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Posts
97
Comments
351
Joined
2 yr. ago

  • You're right. I hear you. Intellectually, I understand that the conservative/fundamentalist mindset gives higher importance to following leaders and is more triggered by moral disgust. I understand that a conservative may feel a liberal is less moral because liberals 'lack' a moral imperative to follow leaders simply because they are leaders. I even accept that agreeing to a premise has utility by getting everyone to work towards a common goal. Unfortunately, I get stuck on the bit where the premise seems illogical to me, or the leader seems to be obviously lying. That's the part where any intellectual understanding of why someone might choose to ignore obvious red flags flies to the wayside and I can't figure out what to do about it.

    I'm pretty sure that journalists should continuously report which things are unfounded lies, but I don't think that will sway those who believe those lies. It might, however, convince the continuously emerging crop of newly interested people to be skeptical.

  • I spent a good while writing up a reply, but it was long and the main point was: while any group of 100+ people is likely to have a bad actor, you look for credible proof (like Edward Snowden showing evidence rather than Sidney Powell saying she had 'visions'). Side bit: tales of killing/eating/sexually-exploiting babies and pets by a GROUP should always be taken as a manipulative lie because it always is. When some whacko actually tries that crap, the Boys in Blue get up in arms -- even if it means ignoring pressure from their bosses, "He's Illuminati. Let it go." No. That sort of thing gets exposed.

  • I kinda understand how some people fall for conspiracies, but I don’t understand how so many people would VOTE for someone who reliable falls for and promotes so very many obvious conspiracies.

    @aihorde@lemmy.dbzer0.com draw for me a Simpsons cartoon of people picnicking while Trump shouts, “In Springfield they’re eating the dogs!”, causing everyone to look on in shock and incredulity.

  • If you missed it, I highly recommend watching it. High drama. Great visual reactions that you'll miss if you only hear or read it. Just for fun, here's a composite image of Daily Beast posts that were flying up as I read reviews elsewhere:

  • That's it. Audubon sucks. I was immediately reminded of a recent Vox story on How the most powerful environmental groups help greenwash Big Meat’s climate impact

    The National Audubon Society, the beloved bird conservancy organization, rewards regenerative ranchers with its seal of approval in the form of a label that reads “Grazed on bird friendly land” and “Audubon certified.” Such beef can be purchased at about 250 retail and online stores.

    Then there's how Massachusetts Audubon pretended it was going to chop down its trees so it could continue NOT cutting them to get paid to preserve them for carbon-offsets. Propublica:

    However improbable the idea might be of a conservation group actually permitting the removal of so much timber, Mass Audubon officials said they had simply followed the state’s rules in claiming that the society could heavily log its forest.

    Then there's E & E News (politico) discussion of Audubon's internals:

    The organization’s former president and CEO, David Yarnold, resigned under pressure in 2021, following POLITICO’s reports of widespread staff dissatisfaction at Audubon, especially among workers of color and the LGBTQ community (Greenwire, April 21, 2021).

    An external audit later substantiated some of those claims, and pointed to widespread cultural problems. “Nearly all of the women we interviewed and many of the men commented that implicit bias toward women and people of color is prevalent at Audubon,” the audit found (Greenwire, May 6, 2021).


    Refugio Mariscal, a former geographic information systems analyst in Audubon’s Great Lakes regional office, said that management at the national level had “almost gotten worse since Yarnold left.”

    “I would say as a person of color, there’s still a lot of issues that Audubon needs to deal with,” he said.

    Mariscal left Audubon in January for a job at another environmental nonprofit. He said workplace issues at Audubon, plus better pay at the new job, factored into his decision.

    “The general culture within Audubon is not very welcoming to staff,” he said in January. “They seem to have a tough time letting go of their old ways of doing things.”

  • Slugs

    Jump
  • Save your egg shells until they are dried out (microwave if you are in a hurry) and give them a quick buzz in the blender or food processor. This should give you a gritty powder that will hurt the slugs, thereby discouraging them from going wherever they find it. Diatomaceous earth would also work (probably better, but that's be a purchase instead of a freebie). Dust the plants with either and circle them with a large fat ring of the powder.

