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With Love from London: A Novel "There are far better things ahead than any we leave behind" Sale: $17 to $2.99 by Sarah Jio Rating: 4.3/5 (1,566 Reviews) #Bookstore #MotherDaughter #Romance #London #Fiction #BookClub #Healing #Books #Sagas #BookSky
With Love from London: A Novel -
Don’t forget that today, February 13, the new #Kdrama “The Art of Sarah” starts on #Netflix! Lead actors: Shin Hye-Sun and Lee Joon-Hyuk.
Personally, I’m happy to see Shin Hye-Sun again. The last time was in the beautiful and lovely drama “Welcome to Samdal-ri”, which I watched many time ago.
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CW: Discussion of mental health
Those of us who keep up with my personal stuff here probably remember that last month I underwent some cognitive testing because I was experiencing some short-term memory loss and other things that alarmed me and I wanted to at least rule out something like dementia. I passed the cognitive exams with flying colors, and an MRI did not detect anything amiss. But last week I’m pretty sure I figured out what’s probably at the root of this. It hit me, like a ton of bricks, actually, that I had pretty much checked out of everything, including things I cared about and brought me joy. #MarchMadness was beginning, for instance, and I was completely clueless. I never even folllowed my #Zags all year. There are other examples of this as well. At least I haven’t lost my interest in reading. I’m clearly going through a very rough patch of what Sarah and I call the D word, something that is always with me but I usually try to keep at bay as much as I can. I’m being proactive; I saw a psychiatrist on Thrusday and we’re exploring some potential med adjustments. It’s going to be a process. I’ll get out of this valley, I always do, but for now I’d appreciate thoughts/prayers/positive mojo. Thanks.
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CW: Discussion of mental health
Those of us who keep up with my personal stuff here probably remember that last month I underwent some cognitive testing because I was experiencing some short-term memory loss and other things that alarmed me and I wanted to at least rule out something like dementia. I passed the cognitive exams with flying colors, and an MRI did not detect anything amiss. But last week I’m pretty sure I figured out what’s probably at the root of this. It hit me, like a ton of bricks, actually, that I had pretty much checked out of everything, including things I cared about and brought me joy. #MarchMadness was beginning, for instance, and I was completely clueless. I never even folllowed my #Zags all year. There are other examples of this as well. At least I haven’t lost my interest in reading. I’m clearly going through a very rough patch of what Sarah and I call the D word, something that is always with me but I usually try to keep at bay as much as I can. I’m being proactive; I saw a psychiatrist on Thrusday and we’re exploring some potential med adjustments. It’s going to be a process. I’ll get out of this valley, I always do, but for now I’d appreciate thoughts/prayers/positive mojo. Thanks.
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CW: Discussion of mental health
Those of us who keep up with my personal stuff here probably remember that last month I underwent some cognitive testing because I was experiencing some short-term memory loss and other things that alarmed me and I wanted to at least rule out something like dementia. I passed the cognitive exams with flying colors, and an MRI did not detect anything amiss. But last week I’m pretty sure I figured out what’s probably at the root of this. It hit me, like a ton of bricks, actually, that I had pretty much checked out of everything, including things I cared about and brought me joy. #MarchMadness was beginning, for instance, and I was completely clueless. I never even folllowed my #Zags all year. There are other examples of this as well. At least I haven’t lost my interest in reading. I’m clearly going through a very rough patch of what Sarah and I call the D word, something that is always with me but I usually try to keep at bay as much as I can. I’m being proactive; I saw a psychiatrist on Thrusday and we’re exploring some potential med adjustments. It’s going to be a process. I’ll get out of this valley, I always do, but for now I’d appreciate thoughts/prayers/positive mojo. Thanks.
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CW: Discussion of mental health
Those of us who keep up with my personal stuff here probably remember that last month I underwent some cognitive testing because I was experiencing some short-term memory loss and other things that alarmed me and I wanted to at least rule out something like dementia. I passed the cognitive exams with flying colors, and an MRI did not detect anything amiss. But last week I’m pretty sure I figured out what’s probably at the root of this. It hit me, like a ton of bricks, actually, that I had pretty much checked out of everything, including things I cared about and brought me joy. #MarchMadness was beginning, for instance, and I was completely clueless. I never even folllowed my #Zags all year. There are other examples of this as well. At least I haven’t lost my interest in reading. I’m clearly going through a very rough patch of what Sarah and I call the D word, something that is always with me but I usually try to keep at bay as much as I can. I’m being proactive; I saw a psychiatrist on Thrusday and we’re exploring some potential med adjustments. It’s going to be a process. I’ll get out of this valley, I always do, but for now I’d appreciate thoughts/prayers/positive mojo. Thanks.
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Learning today at Choco-Tec that the shells of almonds, hazelnuts and other tree nuts can be ground up into a flour and added to existing nut butters/nut flours/nut milks and bakery products. Approximately doubles yield of food per tree and reduces ingredient cost. Interesting.
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Lazy Caturday Reads: Epstein, Epstein, Epstein, and More News
Good Afternoon!!
Elizabeth Taylor with her Siamese cat, 1956, photo by Sanford Roth
Epstein, Epstein, Epstein. He’s everywhere in the news. We still haven’t seen the DOJ Epstein files, but we’re already learning more about Epstein’s relationship to Trump from the recently released text messages. We don’t know yet how bad it will get when the files are released, but the extent to which Trump is publicly panicking suggests it will be very bad for him.
In Trump’s latest effort to control the Epstein story, he ordered Attorney General Bondi to investigate Democrats who had connections to the child sex trafficker.
Acceding to President Donald Trump’s demands, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday that she has ordered a top federal prosecutor to investigate sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s ties to Trump political foes, including former President Bill Clinton.
Bondi posted on X that she was assigning Manhattan U.S. Attorney Jay Clayton to lead the probe, capping an eventful week in which congressional Republicans released nearly 23,000 pages of documents from Epstein’s estate and House Democrats seized on emails mentioning Trump.
Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years, didn’t explain what supposed crimes he wanted the Justice Department to investigate. None of the men he mentioned in a social media post demanding the probe has been accused of sexual misconduct by any of Epstein’s victims.
Hours before Bondi’s announcement, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he would ask her, the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate Epstein’s “involvement and relationship” with Clinton and others, including former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and LinkedIn founder and Democratic donor Reid Hoffman.
Trump, calling the matter “the Epstein Hoax, involving Democrats, not Republicans,” said the investigation should also include financial giant JPMorgan Chase, which provided banking services to Epstein, and “many other people and institutions.”
