Hard Pass

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/40091546

The Christmas display, which replaces Jesus, Mary and Joseph with a sign saying “ICE Was Here,” has drawn criticism from Catholic leaders and immigration officials.

Dec. 8, 2025

https://archive.ph/rQr8S

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/54658106

"AI brainrot is bad for our souls" An interesting article that explores why games are increasingly finding themselves in situations where AI art was used, ether intentional or not.

I have seen some critical views on Nostr as a part of decentralized network discussions, but most seem to be focused on culture not function.

What are the functional / protocol differences that make you prefer ActivityPub over Nostr?

On a recent immigration raid, a Border Patrol agent wore a pair of Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, with the privacy light clearly on signaling he was recording the encounter, which agents are not permitted to do, according to photos and videos of the incident shared with 404 Media.

Previously when 404 Media covered Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officials’ use of Meta’s Ray-Bans, it wasn’t clear if the officials were using them to record raids because the recording lights were not on in any of the photos seen by 404 Media. In the new material from Charlotte, North Carolina, during the recent wave of immigration enforcement, the recording light is visibly illuminated.

Archive: http://archive.today/3hDqM

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/6977615

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/12280

Republican congressional leaders unveiled a sprawling military policy bill late Sunday that would authorize $901 billion in US military spending for the coming fiscal year, just months after GOP lawmakers and President Donald Trump pushed through the largest-ever cuts to Medicaid and federal nutrition assistance.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who aggressively pushed cuts to Medicaid by peddling false claims of large-scale fraud, touted the 3,086-page National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) as legislation that would "ensure our military forces remain the most lethal in the world."

The bill, a compromise of House and Senate versions of the annual legislation, would authorize $8 billion more in US military spending than Trump asked for in his 2026 budget request.

If passed, the 2026 NDAA would pump billions of dollars more into the Pentagon, a cesspool of the kinds of waste, fraud, and abuse that Johnson and other Republicans claim to be targeting when they cut safety net programs, stripping health insurance and food aid from millions. The Pentagon has never passed an independent audit and continues to have "significant fraud exposure," the Government Accountability Office said earlier this year.

"The surge in Pentagon spending stands in sharp contrast to the drastic cuts in healthcare and food assistance programs imposed by the reconciliation package."

Final passage of the NDAA would push total military spending authorized by Congress this year above $1 trillion, including the $150 billion in Pentagon funds included in the Trump-GOP budget law enacted over the summer.

Last month, as Common Dreams reported, a coalition of watchdog and anti-war groups implored Congress not to approve any funding above the originally requested $892.6 billion, warning that additional money for the Pentagon would enable the Trump administration's lawless use of the military in US streets and overseas.

The groups also noted that "the surge in Pentagon spending stands in sharp contrast to the drastic cuts in healthcare and food assistance programs imposed by the reconciliation package."

"At such a time," they wrote in a letter to lawmakers, "bipartisan agreement to provide additional funds to the Pentagon would deliver a cruel message to the American public, one out of step with Democratic messaging over healthcare, reconciliation, and the shutdown."

From Common Dreams via This RSS Feed.

A wood bank is exactly what it sounds like. People in rural and Indigenous areas still heavily rely on wood heat as the primary fuel source for their homes. Volunteers cut and split firewood, stack it somewhere public, and give it away for free to those who can’t afford it. No paperwork. No means tests. No government forms. Just a pile of hardwood that shows up because someone else’s house would be cold without it.

Most articles about wood banks wrap them in the same tired language. Community spirit. Rural generosity. Neighbors helping neighbors. It’s the kind of coverage you get when journalists focus on the people stacking the wood instead of the conditions that made it necessary. They never mention the underlying reality. Wood banks exist because without them, people would freeze. It’s the same everywhere: Local news crews film volunteers splitting logs while pretending it’s heartwarming, reporting on senior citizens splitting 150 cords a year for neighbors in need as if the story is about kindness instead of the failure that created the need in the first place.

...The volunteers running wood banks aren’t performing resilience. They’re plugging holes in a sinking ship and doing the work the state stopped doing. They are the thin line between a cold snap and another obituary...

It's didi, yes I didi time!

It’s not a novel observation to say that supporters of President Donald Trump and supporters of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders find common ground on many issues. They often share a skepticism of entrenched power and a desire to dismantle systems that they think have ceased to serve everyday people. In Indiana, this agreement includes a distrust of data centers.

“The MAGA crowd and the Bernie bros have both figured out that they’ve been getting duped,” said Kerwin Olson, executive director of Citizens Action Coalition, an Indianapolis-based consumer and environmental advocacy nonprofit. “It was data centers that really brought it all together.”

Olson’s organization is running a campaign to persuade Indiana lawmakers to place a moratorium on new data centers and to redesign electricity rates to protect residential consumers from rate increases related to data center development.

He has received an emphatic response, with groups from the left, right and in-between booking him for speaking engagements and offering their assistance.

Election results last week confirm a similar dynamic in much of the country. Democrats won races for governor in New Jersey and Virginia and for two open seats on the Georgia Public Service Commission, campaigns in which data centers and rising electricity costs were issues. Media outlets noted this pattern, including in an insightful report from Jael Holzman of Heatmap and a look ahead to next year’s elections from Marc Levy and Jesse Bedayn of the Associated Press.

Much of the discussion is about data centers, which are often large developments used to support cloud computing or artificial intelligence. But the underlying issues are broader, touching on the power of tech companies. For people who live near proposed data centers, there is an additional sense of powerlessness, which Inside Climate News has documented across the country, including the backlash to a plan for a huge data center in Bessemer, Alabama.

“It’s about big tech,” Olson said. “To steal Bernie’s words, [it’s about] these big tech oligarchs that are calling all the shots at every single level of government right now.” A common theme is that residents feel frustrated when powerful companies want to make changes that would alter local landscapes.

Olson said he agrees that there is some overlap between opposition to data centers and large renewable energy development, but he views the latter as more of a rural phenomenon, while concern about data centers is rising almost everywhere. Google scrapped its plans for a large data center in Indianapolis in September amid local backlash. In northwest Indiana, residents in the small city of Hobart have organized to oppose two data centers, raising concerns about the projects’ electricity and water consumption.

Political candidates can harness this mounting opposition and data center companies will need to devote more resources to engaging with the public. Voters are already getting upset about electricity rate increases that they blame on data centers, even though the AI industry is in its infancy. The negative effects, if left to fester, could get much worse.

Corn!👏
Corn!🌽
Corn!👏
Corn!👏
Corn!🌽
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A gadget you throw away when the battery runs out is a very dumb idea if you ask me.

From the bill ^[1]^:

[…] It amends the Criminal Code to, among other things, […] (g) criminalize the distribution of visual representations of bestiality; […] ^[1.3]^

(3.‍1) Every person commits an offence who knowingly publishes, distributes, transmits, sells, makes available or advertises any visual representation that is or is likely to be mistaken for a photographic, film, video or other visual recording of a person committing bestiality. ^[1.1]^

(3.‍4) Every person who commits an offence under subsection (3.‍1)

(a) is guilty of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment for a term of not more than five years; or

(b) is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction. ^[1.2]^

For context, from the Criminal Code:

(7) In this section, bestiality means any contact, for a sexual purpose, with an animal. ^[3]^

The Department of Justice's rationale is that it is "online sextortion" ^[2]^, and that it is known to be used to manipulate children for sexual purposes ^[2]^.