Lou Katz @lou@entropyservice.com

MAGA IN TOP COURT 🚨

A flag carried by US Capitol rioters was displayed last year at Supreme Court Justice Alito's vacation home, The New York Times reported Wednesday, after revelations a similarly provocative flag was flown outside his residence.
#AureFreePress #News #press #headline #GOP #Politics #uspolitics #uspol #Trump

https://www.yahoo.com/news/second-provocative-flag-flown-us-232438603.html

'Infinite stupidity': Fury as Trump brags Russia would free WSJ reporter if he's elected https://www.rawstory.com/evan-gershkovich-trump/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

Scoop: I obtained the contract Samsung requires independent shops to sign to buy phone repair parts from them.

It requires:

- "Daily" dumps of customer data
- The "immediate destruction" of any phones a shop comes across that has third-party parts

https://www.404media.co/samsung-requires-independent-repair-shops-to-share-customer-data-snitch-on-people-who-use-aftermarket-parts-leaked-contract-shows/

In a perfect world, what is moral and what is legal would exactly align. We don’t live in a perfect world, and strong privacy protections are essential for human rights.

#crypto #cryptocurrency #privacy #TornadoCash #newsletter #CitationNeeded

Revolution, fear and power: The unseen threads connecting Stalin’s Russia to modern America https://www.alternet.org/alternet-exclusives/stalin-maga/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

George Monbiot says...
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It is simply wrong to define neoliberalism as ‘free-market economics’. It's nothing of the kind. The ‘freedom’ that neoliberals celebrate – which sounds so beguiling when expressed in general terms – turns out to be freedom for the rich to exploit the rest.

As for ‘the market’, when used in the neoliberal context this term disguises a host of power relations. It becomes a euphemism for the power of money. When ‘the market’ decides, it means those with the money decide.

In reality, it’s about who dominates whom. Neoliberalism is a tool used by the very rich to accumulate more wealth and power.

Neoliberalism is class war.
__________________________

That's from his new book ⤵️

The Invisible Doctrine: The Secret History of Neoliberalism (& How It Came to Control Your Life)
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/455534/the-invisible-doctrine-by-hutchison-george-monbiot-and-peter/9780241635902

#Books #Bookstodon #History #Economics #Politics

Trump Confirms He’s A Russian Asset By Claiming Putin Will Release Evan Gershkovich If He Wins https://www.politicususa.com/2024/05/23/trump-confirms-hes-a-russian-asset-by-claiming-putin-will-release-evan-gershkovich-if-he-wins.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

Oh #TIL. The whole "AI" scraping bots are *obviously* not paying attention to `nofollow`, `noindex`and so on. So now all kind of "SEO" spam prevention stuff you do on your websites is pointless now. Cool, cool, cool.

Heads up to anyone using facebook or insta: you'll receive a notification about your data being used to train AIs. The opt out process is deliberately convoluted and you have to fill out a form to object. This is what I wrote in mine, and the objection was immediately registered as successful, so feel free to copy.

Masto reply bores, this is not a post on which to fart out your opinions about Meta or AI or whatever. So don't. I'm sharing helpful info for people who need it, not for you.

Earth Facing 'Global Water Crisis' https://www.newsweek.com/earth-facing-global-water-crisis-1903870?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

IMPORTANT ALERT

2025 will be the first square-numbered year since 1936.

Plan accordingly.

I sent Apple the first request for production of documents in the US Dept of Labor case (which already went to discovery).

I asked Apple for some very specific things & now, today, Apple's trying to stop discovery.

'In 2020, Tom Lehrer put out a statement saying that he had placed everything he ever wrote in the public domain. His lyrics and sheet music are now available for anyone to use or perform without paying royalties. The statement ended: “Don’t send me any money.” This is unheard-of. Famous performers usually maximise their royalties income.' #copyright #music #publicdomain https://www.theguardian.com/music/article/2024/may/22/my-songs-spread-like-herpes-why-did-satirical-genius-tom-lehrer-swap-worldwide-fame-for-obscurity

Getting hands-on experience in government programs. I've been accepted for medicare part a and b and am now applying for medicare supplement plan. If this devious plan works, my spend on health insurance will go from $1800/month for a pretty awful small business plan to $180/month, but lots of traps. Oh to be in any other country. US does not do this well.

A reminder that the wife of Chief Justice Roberts is also unlikely behaving ethically.

It is just the garden-variety corruption we've all become used to seeing as opposed to the "lets overthrown American democracy" we are now getting from the insurrectionist Justices' wives.

(But she made that money on her own merit!)

You don't make that much money on merit. That's a lie rich people tell you.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2023/04/28/chief-justice-john-roberts-wife-made-over-10-million-as-legal-consultant-report-says/?sh=60f97e191e9a

#law #lawfedi #legal #SCOTUS #SupremeCourt #uspol #politics #uspolitics

Hey it’s that time again.

The contention that using high-filtration masks to prevent transmission of respiratory disease is “unscientific” and “lacking evidence” when we have *reams* of aerosol and transmission studies is a display of either unawareness/scientific illiteracy (super fixable! non-shameful!) or of an intentional disregard of the evidence for emotional or ideological reasons (common but troubling).

Surprising only one inhabitant in the entire Milky Way Galaxy (a 942-year-old megothy sorter on Tilram VII), Trump after earlier proclaiming he'd absolutely testify in his NYC trial chooses not to do so.

@dangillmor Matt Levine has some humorous takes on this but the reality seems to be that this is uncodified securities fraud. You take a business "buy it", then suck all the value out of it to generate a small return on what you initially had to put in, then throw away the dead husk to "bankruptcy." It certainly doesn't seem like the FTC or SEC are paying attention here.

"Justice Alito turned the flag upside down. Donald Trump turned the Bible upside down. MAGA turned the Capitol upside down. The Roberts Court turned the Constitution upside down. Let’s set America right side up in November."

Rep. Jamie Raskin

When I'm photographing a subject, particularly something architectural, I generally start with the most boring, unimaginative composition I can think of, and then get "creative" after I've nailed that. More often than not, I end up liking the boring composition more than those that followed. You often find interesting elements and structures in the simplest compositions.