There’s no evidence that any of the people Trump is targeting were involved in sexual abuse or sex trafficking.
A JPMorgan Chase spokesperson, Patricia Wexler, said the company regretted associating with Epstein “but did not help him commit his heinous acts.”
“The government had damning information about his crimes and failed to share it with us or other banks,” she said. The company agreed previously to pay millions of dollars to Epstein’s victims, who had sued arguing that the bank ignored red flags about criminal activity.
Clinton has acknowledged traveling on Epstein’s private jet but has said through a spokesperson that he had no knowledge of the late financier’s crimes. He also has never been accused of misconduct by Epstein’s known victims.
Clinton’s deputy chief of staff Angel Ureña posted on X Friday: “These emails prove Bill Clinton did nothing and knew nothing. The rest is noise meant to distract from election losses, backfiring shutdowns, and who knows what else.” [….]
Summers and Hoffman had nothing to do with either case, but both were friendly with Epstein and exchanged emails with him. Those messages were among the documents released this week, along with other correspondence Epstein had with friends and business associates in the years before his death.
Nothing in the messages suggested any wrongdoing on the men’s part, other than associating with someone who had been accused of sex crimes against children.
At Letters from an American, historian Heather Cox Richardson writes:
In a transparent attempt to distract from the many times his own name appears in the documents from the Epstein estate members of the House Oversight Committee released Wednesday, President Donald J. Trump asked Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Democrats whose names appeared in the documents. He singled out former president Bill Clinton, former treasury secretary Lawrence H. Summers, and Reid Hoffman, who founded LinkedIn and who is a Democratic donor.
Marlon Brando and cat
Although the attorney general is the nation’s chief law enforcement officer and is supposed to be nonpartisan in protecting the rule of law, Bondi responded that the Department of Justice “will pursue this with urgency and integrity.” Maegan Vazquez and Shayna Jacobs of the Washington Post note that reporters have already covered the relationship of Epstein with Clinton, Summers, and Hoffman for years, and that in July, Justice Department officials said an examination of the FBI files relating to Epstein—a different cache than Wednesday’s—“did not uncover evidence that could predicate an investigation against uncharged third parties.”
Meidas Touch noted: “In normal times, it would be a major scandal for the President to direct his AG to criminally investigate his political opponents to deflect from his own involvement in a major scandal—and for the AG to immediately announce she is doing it. The Epstein scandal and cover up just got even bigger.”
This scandal truly has Trump flailing. I hope this will be the one that really brings him down, but he somehow seems to wriggle out of every scandal. But he certainly is terrified of the Epstein files being released.
Politico: House plans to vote Tuesday on releasing Epstein files.
House Republican leaders are planning to hold a vote Tuesday on legislation to force the release of federal files related to Jeffrey Epstein, according to three people granted anonymity to discuss internal plans ahead of a public announcement.
The tentative scheduling decision follows a successful effort by Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) to sidestep Speaker Mike Johnson and force a floor vote on their bipartisan bill to compel the Justice Department to release all of its records related to the late convicted sex offender.
President Donald Trump has made repeated attempts to kill the effort, which continued in a series of Truth Social posts Friday. But Johnson said Wednesday he intends to move quickly to hold the vote and put the matter to bed.
Under the current GOP plan, the House Rules Committee would approve a procedural measure Monday night to advance eight bills for floor consideration, including language to tee up the Epstein legislation. If that measure is approved on the floor, likely early Tuesday afternoon, debate and a final vote on the Epstein bill could immediately follow. GOP leaders are considering whether to postpone the Epstein vote until Tuesday evening….
The four Republicans who signed on to the discharge petition forcing the vote — Massie, plus Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Nancy Mace of South Carolina — are likely to examine Johnson’s moves very closely. They could together block any procedural measure that would undercut the Epstein legislation, postpone it or otherwise alter it.
One more story on the Epstein texts from Jason Wilson at The Guardian: Steve Bannon advised Jeffrey Epstein for years on how to rehab his reputation, texts show.
Hundreds of texts over almost a year show Maga influencer Steve Bannon and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein workshopping legal and media strategies to protect Epstein from the legal and publicity quagmire that enveloped him in the last year of his life.
The texts, released by the House oversight committee on Wednesday, show that as early as June 2018, the pair were devising responses to the gathering storm of public outrage about Epstein’s criminal history, his favorable treatment by the justice system, and his friendships with powerful figures in business, politics and academia.
Bannon conspiratorially described the renewed scrutiny of Epstein as a “sophisticated op”, and over time he counseled Epstein in his adversarial responses to media outlets, the justice system and his victims.
All the while, both men were also strategizing how best to promote Bannon’s rightwing populist agenda, and the political fortunes of its standard bearer, Donald Trump.
In all of Epstein’s messages, the identity of his correspondent is redacted. But Bannon’s identity in the threads cited in this reporting is clear from contextual clues including his documented activities at the time, details of his business and media pursuits, and other disclosures. In one document, the sender’s phone number is not redacted – and it is the same number linked to Bannon in a legal case against Trump adviser Roger Stone.
Read the rest at The Guardian.
Trump is also beginning to panic about the economy and the negative effects of his insane tariffs.
David J. Lynch at The Washington Post: Trump goes on defense over tariffs as prices on everyday items keep rising.
President Donald Trump’s bid Friday to sootheconsumers by dropping tariffs on a wide array of groceries, including coffee, beef, bananas and tomatoes — contradicting his repeated claims that the levies were not affecting retail prices — shows he is on the defensive over his signature policy initiative.
Public opposition, eroding support on Capitol Hill and a potentially lethal challenge before the Supreme Court have Trump scrambling to defend his economic strategy even as the administration notches diplomatic agreements that are cementing its high-tariff approach to rebalancing global trade.
Sophia Loren with her cat, 1959
Public opinion is the immediate worry, following recent Democratic electoral victories in Virginia and New Jersey that were fueled by Americans’ ire over the cost of living. By a nearly 2-to-1 margin, registered voters disapproved of the president’s tariffs in a recent Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll, a finding that has been consistent all year and could imperil Republican candidates in next year’s congressional elections.
The president on Friday issued an executive order rolling back import taxes on many foods, his most significant retreat on the emergency tariffs he imposed in April, which were billed at the time as loophole-free. In September, the White House had signaled that some products that are not generally produced in the United States could be spared tariffs once nations where they originate reached trade deals with the United States. But Friday’s exemptions apply to products from any nation, even those that have not agreed on trade terms.
