Categories
Education Environment Reads Social Media

What I’m Reading – Jan 2 2024

2017 Solar eclipse showing the diamond
Photo of complete solar eclipse taken in St. Louis in 2017

Today is a good day to read.

I subscribe to a good number of newsletters. Most are freely available, even if you don’t subscribe to the parent publication

One such newsletter is Landline, from High Country News. I subscribe to the Landline because it has excellent coverage of what’s happening with clean air and water, the Endangered Species Act, the Interior, and climate change.

From the Landline:  Is Biden waging a war on energy? Or on the climate?

Biden is twixt and tween on climate change and we’re going to end up with a really bad President if we don’t recognize this. Yes, we wish he could have done more for the environment and fighting climate change. Given. However, if you keep up with court cases, you realize he has done what he could given the current state of our court systems—not to mention the current state of Congress.

***

Another newsletter is from The 74, a media site dedicated to all things educational. You don’t have to be a teacher—or a parent—to have an interest in education. After all, what happens in schools impacts on what type of citizens kids become in the future. And even us older childfree couples have to live with these citizens.

From The 74, a story about one of the largest school districts in the country in Virginia, and the impact of its mistaken release of private and confidential data from 35,000 students.

From The 74: Alleged Rape Victim Presses Virginia’s Fairfax Schools for Answers on Records Disclosure

***

The Climate Coach is one of Washington Post’s free newsletters. You don’t have to be a subscriber to the Post to get the newsletter. Today’s Climate Coach is about our need to stop buying so much crap…and to consider getting rid of the crap we have.

Article has had the paywall removed.

From the Climate Coach: The Swedes know the secret to happiness: You are not your stuff

***

Speaking of newsletters, I suspect most of us are signed up for one or more newletters from authors who publish on Substack. I subscribe to several, though I can’t afford to be a paying client of all of them.

You might have heard recently about a neo-Nazi account on Substack, and the company’s response when asked about it. Linked below are some of the replies from people I follow on Substack.

As for me? If someone moves from Substack, I’ll do my best to find and follow them. But I won’t unsubscribe from someone who wants to stay on Substack. I’ve had an online site long enough to know that no matter where you go, bad people follow. I lease my server space from Linode, which is now a part of Akamai. I would not be surprised if Akamai is hosting a neo-Nazi web site. Or two. And if I find this out, I’m not going to pull my server and go elsewhere, because wherever I go, the bad people will follow. If not immediately, someday.

If you want to silence bad people, you drown them out with the good. So, don’t link to the bad people, don’t talk to the bad people, and don’t give the bad people attention. Only echo the good.

So, I’m linking to the good.

Kevin Kruse: Moving Forward

Ken White: Substack Has A Nazi Opportunity

Thomas Zimmer: On Substack’s Nazi Problem, and Ours

 

 

Categories
Environment Legal, Laws, and Regs Reads Texas

What I’m Reading – Dec 29 2024

Razor wire, like that Texas is placing at the southern border
Razor wire, like that being placed by Texas at the southern border.

The Endangered Species Act turns 50. There’s good news, and bad, about the law.

The good news is, it works. The bad news is, Republicans and some industries such as the fossil fuel, timber, mineral extraction, and cattle industries, don’t like that it’s working. And you can toss in a few states among those who have declared themselves just peachy keen to let species go extinct.

High Country New: The epic history of the Endangered Species Act

Sierra Club: Two Stoneflies Lead the Way for Conserving Other Uncharismatic Species

Vox: The ridiculously stupid reason the US is letting animals spiral toward oblivion

PBS: Architects of the Endangered Species Act reflect on 50th anniversary of groundbreaking measure

***

Our country has completely recovered from the COVID slowdown, inflation is under control, unemployment is down, and wages have risen—this despite a desperate effort by US corporations to milk the people of this country for as many profits as possible.

Yet, nary a peep from the media giving Biden any kudos for, at a minimum, staying out of the way and letting federal agencies do their job to control a post-COVID economy.

Public Notice: Biden doesn’t get enough credit for his economic record

***

I’ve been following the antics of Texas governor and legislature in court documents for some time. Without firing a shot, the state has unilaterally declared itself independent of the United States.

