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reblog to increase the note count by one and make this post appear on the dash of people who are following you

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vice news

ironically i am working right now so i can’t do a full post on this like i would really prefer to do… but these are the most cartoonishly evil people that you could possibly imagine, even in a society as flawed as the one we’ve built for ourselves. these are bedrock groups devoted to protecting the american worker and consumer. massive huge giant waving red flags 🚩

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A coworker invited me over and this is basically exactly how the conversation went. Except the second part was "if you just want to hang out with the creature (aka the dog) that's cool."

sorry i cant hang out i forgot how to mimic human like behaviour

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Y'all, the world is sleeping on what NASA just pulled off with Voyager 1

The probe has been sending gibberish science data back to Earth, and scientists feared it was just the probe finally dying. You know, after working for 50 GODDAMN YEARS and LEAVING THE GODDAMN SOLAR SYSTEM and STILL CHURNING OUT GODDAMN DATA.

So they analyzed the gibberish and realized that in it was a total readout of EVERYTHING ON THE PROBE. Data, the programming, hardware specs and status, everything. They realized that one of the chips was malfunctioning.

So what do you do when your probe is 22 Billion km away and needs a fix? Why, you just REPROGRAM THAT ENTIRE GODDAMN THING. Told it to avoid the bad chip, store the data elsewhere.

Sent the new code on April 18th. Got a response on April 20th - yeah, it's so far away that it took that long just to transmit.

And the probe is working again.

From a programmer's perspective, that may be the most fucking impressive thing I have ever heard.

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Palestinian activists get their message across on Londons iconic Tower Bridge landmark- one of the cities most historic buildings. We need a ceasefire now.

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Ben Collins: It’s time for journalists to draw the sword and throw away the scabbard

“Triumphs of the truth are not accidents. They are times the American media — including and especially those outside of the disinformation beat — did not equivocate and did not give an inch to lies and the liars who tell them.”

By BEN COLLINS June 13, 2023, 12:16 p.m.

Editor’s note: NBC News reporter Ben Collins was one of the winners of the 2023 Walter Cronkite Awards for Excellence in Television Political Journalism, given by the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. This year’s awards focused on “best practices of TV journalism aimed at combating disinformation and defending democracy.” Collins included this memo to the judges, along with a compilation of TV news reports.

An update on the information war, for the 2023 Walter Cronkite Awards

We’re losing.

I’m hesitant to start off this memo on such a grim note, but it’s true: The people putting out the truth are under siege in the information war, and we’re not doing so great. That’s, in part, because a lot of those people aren’t even aware they’re in an information war to begin with.

There is good news: We can still win. It will take a change in tack, and a little bit of courage.

But first, since I’m doubling down on bad ideas right out of the gate, I’m going to do something else that’s probably ill advised. I’m about to quote Edward R. Murrow, who, I’ve been told by a bunch of books, was not a pal of Mr. Cronkite. They both wound up at the same place — the facts — and they took two separate ways to get there. They were in the trenches and were too deep in it to see they were on the same side. I get it. We’ve all been there. A lot of us are there right now.

Murrow, famously, said this:

This instrument can teach. It can illuminate. Yes, and even it can inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise, it’s nothing but wires and lights in a box. There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference. This weapon of television could be useful.

Stonewall Jackson, who is generally believed to have known something about weapons, is reported to have said, “When war comes, you must draw the sword and throw away the scabbard.” The trouble with television is that it is rusting in the scabbard during a battle for survival.

We’re back in that very same battle right now, and it’s against the same enemy: ignorance, intolerance, indifference. The box is smaller now. It’s in your pocket. It’s brighter and faster and it vibrates and dings and brings you horror and joy and knows what makes you feel better and sure as hell knows what makes you feel worse. Then it assigns those bad feelings to a political enemy, and the good feelings to anybody trying to get rid of those people.

