Helicopter' drew the ire of the internet. This is what happened next." A long story about an incident that I was only tangentially aware of at the time; on personhood and social media and their intersection. How what we say can have devastating impact, the exploration of self through story, the weaponization of social media, the tricky road of reclaiming dignity, and what it means to be a trans person in this culture.

"Behold the highest-resolution image of atoms ever seen. Cornell University researchers captured a sample from a crystal in three dimensions and magnified it 100 million times, doubling the resolution that earned the same scientists a Guinness World Record in 2018. Their work could help develop materials for designing more powerful and efficient phones, computers and other electronics, as well as longer-lasting batteries."

"In their death throes, roughly 97% of all stars become a smoldering stellar zombie called a white dwarf, one of the densest objects in the cosmos. A newly discovered white dwarf is being hailed as the most 'extreme' one of these on record, cramming a frightful amount of mass into a surprisingly small package."

"There are more than 2 million people across the United States who have no option when it comes to health insurance. They're in what's known as the "coverage gap" — they don't qualify for Medicaid in their state, and make too little money to be eligible for subsidized health plans on the Affordable Care Act insurance exchanges." This is a political choice. Again, Obamacare was a good first step. But it was just the first step.

"One conspiracy site even claimed vaccinated people were dying at higher rates than those who had not received the jab, which is untrue… This site and others use real figures in a misleading way, to arrive at a completely false conclusion - that the vaccine may not be working or even doing more harm than good."

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization don't share the same perspective when it comes to the coronavirus. CDC Director Rochelle Walensky told NBC's Today show on Wednesday that people who are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus do not need to wear masks because they're 'safe' from the virus. The advice openly contradicts the WHO's recommendation last week that fully vaccinated people should continue wearing face masks to curb the spread of the virus and dangerous new variants."

"The NHS has been given the green light to start planning a Covid vaccine booster programme in the UK ahead of this winter… A bigger flu season than normal is expected, meaning extra protection against Covid is likely to be needed… More than 30 million of the most vulnerable should receive a third dose, vaccine experts are advising."

"Initial filings for unemployment insurance fell sharply last week, indicating continued improvement in the U.S. jobs market, the Labor Department reported Thursday… First-time jobless claims totaled 364,000 for the week ended June 26, compared with the 390,000 Dow Jones estimate. That marked a new pandemic-era low and a decline of 51,000 from the previous week."

"British Columbia reports more than a dozen other fires… The province is currently fighting multiple wildfires, according to the British Columbia Wildfire Service."

"Residents of a Canadian village which recorded the country's highest ever temperature, 49.6C (121.3F), have been forced to flee by a wildfire… The mayor of Lytton, British Columbia, ordered people to evacuate, saying flames had spread through the village in just 15 minutes."

"FEMA is supposed to help people who lost property, maybe even their homes, in a natural disaster. But year after year, FEMA has been denying a higher percentage of claims. Data from the agency shows that Brenda and Francis Dairy are just one household of thousands in Oregon and California that indicated they had damage from wildfires last year but were denied help by FEMA." Government is broken, by intention. It's time to fix it.

"A stockpile of illegal fireworks detonated following attempts by the Los Angeles Police Department's bomb squad to destroy the explosives. The force of the blast destroyed the department's armored truck, injured 17 people and required the evacuation of nearby homes… On Wednesday evening LAPD bomb squad officers were in the process of seizing more than 5,000 pounds of illegal fireworks at a home in South Los Angeles, the department said. Some of those fireworks were being stored in the department's armored trailer as a precautionary measure when it exploded." That doesn't sound like a backyard enthusiast.

"Comedian Bill Cosby has been released from prison after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Wednesday vacated the indecent assault conviction against him… In an 79-page opinion by the court, the justices found that Cosby's due process rights were violated when he was charged for a 2004 assault after prosecutors previously told the comedian they wouldn't bring criminal charges against him." But it wasn't in writing.

