Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

@lightweight
@CEDO

In Europe, the Netherlands we have the CEDO, striving to get #Bigtech out of class and from children:

https://eerlijkdigitaalonderwijs.nl/

The most horrific use of weapons of mass destruction in history took place sixty-nine years ago this month, when the U.S. detonated atomic bombs over #Hiroshima and, three days later, #Nagasaki. Two hundred thousand people were killed, either by blast and heat or, later, by burns and radiation poisoning. Many others were maimed and disfigured.

What kind of person could think—as Musk and Trump do—that’s no big deal.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/musk-told-trump-that-hiroshima-and-nagasaki-bombings-not-as-scary-as-people-think-trump-thats-great/ar-AA1oJAK1

I have jury duty next week.

Covid is running rampant in the Bay Area.

I'm at higher risk.

I will wear a mask, and attempt to distance myself from others. (I wear a mask in all indoor settings.)

I revere jury duty (though I've never made it past voir dire).

It absolutely sucks that crowded jury rooms don't have mask mandates.

Masks aren't perfect (or close to perfect) protection. But they are vastly, vastly better than nothing.

I've tagged version 0.0.2 of #libcmatrix - a #matrix client library.

This release focuses on making Matrix support in #chatty more robust, simplifying some APIs and improving the documentation (which is now automatically generated at https://agx.github.io/libcmatrix/)

See https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/libcmatrix/-/releases/v0.0.2 for the list of changes and contributors.

Unprecedented number of #HeatRecords broken around #world this year | Extreme heat | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/aug/14/unprecedented-number-of-heat-records-broken-around-world-this-year

#Environment #Climate #GlobalWarming #ClimateChange

@dynamic We live in a two party system, so you can hardly blame people who feel betrayed or ignored by one party to give the only other option a try. Personally, I think it's obvious that both parties are run by sociopaths who are fully controlled by their campaign donors & their egos. I'm just saying that if the Dems want anyone to vote for them, they should try delivering something, rather than just shaming people. I don't imagine they will tho 🤷‍♂️

#Germany introduces a new system for accessing medical data online.
The implementation by my insurer: Android, iOS, Windows, #Snap Store. Sadly, it's not open.

Sensitive data + closed software on user devices = #security nightmare.

(I'm mercifully ignoring the inevitable leak of the central database.)

When will governments and banks learn? There's no security without source code. There's no stability without interoperability.

#opensource #linux #interoperability #publicmoneypubliccode

@dynamic Unmentioned in the article is that the Obama administration oversaw the largest reduction in Black household wealth ever, while protecting the perpetrators and ensuring they got to keep their ill-gotten gains. Given recent history, I don't think the Dems should be surprised that they're losing people who they always assumed they could safely ignore as fully captured voters. The prob is w/ the Dems, not with Black voters.

https://www.npr.org/2024/08/14/g-s1-16261/young-black-voters-generation-democrats-conservative-trump-harris-gen-z-millennials
'“We're getting into generations of young Black voters that are not just once removed, but maybe twice or three times removed from a civil rights generation,” Towler said. “The way that they form their identity is less likely to be directly attached to the civil rights struggle...they're less likely to be suspicious of political institutions and they're more likely to support Trump and the Republicans.”'

Presumably someone I work with follows me at this point, to whom I say "BITE ME IF YOU THINK ANY OF THIS IS SANE".

Police at the DNC must let journalists do their jobs.

"When journalists aren’t watching, abuses of peaceful protesters are more likely. The public suffers by being uninformed. The only beneficiaries are officials looking to avoid accountability."

https://chicago.suntimes.com/other-views/2024/08/02/democratic-national-convention-dnc-2024-journalists-coverage-police-abuse-first-amendment-seth-stern-op-ed

This should not be legal. 😡

“If you make minimum payments toward the average balance ($6,218, according to TransUnion) at the average credit card rate (20.71%), you’ll be in debt for 18 years and will owe more than $9,000 in interest.”

https://www.dailyitem.com/business/survey-half-of-american-cardholders-now-carry-credit-card-debt-many-with-no-plan-to/article_4ffb8a17-d253-5f12-9233-411032a3badd.html

Today's Must-Read (don't worry, it's short):

Maybe Murder and Humiliation is the Whole Point, by Alon Mizrahi

We habitually think that greed and some general mental underdevelopment motivated colonialism and capitalism throughout the centuries. We may be wrong.

https://alonmizrahi.substack.com/p/maybe-murder-and-humiliation-is-the

Using an already waning problem to try to get everybody onto digital only national currencies (if you don't understand what kind of dystopian realities such a thing would enable, you need to read some more sci-fi). "Addicted to cash," just means "not buying our BS about the inevitability of our plans."