“They know that they shouldn’t have imposed a lot of these tariffs and that they’re hurting affordability for consumers. Now they’re looking for a way to justify lowering them. And that’s fine. But did we really need to go through all this in the first place?” said Christopher Padilla, senior adviser to the Brunswick Group and a former trade official in the George W. Bush administration….
This week’s tariff cuts appear aimed at responding to public concern over high prices. Inflation overall is running at an annual rate of 3 percent, above the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target for price stability but well down from the mid-2022 peak of 9.1 percent.
Prices on many everyday items, however, continue to soar. Through September, the most recent data available, coffee prices were up 19 percent over the previous 12 months, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bananas were up 7 percent.
Elizabeth Buchwald at CNN: Trump’s latest tariff TACO probably won’t make your life more affordable.
Americans could soon see some goods get cheaper after President Donald Trump exempted certain agricultural imports from a set of tariffs on Friday. But any price drops likely won’t be enough to make life feel more affordable any time soon.
The executive order exempted products like coffee, beef and some fruit from Trump’s “reciprocal” tariffs, which began rolling out in April.
The new exemptions are part of what traders have dubbed TACO, or Trump Always Chickens Out, to describe times when the president backs off a policy after unintended consequences pop up. In the case of tariffs, Trump has already reversed a number of his measures, a sign that the administration is reshaping his signature economic tool.
The latest TACO comes after voters, worried about affordability, gave Republicans a drubbing in recent off-year elections.
Why this likely won’t help consumers much:
Nevertheless, US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said the new exemptions generally won’t help improve affordability.
“It depends on what the importers do with the tariff,” he said in a CNBC interview on Friday. “So when you look at the overall price trend, it hasn’t been because of tariffs. It’s been because of these other events going on and just supply and demand.”
Steve Martin and cat
But in cases where tariffs have been passed along to consumers, prices could drop, Greer said.
One potential example: bananas. American consumers are paying about 8% more for bananas than before Trump’s second term began.
The US largely imports bananas from South American countries. With bananas exempt from “reciprocal” tariffs that started at 10%, prices could go back to where they were earlier this year, said Sarah House, senior economist at Wells Fargo. But it’s unlikely to be something most consumers notice unless they’re buying bananas often, she added.
But not everyone is convinced it will even do that much.
“It is not clear that lowering tariffs will lower prices — it depends on what retailers think they can get away with. The import price of bananas has fallen since tariffs were imposed, but the US consumer price has risen,” Paul Donovan, chief economist at UBS global wealth management, said in a note last week. (The United States tracks import prices before accounting for tariffs. In some cases, import prices have fallen as exporters lower what they charge as a way to share in the tariff expense importers pay.)
More analysis at the CNN link.
Another flop: Trump’s soybean deal with China may have just been a mirage. AP: USDA data casts doubt on China’s soybean purchase promises touted by Trump.
New data the Agriculture Department released Friday created serious doubts about whether China will really buy millions of bushels of American soybeans like the Trump administration touted last month after a high-stakes meeting between President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
The USDA report released after the government reopened showed only two Chinese purchases of American soybeans since the summit in South Korea that totaled 332,000 metric tons. That’s well short of the 12 million metric tons that Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said China agreed to purchase by January and nowhere near the 25 million metric tons she said they would buy in each of the next three years.
American farmers were hopeful that their biggest customer would resume buying their crops. But CoBank’s Tanner Ehmke, who is its lead economist for grains and oilseed, said there isn’t much incentive for China to buy from America right now because they have plenty of soybeans on hand that they have bought from Brazil and other South American countries this year, and the remaining tariffs ensure that U.S. soybeans remain more expensive than Brazilian beans.
“We are still not even close to what has been advertised from the U.S. in terms of what the agreement would have been,” Ehmke said.
Beijing has yet to confirm any detailed soybean purchase agreement but only that the two sides have reached “consensus” on expanding trade in farm products. Ehmke said that even if China did promise to buy American soybeans it may have only agreed to buy them if the price was attractive.
Will Trump try to distract from the Epstein files and his failures on the economy by taking use to war with Venezuela?
David E. Sanger, Eric Schmit, tTyler Pager, and Zolan Kanno-Youngs at The New York Times (gift link): Trump Escalates Pressure on Venezuela, but Endgame Is Unclear.
The Trump administration is rapidly escalating its pressure campaign against Venezuela, with America’s largest aircraft carrier, the Ford, about to take up a position within striking distance of the country, even as President Trump’s aides provide conflicting accounts of what, exactly, they are seeking to achieve.
Mr. Trump held back-to-back days of meetings at the White House over the past two days, reviewing military options, including the use of Special Operations forces and direct action inside Venezuela.
Marlyn Monroe with her cat
It is still not clear whether Mr. Trump has made a decision about what kind of action to authorize, if any. On Friday, he told reporters on Air Force One that “I sort of made up my mind.” “I can’t tell you what it is,” he said, “but we made a lot of progress with Venezuela in terms of stopping drugs from pouring in.”
It is possible Mr. Trump is relying on the arrival of so much firepower to intimidate the government of Nicolás Maduro, who the United States and many of its allies say is not Venezuela’s legitimate president. Mr. Maduro has put his forces on high alert, leaving the two countries with their weapons cocked and ready for war.
There were signs that the administration was moving into a new and more aggressive posture. Shortly after a meeting on Thursday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on social media that the mission in the Caribbean now had a name — “Southern Spear.” He described its goal in expansive terms, saying the operation “removes narco-terrorists from our Hemisphere.”
“The Western Hemisphere is America’s neighborhood,” he wrote, “and we will protect it.” With the arrival of the Ford and three accompanying missile-firing Navy destroyers, there are now 15,000 troops in the region, more than there have been at any time in decades.
The only thing missing is a strategic explanation from the Trump administration that would clarify why the United States is amassing such a large force. Mr. Hegseth’s posting on X was only the latest in a series of statements from administration officials that, at best, are in tension with one another. Some are outright contradictory.
Mr. Trump has been the most consistent, saying it is all about drugs. But that would not explain why the Ford was rushed from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Caribbean region, adding to an American force that has now reached 15,000 soldiers and sailors, to attack small boats that until early September had been intercepted by the Coast Guard. Nor would it explain why Colombia or Mexico — Mexico being the main conduit for fentanyl — are not in the Navy’s sights.
Dan Lamothe, Tara Copp, Michael Birnbaum, and Noah Robertson: Trump weighs Venezuela strikes as U.S. forces prepare for attack order.
