Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

Introducing ProPublica’s 527 Explorer
==

#Nonprofits known as 527s can raise unlimited sums for #political spending.

ProPublica is releasing a new database that will allow #journalists, #researchers and others to more easily search these organizations’ finances.

#News #DataJournalism #Journalism #Nonprofit #Politics

https://www.propublica.org/article/search-527s-finances-pacs-database-political-spending

One bullshit artist on Georgetown’s faculty, with the help of some pro-gun organizations that exist only on paper, appears to provide a major pillar of evidence that judges use to justify eliminating gun restrictions. His research is nonsense and his work is funded by the gun lobby. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/18/us/gun-laws-georgetown-professor.html?unlocked_article_code=1.0k0.2FGZ.X-6pzJp9ecZN&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

The job of the press in a society like ours is mostly, I believe, to carefully curate those things which the public is allowed to know and which dots the public should be encouraged to connect, whether the connection is there or not. This is what always frustrates me about listening to NPR or reading the NYT: if you have any context to draw on for many of their stories, it's easy to see the lies by omission - but that can be hard to explain to ppl who lack that context.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/06/nyt-studiously-ignores-elephant-in-room-in-article-on-nigerias-crumbling-economy-the-central-banks-cbdc-experiment.html

And that ends this thread on OpenStreetMap.

In summary

- Underlying OpenStreetMap is a database

- The OpenStreetMap website is a demo only

- To a lot of folks it's not obvious that the OpenStreetMap website is just a demo showcasing what could be accomplished with the data. Even here on Mastodon in our nerd bubble this is not obvious.

- Communication around that could be improved; and communication around vandalism and what it means if you see it on the website's map could be improved.

6/6

Right-wing state supreme court secretly refused to punish right-wing lower-court judges who violated their judicial oaths.

Just another day in the Republican firmament.

https://www.propublica.org/article/north-carolina-supreme-court-republican-judges-violations

Congress continues to push for censorship bills to "protect the kids" online rather than passing comprehensive privacy laws that would protect all users from predatory data gathering and sales that target us for advertising and abuse.

We detail what a comprehensive data privacy law should look like here at https://eff.org/privacyfirst

Still, with all that going on, we released a new episode of our A is For Anarchy series, ‘What is Dual Power?’ which was a look at moments in history where 2 or more competing political frameworks existed in the same time and space. We focused on anti-state moments of Dual Power and explored lessons from history about how to avoid them being co-opted by authoritarian reactionaries.

https://sub.media/a-is-for-anarchy-what-is-dual-power/

Another unexpected item on our docket has been the major flooding in the south of so-called Brazil. One of our core members was directly impacted by the floods, and many in their extended community were hit even harder, with some losing their homes. In the face of this disaster, we launched a fundraiser to support the Anarchist, Indigenous and Quilombola communities in and around Porto Alegre. A huge thanks to everyone who donated and shared within their networks! Work has already begun on cleaning up the wreckage and donations are already having an impact. If you missed our the original social media push, there is still time to contribute to the fundraiser here https://www.gofundme.com/f/espaco-mutual-aid

Another project we’ve had in the works for a while now, which we we’ll be formally announcing later this month, is a more episodic DocuSeries which we’re calling InterRebellium. Without giving too much away, we can say that InterRebellium will be a multi-part limited series, full of anarchist analysis and plenty of riot porn from around the globe. If you were a fan of subMedia during the Trouble series, you can imagine something akin to that, 30 minute minidocs created with the intention of sparking wider discussion. (And if you aren’t familiar with Trouble, we suggest watching every episode immediately.) We hope to release the first episode of InterRebellium in October. It's probably our most ambitious project to date, and we are confident that it will be worth the wait.

We’ve also been plugging away on our long-overdue documentary about Facebook/Meta: The Social Empire. We’ve been making progress but we’ve also been struggling with the speed at which changes have been occurring in the tech sector, in addition to the sheer amount of information we would like to cover. After much internal deliberation, we have decided to restructure The Social Empire into a 3 part miniseries. Be on the lookout for that sometime in 2025.

Today’s suggestion by the Surgeon General that online speech be labeled as dangerous is extraordinary, and puts him in the same category as censorious public officials like Anthony Comstock. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/06/no-online-speech-should-not-have-warning-labels

Cool upcoming #film #book from @pmpress to back on Kickstarter about #resistance in #cinema

Revolution in 35mm: Political Violence and Resistance in Cinema from the Arthouse to the Grindhouse, 1960–1990

http://kck.st/3KSspVr
#filmbook #cinemastodon

@fsf remind everyone that GNU-like #MobileLinux phones (not iOS and not Android) exist, and are great for #freedom! #LinuxMobile

As Kissinger said, "It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."

Notice that we didn't attack China (our enemy) with this anti-vaxx disinfo, we attacked the Philippines (our friend).

"The Pentagon campaign sought to intensify fears about injecting a pig derivative. As part of an internal investigation at X, the social media company used IP addresses and browser data to identify more than 150 phony accounts that were operated from Tampa by U.S. Central Command and its contractors, according to an internal X document reviewed by Reuters."

Truly, we are ruled by psychopaths.

Lotsa climate records are being broken this week. https://www.dailykos.com/story/2024/6/14/2246571/-Cartoon-2024-climate-records

I guess this stuff is plenty obscure, huh?

So, folks, there's a new browser engine dropped (a while ago, actually). It isn't based on WebKit and it isn't based on Firefox, it is written from scratch for a hobbyist operating system SerenityOS by some awesome/crazy people. The browser, called Ladybird, actually can be compiled for Windows, Linux, Mac, OpenIndiana and Android.

It can pass Acid3 and render Github page well (note that Firefox and Chrome circa 2018 cannot do that!), and it has decent JS and afaik wasm support.

Their site is https://ladybird.dev/

I am not related to the project in any way, just amazed that it exist, and I think it deserves more love and publicity. And optimizations for low-end computers. And privacy features. And so on!

I think we can agree that access to green space for school children is a good thing.... well, you'll be unsurprised that the hierarchy of access to green space means that children at private schools have much (and I mean much) more access than those at state schools.

But, hey, we live in a post-class political society... do we hell as like!

#schools #nature

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/jun/16/revealed-private-schools-have-10-times-more-green-space-than-state-schools?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon dropped to its lowest level since March 2018, according to data from the Brazilian government.

Deforestation for the year to date is down 40% compared to 2023, with expectations for a significant annual decline when the “deforestation year” concludes on July 31.

by Rhett A. Butler
https://news.mongabay.com/2024/06/deforestation-in-earths-largest-rainforest-continues-to-plummet-despite-a-rise-in-fires/

#News #Conservation #Environment #Forests #Rainforest #Deforestation