On behalf of all women everywhere, fuck you Florida.
Category: Media and Culture,
Facebook urged to pause Libra crypto-currency project
“Given the company’s troubled past, I am requesting that Facebook agree to a moratorium on any movement forward on developing a crypto-currency until Congress and regulators have the opportunity to examine these issues and take action,” said Democratic congresswoman Maxine Waters.
She cited the firm’s history of controversies involving user-data among her concerns, and called on Facebook’s executives to testify before her committee.
…US Senator Sherrod Brown, who sits on the Senate Banking Committee, said he thought Facebook had become “too big and too powerful”.
“We cannot allow Facebook to run a risky new crypto-currency out of a Swiss bank account without oversight,” he said in a statement.
Facebook urged to pause Libra crypto-currency project – BBC News
hmmm
EPA rolls back Obama-era plan limiting coal emissions
EPA rolls back Obama-era plan limiting coal emissions – CNNPolitics
Ignorant, irresponsible asshat
Delusional BS
Aren’t delirious Democrats now accusing Team Obama of treason? | TheHill
Mmmmm, not exactly there, bub. Huge difference between taking the information to the FBI and being investigated by the FBI for taking the information.
Hundreds confronted Phoenix officials at a meeting about police abuse. The chief vowed said change starts with the community (ouch!)
At least 500 people asked to stand and speak before the [police] chief, Mayor Kate Gallego and other city and police leaders.
…Residents stood behind the microphones for nearly three hours, some recalling instances during which they said family members were injured or killed by police officers and the police department would not provide answers.
Residents said they weren’t able to get their hands on police reports, while others said they found out about the death of family members through media first.
“We’re here for a lack of trust, a lack of transparency and a lack of accountability, that is the reason why the community has showed up,” one resident said.
…The couple, who spoke at the meeting before walking out, was joined by a handful of other families who say they’ve experienced police brutality by Phoenix police officers.
…A National Police Foundation analysis released in April found a “significant and alarming increase” in officer-involved shootings by the Phoenix Police Department in 2018. There were 44 that year, more than double the number in the preceding year, the report found.
Hundreds confronted Phoenix officials at a meeting about police abuse. The chief vowed change – CNN
Vowed what? Are you sure CNN? Because she says they’ll listen but she also shirks responsibility and refuses to acknowledge wrongdoing by her department when she says change is the community’s responsibility.
Wouldn’t expect much out of someone who redirects the blame like that.
Bernie Sanders ‘central’ to Russia’s pro-Trump 2016 strategy
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference had already revealed that Kremlin-linked trolls were ordered to write social media posts not only in opposition to Clinton but in support of Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump.
…”There is no question that Sanders was central to their strategy. He was clearly used as a mechanism to decrease voter turnout for Hillary Clinton.”
…Sanders was “just a tool” to the Russians, Linvill added, and “a wedge to drive into the Democratic Party.”
Bernie Sanders ‘central’ to Russia’s pro-Trump 2016 strategy: study – Business Insider
yup.
Dravon Ames & Iesha Harper: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know
What has not previously been reported is that Harper says in addition to being assaulted and told she was lucky she and her children were not shot, she had her body searched by a male police officer, which is a violation of Phoenix police department policy.
….“Clearly, excessive force was used. Clearly, policies and procedure were not followed. Clearly, body cameras were not being utilized. Clearly, the officers felt empowered to be disrespectful and abusive,” Maupin said. “What we demand to know is, what kind of background these officers have? They held toddlers and a pregnant woman at gunpoint, grabbed a mother and infant by the neck, dislocated a 1-year-old’s arm, endangered a delicate pregnancy, terrorized and tortured a young father, and nobody was charged or jailed. These officers must be held accountable.”
Dravon Ames & Iesha Harper: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know | Heavy.com
hmmm
Men Cause 100% of Unwanted Pregnancies
I argue that all unwanted pregnancies are caused by the irresponsible ejaculations of men. All of them.
…On average, women are fertile for about 24 days per year.