    My grandma would have said to put out beer traps, but my understanding is that such traps need to be situated well enough to drown the slugs because otherwise they will escape.

    Edit: here you go! https://www.learningwithexperts.com/gardening/blog/organic-slugs-snails-control

  • platform tip

    Not tip. Something else. Given how much they are getting off each exchange, I feel like tipping is not needed. I checked a few recent donations and took a picture. The most recent transactions are on top.

    When someone donates, any tip is excluded from the Beehaw contribution and the Beehaw part is listed. Immediately above it two fees are subtracted from the Beehaw donation: A 'stripe' fee and a 'Host' fee. So Beehaw never gets your actual donation and the Host always gets a cut.

    Edit: attached image shows how a $10 and a $50 donation is each charged as well as showing part of a more recent $10 donation with slightly different stripe fee.

  • making bean burgers

    Oh no! Just buy them! My better half is vegetarian, which means I started mostly cook meat-free because it is easier than making two meals, but now I'm just in the habit of not eating much meat. Our bean-burger experiments were never worth effort. We use fake-beef veggie crumbles for casserole-type recipes and big frozen packs of Beyond Burgers (Impossible is also good) if we want an actual burger. For chicken, we'll buy some unbreaded seitan/TVP substitutes, like these examples.

    I have the same problem with egg substitutes, so we're still eating eggs -- but from happy-seeming chickens we can visit. The hard part for me is cheese. I'm waiting for lab-grown cheese, but for now I can't match the flavors of actual cheese.

  • Given that Israel has nuclear weapons, they wouldn't be 'sitting ducks', but I don't want to see a nuclear war starting in the Middle East. I doubt it would stay contained to the area. I fear that Russia would back Iran and counter -- or at least threaten to -- with Russian nuclear weapons, which would get the U.S. or our allies back into the mess but escalated to the whole world at risk instead of just a small contested sliver.

    I would love to see a workable path to a two-state solution. Experts have spent their lives working towards that goal and it still hasn't happened. I totally blame the government of Israel for not figuring out a peace with Palestinian residents back in the 1970s, but here we are. Bibbi makes everything worse and his public falls for his 'strong man' shtick just like Americans fall for Trump's version. Sitting in the U.S., the best election choice I can make for the sake of Palestinians is to vote Harris. Beyond the election, there is room for letters, protests, and boycotts, but the problem is mostly with Israel's government rather than with anyone in the United States.

  • Politicians are notoriously evasive, and this particular interview sounded more straight forward than most. Okay, most the honest ones, anyway. I mean: it's easy to say "Read my lips. No new taxes" or "Free IVF" if you've no legitimate plan to fund the government, but if you're not going to make stuff up for the sound bite, you almost have to be evasive. Robust and well considered plans are made by experts and a politician trying to promote a good plan has to boil it down to a couple nebulous basics. Doing anything else means you either bore the audience OR skip a contingency or other minutia such that your critics call you a liar.

    Remember when Obama said you'd get to keep your doctor? He was trying to summarize explaining that Affordable Care would not mandate what doctor you could use, but what he didn't say was that Insurance Companies would continue to be able choose what doctors they covered, so Obama's critics said he LIED about keeping your doctor. It was NOT a lie. It was just Insurance companies doing what they always did.

    Harris said she would support Israel but the war had to end. If Israeli/Palestinian strife has gone unsolved for 50 years through all sorts of Presidents, I don't expect any U.S. election to change what goes on over there. The U.S. could theoretically stop aiding Israel as it commits genocide, but the realistic outcome of that would be neighboring countries committing genocide on Israelis, and since that's the basic reason the country was invented... maybe that's not the best outcome either. It has been a mess for decades, and I'm not blaming Regan, Carter, Trump, Putin, or Tony Blair for any of the mess with Gaza.

    Harris said she would not ban fracking but her values have not changed. I suspect this is because she's come to see no one banned horses when car came along, and no one need ban fracking if there's a better alternative. What she did not specify was the carrots and sticks she might employ to get us to which alternatives. That's fine with me because the tech is changing and the outcome is more important than the method.