President Donald Trump said Friday night that he has “sort of made up my mind” about how he will proceed with the possibility of military action in Venezuela, following a second consecutive day of deliberations at the White House that included top national security advisers.
Trump’s vague remarks aboard Air Force One were delivered as he traveled for the weekend to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, and included no additional new details. The comments came as U.S. forces in the region awaited possible attack orders and after days of high-level discussions about whether — and how — to strike in Venezuela, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter is highly sensitive. Joining Trump in deliberations Friday were Vice President JD Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, these people said.
Robert Redford with his cat
Earlier in the day, an administration official said “a host of options” had been presented to the president. Trump is “very good at maintaining strategic ambiguity, and something he does very well is he does not dictate or broadcast to our adversaries what he wants to do next,” the official said.
Any strike on Venezuelan territory would upend the president’s frequent promises of avoiding new conflicts and betray promises made to Congress in recent weeks that no active preparations were underway for such an attack. It also would further complicate U.S. cooperation with other Latin American countries, and deepen suspicions — there and in Washington — over whether Trump’s endgame is the forced removal of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, whom Trump has accused of sending drugs and violent criminals to the United States.
Maduro, a socialist strongman, came to power in Caracas in 2013 and increasingly has become a fixation for Trump.
In August, U.S. officials increased the reward for information leading to his arrest and conviction from $25 million to $50 million, citing alleged ties to drug cartels and U.S. beliefs dating back to the Biden administration that he lost Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election and refused to step down.
“The United States is very plugged into what’s going on in Venezuela, the chatter among Maduro’s people and the highest levels of his regime,” the administration official said. “Maduro is very scared, and he should be scared. The president has options on the table that are very bad for Maduro and his illegitimate regime. … We view this regime as illegitimate, and it’s not serving the Western Hemisphere well.”
President Donald Trump has said he believes Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s days are numbered, and that land strikes inside Venezuela are possible.
Experts say that the US doesn’t currently have the military assets in place to launch a largescale operation to remove Maduro from power, though Trump has approved covert action within Venezuela, CNN has reported.
Bette Davis with cat
But if Trump did order strikes inside Venezuela aimed at ousting Maduro, he could face serious challenges with fractured opposition elements and a military poised for insurgency, according to experts, as well as political backlash at home for a president who promised to avoid costly entanglements overseas.
CNN reported that Trump received a briefing earlier this week to review updated options for military action inside Venezuela, a concept the White House has been weighing. The administration had not made a decision on whether to launch strikes, CNN reported, though the US military has moved more than a dozen warships and 15,000 troops into the region as part of what the Pentagon branded Operation Southern Spear in an announcement Thursday.
The concentration of military assets and threats of further attacks beyond the ongoing drug boat campaign have served to increase pressure on Maduro, with administration officials saying he needs to leave office while arguing that he’s closely tied to the Tren de Aragua gang and leading drug trafficking efforts.
But if Maduro does flee Venezuela or is killed out in a targeted strike, experts worry about a military takeover of the country or the boosting of another dictator similar to Maduro.
Read the rest at CNN.
Those are my recommended reads. I’ll add a few more links in the comment thread. What stories are you interested in today?
#BillClinton #catArt #caturday #ChinaSoybeanPurchases #DonaldTrump #EpsteinFiles #JeffreyEpstein #LarrySummers #NicolasMaduro #PamBondi #ReidHoffman #SteveBannon #TACOTrump #TrumpTariffs #Venezuela
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The overhaul of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act)
"Proposed timeframe leaves 12 days to scrutinise most significant changes to national environmental protection regime since 1999."
"Murray Watt relayed the message in private talks with mining industry leaders in Perth this week after giving a speech promising faster project approvals under a planned overhaul of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC Act)."
"The Greens environment spokesperson, Sarah Hanson-Young, said a set of laws backed by industry and the Coalition spelt danger for nature and the climate. Let’s cut through the spin: if the mining industry and the Liberals back this package, it says everything. It’s a deal for corporate profits, not a deal for nature or our climate."
>>
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/oct/17/with-climate-trigger-axed-labor-wants-to-rush-new-environmental-laws-through-after-positive-talks-with-coalition
#biodiversity #mining #EPBCAct #extractivism #BAU #ClimateBreakdown #ExtinctionCrisis #environment -
Sarah Mullally Is Named as First Female Archbishop of Canterbury
After Centuries, a Woman Will Lead the Church of England
[T]he naming of Archbishop-designate Mullally thrusts the church into a new era, potentially sowing tensions within the far-flung Anglican Communion, to which the Church of England, as well as the Episcopal Church in the United States, belongs.
#AnglicanChurch #ArchbishopOfCanterbury #EpiscopalianChurch #Religion
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Boriss Mejías and I just finished recording our storytelling session about the advantages of data modeling (in #PostgreSQL, but applies for any relational database) for @posetteconf ! 🐘
When it's live, you'll be able to hear him mention "no animals were harmed during the making of this video" - that's because Mama Lily here is in my recording room with her baby bunnies, and they enjoy pretending to be a construction crew at all times.
Their toys were removed just for the talk so they took a nap, and everything was put back - so everyone went right back to having fun ☀️
Register for POSETTE (or keep an eye out for the recordings!) here: https://lnkd.in/gQbQe4qJ
Or check out my rescue Two Rabbit Rescue on Instagram (@2rabbitrescue), Mastodon (@[email protected]), or Facebook (@two-rabbit-rescue) to keep an eye out for when Mama Lily and her kids are adoptable 💕 (or if you just want to see more bunny cuteness!)
#rabbitrescue #bunnyrescue #postgres #dev #tech #data #techwebinar #learntocode #programming #developer #application #database #opensource #foss #oss
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Boriss Mejías and I just finished recording our storytelling session about the advantages of data modeling (in #PostgreSQL, but applies for any relational database) for @posetteconf ! 🐘
When it's live, you'll be able to hear him mention "no animals were harmed during the making of this video" - that's because Mama Lily here is in my recording room with her baby bunnies, and they enjoy pretending to be a construction crew at all times.
Their toys were removed just for the talk so they took a nap, and everything was put back - so everyone went right back to having fun ☀️
Register for POSETTE (or keep an eye out for the recordings!) here: https://lnkd.in/gQbQe4qJ
Or check out my rescue Two Rabbit Rescue on Instagram (@2rabbitrescue), Mastodon (@[email protected]), or Facebook (@two-rabbit-rescue) to keep an eye out for when Mama Lily and her kids are adoptable 💕 (or if you just want to see more bunny cuteness!)