But men are fertile 365 days a year. In fact, if you’re a man who ejaculates multiple times a day, you could cause multiple pregnancies daily. In theory, a man could cause 1000+ unwanted pregnancies in just one year.
…Modern birth control for women is possibly the most important invention of the last century, and I’m very grateful for it. It’s also brutal. The side effects for many women include migraines, mood swings, decreased libido, depression, severe cramps, heavy bleeding, aneurysm — and that’s just a small fraction of them.
Discouragingly, a promising study on a new male contraceptive was canceled in large part due to… (wait for it)… side effects. …I’ll simply point out that, as a society, we really don’t mind if women suffer, physically or mentally, as long as it makes things easier for men.
…In contrast, let’s look at birth control for men — i.e., condoms. They’re readily available at all hours, inexpensive, convenient, and don’t require a prescription. They’re effective and work on demand, instantly. They don’t cause aneurysms, mood swings, or debilitating cramps. Men can keep them stocked up just in case, so they’re always prepared. They can be easily used at the last minute. I mean, condoms are magic! So much easier than birth control options for women.
As a bonus, most women are totally on board with condoms. They keep us from getting STDs. They don’t lessen our pleasure during sex or prevent us from climaxing. The best part? Cleanup is so much easier .
…Why would men want to have sex without a condom? Because, for the precious minutes when they’re penetrating their partner, not wearing a condom gives them more pleasure. So… that would mean some men are willing to risk getting a woman pregnant — which means literally risking her life, her health, her social status, her relationships, and her career — so they can experience a few minutes of slightly increased pleasure.
…As a general rule, men get women pregnant by having an orgasm. Yes, there are exceptions — it’s possible for sperm to show up in pre-ejaculate — but in most cases, getting a woman pregnant is a pleasurable act for men.
…In contrast, a woman can have nonstop orgasms with or without a partner and never once get herself pregnant. A woman’s orgasm has literally nothing to do with pregnancy or fertility — her clitoris exists simply for pleasure, not for creating new humans. No matter how many orgasms she has, they won’t make her pregnant.
…Pregnancies happen when men have an orgasm. Unwanted pregnancies happen when men orgasm irresponsibly.
…If we’re discussing abortion law — and not how to hold men accountable for irresponsible ejaculations, and the unwanted pregnancies caused by them — we’re wasting our time. …If you actually care about reducing or eliminating the number of abortions in our country, simply hold men accountable for their actions.
…If you’re a man, what would it take for you to never again ejaculate irresponsibly? A loss of money, rights, or freedoms? Physical pain? Ask yourselves: What would it take for you to value the life of your sexual partner more than your own temporary pleasure or convenience?
…To reduce or eliminate abortions, stop attempting to control women’s bodies and sexuality. Because unwanted pregnancies are caused by men.
Men Cause 100% of Unwanted Pregnancies – Human Parts
Dang. Well argued.
Why is This Guy sSaying People Hate Colin Jost? Does He Need Attention That Bad?
Why Does Everyone (Still) Hate Colin Jost?
Seriously. I have never met anyone or even heard of anyone who hated Colin Jost before this thing came up. He’s like, a pretty inoffensive guy.
I guess we all need to feel important and powerful but trying to pretend everybody hates Colin Jost is just a really weird way to do that.
#trollingfail #hipsterstrytoohard
Phoenix chief says police response to incident with 4-year-old is ‘unacceptable’
“unacceptable.”
“Isn’t in keeping with good policing.”
“This is not what should have happened in that circumstance.”
…Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego issued a statement on Twitter Saturday saying, “I, like many others, am sick over what I have seen in the video” and “I am deeply sorry for what this family went through.”
The mayor vowed to speed up implementation of body cameras on police officers and hold a community meeting to address the incident. “I realize that to get to the bottom of this issue and implement meaningful change, we are going to have some uncomfortable and painful conversations,” Gallego said.
Phoenix chief says police response to incident with 4-year-old is ‘unacceptable’
hmmm
Seniors face foreclosure in retirement after failed reverse mortgage
Nearly 100,000 loans that allowed senior citizens to tap into their home equity have failed, blindsiding elderly borrowers and their families.
