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We Have to Finance a Global Green New Deal — or Face the Consequences

An international approach to tackling climate change would require the United States and other industrialized countries to give money to developing nations.

The post We Have to Finance a Global Green New Deal — or Face the Consequences appeared first on The Intercept.

A solarium for hens? How to increase the vitamin D content of eggs

Many people suffer from a vitamin D deficiency. This can result in brittle bones and an increased risk of respiratory diseases. Chicken eggs are a natural source of vitamin D and one way to, at least partially, compensate for this deficiency. A team of nutritionists and agricultural scientists has found a new way to further increase the vitamin D content of eggs: by exposing chickens to UV light.

Sanders and Warren Have Very Different Plans to Fix Student Debt

Bernie Sanders just took his long-running war against the high cost of college to a whole new level: He’s introducing a bill to cancel all $1.6 trillion outstanding student debt, providing instant relief for more than 45 million Americans. On Monday, the Vermont senator unveiled a revamped version of his College for All Act. The […]

i.MX8MQ's MIPI DPY driver entered linux next (https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/next/linux-next.git/commit/?id=f4c8116e294b12c360b724173f4b79f232573fb1) - one more thing of the display stack going mainline (number of driver wise we're halway there now but the large chunks are still ahead)

Jay Inslee's Latest Climate Plan Would Be the Beginning of the End For Fossil Fuels https://earther.gizmodo.com/jay-inslees-latest-climate-plan-would-be-the-beginning-1835772790?utm_medium=sharefromsite&utm_source=earther_twitter&utm_campaign=sharebar via @EARTH3R #climatechange #climatecrisis

Zero Negative (Hardcore, UK) Stream Single “Disarray” from Debut Album “Skate. Kill. Destroy.”

Sunderland’s Zero Negative have just announced their debut album. It’s called Skate. Kill. Destroy. and the band have been good enough to let you lot stream a track from it before its full release on July 14. You can check out “Disarray” from Skate. Kill. Destroy. below. The previous releases from the group were a […]

The post Zero Negative (Hardcore, UK) Stream Single “Disarray” from Debut Album “Skate. Kill. Destroy.” appeared first on Dying Scene.

Life, Liberty and a Stable Climate: These Kids Are Arguing for a New Constitutional Right

PORTLAND, ORE.—Judge Andrew Hurwitz arched an eyebrow. “You’re asking us to do a lot of new stuff, aren’t you?” He was grilling Julia Olson, executive director of Our Children’s Trust, who was arguing before a panel of three judges on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to allow a groundbreaking climate justice lawsuit, Juliana v. U.S., to proceed to trial in federal court.

Filed in 2015, Juliana includes 21 plaintiffs, then aged 8 to 19, asking the judiciary to order the federal government “to swiftly phase-down CO2 emissions … [and] develop a national plan to restore Earth’s energy balance” because their lives are in danger from government-caused climate change. To make the case, the plaintiffs, more than a dozen of whom packed the benches behind Olson, need to prove the government is violating their constitutional rights by facilitating climate change.

The question of government culpability is central to the Juliana lawsuit. The government can’t be held liable for inaction to a danger—but it can be held responsible for creating that danger. The lawsuit hopes to prove youth are being discriminated against in favor of the present generations of adults who will experience few of the consequences of catastrophic climate change.

While the right to a “stable climate system” is not enumerated in the Constitution, the Ninth Amendment states that other rights exist even if not listed. Olson argues a stable climate system is one such right, and it is essential to the Fifth Amendment right of not being “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

Jeffrey Clark, assistant attorney general of the Environment and Natural Resources Division, argued to the judges June 4 that the lawsuit is “a dagger at the separation of powers.” He claimed that, if elected officials fail to stop an imminent threat to life, the solution is “the political remedy of removing them from office”—not having the courts to step in.

Hurwitz’s gravelly voice interjected, cutting through the thicket of legalese. The government position, he summarized, is if the plaintiffs faced immediate harm and the legislative and executive branches did nothing, “The plaintiffs would have no option but to die.” He added, “That may well be constitutionally correct.”  

But the judges did express skepticism of the government’s case. Judge Josephine Staton asked Clark why the right to a life-sustaining climate wouldn’t “fit comfortably within the nature of other unenumerated rights—such as the right to an abortion, the right to bodily integrity, the right to marriage—that the court has found exists in the ‘life, liberty and property’ rights of the constitution.”