(Well, except when it holds its hand out for federal funds.)

The Texas government has triggered acrimony between the US and Mexico at a time when we need Mexico’s help to handle mass migrations. It undermines the federal effort to control migration, and then turns around and tells the press the southern border is ‘wide open’. And Texas creates havoc and hardship for citizen and migrant alike by shipping poor migrants to northern cities, without giving the cities a heads up, and without the migrants even having the clothing they would need to survive.

Worse, other than independent publications like the Texas Tribune, the media has done an appallingly bad job documenting the damage Texas is causing. Instead it plays into the Republican talking points of “Oh, Biden is in trouble! Migration at the border is out of control!”

I’ll have more on the Texas efforts, migration, and the legal cases associated with the efforts, in separate posts. As for the media, all I can do with it is focus on sharing stores from decent media sources, like the Texas Tribune.

Texas Tribune: U.S. Department of Justice says it’ll sue if Texas enforces new law punishing illegal border crossing

 

 

Categories
Immigration Legal, Laws, and Regs

US vs Abbott: Survey

Aerial view of river and buoys showing them past the Mexico/US border
Court document showing the buoy placement relative to the Mexico/US border

My concerns about the US vs Abbott case may have been unfounded.

The US and Mexico did a joint survey of the buoys placed by Abbott. They found that 787 feet of the buoys are actually in Mexico’s side of the Rio Grande. Yup, that’s right:

Abbott invaded Mexico.

Playing with definitions of ‘navigable’ or not, Abbott violated Mexico’s sovereign territory.

Unless the idiot wants to say that Mexico is now part of Texas, he’s going to have to move those damn things. And it’s time for the Judge to stop the Amicus nonsense and make the decision he should have made days ago.

Result of survey.

 

Categories
Immigration Legal, Laws, and Regs

US vs Abbott

Image of buoy system and line marking US and Mexico boundaries in Rio Grande River
Exhibit from court documents showing buoys and line marking US/Mexico boundaries

Taking a breather from indictments, I grow increasingly alarmed at what’s happening with a court case, US vs Abbott.

The federal government sued Abbott and Texas because his putting those barbaric buoys in the Rio Grande violated the Rivers and Harbors Act.

Slam dunk, you’d think.

But the amicus briefs filed and the response from Texas has been to challenge the very concept of the term ‘navigable’, and reflects Thomas opinion in the Sacketts vs EPA WOTUS case decided by SCOTUS not too long ago.

They are literally using this case to launch an attack on the very concept of federal oversight of rivers and bodies of water, such as the Rio Grande that extend beyond state lines. An attack that, if it goes to SCOTUS, will gut whatever clean water protections we have left in this country.

This is all flying under the radar. I sure wish there were some friendlier faces paying attention to this.

Court case docket at Free Law

Categories
Social Media

So-So Social Media

Image of mastodon

Last edit:

Threads is crap. Uninstalled.

Edit:

I did decide to try Threads, primarily because I have a (very inactive) Instagram account, and because some folks who aren’t on Mastodon are on Instagram/Threads. I figured better than Twitter, but still wish I could find folks on Mastodon more easily.

At that, you can search on hashtags on Mastodon, but Threads doesn’t even have this capability yet. A bit underwhelmed with it.

Earlier:

I’ve been exploring the world of social media, which, for me, means spending more time on Mastodon.

I won’t be trying out Bluesky or Threads, or any of the other social media sites controlled by scary-looking men. I had that with Twitter, and I’ve moved on.

I am still contemplating whether to start my own Mastodon server. My hosting company, Linode, now has a one-button click Mastodon server setup among their marketplace apps. This includes setting up a basic email server, which is necessary for Mastodon. Literally all you have to do is point, click, pay and do a tiny bit of tweaking and you’re ready to rock.

I don’t have an email server setup for Burningbird, primarily because maintaining a safe and spam-free email server just isn’t a fun use of my time.

Still, I am tempted to try the new Linode Mastodon solution. I’m happy on mastodon.social, but I’m feeling stubbornly independent.