#rabbitrescue #bunnyrescue #postgres #dev #tech #data #techwebinar #learntocode #programming #developer #application #database #opensource #foss #oss
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Boriss Mejías and I just finished recording our storytelling session about the advantages of data modeling (in #PostgreSQL, but applies for any relational database) for @posetteconf ! 🐘
When it's live, you'll be able to hear him mention "no animals were harmed during the making of this video" - that's because Mama Lily here is in my recording room with her baby bunnies, and they enjoy pretending to be a construction crew at all times.
Their toys were removed just for the talk so they took a nap, and everything was put back - so everyone went right back to having fun ☀️
Register for POSETTE (or keep an eye out for the recordings!) here: https://lnkd.in/gQbQe4qJ
Or check out my rescue Two Rabbit Rescue on Instagram (@2rabbitrescue), Mastodon (@[email protected]), or Facebook (@two-rabbit-rescue) to keep an eye out for when Mama Lily and her kids are adoptable 💕 (or if you just want to see more bunny cuteness!)
#rabbitrescue #bunnyrescue #postgres #dev #tech #data #techwebinar #learntocode #programming #developer #application #database #opensource #foss #oss
-
Boriss Mejías and I just finished recording our storytelling session about the advantages of data modeling (in #PostgreSQL, but applies for any relational database) for @posetteconf ! 🐘
When it's live, you'll be able to hear him mention "no animals were harmed during the making of this video" - that's because Mama Lily here is in my recording room with her baby bunnies, and they enjoy pretending to be a construction crew at all times.
Their toys were removed just for the talk so they took a nap, and everything was put back - so everyone went right back to having fun ☀️
Register for POSETTE (or keep an eye out for the recordings!) here: https://lnkd.in/gQbQe4qJ
Or check out my rescue Two Rabbit Rescue on Instagram (@2rabbitrescue), Mastodon (@[email protected]), or Facebook (@two-rabbit-rescue) to keep an eye out for when Mama Lily and her kids are adoptable 💕 (or if you just want to see more bunny cuteness!)
#rabbitrescue #bunnyrescue #postgres #dev #tech #data #techwebinar #learntocode #programming #developer #application #database #opensource #foss #oss
-
Boriss Mejías and I just finished recording our storytelling session about the advantages of data modeling (in #PostgreSQL, but applies for any relational database) for @posetteconf ! 🐘
When it's live, you'll be able to hear him mention "no animals were harmed during the making of this video" - that's because Mama Lily here is in my recording room with her baby bunnies, and they enjoy pretending to be a construction crew at all times.
Their toys were removed just for the talk so they took a nap, and everything was put back - so everyone went right back to having fun ☀️
Register for POSETTE (or keep an eye out for the recordings!) here: https://lnkd.in/gQbQe4qJ
Or check out my rescue Two Rabbit Rescue on Instagram (@2rabbitrescue), Mastodon (@[email protected]), or Facebook (@two-rabbit-rescue) to keep an eye out for when Mama Lily and her kids are adoptable 💕 (or if you just want to see more bunny cuteness!)
#rabbitrescue #bunnyrescue #postgres #dev #tech #data #techwebinar #learntocode #programming #developer #application #database #opensource #foss #oss
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Boriss Mejías and I just finished recording our storytelling session about the advantages of data modeling for @posetteconf ! 🐘
When it's live, you'll be able to hear him mention "no animals were harmed during the making of this video" - that's because Mama Lily here is in my recording room with her baby bunnies, and they enjoy pretending to be a construction crew at all times.
Their toys were removed just for the talk so they took a nap, and everything was put back - so everyone went right back to having fun ☀️
Register for POSETTE (or keep an eye out for the recordings!) here: https://lnkd.in/gQbQe4qJ
Or check out my rescue Two Rabbit Rescue on Instagram (@2rabbitrescue), Mastodon (@[email protected]), or Facebook (@two-rabbit-rescue) to keep an eye out for when Mama Lily and her kids are adoptable 💕 (or if you just want to see more bunny cuteness!)
#rabbitrescue #bunnyrescue #postgresql #postgres #dev #tech #data #techwebinar #learntocode #programming #developer #application #database #opensource #foss #oss
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NGL I’m already getting sick of Universe Ten.
Maybe it’s the Space-Jesus with Bronze Highlights spacesuit. I’m supposed to be the “I’m fuckin’ Starborn, bitch!” guy, but god damn bronze highlights are ugly as shit.
Maybe it’s being stuck with Sarah for so long up front when skipping the Main Quest. I far prefer to spend equal time with every Constellation member up front and THEN favour Andreja.
Maybe it’s the very-near unplayability of the game with Advanced Afflictions and Improve Only Affliction Treatments—oh sure I know where everything is and how to craft everything I need, it’s just such an obnoxious diversion, attention seizing, distracting, and out of balance with the rest of play.
Maybe it’s the fact that every artifact and temple in Universe Ten has spawned in a maximum affliction zone, even the ones on worlds that are otherwise paradises. Like what the hell.
Or I dunno, maybe ten playthroughs really is one too many… but the best kit and surprises don’t appear until Universe Eleven so I have to stick it out at least for one more speedrun…
#Starfield #ExtremeMode #NewGamePlus #StarbornPath #Starborn #SciFi #Gaming #XboxSeriesX #XboxGamePass #Xbox
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Lazia’s new menu is a worthy celebration of Midwest produce
Radiatore and Whole Branzino at Lazia // Photo by Sarah Sipple If we have to suffer at the hands of corn sweat, at least people…
#dining #cooking #diet #food #Italiancuisine #AaronCrossWells-Morgan #BrittneyLumos #cornsweat #crossroadshotel #datenight #Italia #Italian #italiancuisine #ItalianRestaurant #italiano #italy #lazia #SweetCorn
https://www.diningandcooking.com/2207553/lazias-new-menu-is-a-worthy-celebration-of-midwest-produce/ -
Claire Danes to Lead Netflix Series ‘Lovesick’ From Sarah Treem
#TV #TVNews #ClaireDanes #Netflix #SarahTreemhttps://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/claire-danes-netflix-series-lovesick-1236580218/
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Neil Madden recently wrote a blog post titled, Digital Signatures and How to Avoid Them. One of the major points he raised is:
Another way that signatures cause issues is that they are too powerful for the job they are used for. You just wanted to authenticate that an email came from a legitimate server, but now you are providing irrefutable proof of the provenance of leaked private communications. Oops!
Signatures are very much the hammer of cryptographic primitives. As well as authenticating a message, they also provide third-party verifiability and (part of) non-repudiation.