Clark answered with the same arguments made by the Obama administration, which also sought to quash Juliana: The youth have no standing to sue, their grievances are not redressable and the problem is outside the powers of the judicial branch.

"The Trump administration appears even more determined to quash the lawsuit than its predecessor—which is not surprising given its hostility to climate policy. This animosity is shared by Clark, who, in a 2010 panel discussion, called the EPA’s greenhouse gas regulation “reminiscent of kind of a Leninistic program from the 1920s to seize control of the commanding heights of the economy.”

The ruling may take months, but the plaintiffs and their legal team were in a celebratory mood, pouring out of the federal courthouse to a sunny day, TV news cameras and cheers from supporters. Led by the Unpresidented Brass Band, they paraded through the streets to a plaza in downtown Portland.

A grandmother and granddaughter team from climate-justice group 350.org performed a skit outside, reading scientific warnings about climate change going back to 1961 followed by puppets of presidents, from John F. Kennedy to Donald Trump, describing the policies they enacted to burn more oil, coal and natural gas. The granddaughter would ask, “Did the government know?” and the audience of hundreds would yell, “The government knew!”

Politically, the focus on children has helped to change the face of the climate-justice movement from older and white to youth-led and diverse.

Speaking at the rally, plaintiff Vic Barrett, 20, said, “We spent another day in court facing our government, the apparent strongest government in the world, showing fear of young people and showing fear of facts.”

The youngest plaintiff, 11-year-old Levi Draheim, also spoke. “It’s been four years since I got involved with this case. That’s literally one-third of my life that I have dedicated to this lawsuit.” Rising sea levels are threatening to submerge the barrier island he lives on off the Atlantic coast of Florida, a place where, he says, “I can watch dolphins, turtles and manatees, and I can go barefoot all year round.”

As the rally dispersed, a marimba band struck up. Olson and a handful of plaintiffs started dancing. When asked if they were looking for the government to do something new, Olson said, “We’re asking them to apply bedrock constitutional law to new factual circumstances.” Excusing herself, she continued dancing.

Meet the Woman Who’s Fought Racism in the Mississippi Delta for 54 Years

DREW, MISS.—Inside what was the city’s last remaining high school before it closed in 2012, Gloria Dickerson, 65, leads me through the hallways she and her six siblings integrated back in 1965, when she was 12. She describes how frightening it was to be the only black student in class, surrounded by white peers who would hurl racial epithets and tell her she didn’t deserve to be there.

The building now houses a food pantry run by We2gether Creating Change, a nonprofit community hub Dickerson founded in 2011. The organization provides food and civic and financial education in a poor and working-class black community that suffers from a poverty rate of 43.7%.

Dickerson attributes the lack of resources in Drew and other black communities to a long legacy of neglect and racist policymaking. “It all goes back to the struggle that African Americans have had because of slavery,” she says. “And the racism … the white supremacy.”

In the state of Mississippi, upward of 55% of the population was once enslaved. The Lower Mississippi River Valley had more millionaires per capita than anywhere else in the country in 1860—wealth created by forced labor. After the Civil War, Black Codes criminalized so-called mischief, and vagrancy laws forced unemployed freed people into essentially unpaid labor, ensuring black people remained poor or in jail. By 1960, more than a third of black people in Mississippi still worked land they didn’t own. As In These Timeshas reported, the low percentage of black land ownership contributes to “limited job opportunities, low education levels and low population density.” Black people in Mississippi continue to win settlements for the discriminatory way the state hands out farm subsidies.

The discriminatory distribution of resources in the state is “more subtle now,” Dickerson says, from vastly unequal state funding for education to one of the country’s cruelest histories of incarceration. “ZIP codes that don’t have very many people in them, ZIP codes where the people are poor—those people are not getting their fair share,” she says.

Going to school with white children “wasn’t about being around them,” Dickerson says—it was an opportunity to reclaim resources owed to black students. “That’s what Mama kept saying … ‘That school is just as much your school as it is their school.’ It was about claiming … what we were entitled to.” Dickerson’s mother, Mae Bertha Carter, fought to end school segregation, most notably as a plaintiff in an NAACP lawsuit that in 1969 overturned Mississippi’s “freedom of choice” law, which discouraged black families from sending their children to white schools.