    Harris said she would enforce laws regarding immigration AND she wanted the tabled border bill on her desk so she can sign it. There's a bunch she could have said there, too, but my point is that again, she wasn't particularly evasive.

  • Amazon offered up “Treatments for High Cholesterol” along with a link for an Amazon One Medical consultation as well as links to prescription medications.

    That’s weird, because my doctor and my wife are the only people who know about my cholesterol numbers. They’re pretty good, too! But there are certainly data points, including my age, my food preferences, and my past purchases, maybe even news stories I’ve read elsewhere on the web, that might suggest I’d be a good candidate for a statin, the type of cholesterol-lowering medication Amazon recommended to me. And while I’m used to Amazon recommending books I might like or cleaning products I might want to buy again, it felt pretty creepy to push prescription drugs in my direction.

    What did the author expect? Is anyone surprised that a big business is pushing people to buy more product?

    HIPAA, the federal law that protects health privacy, is narrower than most people think. It only applies to health care providers, insurers, and companies that manage medical records. HIPAA requires those entities to protect your data as it moves between them, but it wouldn’t apply to your Amazon purchases, according to Suzanne Bernstein, a legal fellow at the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC).

    HIPAA has always been a questionable law that does more for Pharma than for citizens. By signing a HIPAA form, patients basically allow their medical info to be distributed/sold to drug makers and other product/treatment vendors. I'm glad health information is legally considered private until you sign, but I'm not sure why the public is okay with signing away their privacy on every trip to a new doctor.

    should my Amazon purchases be associated with Amazon’s health care services at all?

    Well, Amazon isn't going to restrict itself, so we -- as the public -- will have to make a fuss about it if we want anything to change.

  • Socialism @beehaw.org

    SpaceX ruling could gut US labor oversight

    Animals and Pets @beehaw.org

    'A miracle that I'm alive': Boaters speak out after whale lept onto their vessel

    Technology @beehaw.org

    Pluralistic: Holy CRAP the UN Cybercrime Treaty is a nightmare

    Music @beehaw.org

    Deep Purple's Ian Gillan promotes new album: ‘I’ve seen parties too wild to describe’

    Music @beehaw.org

    Beyoncé gives Kamala Harris approval to use ‘Freedom’ as official 2024 campaign song

    Finance @beehaw.org

    'Black Swan' investor warns the 'greatest bubble in human history' is about to pop and stocks could lose more than half their value

    Food and Cooking @beehaw.org

    Template for a summer/fall salad with fresh fruit

    Politics @beehaw.org

    Biden endorses Harris as Democratic nominee after ending his candidacy

    Politics @beehaw.org

    Biden, 81, pulls out of presidential race, will serve out term

    Food and Cooking @beehaw.org

    Paul Hollywood is right: Don’t refrigerate bread

    Chat @beehaw.org

    new community on 'dbzer0': Fediverse vs Disinformation

    Fediverse vs Disinformation @lemmy.dbzer0.com

    Disinformation networks ‘flooded’ X before EU elections, report says

    Politics @beehaw.org

    Berkeley scholar warns U.S. liberals: Either get tough, or get ready to lose - Berkeley News

    Public Health @mander.xyz

    First case of 'staggering disease' in North America found in a Colorado mountain lion

    Entertainment @beehaw.org

    Emmy Nominations 2024: The Complete List

    Politics @beehaw.org

    Teamsters President Sean O’Brien Says Union Is “Not Beholden To Anyone Or Any Party” In Historic RNC Speech

    Socialism @beehaw.org

    Pluralistic: The true, tactical significance of Project 2025 (14 Jul 2024) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow

    Politics @beehaw.org

    Live Election Updates: Trump Rushed Off Stage at Rally After What Sounded Like Shots

    Politics @beehaw.org

    Key takeaways from Biden's news conference: Insistence on staying in the race and flubbed names

    Politics @beehaw.org

    U.S. Chat: Have you and your friends/relatives decided how they'll vote? Would different candidates matter?