@quixote@mastodon.nz cover
@quixote@mastodon.nz avatar

quixote

@quixote@mastodon.nz

Usually found Elsewhere, so this should be the perfect place for me. Longer thoughts at Acid Test (http://www.molvray.com/acidtest/) and Reimagining Democracy (http://www.molvray.com/govforum), (1st ed. 2010). The header pic is the Eastern Sierras not far from Bishop, California, looking west (Rockies behind, Pacific ahead). #tootfinder #searchable

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. For a complete list of posts, browse on the original instance.

rms , to random
@rms@mastodon.xyz avatar

[1/2] https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/article/2024/jun/21/shutting-afghan-women-out-of-key-un-conference-to-appease-taliban-a-betrayal

The UN seeks to hold an international meeting about Afghanistan and have the government of Afghanistan participate. That government demands the total exclusion of Afghan women from the event. (I can't tell from the article whether the UN has accepted it or not.) Should the UN accept that demand? I can understand the desire for the Afghan …

quixote ,
@quixote@mastodon.nz avatar

@rms All one has to do is substitute and other category for women -- ANY other category -- and it's immediately obvious the question can only be asked if women are not really humans.

CelloMomOnCars , to random
@CelloMomOnCars@mastodon.social avatar

"Jim Justice, 73, would join the now essentially the unanimous pro-fossil fuel bloc of Republicans in Congress. Justice inherited a fortune in coal interests and his family’s companies have a staggering trail of lawsuits, debt and environmental health and safety fines.

Democrat Glenn Elliott, 52, argues that warming is bringing dangerous weather extremes like torrential downpours to and that an away from fossil fuels is inevitable."

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23062024/west-virginia-senate-race-energy-policy/

quixote ,
@quixote@mastodon.nz avatar

@CelloMomOnCars And yet I gather Elliott doesn't stand a chance?

Strandjunker , to random
@Strandjunker@mstdn.social avatar

In 1869 it was decided to have 9 Supreme Court justices because there were 9 Circuit Courts.

Now there are 13 Circuit Courts. So what exactly are we waiting for?

quixote ,
@quixote@mastodon.nz avatar

@Strandjunker A Republican lock on all 3 branches? 😖

ChrisMayLA6 , to random
@ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us avatar

As the right (well the Conservatives actually) stare disaster in the face, commentators on the Right have started to wonder about the appeal of proportional representation (PR) as opposed to First Past the Post (FPTP).

Odd that, isn't it? people are always satisfied with FPTP right up to the time it doesn't get them into government.

I've always thought PR was a good idea, so the Right's 'conversion' should be seen as a good thing... but after a landslide Labour's support may wane!

quixote ,
@quixote@mastodon.nz avatar

@RolloTreadway @ChrisMayLA6 Theoretically, yes. In practice, some methods are much less reflective of what people want than others.

First-past-the-post, winner-take-all being one good example of very gameable by politicians.

Ranked choice voting (aka preference voting, cumulative choice) seem to do a better job of reflecting majority voices.

Method does matter. You're right that people shouldn't be promoting it based on whether they "win" or not.

randahl , to random
@randahl@mastodon.social avatar

Who wore it better?

#MercedesBenz

(Via Jake Broe)

image/jpeg

quixote ,
@quixote@mastodon.nz avatar

@randahl Sorry. the two guys on the left with all the headlights win it, hands down.

rms , to random
@rms@mastodon.xyz avatar

https://www.platformer.news/stanford-internet-observatory-shutdown-stamos-diresta-sio/

Stanford University is shutting down the elections research of the Stanford Internet Observatory because defending against Republican lawfare was too expensive.

quixote ,
@quixote@mastodon.nz avatar

@rms Destruction seems to be happening faster than we can make solutions.

rms , to random
@rms@mastodon.xyz avatar

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/24/us-and-uk-to-back-israel-against-icj-while-blurring-their-rafah-red-lines

After vowing to oppose any Israeli offensive in Rafah, Washington and London now see nothing fitting their definition of "Israeli offensive in Rafah".

quixote ,
@quixote@mastodon.nz avatar

@rms Why? Why, why, why are they folding and just pandering to Netanyahu.

I fully agree with the Court that Sinwar is right up there with them (and would be a lot worse if he had enough weapons to do it).

But for God's sake, enough already with the payback mushrooming into a hard right project to depopulate and take over Gaza.

magnus , to random
@magnus@mastodon.world avatar

Strange feeling.

I've been posting one commented art picture a day for more than a year.