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/08/wave-of-atm-bombings-in-cash-addicted-germany-prompts-calls-for-fewer-atms-and-less-use-of-cash.html

When I was 21 I was told that pregnancy could (and probably would) kill me AND that I was likely infertile.

I asked to have my tubes tied & was told “you’re too young. You may change your mind & want kids.”

🧵 on reproductive health, bodily autonomy & misogyny in medicine.

First off - this was devastating news at such a young age. I had stage 4 endometriosis, a tipped uterus, adenomyosis & other health issues that made pregnancy unlikely AND dangerous.

I was told in the event I became pregnant - they would have to recommend termination.
Abortion would ALSO be risky to my health - though less risky than carrying a pregnancy to term.

Given the threat it seemed perfectly reasonable to request a more fail safe method of birth control (tubal ligation).
I was having laproscopic surgery anyways to try and remove some of the endometriosis - so they were literally already going to be operating. Tying my tubes was a negligible risk compared to the rest of the surgery.
Imagine my shock when I was informed they wouldn’t do it because I might change my mind and want kids.

I asked them whether my “changing my mind” would change my prognosis or their recommendation. Nope. They would still recommend termination.

This was the first time I truly understood how deep misogyny and patriarchal values ran in medicine. My theoretical ability to bear children - whether I wanted them or not and whether it was safe or not - was more important than my health and my life.

It was infuriating. An IUD wasn’t an option for a myriad of reasons so I was stuck on hormonal birth control that I didn’t tolerate well. I was also getting sicker from the endometriosis & adenomyosis… and it quickly became clear a hysterectomy would be best for me.

Given doctors weren’t willing to entertain a tubal ligation - you can only imagine how they felt about a hysterectomy. Same tired arguments about how I could change my mind, I was too young, what if I met a man who wanted kids blah blah blah.

I got these responses from male and female physicians - all of whom were willing to let my health significantly deteriorate rather than “make me barren”. None of whom listened to what I wanted to do with MY body.

I continued to push for surgery because I knew it was what I needed - and was forced to undergo multiple psych evaluations. I heard everything from “don’t you want to be a mother” to “what if you meet the man of your dreams & he leaves you because you can’t have kids?.”

How is it appropriate to ask ANY woman these questions? Let alone a woman who has been told - repeatedly - that pregnancy would put her life in jeopardy? It was as though they thought something was wrong with me because I didn’t want to risk my life for a hypothetical baby. 1/2

#womenshealth #endometriosis #EDS #ehlersdanlossyndrome #pregnancy #gynecology #obgyn #abortion #reproductivehealth #reproductiverights #abortionIShealthcare #patriarchy #misogyny #Disability #Ableism #Denial #PublicHealth #InfectionControl #Eugenics #SafeHealthcare #MaskUp #Spoonie #Discrimination #Dysautonomia #mecfs #pots #mcas #communitycare #wearamask #chronicillness #DisabilityRights #hysterectomy #hystersisters

#Elsevier employee fired for speaking up about greenwashing... like its not even greenwashing #RELX straight up sells informatics tools to fossil fuel companies based off academic geology research to target fossil fuel exploration.

https://www.bloomberglaw.com/public/desktop/document/LyallvElsevierIncetalDocketNo124cv12022DMassAug062024CourtDocket?doc_id=XM9I11IUDL9K5BTMAIM5M9MI6D

This is the way...

"Planned far-right rallies did not materialise over the weekend, amid a large turnout of anti-racist protesters...

"Reform UK['s] offices were targeted by [5k] anti-racism protesters in a peaceful march... and in Belfast 15k people turned up to one of the city’s biggest ever anti-racism gatherings."

#fascism #UKriots #racism

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/aug/11/far-right-demonstrations-abandoned-amid-warnings-of-10-year-sentences?utm_source=instagramthreads&utm_campaign=farrightdemonstrationsthreads

We don’t talk enough about how the US military has contaminated drinking water worldwide with toxic chemicals like TCE, #PFAS, and jet fuel, including in Honolulu.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/12/air-force-epa-water-pfas-tucson

A year ago, Iris reached out through my blog to send me this post about her struggles as a trans job seeker in New Zealand.

https://deadsimpletech.com/blog/what_its_like

Incidentally Iris is fantastic and she introduced me to Clausewitz. Just wanted to give it the old signal boost. I think it's a good one to share with people that are sort of sympathetic but don't "get it".