AcidicBasicGlitch

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[–] AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

This is the first time there has ever been a challenge to a seat and an election in this district, so where did they get the idea that estimated voters would only be ~20/location?

They said that they got it from the registrar of voters, but each parish has its own registrar and the district covers 5 parishes. So which parish/registrar came up with that number, what was it based on since it was the first election? Why was the same number applied equally when taking 5 different parishes into consideration?

[–] AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Ok I'll just come out and say this, I think it would be easy for a certain corrupt individual to create a false flag drone attack from a "foreign adversary" in order to boost patriotic morale and gain the support necessary to drag a certain country into a war he has repeatedly and very publicly announced he does not want to be involved in despite all evidence to the contrary.

Especially given that corrupt individual has dismantled several safety measures and regulations and eliminated positions of individuals who are trained to keep something like this from happening.

If you look at the amount of damage done by the Beeper attacks a few years ago, you really don't need a gigantic war drone to cause a catastrophe in certain conditions.

I know it sounds paranoid AF, but I find it especially odd that same individual is trying to shut down the only agency that would thoroughly investigate an industrial chemical explosion if one were to occur. https://grist.org/energy/trump-quietly-shutters-the-only-federal-agency-that-investigates-industrial-chemical-explosions/

[–] AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago

Yeah that's why it would be like a Trojan horse, if it allegedly came in from a shipment from another country.

[–] AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee 10 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

Exactly, it's a modern day trojan horse. It seems to be fairly easy to then potentially pin the attack on just about anyone using shell companies for shipment. Especially with the deregulation and removal of so many safety and security positions over the last several months.

I was reading a little about the beeper attacks the and I think even now there is still some uncertainty about which company actually worked with the Mossad to manufacture the batteries that contained the explosive.

The only reason I even bring that up, is that there were so many steps involving so many different groups of legitimate manufacturing companies as well as shell companies to ship the beepers. Some of the beepers were even taken apart and inspected before being distributed as a security measure, but they had used such a small amount of explosive fuel within the batteries, that it was completely missed.

[–] AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Who would have thought that this would be the result of what happens when oligarchs buy up most major and even many local news outlets, run the same story on the front page of every news source, and ~~censor~~ edit the shit out of important news before burying it somewhere so that you have to literally go out of your way and dedicate a significant chunk of time searching for it. Staying as informed as I am able to has literally become my new very unfun "hobby."

I'm assuming they were hoping more people would just stop paying attention to what is happening and never ask any questions about why everything is so fucking awful all the time.

[–] AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

This was the first of its kind of election in the district, so I would really like to know where they got those estimated numbers, and if they went only by one parish voter registrar when determining the numbers for 5 different parishes

[–] AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

The thing is this was the first of its kind election for this district, so where did those estimates even come from? If you give a number it's got to be from somewhere right?

And they were just paper ballots. Nothing special about them. Here's a picture of one of the ballots

Literally nobody could find a printer and some scissors and tell voters they would have more ballots in an hour or so?

This is the kind of election where usually only people who specifically are invested in the thing bother

This is exactly why so many people showed up. The district encompasses 5 parishes. Both candidates represent different parts of the district with different interests at stake.

The incumbent candidate lives in New Orleans, runs urban gardens around the city, and used her position on the board to create a program that has allowed others to create more gardens and rent tools through the program.

The candidate that challenged her is a commercial fisherman from a smaller town. The department that has jurisdiction over the board is set to be given oversight of testing for seafood safety and regulations. The bill is literally just sitting on the Governor's desk waiting to be signed.

I am honestly kind of suspicious of the candidate that challenged her bc he never mentioned this while he was running.

Putting that aside, and assuming his intentions were good, I could also see why many voters in smaller communities within the district, who depend on the fishing industry for jobs, would want someone like him to have the position on the board.

The incumbent was announced the winner, and that's who I voted for. I still believe there should be a re-do. Voters were turned away from an election that their tax dollars paid for. Unacceptable.

[–] AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (5 children)

Elections official here, though in a different state.

I'm glad you commented bc I have a question you might be able to answer. The district covers 5 parishes (we do parishes instead of counties) but the news article states the registrar of voters provided the number of 300 ballots at each location and expectation of 20 voters.

Only 3 of the 5 parishes actually had voting locations, so voters from 2 parishes had to travel to vote.

Each parish has its own registrar. It's unclear which parish the registrar that provided that estimate is from, but why would anyone expect the estimated number of voters in smaller parishes to be exactly the same as larger parishes?

I don’t know if some party just googled “election” and mobilized for this, but this kind of turnout was new and unexpected.

The only reason there was an election is because the incumbent candidate was suddenly challenged by a commercial fishing captain. Keep this in mind, and remember that because of our proximity to the gulf, fishing and seafood is still a pretty big industry for the state.