I'm now slowly running out of new things to discover and new things to say.

It's been fun doing this, but some day during the summer, I will stop.

I'm sure I'll find some replacement activity, but time will tell.

quixote ,
@quixote@mastodon.nz avatar

@magnus Do repeats! I only just found you and have enjoyed your posts a lot. All quite new to me and would be sad if you stopped. Maybe go to once a week? Or even fortnight?

rms , to random
@rms@mastodon.xyz avatar

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/07/lying-politicians-wales-senedd-held-account-uk

Wales considers making it a crime for politicians to lie to the public.

quixote ,
@quixote@mastodon.nz avatar

@rms After the third offence, the punishment should be banning from running for any kind of office.

flexghost , to random
@flexghost@mastodon.social avatar

Happy

1/

Insane orange cat attacking a box then killing a family of 4

quixote ,
@quixote@mastodon.nz avatar

@flexghost 😬

quixote , to random
@quixote@mastodon.nz avatar

Finally found it. The cartoon I saw that summarizes my feeling about the Hamas-Netanyahu disaster:

CelloMomOnCars , (edited ) to random
@CelloMomOnCars@mastodon.social avatar

" prices have significantly decreased, leading participation to increase. This has disrupted rate equity between solar-owning customers and non-solar-owning customers.

The proposed alternative would have all grid-provided energy billed at retail rates and all excess solar energy credited at [a lower rate].

The billing would only apply to future customers, but would not affect customers who already own them."

https://www.alligator.org/article/2024/04/gru-authority-board-adopts-changes-to-billing-for-solar-owning-customers

Edit: please read whole thread before you get mad

quixote ,
@quixote@mastodon.nz avatar

@CelloMomOnCars Utilities ("utilities" since they're making themselves less and less useful) are desperate to figure out how to impose rent they can grab for solar energy they've done everything they can to quash.

quixote ,
@quixote@mastodon.nz avatar

@CelloMomOnCars I wasn't implying you were wrong to point it out!

As someone who just got the sharp end from my own utility, plus the oh-gee-it's-so-unfair-to-the-renters argument, I am not sympathetic.

At least in NZ, these are the same utilities stopping islanding. The same utilities stopping us from using our car batteries as backup power. The same ones lobbying government for every penny they can squeeze out.

If they really wanted to help renters, they could subsidize solar for them.

quixote ,
@quixote@mastodon.nz avatar

@CelloMomOnCars Def not happy with what they do.

But, unfortunately, saying 'change the public boards' is theoretically true in much the same way as when open source nerds tell you to write your own software if there's something you've objected to in what's available.

Long term, you're not wrong. But the future is now and the utilities are screwing it up.

Do I know what to do about it? I wish. (Lobby the public utility boards, I guess 😝 )

quixote ,
@quixote@mastodon.nz avatar

@CelloMomOnCars It's the utilities that decide how divvy up the take.

So long as they're raking in dollars for dividends, and -- mainly --

so long as the planet is still nowhere near meeting carbon-free goals

it is NOT time to take away incentives. (Make them fairer? Yes. Definitely.)

It is time to reverse the privatization and make the utilities municipal nonprofits again!

CelloMomOnCars , to random
@CelloMomOnCars@mastodon.social avatar

"Too often efforts to reduce car dependence are met with fierce opposition by people who dismiss them as “socialism” or a “war on cars.” But drivers also benefit from many of these changes, which would reduce traffic and make driving safer. "

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/we-need-to-make-cities-less-car-dependent/

quixote ,
@quixote@mastodon.nz avatar

@CelloMomOnCars Less car dependence can't happen soon enough!

It's important to include planning for those who can't easily use bikes. Elderly, women (and some men) with three toddlers in tow and shopping to carry, disabled.

rms , to random
@rms@mastodon.xyz avatar

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/apr/11/doctors-ai-prescriptions-australia-concerns-consumers-health-forum

"What we’re seeing is not telemedicine": alarm over doctors using AI and prescribing without seeing patients. Medicine is intended to result in better health (better than it would otherwise have been), but it is misleading to refer to medicine as "health", and likewise to refer to telemedicine as "telehealth".

quixote ,
@quixote@mastodon.nz avatar

@rms The misleadingness (not a word, but oh well) of calling medical care "health care" has been one of my many pet peeves for years.

Both needed, but not the same!

rbreich , to random
@rbreich@masto.ai avatar

Four years ago today, the CDC advised all Americans to wear masks in public to avoid spreading covid.

