Sam Panini@spanini@me.dmme.dm

The way to end the Gaza war has been clear for nearly a year: mitchw.blog

Also, I'm pretty sure I've said this before, but I'll say it again:

Part of your job as a senior is to tell your juniors about your fuckups. The embarrassing cringe reckless and lazy bullshit that you did when you were new, and the various times you brought down Prod. We ALL did it sometime. And then tell them: the moment you realized you fucked up, I know, the impulse is to try and cover it up, but don't do it. Come to the seniors you trust, and they'll help you unfuck it, and fight management tooth and claw like mamma and pappa bears to defend you from any shitheads in management. Because that's what our seniors did to us.

It’s actually quite simple: Anyone who’ve called teachers groomers for giving teens (allegedly) sexually inappropriate books, but won’t call Andrew & Tristan Tate groomers for beating, sexually assaulting & trafficking teens, is a hypocritical fraud — and a misogynistic asshole.

fyi all you tech bros salivating over some kind of "ai assistant" that's intelligent enough to understand you and act on your desires, but for some reason doesn't need to be treated with respect or be given any sort of compensation at all...

hate to break it to you but you're reinventing something again, and it's definitely not something good

Aral Balkan — Why I’m not speaking at CPDP (Hint: it’s the privacy-washing, stupid!) https://ar.al/notes/why-im-not-speaking-at-cpdp/

The cruel irony; a #privacy focused conference (it says on the tin at least) sponsored by #Palantir and #Microsoft and #Google -- with #Facebook-sponsored 'research'.

Ugghhhh

Mortgage Rates in US Inch Down, Keeping 30-Year Loans Below 7%
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-01-30/mortgage-rates-in-us-inch-down-keeping-30-year-loans-below-7?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into Economics @economics-bloomberg

I've written several times about the urgent need for a general strike. It's the only possibility I can envision for changing the trajectory we're on.

SEE https://climatejustice.social/@breadandcircuses/113510275079015889

In a recent essay, Cory Doctorow (@pluralistic) calls for the same thing...
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A general strike isn't just a strike for workers' rights. Under Trump, a general strike is a strike against Trumpism and all its horrors: kids in cages, forced birth, trans erasure, climate accelerationism – the whole fucking thing.

A general strike would build the worker power to occupy the Democratic Party and force it to stand up for the American people against oligarchy, rather than meekly capitulating to fascism (and fundraising), which is all they know how to do anymore.

But before we can occupy the Dems, we have to occupy the unions. We need union bosses who are committed to signing up every worker who wants workplace democracy, and unionizing every workplace in *spite* of the NLRB, not with its help.

We need to go back to our roots, when there were no rules.
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FULL ESSAY -- https://pluralistic.net/2025/01/29/which-side-are-you-on-2/#strike-three-yer-out

breaking broccoli

#browse the #web

ProPublica is investigating health insurance denials.

If you want to share your insights, here's how: https://propub.li/3VBY7MA

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Fights for a Promotion
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-aoc-oversight-committee-9b29fc48?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub

Posted into Latest From the WSJ @latest-from-the-wsj-WSJ

If You Want to Read for Free, Ask Your Local #Library https://www.jrothman.com/mpd/2024/12/how-you-can-get-free-books-without-resorting-to-stealing-or-piracy/

In the 40's and 50's polio was the most feared disease in the world, for good reason. Look at that horrifying upward spike, from '42 to '52. And then: a downward spike to nothing.

Pre-internet, pre-global-comms, news of Salk's polio vaccine made it around the world in minutes.

In North America Polio went from being terrifying, paralyzing illness, indiscriminately striking rich and poor alike, to being effectively gone in a decade.

Vaccines are a miracle.

https://ourworldindata.org/polio

please, please please indie authors: do not use AI ―and that includes online services like Adobe― to make photo-realistic images for your #books or their covers. it looks synthetic and cheap.

The long-running Fedi server mstdn.social (not to be confused with mastodon.social ) has just received a takedown request from the Russian government for hosting @Bellingcat, a news site which has long been critical of Putin:

https://mstdn.social/@stux/113652461647125214

Thankfully mstdn.social isn't in Russia so Putin has no power over it.

If anyone wants to turn this into a Streisand Effect kind of thing, you might want to follow @Bellingcat and slip a donation to @stux at https://mstdn.social/@stux/113623791580168625