…In many cases, the worst toll has fallen on those ill-equipped to shoulder it: urban African Americans, many of whom worked for most of their lives, then found themselves struggling in retirement.
…These elderly homeowners were wooed into borrowing money through the special program by attractive sales pitches or a dire need for cash – or both. When they missed a paperwork deadline or fell behind on taxes or insurance, lenders moved swiftly to foreclose on the home. Those foreclosures wiped out hard-earned generational wealth built in the decades since the Fair Housing Act of 1968.
…Borrowers living near the poverty line in pockets of Chicago, Baltimore, Miami, Detroit, Philadelphia and Jacksonville, Florida, are among the hardest hit, according to a first-of-its-kind analysis of more than 1.3 million loan records.
…Consumer advocates said the analysis supports what they have complained about for years – that unscrupulous lenders targeted lower-income, black neighborhoods and encouraged elderly homeowners to borrow money while glossing over the risks and requirements.
USA TODAY found that reverse mortgages end in foreclosure six times more often in predominantly black neighborhoods than in neighborhoods that are 80% white.
Even comparing only poorer areas, black neighborhoods fare worse. In ZIP codes where most residents make less than $40,000, the analysis found reverse mortgage foreclosure rates were six times higher in black neighborhoods than in white ones.
…Regulators said actual evictions of seniors are rare. There’s no way to verify that, though, since HUD, the top government regulator of Home Equity Conversion Mortgage loans, does not sign off on evictions – or even count them.
…They work like this: Lenders appraise the value of a house and allow homeowners to borrow back money against that market value.
Borrowers can stop making monthly mortgage payments, and they can stay put for life, so long as they maintain the home and pay property taxes and insurance.
…At the end – a move out, death or default – the bank calls the loan due, to be paid back either by the sale of the home or an heir or homeowner repaying the loan money. Lenders and their investors make their money through origination fees that can top $15,000 with fees and mortgage insurance, and by charging interest on the loan balance.
…“Adult children that have been trying to take care of their mother or father or both get the idea that ‘When mom or dad passes, I’m going to have a little inheritance or get this place on the market,’ ” Nordgren said. “Then the death happens and … here comes the foreclosure.”
…Charles, [Frazier] died at 88 of a heart attack in the family home a few miles west of Roseland, in Beverly. At that point, in December 2017, an unpaid $4,351 property tax bill led to the default.
,,,,,Celink told Frazier in February that she could buy the house by paying off the loan’s balance: $209,053, including fees and interest. Frazier and her brother said it’s far more than they can afford to pay.
…Even when both husband and wife are old enough to qualify, reverse mortgage lenders often advise them to remove the younger spouse from loans and titles.
…Widows not on the title must meet various deadlines – at 90 and 120 days after the death – to provide their loan companies with death certificates and other documents.
Blair sent in paperwork she thought solved the problem. She discovered she had missed one document – changing the deed to her name within 90 days – months later after a foreclosure notice arrived in her mailbox.
…The suit alleged brokers targeted the minority homeowners for the “mortgage products and overpriced home repair work that they did not need or cannot afford” to capitalize on elderly widows unaccustomed to both the home’s finances and home repair.
Seniors face foreclosure in retirement after failed reverse mortgage
sigh…
Canada plans to ban ‘harmful’ single-use plastics by 2021 – CNN
Canada will ban many single-use plastic items by 2021, including bags, straws, cutlery and stirring sticks.
…It comes after the European Parliament passed a similar ban on single-use plastic items in late March, including a target to recycle 90% of plastic beverage bottles by 2029.
…”Less than 10 per cent of plastic used in Canada [is sent to be] recycled. Without a change in course, Canadians will throw away an estimated $11 billion worth of plastic materials each year by 2030.”
…A report by the European Commission found that 80% of litter in the world’s oceans is plastic.
…Plastic has been found inside marine animals including [thing we eat seems like a reasonably conclusion but somehow is not listed in the animals the quote names.]