Neil Madden
Later, he goes on to make recommendations for alternatives. Namely HMAC, possibly with a KEM. His recommendations are sensible and straightforward.
Where’s the fun in that, though?
CMYKatLet’s design a type of digital signature algorithm that can only be verified by the intended recipients.
Standard Crypto Disclaimer
Don’t use any of this.
I’m rolling my own crypto, which is almost always a bad idea, for my own amusement.
Absolutely none of this has been peer-reviewed or audited.
Even if there’s no immediately obvious fatal flaw in this design, it’s always possible that I screwed something up.
If anything of value ever comes of this post, it will be serious cryptographers writing their own protocol that accomplishes the goals set out in this furry blog post, but with a machine verifiable security proof.
X3MAC
Let’s start with a somewhat simple building block (using libsodium), which I call X3MAC.
Why? Because it’s partly inspired by X3DH.
The idea is pretty straightforward, and basically in line with what Neil recommended:
- Generate an ephemeral keypair.
- Do two ECDHs. One between the sender and the recipient, the other between the ephemeral keypair and the recipient.
- Use a domain-separated hash with both ECDH outputs and all three public keys to obtain a symmetric key.
- Calculate a MAC over the message, using the symmetric key.
- Return the ephemeral public key and MAC.
Verification is basically deriving the same symmetric key from the recipient’s perspective, recalculating the MAC, and comparing the two in constant-time.
This should be pretty easy to understand.
Why bother with ephemeral keypairs?
It doesn’t buy us much for the MAC use-case (since we aren’t encrypting so forward secrecy isn’t a consideration), but we will use it when we turn the X3MAC into X3SIG.
What are people saying about X3MAC?
When I showed X3MAC to some friends, some recoiled in horror and others said, “Oh, I think I have a use case!”
I really hope they’re joking. But out of caution, this is where I will cease to provide sample code.
Sarah Jamie Lewis said, “thank you i hate this.” That’s probably the correct response.
Turning X3MAC into a Signature
X3MAC isn’t actually very useful.
If Alice and Bob use X3MAC, it’s true that only the two of them can verify the authentication tag for a message… but both parties can also create authentication tags.
To turn this into a signature algorithm, we need to work with the Ristretto group and build a non-interactive variant of Schnorr’s identification protocol.
My modified protocol, X3SIG, uses Ristretto255 scalars and points instead of X25519 keypairs.
“What does any of that even mean?“
Ristretto255 is a prime-order group (imagine a clock, but instead of numbers going from 1 to 12, it’s between 0 and a very large prime number), built from Curve25519.
Scalars are analogous to secret keys.
Points are analogous to public keys.
You can do point arithmetic. You can do scalar arithmetic. You don’t have to worry about the cofactor (like you would with Ed25519 or X25519).
Schnorr’s identification protocol (explained above) is essentially the basis of elliptic curve signatures; i.e., you can construct EdDSA out of it with minor (yet important) tweaks.
That’s exactly what we’re doing here: Turning X3MAC into a signature by building Schnorr out of it.
The protocol begins the same way as X3MAC: Generate a random scalar, multiply it by the base point to get a point. Do some point-scalar multiplications and a domain-separated hash to derive a symmetric key. Hash the message with the symmetric key.
But this time, we don’t stop there. We use the X3MAC-alike hash in place of the Hash() step in non-interactive Schnorr.
Important: We can eschew some data from the hashing step because certain parameters are fixed by virtue of using Ristretto255.
If anyone ever builds something on another group, especially one where these parameters can change, you MUST also include all of them in the hash.
If you fail to do this, you will find yourself vulnerable to weak Fiat-Shamir attacks (e.g., Frozen Heart). If you’re writing Rust, check out Decree for transcript hashing.
(As stated before: No sample code will be provided, due to not wanting people to ship it to production.)
What does this give us?
Alice can sign a message that only she and Bob can verify. Bob cannot generate a new signature. Third parties cannot perform either action.
Thus, we still have a digital signature, but not one that provides third-party verifiability.
X3INU – Cryptographic Innuendos
If we had stopped the train at X3SIG, that’d be pretty neat.
However, X3SIG is limited to one sender and one recipient. This is kind of a bummer that doesn’t scale very well.
Fortunately, this is a solvable problem.
If you recall from my idea for multicast support in Noise-based protocols, I’m no stranger to reusing the TreeKEM abstraction from the MLS RFC to nerd-snipe my friends in the cryptography community.
So let’s do that here.
X3INU.Pack
Inputs:
- 1 keypair (sk, pk)
- A finite number of other public keys (
pk_ifor many values ofi)
Output:
- Group public key
gpk
Here, we use a Ratchet Tree (per RFC 9420) where each step is a scalar multiplication over the Ristretto group (since that’s what everyone’s public key is) and a Key Derivation Function.
The important property is that each participant in the Pack can asynchronously derive the group secret key, and it’s computationally infeasible to do so without one of the pack members’ secret keys.
This step must be performed ahead of time to establish the Pack (quorum of recipients that can verify a signature).
X3INU.Howl
Inputs:
- The message being signed.
- The secret key for the entity sending the message.
- The pack public key for all of the recipients.
Outputs:
- A signature that only pack members can validate.
Here, we just perform an X3SIG signature with the pack public key.
X3INU.Hear
Inputs:
- The message being signed.
- The signature.
- The public key for the entity sending the message.
- The secret key for a pack member.
- The pack public key for all other recipients.
Outputs:
- Boolean (is the signature valid?)
Here, we just perform an X3SIG validation.
If you’re a member of the pack that can validate the signature, you can derive the group secret key and perform X3SIG as usual.
If you’re not, you can’t tell if the signature is valid or not. To you, it should be indistinguishable from random.
CMYKatX3INU Questions and Answers
Why “X3INU”?
It’s short for “innuendo”, but also “inu” is the Japanese word for “dog”, and I like to make furry puns.
Why “Pack”, “Howl”, and “Hear”?
See above! Furry puns!
Why are you like this?
CMYKatI dunno.
You fool, this already exists in the cryptographic literature under a different name! What do you have to say for yourself?
Okay, yeah, probably.
I’m not an academic, so if I reinvented something that someone else made (except worse, because this is being published on a furry blog for fun), that’s kind of cool but not surprising.
It also shouldn’t be surprising that I haven’t heard of it before, due to me not being an academic.
(The closest I’ve heard of are designated verifier signatures, as Neil Madden alluded to at the bottom of his blog post.)
What if I think this might actually be useful?