"Trustees for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill voted Wednesday afternoon at a closed session to give tenure to star New York Times writer Nikole Hannah-Jones several months after refusing to consider her proposed tenure… The case inspired a bruising debate over race, journalism and academic freedom."

"The movement to cancel Canada Day celebrations comes after hundreds of unmarked graves thought to contain the remains of Indigenous children were recently discovered at the sites of two former boarding schools in the country."

"China's ruling Communist Party is throwing itself a party, kicking off a month of celebrations today to memorialize its founding 100 years ago." Happy birthday, ya bastards.

"It inspires comparisons to Area-51: A massive, three-mile-long runway in a remote patch of Chinese desert, hundreds of miles from any cities… Now, it looks like the site is undergoing an expansion."

"Yang also noted that Kim has publicly admitted that his country faces another crisis: a food shortage. While food shortages are a chronic condition in the North, due in part to economic mismanagement, the situation has been aggravated by pandemic-related border closures and poor harvests as a result of typhoons last year."

"Starting immediately, an applicant for a U.S. passport can simply check 'M' or 'F' as their gender – without needing to provide medical certification if that gender doesn't match their other documents. And soon, applicants will have the option to select a gender option that isn't male or female, the State Department said Wednesday."

"The justices voted 6-3 along ideological lines to side with two nonprofit groups, including one with links to billionaire Charles Koch. The groups argued that California’s policy of collecting the information violates the First Amendment."

"The Supreme Court on Thursday ruled 6-3 along partisan lines to uphold Arizona voting rules supported by Republicans that Democrats alleged unlawfully discriminated against the state’s Native American, Hispanic and Black voters."

"But this week, DeSantis vetoed a bill centered on civic literacy education that would have developed a civic literacy practicum and established the existing program at USF St. Petersburg as the Citizen Scholars Program, providing high school students with college credit for their participation."

"A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily blocked a new Florida law regulating how social media companies can moderate content, saying hours before the law was set to take effect that the legislation violates the First Amendment and contradicts federal law."

"In a largely party-line vote, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives approved legislation on Wednesday to create a select committee to launch a new inquiry into the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol… With a larger share of Republicans voting against the plan, it marks the latest turn in a partisan fight to investigate the riot." For all the republicans saying that they oppose this because it's not bipartisan, well, you had you chance for a non-partisan investigation. You should have convinced your Senate compatriots to vote for that.

"Arizona Republicans have stripped the secretary of state's office — currently held by a Democrat — of the right to defend the state's election laws in court, or choose not to, a change enacted as part of Arizona's newly signed budget."

"A few days earlier, McBroom, a Republican state senator who chairs the Oversight Committee, had released a report detailing his eight-month-long investigation into the legitimacy of the 2020 election… His committee interviewed scores of witnesses, subpoenaed and reviewed thousands of pages of documents, dissected the procedural mechanics of Michigan’s highly decentralized elections system, and scrutinized the most trafficked claims about corruption at the state’s ballot box in November. McBroom’s conclusion hit Lansing like a meteor: It was all a bunch of nonsense."

"On consecutive nights this week, Fox News prime-time host Tucker Carlson has alleged that the National Security Agency — charged with monitoring communications abroad to keep the U.S. safe — is spying on him in hopes of getting his top-rated show canceled… He did not, however, offer anything more concrete. And Fox News has notably not reported on Carlson's allegations within its news programs, according to a review of transcripts." I'm now beginning to wonder just what scandal is about to break that Tucker is pre-positioning his argument to be "they're just out to get me."

"Allen Weisselberg, the chief financial officer who oversaw day-to-day management of the Trump Organization while Donald Trump was in the White House, surrendered himself to authorities at a New York City courthouse Thursday morning. The move comes ahead of expected criminal charges against Weisselberg and Trump's family business later in the day." The charges might be about payment of "benefits" (more like reimbursements for non-corporate expenses) without declaring them on taxes. If that's true, he's not the only one in jeopardy, the persons who received those payments are also on the hook.