That’s what you’ll see in the stories I’ve covered in the last year. Fear and panic and paranoia and lies and deceit that led to terror, death and the attempted disenfranchisement of American voters.

You’ll see that first with my coverage of the Buffalo shooting, a terror attack perpetrated by a white supremacist obsessed with the “Great Replacement Theory” lie that has pervaded extremist spaces online. The shooter posted his own tranche of racist lies on the internet in his manifesto for 4chan and 8chan users, which I had to convey to our viewers without further spreading his hate.

You’ll see midterm election night coverage of the attempts to shoo away voters from early voting ballot drop boxes by “mule watchers,” the conspiracy theorists obsessed with the lie that “2,000 ballot mules” had stolen the election from Donald Trump.

You’ll see the hate campaign targeted at America’s trans youth that continues to make some of the most persecuted Americans fear for their lives to this day.

But you’ll also see interspersed moments of justice and relief. You’ll see my reporting on a day I thought would never come: October 12th, the afternoon Alex Jones was forced to reckon with his decades of lies and pay almost $1 billion to the families of children killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. You’ll see how Russia’s global information war fell apart as its military began to invade Ukraine, and how Vladimir Putin’s propaganda arm scrambled to adopt lies first spread by American anti-vaccine groups.

I hope you notice something specific while reviewing my coverage of the last year of hate, and how hate loses. Triumphs of the truth are not accidents. They are times the American media — including and especially those outside of the disinformation beat — did not equivocate and did not give an inch to lies and the liars who tell them. No one attempted to falsely humanize the inhumane — like the horrors of Vladimir Putin. No one tried to bend over backwards to provide positive framing to intentional cruelty — like the lies of Alex Jones — even, or especially, if it was politically inconvenient at the moment.

When media manipulators were met with a unified opposition armed with clear facts — when that unified opposition stood firmly alongside those who were constantly attacked by men with powerful and profitable propaganda machines — that opposition won. We won. The news won.

But it takes unity, and not capitulation, in these moments. There is no meeting liars halfway, because the truth then becomes one-half lie. We must simply be louder, and clearer, with the truth.

The wires and lights in the box aren’t quite so simple now that they’re in our pockets. Some of them are keeping your kid up at night, telling your teenager fantastical tales about the Illuminati on TikTok. (And some of them are keeping your parents up at night, too, telling equally fantastical tales about the nightly gunfight that is actually just fireworks on NextDoor.) The people spreading those Illuminati lies are not playing by the rules, nor are they particularly interested in the truth. They are interested in money and power, and they have been gaming our algorithms to gin up fear and sell a balm for it.

I have been covering this stuff for too long now, and I can assure you that they are not going to stop. So we have no choice: We simply have to tell better stories than them. We have to be better at extolling truth — based in empathy, democracy, and human rights — than fearmongers have become at selling profitable lies.

We can win, but we have to be more unified, and we have to be more human. We’ve faced this before and we’re facing it again. “There is a great and perhaps decisive battle to be fought against ignorance, intolerance and indifference.”

Look down at your phone. The lights and wires in that box are smaller, but they contain exponentially more ways to do harm. If you want your vote to count, or if you were born in any way different, I’m certain you’d agree.

“When the war comes, you must draw the sword and throw away the scabbard.” I’m confident I threw away my scabbard.

—

Ben Collins covers disinformation, extremism and the internet for NBC News.

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On Facebook last month I said that the songs of an album are like the chapters of a novel and they form a cohesive story and someone unfriended me over it 💀

I think people have forgotten what an album is supposed to be

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adhd will have you fighting for your life to do beloved hobbies that bring you nothing but joy

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– Audrey Hepburn

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“Scientists at UC Riverside have demonstrated a new, RNA-based vaccine strategy that is effective against any strain of a virus and can be used safely even by babies or the immunocompromised. Their flu vaccine will also likely be delivered in the form of a spray, as many people have an aversion to needles. “Respiratory infections move through the nose, so a spray might be an easier delivery system,” Hai said. Additionally, the researchers say there is little chance of a virus mutating to avoid this vaccination strategy. “Viruses may mutate in regions not targeted by traditional vaccines. However, we are targeting their whole genome with thousands of small RNAs. They cannot escape this,” Hai said. Ultimately, the researchers believe they can ‘cut and paste’ this strategy to make a one-and-done vaccine for any number of viruses. “There are several well-known human pathogens; dengue, SARS, COVID. They all have similar viral functions,” Ding said. “This should be applicable to these viruses in an easy transfer of knowledge.””

