Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Botanists identify 33 global ‘dark spots’ with thousands of unknown #plants - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/01/kew-botanic-gardens-study-33-dark-spots-plant-species-identification-unknown-biodiversity- "Kew study reveals areas with at least 100,000 undiscovered plant species – most likely to be under threat of extinction"

@lightweight For those interested, at @oeglobal we are running a live demo of Big Blue Button + H5P on Oct 9 https://www.oeglobal.org/event/wednesday-demos-live-h5p-in-big-blue-button/

Ooo - thanks to @cogdog for the pointer to this! https://yewtu.be/watch?v=byn3cYsmoSk or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byn3cYsmoSk - #BigBlueButton 3 brings the ability to embed #H5P learning objects into video conference content which is very cool for instructional use cases! I honestly can't believe that *any* education provider still uses Zoom or (**shudders) MS Teams/Google Meet for this stuff.

Kudos to Pro Publica who exposed the nonsense of this Potemkin plastic recycling process back in June. It’s green-washing by ExxonMobil, which says they turn plastic back into oil, which can be used to make plastic again. But the process actually works terribly, with a 2–5% yield. Worse, the industry uses mathematical tricky known as “lying” to label that e.g. 30% recycled, or even 100%.

Plastic recycling: it’s as good as clean coal! https://www.propublica.org/article/delusion-advanced-chemical-plastic-recycling-pyrolysis

There is no vile promise Trump can make that will cause Big Journalism to take seriously the dire threat he poses to democracy and fundamental liberties.

Take his weekend Purge talk. He can't wait to unleash the worst police -- the racists and bullies who otherwise decent cops and public officials allow to operate with impunity. And standing beside those rogue cops will be his brownshirt brigades who can't wait to kill some of their neighbors.

This is real. But journalism just shrugs.

Support mutual aid recovery efforts in the wake of hurrican Helene in so-called western North Carolina here:

From the Dept of How-the-Sausage-is-Made : Today's comic is 450x7661 pixels. 450 is the width I decided on when I was playing around with making a webcomic that was compatible with smartphones. I never really had many readers who used smartphones to visit my site, but I don't have many vision impaired readers either and I still do a transcript, so... 1/?

We're four days into the most significant natural disaster in the recorded history of our region. Our community is experiencing an ongoing crisis created by infrastructural collapse and the profound failure of capitalism to value and sustain life. No state or federal aid has yet reached Asheville, but all around us we're seeing regular people acting autonomously to address immediate needs and meet one another with care. We hope to write soon about the beautiful and resourceful things we've witnessed.

Our co-op is physically intact and our members are accounted for. Although we've fared better than many, we're experiencing this crisis physically and emotionally. We're exhausted, largely without power, water, or internet. Cell service is poor, and when we are able to connect, the volume of information is overwhelming. Right now our priority is supporting and facilitating mutual aid efforts and we ask for your patience as we cannot keep up with emails, texts, and DMs.

Firestorm will continue to act as an in-person resource and information hub over the coming days, with staffing from noon to 4pm. A daily meeting at 2pm serves as a space for neighbors to get verified updates and coordinate mutual aid efforts. Other hubs have arisen organically in other parts of town and we're doing our best to share and connect resources.

If you would like to donate to grassroots recovery efforts, please send funds to our friends at #MutualAidDisasterRelief (https://bit.ly/donatemadr or Venmo @/MutualAidDisasterRelief), who are already on the ground, or local organizers (Venmo @/AppMedSolid or Cash App $Streets1de with "Flood Support" in the memo), who have been caring for our community 365 days/year.

We are not able to process web orders or ship inventory. If you'd like to support our co-op, we enthusiastically welcome book orders through our website, but please understand that we cannot provide an estimate on shipping.

#HurricaneHelene #MutualAid #Asheville #WesternNorthCarolina #FeministBookstore #QueerSouth #FirestormCoop (- L)

Today's Help Desk will require a ridiculous amount of scrolling.

https://www.eviscerati.org/comics/hd/2024/09/resignation/

(Usually I attach the comic image, but it's over 7000 pixels long and I assume most people would be annoyed if Mastodon tried to actually display all of it in a feed. So... if you're interested, click the link!)

Crypto bros and LA County Sheriff's Deputies: a match made in heaven ❤️ 🤢

https://cointelegraph.com/news/crypto-ceo-bribed-police-extort-victim

Along with that… if anyone is hiring or knows of cool projects that could use someone with a killer combination of organizing and research skills please let me know!

Full cv and all that on the new website: http://j-dv.com

Interesting to see this: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/on-the-inside/529415/what-jack-and-jill-can-teach-us-about-the-un-fairness-of-capital-gains-taxes The solution seems quite simple to me... set a minimum net value for CGT to apply, which helps those who're saving hard but don't have a lot of property. Also, maybe adjust tax rates to be proportional to the amount an individual pays their accountant 🙃

PayPal is updating their Terms of Service to automatically give merchants access to your data starting in November and they've already opted you into it. OPT OUT BEFORE THEY START:

Good to Settings > Data & Privacy > Manage shared info > Personalized/PayPal Shopping and toggle it to off.

#PayPal #Privacy #OptOut

Latest comic: Actual moms for liberty
#cartoon #women #gender #politics #lgbtq

👏🏻👏🏻NEW: Federal Court blocks a key provision of #Texas voter suppression law SB1 that would make it a felony to assist voters who need help returning their absentee ballots. The judge rules the provision violates the First Amendment. https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/federal-judge-strikes-down-key-provision-of-texas-omnibus-voter-suppression-law/

CBS News has chosen to be a cowardly entertainment company, not a journalism organization, in its cavalier decision not to do any fact-checking in the VP debate next week.

This is an invitation for Vance -- as prolific a liar as Trump -- to flood the zone with bullshit. There's not enough time in a day, much less 90 minutes, for Walz to refute the lies and make his own points.

CBS knows this, and put its thumb on the scale anyway.

https://apnews.com/article/cbs-debate-vice-president-fact-check-7a3b31c98ab092dd44915df57a359d10

Your tax dollars paid for lifesaving weather information, but the Trump administration gave it to a corporation that charges (a lot) for anyone to see it.

https://freedom.press/news/government-hides-its-best-hurricane-predictions/

A perfect example of how right-wing policies take from all of us to reward the rich.

What'll happen at the VP debate? https://www.dailykos.com/story/2024/9/27/2273168/-Cartoon-V-P-debate-preview