Normally, I would say, “Talk to a cryptographer before writing any code,” especially if you’re writing your own protocol that uses a Fiat-Shamir transform like I did here.
However, if it turns out that X3INU is in any way novel or valuable, you should instead consult the entire cryptographic community and wait for their verdict on whether this idea is totally bonkers or not.
Why not just public-key-encrypt a digital signature?
Why not just use the existing digital signature algorithms, but encrypt it under the recipients’ public keys?
Because after decryption, the recipient possesses a signature that a third-party could still use to verify the contents of a communication.
If you transmit the signatures produced by X3INU, only the audience can tell if they’re genuine or not.
(This assumes your audience’s secret keys all remain secret, of course.)
Under what conditions do the security guarantees fall apart?
If the signer reveals their secret key, messages can be forged.
If one of the Pack members reveals their secret key, anyone can verify signatures again.
If one of the Pack members leaks the internal hash used for a given message, anyone who knows this hash can verify the signature. Pack members can do this without compromising their own signing key.
This leakage is possible because the signature is computed over a keyed hash, and the key used by the hash is a shared secret between the signer and the recipients.
Thanks to Thad for inquiring about this:
could Bob not reveal the shared symmetric key from the X3MAC to a third party? His private key is still protected by mixing the ephemeral key and the KDF, while having the shared key allows the third party to verify the message hash and prove it with Alice’s public signing key(?)
Additionally, nothing about this protocol is post-quantum secure.
Couldn’t you extend X3MAC instead of X3SIG for the Innuendo protocol?
Yes. It may even be desirable to do so.
The only downside is: Anyone in the quorum can forge messages, so there is no special “signer” role, really.
With that in mind, you’re probably better off just using a Ratchet Tree to get a shared secret, and then using that with HMAC.
Can we make it even more wild?
Here’s a fun one: Combine the idea behind innuendos (as outlined above) with ring signatures.
Now Alice is one indeterminate member of a discrete set of potential signers, rather than just one, who can sign a message such that only a designated group of recipients can verify (provided nobody’s secret key is leaked).
Header art by Harubaki and CMYKat.
https://soatok.blog/2024/09/20/cryptographic-innuendos/
#asymmetricCryptography #cryptographicInnuendos #RatchetTrees
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NEVER EVER before have I been invited to filter a #database by "#BodyPart". (I lead a quiet life in which Body Parts have passed me by, so to speak.)
Thank you, @ehchalus, for https://socialbodies.bham.ac.uk/database/letters/
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#Meta won a legal victory this week against #Sarah #Wynn-#Williams,
a former employee who recently published a memoir of her time at the company titled
“Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism.”An arbitrator ruled that the company has made a valid argument that Wynn-Williams, who worked at Facebook (now Meta) from 2011 to 2017, may have violated the
non-disparagement agreement she signed when leaving the company.The ruling states that Wynn-Williams is temporarily prohibited from promoting
— or, “to the extent within [her] control, from further publishing or distributing”
— her book until private arbitration concludes.However, “Careless People” remains available for purchase,
and may in fact be benefitting from the “Streisand Effect,”
in which attempts to suppress information only serve to further publicize it.As of Sunday afternoon, “Careless People” was the number three bestselling book on Amazon.
Macmillan, which published “Careless People” through its imprint Flatiron Books, said in a statement that
the arbitrator’s decision “has no impact” on the publisher
and that it will “absolutely continue to support and promote” the book.The publisher added that it is “appalled by Meta’s tactics to silence [its] author through the use of a non-disparagement clause in a severance agreement.”
“To be clear, the arbitrator’s order makes no reference to the claims within Careless People,” Macmillan said.
“The book went through a thorough editing and vetting process, and we remain committed to publishing important books such as this.”
https://techcrunch.com/2025/03/16/meta-takes-aim-at-ex-employees-memoir-careless-people/
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It's been a bit of a learning curve but I'm really enjoying my time on Mastodon so far. Looking forward to future interactions on this platform. Sharing my favorite image of a heart shaped monocyte. ❤️ #pathology #hemepath #pathart #pathmastodon
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Sarah Montague expresses Heresy against BBC orthodoxy around the Farage!
"Now, we wouldn't normally lead our programme with the new policies of a party with only four MPs but ..."
2025-08-26 1300-1345 Tuesday
(that is at about 8 minutes :20 seconds in but there's still about four minutes of Faragemania before that and then it just goes on with indepth spectroscopic analysis of his brainfart after that)
#BBCRadio4 #BBCWato
#ReformUK #PartyConferences
#UKMigration #UKPol(episode is currently downloadable)
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Sarah Montague expresses Heresy against BBC orthodoxy around the Farage!
"Now, we wouldn't normally lead our programme with the new policies of a party with only four MPs but ..."
2025-08-26 1300-1345 Tuesday
(that is at about 8 minutes :20 seconds in but there's still about four minutes of Faragemania before that and then it just goes on with indepth spectroscopic analysis of his brainfart after that)
#BBCRadio4 #BBCWato
#ReformUK #PartyConferences
#UKMigration #UKPol(episode is currently downloadable)
-
Sarah Montague expresses Heresy against BBC orthodoxy around the Farage!
"Now, we wouldn't normally lead our programme with the new policies of a party with only four MPs but ..."
2025-08-26 1300-1345 Tuesday
(that is at about 8 minutes :20 seconds in but there's still about four minutes of Faragemania before that and then it just goes on with indepth spectroscopic analysis of his brainfart after that)
#BBCRadio4 #BBCWato
#ReformUK #PartyConferences
#UKMigration #UKPol(episode is currently downloadable)
-
Sarah Montague expresses Heresy against BBC orthodoxy around the Farage!
"Now, we wouldn't normally lead our programme with the new policies of a party with only four MPs but ..."
2025-08-26 1300-1345 Tuesday
(that is at about 8 minutes :20 seconds in but there's still about four minutes of Faragemania before that and then it just goes on with indepth spectroscopic analysis of his brainfart after that)
#BBCRadio4 #BBCWato
#ReformUK #PartyConferences
#UKMigration #UKPol(episode is currently downloadable)
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MIT-Pillar AI Collective's "Lunch & Learn" event with Tripadvisor founder Steve Kaufer and Pillar VC partner Sarah Hodges
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#Tripadvisor #PillarVC #entrepreneurship #FounderStory #MIT #CambridgeMA #Boston -
A Mesorti-Mizrahi Approach to Travel the Middle Path - A movement to bridge opposing sects within Israel finds its roots in the Sephardi morals of hospitality, unity and tolerance.