It was all very odd, and caught people's attention mainly because:

A. Typically people on the board hold these seats unchallenged for as long as they wish to remain on the board.

B. The district covers 5 parishes, but this board member is from New Orleans/Orleans Parish. She runs several urban gardens and contributes to local farmers markets. This is likely why she was able to mobilize so many voters, and why the news of the vote spread like it did.

C. Some weird things that have happened regarding voting the last two times the city voted, has everyone on high alert for attempts to sneak corruption through without people realizing it.

The election was on Saturday. As it turns out, the Tuesday before the election, the Louisiana Senate President had signed a bill to change the regulation process for seafood safety and testing. It is still sitting on the governor's desk, just waiting to be signed.

The bill also gives oversight of seafood regulation to the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry. The conservation board the candidates were running for also just happens to fall under the jurisdiction of this same department.

Louisiana lawmakers send seafood safety, oversight bill to Landry's desk

House Bill 652, authored by Rep. Timothy Kerner, R-Lafitte, dissolves the current Seafood Safety Task Force under the Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism and reestablishes it within the Agriculture Department.

Kerner said the bill was carefully amended to ensure that domestic shrimpers are not inadvertently swept up in new enforcement efforts.

If this is all be one big coincidence, it certainly is an odd one. Rather than risk some kind of typical Louisiana good ole boy corruption BS, why not just allow everyone that wants to vote, the chance to vote?

It turns out the incumbent candidate from New Orleans won, but they're not releasing any numbers of how many votes she actually won compared to the other candidate.

I voted for her, but I still strongly believe they should call for a re-do bc this all sets a very bad precedent for the future. Even though it's not a normal election, our tax dollars fund this board. You should not be able to turn voters away, and then just shrug it off as incompetence or special circumstance.

[–] AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

They are claiming us soil, but there is no indication the person in the video is credible. https://lemm.ee/post/66966221

Then again who the fuck knows what's going on anymore.. https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/1ld959k/the_amount_of_people_trying_to_evacuate_tehran/

[–] AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee 8 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I mean, if only anyone could see the obvious bullshit we're headed into.

There's a lot of money to be made during times of war.

Unfortunately the people that are pushing us in that direction are some very short sighted individuals that genuinely believe that once their actions have driven humans to the brink of extinction, they'll still be perfectly content in an underground bunker with shitty AI robots that break a month or so in, and all the stockpiled vacuum sealed resources they can hoard. Or alternatively, dying while attempting to colonize mars.

That's who humanity will be relying to continue our legacy. The kind of person that thinks they are chosen elite, and there is nothing they cannot achieve. All bc they climbed mount Everest once while paying a team of Sherpas to risk their own lives and do everything for them.

[–] AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee 18 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (3 children)

A resolution Mr. Kaine introduced Monday would require explicit congressional authorization or a formal declaration of war before U.S. forces could take direct action against Iran. It faces long odds on Capitol Hill given Republicans’ reluctance to challenge Mr. Trump’s power, but it could prompt a vibrant debate as lawmakers in both parties warn against involving the United States in the escalating conflict.

The measure is a direct invocation of the War Powers Resolution, a 1973 federal law intended to be a check on the president’s power to enter an armed conflict without the consent of Congress. While it would still allow Mr. Trump to authorize military action in self-defense in the event of an imminent attack, it would compel him to seek approval before carrying out any offensive operations against Iran.

So that video claiming to be from anonymous, saying they have have knowledge a false flag attack will be used as an excuse to go to war...

Not saying that is actually anonymous or that they actually have any evidence, but also not sure how much evidence you really need to make a fairly accurate guess as to what the writing on the wall will be.

On the one hand needing congressional approval might not even matter bc Republicans have done just about everything asked of them up to this point. However, it does seem like we may be seeing some Republicans questioning if being loyalists will really help them retain their power when the midterms roll around.

If something were to happen like what anonymous/whoever is posing as anonymous is claiming, it could quickly swing in the other direction. Everybody was antiwar by the time Bush finally left office, but nobody wanted to be accused of not being a patriot in 2001.

[–] AcidicBasicGlitch@lemm.ee 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Huh, so that's an odd thing to do anytime, but especially given that on Friday he fired a board member on the federal agency that oversees nuclear reactors in America... Never thought I would have to say this, but hopefully these are unrelated to each other and only reflect his insane desire to ignore safety regulations...

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/16/us/nuclear-safety-board-firing-trump.html

 

You're going to call protestors "agitators" while the broligarchs keep coming up with the most outrageous, evil bullshit they could think of, just for the hell of it.

 

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/66395730

 

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/66395730

 

Closest headline that I've seen explaining what actually appears to be happening.