Canada plans to ban ‘harmful’ single-use plastics by 2021 – CNN
hmmm
You probably are swallowing a credit card’s weight in plastic every week
This plastic contamination comes from “microplastics” — particles smaller than five millimeters — which are making their way into our food, drinking water and even the air.
…The average person consumes as many as 1,769 particles of plastic every week just by drinking water — bottled or from the tap. But there could be large regional variations. It quotes a 2018 study that found twice as much plastic in water in the United States and India than in European or Indonesian tap water.
…Shellfish is the second biggest source of plastic ingestion, with the average person consuming as many as 182 microparticles — 0.5 grams — from this per week. The report says this is because “shellfish are eaten whole, including their digestive system, after a life in plastic polluted seas.”
…Globally, more than 330 million metric tons of plastic is produced each year, and global plastic production is expected to triple by 2050.
…[When] microplastics are shown to damage human health, it will be very difficult to remove them from the environment.
“Therefore we need to tackle plastic pollution at its very source [and] stop it from getting into the nature in the first place,” [Kavita Prakash-Mani, global conservation director at WWF International] told CNN, stressing that the priority should be reducing plastic production [emphasis: peanut gallery].
You could be swallowing a credit card’s weight in plastic every week – CNN
hmmmm
Why some countries are shipping back plastic waste
Many wealthy countries send their recyclable waste overseas because it’s cheap, helps meet recycling targets and reduces domestic landfill.
For developing countries taking in the rubbish, it’s a valuable source of income.
But contaminated plastic and rubbish that cannot be recycled often gets mixed in.
…Only a tiny fraction of all plastics ever produced has been recycled.
Often, materials that can’t be recycled end up being burned illegally, dumped in landfills or waterways, creating risks to the environment and public health.
….Until January 2018, China imported most of the world’s plastic waste.
But due to concerns about contamination and pollution, it declared it would no longer buy recycled plastic scrap that was not 99.5% pure.
…Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Taiwan, South Korea, Turkey, India and Poland all took up the slack.
…But the rubbish arriving in these countries wasn’t sufficiently recyclable, and it has caused problems.
…”What the citizens of the UK believe they send for recycling is actually dumped in our country,” said Malaysian Minister Yeo Bee Yin.
…However, there is still an overwhelming demand for locations to send plastic and other waste to for recycling, and the challenge of how to dispose of it remains.
…In 2016, 235 million tonnes of plastic waste was generated globally.
On current trends, this could reach 417 million tonnes per year by 2030.
Why some countries are shipping back plastic waste – BBC News
hmmm
Here and Now Episode: Carbon Capture Plant In Switzerland Opens To Sell CO2 For Reuse
The first commercial facility that can extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and then sell it for reuse opened earlier this month in Switzerland. …But critics say the technology uses too much energy and is too expensive.
Carbon Capture Plant In Switzerland Opens To Sell CO2 For Reuse | Here & Now
hmmm
Mississippi residents flooded out for four months think ecosystem-devastating pumps could save them
“There are layers of reasons why this is a bad project,” said Melissa Samet, senior counsel at the National Wildlife Federation, who has followed the project for decades, ”but worst of all is it really gives a false promise of hope to people who are suffering from flooding.”
…Many residents believe there is a solution to their persistent, yearly flooding woes — if only the government would cut through the red tape to enact it. Locals like Deere believe that an unfinished Army Corps of Engineers project known as the Yazoo Pumps, a potential drain for the levee system that protects the Delta, would hold back the floodwaters that regularly threaten almost 20,000 people here.
…Residents of the region, local farmers and Mississippi politicians are calling for the revival of the pumps — a project vetoed by then-President George W. Bush’s administration, called “one of the worst projects ever conceived by Congress” by the late Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain in 2004, and endlessly decried by environmental advocates.
…The project has been debated for almost 80 years, with frustration and anger building with the passing time.
….Environmental advocates and longtime civil servants who have worked on the project, however, argue that the pumps come at a high cost, potentially draining tens of thousands of vital wetland acres that supports one of the most unique wildlife habitats in the country.