By Ophir ToubulWe invite you to read an article from our Unity for Israel issue of Distinctions, penned by Israeli thought leader, writer, and activist Ophir Teboul: A Mesorti-Mizrahi Approach to Travel the Middle Path. Written just before October 7th, Ophir’s words resonate deeply, reminding us of the critical need for unity. As he reflects in the afterward, “The painful history of the Jews returns and warns us that in days of internal division, we are extremely vulnerable.”
This is a call to unity and moderation—may we all take it to heart for the safety, resilience, and wellbeing of our people.
Shabbat Shalom,
Sarah Levin, Executive Directorhttps://www.distinctionsjournal.org/a-mesorti-mizrahi-approach-to-travel-the-middle-path/
#Mazeldon #Jewniverse #Jewdiverse #MENA #Sephardi #Mizrahi #Jewish #Judaism #Oct7 #Israel
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Destroying Autocracy – 20 March 2025
Welcome to this week’s “Destroying Autocracy”.
It’s your source for curated news affecting democracy in the cyber arena with a focus on protecting it. That necessitates an opinionated Butlerian jihad against big tech as well as evangelizing for open-source and the Fediverse. Since big media’s journalism wing is flailing and failing in its core duty to democracy, this is also a collection of alternative reporting on the eternal battle between autocracy and democracy. We also cover the cybersecurity world. You can’t be free without safety and privacy.
DA comes out on Thursday and is updated through the end of day on Friday. Then we start over. So take your time in perusing it and check back in over the weekend.
FYI, my opinions will be in bold. And will often involve cursing. Because humans. Especially tech bros. And fascists. Fuck ’em.
Featured Item
Hans-Peter Schulenberg shares:
The DEEPSEEK Effect: How a Chinese AI Startup Is Reshaping the Global Tech Landscape
Let’s hope that things like Open-R1 will become ethical alternatives.
We start and end with good news to make the middle bearable.
The response to Russia’s War Crimes and other douchebaggery
The Register reports:
Euro techies call for sovereign fund to escape Uncle Sam’s digital death grip
Vivaldi 7.2 browser wants to topple tech’s feudal lords
Reuters reports:
Dutch parliament calls for end to dependence on US software companies
Freedom of the Press Foundation reports:
Wired is dropping paywalls for FOIA-based reporting. Others should follow
I know 404 Media does the same.
DarkReading reports:
Duke University & GCF Partner to Identify Pathways for Advancing Women’s Careers in Cybersecurity
TechCrunch reports:
Apple loses appeal against Germany’s special abuse control for Big Tech
ArsTechnica reports:
UK online safety law Musk hates kicks in today, and so far, Trump can’t stop it
Apple and Google in the hot seat as European regulators ignore Trump warnings
The European Digital Rights Institute reports:
EDRi files DSA legal complaint against X
The Atlantic reports:
Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI
Cool tool.
The USAGM asks for:
Support for US International Media Workers
Neutral
Tech Policy reports on:
Middle Powers Digital Antitrust Efforts in the Age of Trump
404 Media reports:
Public Records Reveal How Agencies Complied With Trump’s Anti-Trans Order
The Evil Empire Strikes Back
404 Media reports:
TSA Says Its Credit Cards for Bomb-Sniffing Dogs Are Cut Off
The Guardian reports:
How an obscure US government office has become a target of Elon Musk
Radio Free Europe reports:
Trump Signs Executive Order For Major Cuts To 7 Agencies, Including RFE/RL Overseer USAGM
TechCrunch reports:
CISA scrambles to contact fired employees after court rules layoffs ‘unlawful’
Pariah States
DarkReading reports:
Denmark Warns of Increased Cyber Espionage Against Telecom Sector
Black Basta Leader in League With Russian Officials, Chat Logs Show
BleepingComputer reports:
Ukrainian military targeted in new Signal spear-phishing attacks
Big Media
NPR reports:
‘Bloody Saturday’ at Voice of America and other U.S.-funded networks
NBC News reports:
The Trump administration axed Voice of America, and China’s state media are delighted
Radio World reports:
RFE/RL Sues the USAGM to Get Its Grant Back
The Kyiv Independent reports:
RFE/RL sues Trump administration over funding cuts
Big Tech
Cory Doctorow writes:
Amazon annihilates Alexa privacy settings, turns on continuous, nonconsensual audio uploading
The Guardian reports:
The Electronic Frontier Foundation reports on:
California’s A.B. 412: A Bill That Could Crush Startups and Cement A Big Tech AI Monopoly
The Register reports:
Amazon accused of using algorithms to push warehouse workers to breaking point
404 Media reports:
The Cradle reports:
Google to acquire Israeli firm staffed by former Unit 8200 officers
Two sets of c^nts who deserve each other.
Cybersecurity/Privacy
The Register reports:
UK wants dirt on data brokers before criminals get there first
Cloudflare reports:
Password reuse is rampant: nearly half of observed user logins are compromised
404 Media reports:
Fediverse
The Fediverse Report has:
The Conversation has:
The Fediverse promises social media without Big Tech – if it can avoid familiar pitfalls
The Social Web Foundation reports:
IFTAS announces:
IFTAS 2.0 – Rescoping and Refocusing
Do the world a solid and make a donation to IFTAS, preferably a monthly one.
Fred Rocha explains:
Ghost announces:
I’m looking forward to this being perfected and being available on regular Ghost.
We Distribute reports:
Hands on with Ghost’s New ActivityPub Beta
Website League and the Rise of Island Networks
Dead Superhero says:
You Know What, Meet Your Heroes
Peertube announces:
Design, mobile development, documentation: let’s share resources!
A New Social is:
Forgejo has its:
Forgejo monthly update – February 2025
Other Slightly Federated Social Media
The Fediverse report has:
ATmosphere Report – 2025march.b
TechCrunch reports:
Bluesky users debate plans around user data and AI training
The Libre has:
Why I recommend against Bluesky
CTAs (aka show us some free love)
- That’s it for this week. Please share this edition of Destroying Autocracy.
- Follow me on the Fediverse. Or this site via the button in the footer. Or via RSS.
- Or follow Battalion on Bluesky.
Keep fighting!
Ringleader, Battalion
Reuben Walker
Follow me on the Fediverse#108 #ActivityPub #AI #ATProto #ATProtocol #Autocracy #BigJournalism #BigTech #Bluesky #Democracy #Fascism #Fediverse #Mastodon #StopChina #StopIran #StopIsrael #StopRedAmerica #StopRussia #SupportUkraine