Trump immediately announced he would refuse to wear one, needlessly turning masking into a divisive partisan issue and contributing to countless avoidable deaths.

quixote ,
@quixote@mastodon.nz avatar

@rbreich I've always been convinced Trump was anti-mask because he didn't want to smear his makeup. Inventing a culture war about it was just an attempt to pretend it had nothing to do with being a sissy.

CelloMomOnCars , to random
@CelloMomOnCars@mastodon.social avatar

Stranded Assets Thread

Big Oil and its allies are attacking the International Energy Agency for forecasting a relatively imminent peak in fossil-fuel demand and the rapid uptake of

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2024-03-25/climate-change-iea-critics-are-wrong-about-energy-security

The fossil fuel industry is shooting the messenger, because the message contains the words "stranded assets".
If the banks hear that message, that industry is DONE.

quixote ,
@quixote@mastodon.nz avatar

@CelloMomOnCars The article indicates that it's because risk models are based on historical performance.

Which, sort of, well, yes, you can see where they're coming from. But the whole point being that the times are changing, and that every investment ever has a warning that 'past performace is not indicative of future results ... you'd think the banks would have had the intelligence to remove that source of bias!

rms , to random
@rms@mastodon.xyz avatar

[2/2] … obligation to reach this point much sooner. Both of those ought to happen, but suppose HAMAS refuses to release the remaining hostages -- what then? Israel has an obligation to protect the civilian population, hostages or no hostages; the resolution needs to reinforce that obligation too, or it could fail entirely.

quixote ,
@quixote@mastodon.nz avatar

@rms Sort of.

If Hamas were brave freedom fighters who respected their own people and their enemies (eg didn't stoop to hostaage-taking, rape, hiding behind human shields), one could ethically require a unilateral ceasefire of Israel.

But what would Hamas do if the imbalance was on their side? They've told us. Annihilate Israel and Jews.

So a unilateral Israeli ceasefire just rewards Hamas for having fewer guns.

That doesn't feel right to me.

FediTips , to random
@FediTips@social.growyourown.services avatar

Every account has a profile page, which you can customise to include a profile image, banner image, text description, links to your websites (including verified links) etc. More info at:

➡️ https://fedi.tips/how-do-i-customise-my-profile-how-do-i-upload-a-profile-banner-how-do-i-verify-my-account

You can also add images, audio files and videos to your profile by pinning up to five posts with attachments. More info at:

➡️ https://fedi.tips/how-do-i-pin-my-posts-on-my-mastodon-profile

You can verify your identity by verifying profile links to your official website(s):

➡️ https://fedi.tips/how-do-i-verify-my-account

quixote ,
@quixote@mastodon.nz avatar

@FediTips It's web-based, and the link is https://cobalt.tools/

Seems like a real godsend. Thanks wukko! And all who boosted ☺️

rms , to random
@rms@mastodon.xyz avatar

[2/2] … Israel's fighting in Gaza to appears fanatics, that would only make the US seem weak. However, for the US to insist on supporting Israel's fighting in Gaza in order to spite hostile fanatics would be childish. The US should do the right thing in Gaza, and the right thing is to make Israel stop its war crimes.

quixote ,
@quixote@mastodon.nz avatar

@rms Definitely, the US should exert its leverage -- without getting everyone's backs up to where it makes things worse. Very definitely.

At the same time, we, meaning everybody, need to keep two things in mind at once:

The only reason we're not insisting that Hamas stop contributing to this nightmare is because we know they don't care and won't listen.

Not because they're not culpable.

It's their own people they're hiding behind and sacrificing. That's no small war crime, too.

rms , to random
@rms@mastodon.xyz avatar

[2/2] … country now needs a defense against drone-bearing fanatics. I expect the US will have a cheap counter-drone weapon a few years from now.

quixote ,
@quixote@mastodon.nz avatar

@rms Problem is, it would be nice to have it a few days from now :/

Especially on cheapo drones, would signal-jamming be a simple way to neutralize them?

ergative , to random
@ergative@wandering.shop avatar

Hey, friends, a quick reminder that although Make America Kittens Again (MAKA) has been blocked from Chrome, it still works on Firefox:

Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/make-firefox-kittens-again/

(MAKA is a browser extension that replaces all images whose metadata includes the word 'Trump' with a creative-commons picture of a kitten. Here's what it did to the front page of today's NYTimes for me.)

quixote ,
@quixote@mastodon.nz avatar

@ergative I've been needing this extension for years. How have I never heard of it?

Installed and enjoying the kittens already.

Thank you!

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