More accurate might be intentionally trampling protesters with horses, shooting with (hopefully) rubber bullets at close range, and beating with clubs

I think this is the same woman:

https://www.reddit.com/r/50501/comments/1l6wtet/spread_like_fire_also/

Apparently those videos are from yesterday! I'm seeing news reports about protestors setting cars on fire/agitators, but why is nobody reporting this? They shot that lady in the fucking head!

 

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/66350481

WASHINGTON (AP) — In his confirmation hearings to lead the National Institutes of Health, Jay Bhattacharya pledged his openness to views that might conflict with his own. “Dissent,” he said, ”is the very essence of science.”

That commitment is being put to the test.

On Monday, scores of scientists at the agency sent their Trump-appointed leader a letter titled the Bethesda Declaration, challenging “policies that undermine the NIH mission, waste public resources, and harm the health of Americans and people across the globe.”

It says: “We dissent.”

In a capital where insiders often insist on anonymity to say such things publicly, 92 NIH researchers, program directors, branch chiefs and scientific review officers put their signatures on the letter — and their careers on the line. Another 250 of their colleagues across the agency endorsed the declaration without using their names.

The four-page letter, addressed to Bhattacharya, also was sent to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and members of Congress who oversee the NIH. The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter.

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — In his confirmation hearings to lead the National Institutes of Health, Jay Bhattacharya pledged his openness to views that might conflict with his own. “Dissent,” he said, ”is the very essence of science.”

That commitment is being put to the test.

On Monday, scores of scientists at the agency sent their Trump-appointed leader a letter titled the Bethesda Declaration, challenging “policies that undermine the NIH mission, waste public resources, and harm the health of Americans and people across the globe.”

It says: “We dissent.”

In a capital where insiders often insist on anonymity to say such things publicly, 92 NIH researchers, program directors, branch chiefs and scientific review officers put their signatures on the letter — and their careers on the line. Another 250 of their colleagues across the agency endorsed the declaration without using their names.

The four-page letter, addressed to Bhattacharya, also was sent to Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and members of Congress who oversee the NIH. The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the letter.

 

Senate Commerce Republicans have kept a ten year moratorium on state AI laws in their latest version of President Donald Trump’s massive budget package. And a growing number of lawmakers and civil society groups warn that its broad language could put consumer protections on the chopping block.

Republicans who support the provision, which the House cleared as part of its “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” say it will help ensure AI companies aren’t bogged down by a complicated patchwork of regulations. But opponents warn that should it survive a vote and a congressional rule that might prohibit it, Big Tech companies could be exempted from state legal guardrails for years to come, without any promise of federal standards to take their place.

Not to mention, if/when federal standards are created, the standards will be determined by a federal government that is being run by the broligarchs. These are the people we need to be protected from. They've had the idea of federal "regulations" that will allow them to do whatever they need to succeed planned since at least 2019.

Relying only on federal AI regulations to protect Americans in 2025, would be like the federal government relying on George Wallace to create the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s.

Sam Altman, 2025:

Altman also later cautioned against a patchwork regulatory framework for AI.

“It is very difficult to imagine us figuring out how to comply with 50 different sets of regulations,” said Altman. “One federal framework that is light touch, that we can understand, and it lets us move with the speed that this moment calls for, seems important and fine.”

Peter Thiel protege, Michael Kratsios regarding AI regulation in 2019

“A patchwork of regulation of technology is not beneficial for the country. We want to avoid that. Facial recognition has important roles—for example, finding lost or displaced children. There are use cases, but they need to be underpinned by values.”

 

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/66185713

 

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/66179165

"We cannot resign our research community and the laboratory and university staff who support them to die the death of a thousand ten-minute tasks,” said OSTP Director Michael Kratsios in a speech last month at the National Academy of Sciences.

Says the guy that is Science Advisor in an administration that just cut the grant budget for support staff like janitors and animal care??

(Obligatory reminder, Kratsios also served as Trump's default Science Advisor during his first term until 2018: Trump’s de facto science adviser is 31 and has no science training, and tasked with using cutting edge technology to track early cases of COVID in the U.S., and prevent the spread of online disinformation in March of 2020 🙃)

Responding to the administration’s interest in deregulation, the National Academies formed a committee earlier this year that will suggest ways to reduce the administrative burden placed on researchers. Lynne Parker, principal deputy director of OSTP, participated in the panel’s kickoff meeting on May 21.

Ways to reduce the administrative burden placed on researchers? Interesting, wonder what that could possibly mean? Anyway, totally unrelated but here's a 2023 article about Parker:

Preparing to train an AI-ready workforce in Tennessee

The Academies committee is seeking to complete its report quickly and is requesting outside input through a survey,  which closes June 6. The committee also plans to hold its next open meeting  on that day.

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