Barbara (she/her)

Claire Mabey is on sabbatical from The Spinoff at the moment, but still got this up there 💙 thespinoff.co.nz/culture/23-0...

no matter what happens on election night, these bozos had their hands on every single lever of power. they had all of our most powerful institutions tripping over themselves to comply. they had the media swearing that we were in a new golden age of conservatism. now they're worrying about NEBRASKA

I work at a public library. People who want to use AI seem to have no trouble doing so. People who don't want to use AI have a harder time. I crowdsourced and then finalized this document "How to disable or avoid intrusive AI" and then gave it a short URL: notoai.org Please pass along if it's useful

Also don’t invest in Space X… Per ig: @/your.richbff

This 👏🏼 is 👏🏼 how 👏🏼 you 👏🏼 do 👏🏼 it

For anyone who wants to take part in No Kings Day 3 but can't get to a protest in person, there's this: www.standupforscience.net/sufs-nk3

If you ever think your vote doesn’t count…

I heard it in the car and started yelling. Assigning agency to a computer program is journalistic malpractice

This city is home to people of countless faiths. But no matter what you believe, one thing unites us: we are all New Yorkers. We will not allow ICE to terrorize our neighbors. youtu.be/uoU9Img_B40

PS if you do have kids & you want them to continue to like you into adulthood, supporting them when they put in this kind of effort (or at the very least having open-minded dialogue with them about it) is the best path forward They are fighting for their future. They need to see you fighting, too

bars

We saw this in Finland when they required at least 30% of corporate boards be women, the boards got much more competent. It wasn't qualified men being replaced with unqualified women; it was mediocre men being replaced with exceptional women. The same thing in reverse is going on.

Trump replaced a lot of competent women and minorities with incompetent white men. Not just at the top of the departments but throughout. Staffed with incompetents, the Trump admin struggles to craft even simple regulations. That's why they're turning to AI.

Worse than Kent State, really than any episode I can think of probably dating back to Reconstruc & earlier b/c 1. continuing, not 1 off. 2. organized, not individual ofcrs losing it 3. literally at hand of federal government, which is 4. immediately lying & circling the wagons to prevent inves.

This is torture.

I realise I'm just a freak, but living in a multicultural city is the best thing of all time, it's just the best possible human experience and i can not understand why anyone on earth would be like "weve got to destroy this"

Excellent analysis/thread on Social Security.

Let me give you a thought experiment: Imagine not just a ban on qualified immunity for authority, but a reversal; a new legal framework, under which authority bears greater responsibility than civilians in matters involving force—as it should. www.the-reframe.com/absolute-imm...

Good demonstration of why today's windstorm along Colorado's Front Range is more dangerous than Wednesday's. Wed wind left vegetation critically dry. Any 🔥 that ignites will burn hotter and faster than if trees held more moisture.

Another reason why this is *such* a dumb decision is that it will reduce the pool of eligible blood donors in the future I know someone with O negative blood type (i.e. a universal donor), who could never donate because he had hepatitis as a kid (was so ill that he was hospitalized)

This is the ad for which Trump thinks Democratic lawmakers should be executed:

I stayed up way too late last night finishing A Far Better Thing by H. G. Parry. It's a retelling of Dicken's A Tale of Two Cities with fairy magic, as narrated by Sydney Carton. I absolutely loved it.

Folks, if you are hungry, please contact your local Sikh gurdwara. Or just show up for langar, which most gurdwaras do several times a week, for a free meal. Lots also do weekly or monthly drives giving out groceries. No conversion necessary. Feeding anyone who is hungry is a key part of Sikhism.

There are no circumstances where human beings should be without food. There are no qualifications that make someone undeserving of access to food. If you are a human being, you should get food. I don’t care about ability, job status, legal status, or anything else. If people are hungry, feed them.

I ran the USMC marathon not long after 9/11. And you could still see the scars on the Pentagon from where the plane crashed. The visceral hit of seeing America's buildings damaged by people ruled by hatred & anger can't be overstated. Just thinking of that when I see these photos.

Since the other person blocked me, I am going to share this tool once again so hopefully more people can see it. If you're taking photos at a protest, make sure you're blurring out people's faces unless you have their permission to post them. And scrub your metadata 🙌

Also, PLEASE don’t treat protests like a social media photo op. That endangers the very people you are there to protect. Clout can wait.

Done. It was easy.

People once again need to internalize that "generative AI" is a small subset of machine learning, that machine learning is a critical tool that you cannot run a site without past a certain volume Bluesky has long since exceeded, and that it is FAR more reliable than user reporting.

US farmers are saying they "just need temporary help, until things get better." Here's the thing. US farm exports- which are mostly soy- CANNOT get better. Other countries expanded their soy industries to fill China's demand. We've walled ourselves out of the global market, folks. This is it.

Tried to get my real ID. I had my license, my SS card and my birth certificate. I was not allowed to get my real ID because my birth name is different than my married name. Now I have to go dig up a marriage certificate. You know who wouldn’t have to do this? A man. Never change your last name.

The idea of running anti-abortion Democrats is sickening to me. That means killing women! That is what that means!

Opposing political violence requires that we condemn Charlie Kirk’s death. Opposing political violence also requires that we condemn Charlie Kirk’s life. Charlie Kirk spent his life encouraging his allies on the far-right to think violence was legitimate and concerns about it were fake.

Let's talk about the ACTUAL COST to taxpayers...

And for the folks who think "oh, there won't be a midterm" or it won't be fair - you know who thinks there will be a fair midterm? Senate and House Republicans. Because they're panic-retiring or heading for state-level elections to avoid the blow-out they think is coming.

DC residents are more afraid of the occupying forces than of the "crime" they are supposedly eliminating

Trickle down economics: "Pissing on people and telling them it's rain." -- Penelope Ehrhardt of the Woke Lesbo Symposium thespinoff.co.nz/politics/10-...

I know we don't feel like there's much to celebrate this July 4th. It's been a rough several years. So I want to talk about how we're making history right now.