—

Vaccine breakthrough means no more chasing strains

This is HUGE. This will fundamentally change how we get inoculated.

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Wow... people having to identify themselves to a government because of they are part of a group that is seen as ¨other¨ or because they want to learn about a certain topic...where i have seen this before...

I don't know... maybe what it is considered one of the biggest red flags in steps of dehumanization of groups, mainly minorities?

Btw, this is what the people behind KOSA are trying to impose in all the United States of America.

[Image ID: News politcs article about USA politics that says ¨Kansas governor passes law requiring ID to view acts of 'homosexuality' online, vetoes anti-LGBTQ+ bill¨ /.End ID]

Link to the article: https://www.advocate.com/politics/kansas-veto-age-verification-gender-affirming-care-abortion

Edit: Since this gained more notes, for those who don't know KOSA is, it is a USA bill that was reintroduced on May 2023 (last year). It is called ¨Kids Online Safety Act¨ (KOSA for short). It has been introduced and reintroduced for a while now since 2022. It is meant with the intention to ¨protect kids¨ by restricting their use of internet by pushing age restrictions and people having to present their ID to use internet or access certain websites, quite similar to the Kansas state bill that got passed. Many groups and people have criticized this bill for the potential censorship it can come with it and do more harm to the kids than help them. Possible censorship that has been suggested this bill can bring is LGBT+ content, politics and news, mental health search, political and social opinions in general (adults included). What is more, it has been put into question the possible invasion of privacy for both minors and adults by having to share an identification to use certain websites. That people could get censored or doxxed by doing this.

As for the bill itself, there was a hearing earlier today in the Senate. ( April 17th-Wednesday). It could take a while before it gets voted and has to pass different stages. Then it would take months (18 months) to be implemented if it gets passed.

I'm not American myself, so i'm not sure how much i can do about this. What i do recommend is making calls to senators and people involved in pushing this bill to make clear your disapproval of it. Try sign petitions or just telling others about it.

Some sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_Online_Safety_Act https://www.stopkosa.com/ https://www.badinternetbills.com/ https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/02/dont-fall-latest-changes-dangerous-kids-online-safety-act

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The US single-handedly blocked the UN from recognizing Palestine by vetoing a draft resolution in the Security Council that recommended that “the State of Palestine be admitted to membership of the UN.” With 12 council members voting yes, a clear majority voted in favor; only the UK and Switzerland abstained.

Meanwhile, 139 of the 193 UN member states already recognize Palestine, virtually all of the world safe for the Global North and its closest allies.

Even in the EU, several countries are set to recognize Palestine soon. Since 2012, the Palestinians have been a non-member observer state to the UN, a de facto recognition of statehood granted by the UN General Assembly.

However, the Security Council and then at least two-thirds of the General Assembly must approve an application to become a full member of the world body.

The Palestinian push for full membership came six months into Israel’s devastating war of extermination against the Gaza Strip, and as Israel is expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank, which the UN already considers to be illegal.

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Nobody expected that

No fucking way LMFAO

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😊🌟 grandpas on adventure

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[SOURCE]

Maternity kits, medical threads and scissors, water testing kits, anesthetics, mobile desalination units, etc do you see the pattern? Israel is not only starving the people of Gaza but it also wants to ensure the spread of disease through contaminated water and surgical tools, as well as ensuring injured Palestinians suffer through horrendous pain.

It's beyond sickening.