Linkee-poo, what's love got to do with it

Tina Turner, and so it goes.

"Once we became aware that data from AO3 was being included in the Common Crawl dataset — which is used to train AI such as ChatGPT — we put code in place in December 2022 requesting Common Crawl not scrape the Archive again."

"Orcas have attacked and sunk a third boat off the Iberian coast of Europe, and experts now believe the behavior is being copied by the rest of the population."

"A deep sea-mapping company has created the first-ever full-sized digital scan of the Titanic, revealing an entirely new view of the world's most famous shipwreck."

"But the rupture in Satartia underscores growing concerns across communities that face the prospect of more CO2 pipelines being built to address climate change. Safety advocates and community residents worry about pipeline safety and gaps in federal regulation, says Bill Caram, executive director of the nonprofit Pipeline Safety Trust. 'We're looking at those pipelines being a lot closer to people and communities than they are right now,' Caram says. 'We are not yet ready.'"

"Human activities have caused more than half of the world's largest lakes to shrink dramatically over the last 30 years, according to a new study published in the journal Science. The implications pose risks to human health, economies and the natural world."

"The idea that profits drove our current bout of inflation surfaced in the last few years among progressive economists and lawmakers but was waved away by more mainstream types as a 'conspiracy theory.' That changed earlier this year." I mean, corporate America only told us this with every quarterly earning report since 2020.

On the enshitification of the internet economy (also known as Web 2.0). "On (On the Media), we’ve spent many hours dissecting the digital anatomy of the internet. We’ve chronicled concerns about privacy, the appeal of connection, the rapture of echo chambers, and the ever-bumbling attempts to regulate it all. But now we turn to the increasingly potent feeling that, when it comes to the world wide web, everything kinda seems to be getting worse… This week, Brooke sits down for the first of three conversations with with Cory Doctorow, journalist, activist, author of the new novel Red Team Blues, and special advisor to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, to discuss his theory on why going online might feel less and more repellent, how that happened, and what we can do about it." Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 which explores some solutions.

"Amanda Gorman's poetry has heralded a presidential inauguration and a U.N. General Assembly — but access to it is now restricted at a Miami-Dade County school, the latest casualty in the fight over library books."

"Target once distinguished itself as being boldly supportive of the LGBTQ+ community… Now that status is tarnished after it removed some LGBTQ+-themed products and relocated Pride Month displays to the back of stores in certain Southern locations in response to online complaints and in-store confrontations that it says threatened employees’ well-being."

"More than 450 Catholic clergy in Illinois sexually abused nearly 2,000 children since 1950, the state’s attorney general found in an investigation released Tuesday, revealing that the problem was far worse than the church had let on." I know, I'm shocked as well. I didn't know the Catholic Church hosted that many drag shows.

"Owners of the Keystone pipeline knew a defect had formed years before the strain finally caused the pipeline to burst and flood a Kansas creek with oil last year… The Keystone pipeline, owned by TC Energy, burst near the Kansas-Nebraska border late last year, spilling almost 13,000 barrels of oil onto adjacent farmland and into Mill Creek." It's almost like they put profits in front of safety and the environment.

"A man in Kentucky’s largest city is facing criminal charges after allegedly shooting his roommate during a dispute over a Hot Pocket, authorities say." Ahh, that polite society the NRA talks about.

"The issue of gun control came to a head in Maryland after a man began regularly standing at a school bus stop with an AR-15-style rifle in his hands… For the past few weeks, J'Den McAdory, 20, has been strolling around his neighborhood in Severn, Md., with a long gun in what he says is a protest against recent state gun control legislation."

"In the wake of the 2018 passage of the internet child protection bill FOSTA-SESTA in the US, fandom’s proudly sex-positive culture has increasingly become sanitized, homogenized, and erased — which has allowed the puritanical voices of these “anti-fans” to take their place… This trend would be bad news in any online community, but it’s been especially heady and unwieldy in fandom, an entire culture built around feeling things strongly, not rationally. The result is one of the unlikeliest fronts of the culture war: an internet community, once the bastion of delightful deviance and subversion, being completely overtaken by a new form of purity culture often spearheaded by people who would otherwise describe themselves as politically liberal." (Grokked form Jason Sanford, I think)

"For more than three hours, investigators presented findings alleging Paxton sought to hide an affair, misused his office to help a donor, skirted protocols “grossly outside” norms and built a culture of fear and retaliation in his office. Investigators told the GOP-led House General Investigating Committee that there was evidence that Paxton repeatedly broke the law over the years, including by misusing official information, abusing his official capacity and retaliation."

"A news story blaming White House immigration policies for causing more than 20 homeless veterans to be booted from their temporary shelters is now being denounced as an elaborate hoax, with the New York lawmaker at the center calling it a heartbreaking affront to his work to help veterans." But, you know, he's not really sad about it because "he is undeterred in his opposition to President Joe Biden’s immigration policies and their potential effects on states like New York. But he conceded that in this case, the concerns were unfounded." (Grokked from Chang)

"Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis launched his 2024 presidential campaign on Wednesday with firm words but a disastrous Twitter announcement that did little to counter criticism that the 44-year-old Republican may not be ready to take on former President Donald Trump."v "A defiant House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said Wednesday the debt ceiling standoff was 'not my fault' as he sent Republican negotiators to the White House to finish out talks, but warned the two sides need more time as they try to reach a budget deal with President Joe Biden." Hey Kevin, you're Speaker of the House. It is your fault, no matter what.