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X Sends a Cease and Desist Letter to a Former User

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/x-sends-a-cease-and-desist-letter-to-a-form…
Created
Fri, 09/08/2024 - 03:00

“X filed a lawsuit on Tuesday against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, a coalition of major advertisers, claiming that it had violated antitrust laws by coordinating with brands to dissuade them from spending money on the social media platform.” — New York Times

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August 8, 2024
RE: Cease and Desist from not using X

Dear Former User of X/Twitter:

On April 17, 2023, you submitted a request to deactivate your X (then Twitter) account after previously blocking user @elonmusk, adding the words “elon musk” to your muted-words list, and systematically blocking all blue-check-verified users as well as all companies advertising on the platform.

These actions constitute an illegal one-person boycott that infringes on our client’s constitutional right to free speech, as well as his right to monetize that speech in several ways, and has caused him irreparable harm. To wit:

Growing the Starshot team with new track leads

https://www.drupal.org/about/starshot/blog/growing-the-starshot-team-with-new-t…
Created
Fri, 09/08/2024 - 02:22

A few weeks ago, we introduced the concept of "tracks" as the next step in progressing the Drupal Starshot project. Tracks are smaller, focused parts of the project that allow for targeted development and contributions.

At the same time, we put out a call for Starshot track leads, and were overwhelmed by the response. We received nearly 65 submissions, showcasing a wide range of expertise and ambitious vision that made for a difficult review process.

Announcing new track leads

We are proud to announce the newest track leads, who bring to the Starshot team an impressive depth of experience both in Drupal and in their respective track space:

The Fracking Free-Market Fallacy

https://steadystate.org/the-fracking-free-market-fallacy/
Created
Fri, 09/08/2024 - 01:19
by Helene Langlamet

In 2007, the Marcellus Shale Play was opened for production in Pennsylvania. The fracking of the shale unlocked massive fossil fuel reserves previously considered inaccessible. But it also unleashed an especially expensive and wasteful extraction process that involved flushing hundreds of millions of tons of highly toxic chemicals a mile deep into the ground and into the water table. And it brought up natural gas contaminated with unprecedented levels of radioactivity.

More Trending

https://digbysblog.net/2024/08/08/more-trending/
Created
Fri, 09/08/2024 - 00:30
More bad news for Team Trump Okay, I’m just now getting to Ezra Klein’s podcast with Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota. Listen to this guy. He’s sound. I’ll finish after this posts. Meantime, Walz’s opponent for vice president, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, continues to have his woes: Several polls have indicated that Vance has overwhelmingly underperformed among American voters, making him the least popular nonincumbent veep candidate since 1980. Vance’s popularity has sunk by 8.8 percentage points since his vice presidential candidacy was announced at the Republican National Convention, according to a polling average aggregated by FiveThirtyEight. One poll conducted by Public Policy Polling on July 31 found that 47 percent of polled Americans found Vance to be unfavorable, while just 30 percent considered him favorable. An ABC News-Ipsos poll conducted between July 20 and July 27 found that Vance’s favorability had dropped by nine points, and an AP-NORC poll conducted between July 15 and July 29 saw Vance’s favorably drop by eight points. <sad trombone> Okay, don’t get cocky. Get busy.

Schadenfreude Trending

https://digbysblog.net/2024/08/08/schadenfreude-trending/
Created
Thu, 08/08/2024 - 23:00
Trump’s nightmare becomes a night terror Ebullient. Is that the right word? Since President Biden passed his party’s baton to Vice President Kamala Harris, the mood among Democratic Party faithful has turned a sharp corner. The energy at rallies for the Harris campaign, now complete with Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, is the stuff of former president Donald Trump’s reality-challenged boasts. And a nightmare for an old con man desperate for the presidential shield to shield him from jail time. (Trump made bank off his glowering mugshot. Wonder what his glower will look like after a prison haircut?) Ed Kilgore reviews a few post Biden polls for the New York Magazine Intelligencer. Trump’s nightmare is headed into night terror territory. The Harris polling bounce is now a trend: According to the FiveThirtyEight national polling averages, Harris is leading Trump by 1.9 percent (45.3 to 43.4 percent), with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at 5.3 percent. When Biden dropped out, he was trailing in the same averages by 3.2 percent.

Short Conversations with Poets: Alan Felsenthal

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/alan-felsenthal
Created
Thu, 08/08/2024 - 23:00

There’s a dreamy and appealing naturalism to Alan Felsenthal’s elegy, Hereafter. The poems are electric and vivid, but the book never romanticizes suffering. Voices in these poems have a sadness to them, a melancholy that retains some almost mystical buoyancy. But never treacly. Or maybe it’s just that this mourning is still tempered by a hard sweetness, the sweetness of a friendship that doesn’t end even though one friend has passed on. Here’s how “Cover Letter” begins:

just say my subject is grief

it comes as a strike
leaves stricken
like an aircraft

afflicted
as Jupiter is
in opposition to Mars

and a few lines later, ends:

I can keep this up

as long
as death
a book

unreadable from this distance

go try anyway
the rain heaves
something is not shut

the library downstairs only goes to S

A New Hope Spreads Across a Galaxy Far, Far Away—Here’s Why That’s a Big Problem for the Republic

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/a-new-hope-spreads-across-a-galaxy-far-far-…
Created
Thu, 08/08/2024 - 22:00

“America now has a choice between the former president’s nightmarish vision of national decline that only a strongman can fix and Harris’ optimistic vow that America is still a land of aspiration. But that dichotomy also points to a huge risk for Harris. Running a campaign rooted in hopefulness and good cheer at a time when many Americans feel demoralized and tired could backfire.” — CNN

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Look, I get it. Emperor Palpatine is dead, again, and the First Order has scattered to rural Outer Rim diners to lick its turbolaser wounds over heavy mugs of blue drink. The new new hope is ascending in our galaxy far, far away, and that’s a great thing.

But is it really?

I mean, sure, we mustn’t forget the billions of voices who screamed out and were silenced as literal planets disintegrated before our very eyes, but this hope message everyone’s jazzed about… I can’t be the only one thinking it’s a bit of a risk, right?

Israel’s Short-sighted Political Assassinations with Sharmine Narwani

https://www.mintpressnews.com/israel-political-assassinations-sharmine-narwani/…
Created
Thu, 08/08/2024 - 21:27

Sharmine Narwani shares her insights on the targeted killings of Fuad Shukr and Ismail Haniyeh, which have sent shockwaves through the Middle East and raised the specter of a broader regional conflict.

The post Israel’s Short-sighted Political Assassinations with Sharmine Narwani appeared first on MintPress News.

Saving Meritocracy

https://larspsyll.wordpress.com/2024/08/08/saving-meritocracy/
Created
Thu, 08/08/2024 - 19:28
The promise of social mobility is broken for many people. This makes it tempting to blame meritocracy, claiming that the ideal merely serves to uphold an unjust system. But if taken seriously, this remedy would have disastrous effects. A world in which top positions are not even supposed to go to the most deserving would […]