Notices by Henry Edward Hardy (hhardy01@mastodon.social)

"A Legacy Of Torture Is Preventing Trials At Guantánamo"

"Those techniques included mock burials; aggressive body cavity searches; waterboarding, which simulates drowning; and "walling," in which prisoners were slammed against walls, a move their lawyers allege sometimes left them with traumatic brain injuries."

https://www.npr.org/2019/11/14/778944195/a-legacy-of-torture-is-preventing-trials-at-guant-namo

It is weird, isn't it, that the one case in which homeopathic theories of "like cures like" and dilution actually work, which is vaccination, is the one thing many naturopathic folk are dead set against.

Go figure.

Favorite dystopian novels ignoring some obvious ones

The Futurological Congress
Memoirs Found in a Bathtub
Canticle for Leibowitz
Fail-Safe
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
Eclipse Trilogy
Slan
We
Stand on Zanzibar
The Shockwave Rider
Ware Tetralogy
The Dead Lady of Clown Town
Snow Crash
RUR

More suggestions? Comments?

What do you think?

Barcelona Gipsy Klezmer Orchestra
Djelem Djelem
2013

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCUv9W0ViRc

#fediplay

Dude, you were the chair of the committee holding the hearings. I call BS.

"Mr. Biden has yet to apologize to Anita Hill even though he said last month that he regrets that “he couldn’t give her the kind of hearing she deserved” — a reference that seemed to play down his powerful role as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee when Ms. Hill testified at Justice Clarence Thomas’s confirmation hearing in 1991 that he had sexually harassed her."

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/06/us/politics/joe-biden-2020.html

@mpjgregoire

Brexit and all the shenanigans associated with it gave a huge, historic opening to Labour, which all factions, Bennite, Blairite, Trot, Corbynista and Watson, have utterly failed to appreciate or use to the party's benefit.

If Labour had a single policy, *any* policy, on Brexit, such as Leave, Stay, 2nd vote, Norway or Norway Plus, it has the balance of power to enact that policy and should by rights be the party in power now.

But Tory and Labour are both torn and factionalized.

"[May] has become such an enfeebled husk that she dares not sack ministers who refuse to obey a three-line whip. Discipline in her party has broken down to the point where it is a headline news event when she actually manages to win a vote. Cabinet collective responsibility has so collapsed that the chancellor can float a rival Brexit proposal on the floor of the Commons while the prime minister sits beside him doing an impression of someone chewing a mouthful of wasps."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/17/well-done-brexit-ultras--the-european-union-has-never-had-more-power-over-britain

UK Parliament: If we pathetically wallow in indecision long enough, the EU will rescue us by agreeing to, uh, "something."

EU: First of all no, and second, you have to tell us what something is that you want us to agree, before you can demand we agree to it.

UK: Hold my beer while the Cabinet completely undermines and dis-empowers the PM and her own minority government, that should help.

EU: Face-palm... this could be going very much better...

"Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has floated the idea of introducing a 60 to 70 per cent tax rate on the richest Americans that could help for the "Green New Deal" proposed by a group of left-wing Democrats...

The top tax rate was above 90 per cent during the 1950s, and while it has slowly descended, it remained as high as 50 per cent for much of President Ronald Reagan's tenure in the 1980s."

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/alexandria-casio-cortez-tax-rate-super-rich-green-new-deal-cbs-interview-60-minutes-aoc-a8713921.html

For those taken in rapid cars to the house and beaten
By the skillful boys with the rubber fists
Held down and beaten the table cutting the loins
Or kicked in the groin and left with the muscles jerking
Like a headless hens on the floor of the slaughterhouse
While they brought the next man in with his white eyes staring
For those who still said Red Front or God save the Crown
And for those who were not courageous
But were beaten nevertheless...
Stephen Vincent Benét
Litany for Dictatorships
1935

Here's a lovely local bit of steampunk tech come to save the day, from 1852:

"Because of the 911 outages, a resident ran outside and pulled the fire box on the sidewalk.

“I give credit to the resident for knowing to pull that box,” Firefighter Marc Sanders said.

The box system dates back to 1852. Sanders says the boxes are independent from any utility company and run off a low voltage battery system."

https://boston.cbslocal.com/2018/12/28/911-outage-boston-fire-department-box/

The fate of your country is in your young hands
May God give you strength
Do your job real well
If it all was worth it
Only time it will tell
In the morning they return
With tears in their eyes
The stench of death drifts up to the skies
A soldier so ill looks at the sky pilot
Remembers the words
"Thou shalt not kill"
Sky pilot.....sky pilot
How high can you fly
You never, never, never reach the sky

Eric Burdon & The Animals
Sky Pilot
1968

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOs3uIEyHaY

"Trump’s ‘That Dog’ Attack Is the Latest in a String of Insults Aimed at Black People

President Trump on Tuesday added his former White House aide, Omarosa Manigault Newman, to the growing list of African-Americans he has publicly denigrated on Twitter, calling her “that dog” and a “crazed, crying lowlife” in the wake of her allegations against him of mental deterioration and racism."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/14/us/politics/trump-omarosa-dog.html

Who's in your cabinet?

"President Trump’s commerce secretary may have bilked business associates out of more than $120 million and could rank “among the biggest grifters in American history...”

The investigation — which included interviews with 21 people who have worked closely with Wilbur Ross in the past — alleges that that the 80-year-old stole “a few million here and a few million there” throughout his career as an investment banker, Forbes reports."

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/ny-pol-wilbur-ross-stole-millions-20180807-story.html

@uranther

No exaggeration. Siemens and Xerox have been backdoored since pre-digital days. All printers. All international cables. etc.

Ever wonder what you would do if you lived in Germany in 1933 and ethnic minorities were being attacked and humiliated and savagely beaten in the street?

Look around, you're doing it now.

"Woman Arrested in Beating of Man, 92. ‘Go Back to Mexico,’ She Reportedly Said."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/11/us/laquisha-jones-rodolfo-rodriguez.html

Narrator: In A.D. 2101 War Was Beginning.
Captain: What Happen?
Mechanic: Somebody Set Up Us the Bomb.
Operator: We get signal.
Captain: What!
Operator: Main screen turn on.
Captain: It's You!!
CATS: How are you gentlemen!!
CATS: All Your Base Are Belong to Us.
CATS: You are on the way to destruction.
Captain: What you say!!
...
Operator: Captain!
Captain: Take Off Every 'ZIG'!!
Captain: You know what you doing.
Captain: Move 'ZIG'.
Captain: For Great Justice.

--Zero Wing

Trump is removing the velvet glove from the iron fist.

"Beginning in the wreckage of World War II, America established a set of global norms that solidified its position atop a rules-based international system. These included promoting democracy, making enduring commitments to countries that share its values, protecting allies, advancing free trade and building institutions and patterns of behavior that legitimize American power by giving less powerful countries a say."

https://nyti.ms/2HUk6FK

Thousands of Google employees, including dozens of senior engineers, have signed a letter protesting the company’s involvement in a Pentagon program that uses artificial intelligence to interpret video imagery and could be used to improve the targeting of drone strikes.

The letter, which is circulating inside Google and has garnered more than 3,100 signatures, reflects a culture clash between Silicon Valley and the federal government ...

https://nyti.ms/2q54msI

Really, asking "what should replace Facebook" is putting things the wrong way around.

A more interesting way to ask the question is, "what did Facebook replace."

People used to build their own websites. People used to have blogs. People used USENET which was truly distributed and un-censorable.

Facebook and Google took the open internet and open standards and monetized and made everything crappy. Enough of that. Nothing should replace Facebook, it's done, stick a fork in it.