But educational resources are still lacking in Drew. In 2012, the state of Mississippi scrapped Drew’s public school system by merging three school districts into one. While state takeovers may help with budget issues, they also strip the locally elected school board of decision-making power and have not been shown to improve academic performance. The state may then choose to close schools, as was the case with Dickerson’s old high school, which state officials say was closed due to poor academic performance and a hard financial situation. School closures further impoverish communities by reducing graduation rates and laying off longtime teachers.

Organizations like We2gether are working hard to fill the gaps. Where the state has failed or refused to invest in the futures of young people, for instance, We2gether’s “$$$ For Your Thoughts” program provides scholarships to young people who set goals for themselves, such as graduating from high school. The organization also provides classes for youth on leadership development. A host of adult programs help participants access resources, find economic footing and launch community projects. The food pantry serves around 900 people every month.

We2gether hosts regular community meetings to discuss plans for the city, with attendance upward of 100 people. The Drew Collaborative, also founded by Dickerson, brings together roughly 20 representatives of civic organizations across the city to make collective decisions, often “based on input from the community.” The collaborative is currently developing plans for more affordable housing units and a grocery store, both of which have the city’s backing and are grinding through a long process for space and funding.

Asked about the change she’d like to see, Dickerson doesn’t hesitate to think big, from major leaps in public transportation and affordable housing to rebuilding health and education infrastructure. “I’m talking about real change,” she says. “Societal change. Systemic change.”

Debates Matter More Than You Thought

It’s finally happening. On Wednesday, 10 Democratic candidates will take the stage in Miami for the first debate of the 2020 presidential campaign. On Thursday, 10 different Democrats will do it again. Sure, it will be entertaining. But do debates actually matter? Debates “can lose you the campaign if you mess up too badly.” According […]

Joe Biden Says He Can Work With the Senate. The Last Time He Tried, Mitch McConnell Picked His Pockets Badly.

In 2012, the GOP was in trouble. Mitch McConnell turned to his friend Joe Biden for a lifeline.

The post Joe Biden Says He Can Work With the Senate. The Last Time He Tried, Mitch McConnell Picked His Pockets Badly. appeared first on The Intercept.

Meditation Ruined My Life

Getting centered wasn’t a substitute for therapy and medication, and just brought my closer to self-harm.

The Exception Proves the Rule

That awful “straight pride parade” picked their grand marshal - Milo Yiannopoulos.

Why The Social Media Giants Could Be In Big Trouble
https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/entry/social-media-policy_ca_5d0e522ce4b07ae90d9df87e #privacy

Angry and Frustrated South Bend Residents Just Confronted Mayor Pete Over Fatal Police Shooting

In South Bend, Indiana, a nearly two-hour town hall turned tense when mayor and presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg took questions in the aftermath of recent police-involved shooting that killed a black man.  Sergeant Ryan O’Neill shot Eric Logan, 53, last Sunday while responding to reports that Logan was breaking into cars. Authorities say that Logan […]

Today's piece in the Mercury News:

Headline: New generation of tech firms urges stronger privacy laws

Reject Big Tech efforts to weaken California law and regulate us. Seriously.

By Purism CEO, @todd and Brave CEO, @BrendanEich

https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/06/23/6139396/

The solution to antibiotic resistance could be in your kitchen sponge

Researchers have discovered bacteriophages, viruses that infect bacteria, living in their kitchen sponges. As the threat of antibiotic resistance increases, bacteriophages, or phages for short, may prove useful in fighting bacteria that cannot be killed by antibiotics alone.

https://theintercept.com/2019/06/22/cbp-border-searches-journalists/

CBP agents: cops not bounded by the constitution, with near-unlimited power and visions of grandeur that make them the perfect fascist group to terrorize all that come through the border

A vision of a possible future in the whole US (not just the border) if neo-neo-conservatives continue to hold power in the US

Album Review: The Aggrolites “REGGAE NOW!”

The Aggrolites have returned with their sixth studio album REGGAE NOW! a continuation of their unique brand of funky soulful skinhead reggae. This organ driven “dirty reggae” has almost never felt so tight and cohesive as what they put on display here. “Pound for Pound” opens the album with a self-promotional dance number. “Boss of […]

The post Album Review: The Aggrolites “REGGAE NOW!” appeared first on Dying Scene.

André Staltz - Software below the poverty line
https://staltz.com/software-below-the-poverty-line.html @kyle good article @todd