…Conservationists say the Delta’s bottomland hardwood wetlands create one of the most important ecosystems in the country. Twenty percent of the nation’s ducks, 450 different species, including 257 species of birds, rely on these wetlands’ natural resources.
They [would] be devastated by the pumps, according to the EPA’s veto, which said that [up to] 67,000 acres of wetlands could be drained if the pumps were installed.
…“It was a hard decision because EPA knew the area needed flood protection but our analysis of widespread environmental impacts, costs, and other complications fully justified the veto.”
…Buyouts, wetland reforestation and raised homes and roadways are ideas proposed by Shabman in another report that he produced for the EPA about potential alternatives. Environmental advocates, however, claim local leaders were never curious to explore such ideas because they didn’t come with expensive construction contracts benefiting a small number of people in Mississippi.
…Because of those rising waters, Branning entered his property into the Wetlands Preserve Program in 1999, which provides him compensation for the land that he can’t farm if he allows it to be reforested.
“We did that because the program added value, in my opinion, to the land because the land had been cleared and being farmed unsuccessfully numerous years,” he said. “It may do okay for two years and then in two years the high water comes.”
…Branning said he’s happy that it’s helping the environment and noticed that some wildlife has returned, which is good for him as a hunter.
Mississippi residents flooded out for four months say the EPA could save them but won’t
Oy….
Lawsuit Claims Amazon’s Alexa Devices Record Without Consent, Against N.H. Law
The lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court in Seattle claims the voice-controlled virtual assistant devices permanently records millions of children without their consent or parents’ consent.
It claims the devices can identify individual voices and Amazon could ask for consent when a new person uses the device.
hmmm
Native American Women Are Being Sold into the Sex Trade on Ships Along Lake Superior
Next month, Christine Stark—a student with the University of Minnesota-Duluth, who is completing her master’s degree in social work—will complete an examination of the sex trade in Minnesota, in which she compiles anecdotal, firsthand accounts of Native women, particularly from northern reservations, being trafficked across state, provincial, and international lines to be forced into servitude in the sex industry on both sides of the border.
…Through her independent research and work with the Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition, Stark interviewed hundreds of Native women who have been through the trauma of the Lake Superior sex trade. The stories she’s compiled are evidence of an underground industry that’s thriving on the suffering of First Nations women, which is seemingly going unchecked and underreported.
…“The Duluth harbor is notorious among Native people as a site for the trafficking of Native women from northern reservations.” She continues, “in an ongoing project focused on the trafficking of Native women on ships in Duluth, it was found that the activity includes international transport of Native women and teens, including First Nations women and girls brought down from Thunder Bay, Ontario, to be sold on the ships… Native women, teen girls and boys, and even babies have been sold for sex on the ships.”
Native American Women Are Being Sold into the Sex Trade on Ships Along Lake Superior – VICE
Jeezus!
The U.S. Women’s Soccer Team Deserves to Celebrate
Instead of Team USA being celebrated for what its players achieved, the victory became an opportunity to lecture these women on how to behave. That lecture is all the more galling given that, in March, the team filed a gender-discrimination lawsuit against the U.S. Soccer Federation.
… It isn’t the U.S. national team’s job to spare Thailand from humiliation—especially when, in this phase of the tournament, the differential between goals scored and goals allowed can determine whether a team advances. Considering that Alex Morgan tied a tournament record with five goals, and Morgan’s teammates Sam Mewis and Rose Lavelle each scored the first World Cup goals of their careers, this team had every right to celebrate as it wanted.
…Despite having won three World Cup titles, earned four Olympic gold medals, and generated millions of dollars more in revenue than the men in 2015, the women sometimes earn 38 percent of what the men earn per game.
In fact, the 13 goals the women scored were more than the men have tallied in every World Cup appearance since 2006 combined. So if anyone deserved to celebrate on their own terms, it’s these women.
The U.S. Women’s Soccer Team Deserves to Celebrate – The Atlantic
mmhmm
Comments From The Peanut Gallery 