Early voting in primaries in Texas started this week.
Hegar’s my best hope
for unseating U.S. Senator John Cornyn. I wish I felt better about West, but it sure looks like he has some serious conflicts of interest and has had them for years. Yikes.
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MIT apologizes, permanently pulls offline huge dataset that taught AI systems to use racist, misogynistic slurs
Special report MIT has taken offline its highly cited dataset that trained AI systems to potentially describe people using racist, misogynistic, and other problematic terms.
The database was removed this week after The Register alerted the American super-college. And MIT urged researchers and developers to stop using the training library, and to delete any copies. “We sincerely apologize,” a professor told us.
They can take their apology and get creative with it, this thing should never have existed in this form in the first place.
But this is a step in the right direction.
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The most basic and well done explainer I have found so far.
The links to sources, in the description of this Youtube piece, are well-researched, relevant and useful. The reporters at The Guardian did a solid job.
None of the material in this video is likely to be new to anyone here, but in case someone has asked “how can anyone seriously propose to defund the police?” it may be a useful tool to start a conversation.
Has charts, graphs, animated bits to catch the attention of those who need that sort of thing, and among other things covers the success rates addressing violent crimes and rapes, and what happens when cops in New York city organized their work slowdown (tl;dr… the crime rate in NYC went down 3-6%).
Even self-identified blue or liberal cities have police brutality problems. There is really nowhere in the U.S. where the pervasive mentality of military-style police interactions with their communities has not taken root in the Thin Blue Line. It’s past time to stop talking about that like it’s normal or ok.
Good luck to all here who are willing to talk to friends, family, city council, county commissioners, state representatives, reporters, videographers, documentarians, etc.
It’s going to take every one of us, each doing whatever she/he/they are good at.
ETA: clarification re: whose interactions
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Kinda goodish but…
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Gratified that Finns are talking about the problem of racism.
Not so happy to hear about the Greens losing ground. FTA:
“The loss of support is coming from under 35-year-old men and women, students and people who have moved out of large urban areas in Finland,” he noted.
He added that the Left Alliance had picked up enough former Green supporters to expand its voter base by nearly one percentage-point to 8.9 percent in the June survey.
Hoping the Left Alliance can hold on and the Greens will somehow re-energize people to re-commit to their (i.e. Green) goals.
Am I correct in understanding the Greens in this article are these people:
?
I only wish the Green Party here in the U.S. could be a real player. When I visited Germany in the 1990s, I noted die Grünen in action. What a difference–a positive difference. Those days and my hopes for the States seem farther away than ever. Americans can’t even be troubled to agree that wearing face masks during a pandemic is for the common good. I’m not even sure some of my neighbors even can spell “common good” at this point.
P.S. Thanks for the links in English! My Finnish is… nonexistent. I am grateful for this window into another society. Thanks for posting.
ETA: clarified whose goals, typos
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Left Alliance is a green left party.
Yes.
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CBSNews: Immigration judges challenge DOJ limits on public speaking
Administrative judges who decide asylum and deportation cases are challenging a Department of Justice policy dictating who is allowed to speak publicly about immigration
3 cities pilot South Africa-style truth, reconciliation push
BOSTON (AP) — District attorneys in Boston, Philadelphia and San Francisco are teaming up on a pilot effort patterned after South Africa’s post-apartheid truth and reconciliation commission to confront racism in the criminal justice system.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/more-sports/3-cities-pilot-south-africa-style-truth-reconciliation-push/ar-BB16giV0?ocid=msedgntp
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My senator, ladies and gentlemen:
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Cool. I hear she’s in the running for VP too. 
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I’m still not 100% sure how I feel about that, because it would mean losing a good senator, but it’s Illinois, so at least we wouldn’t have to worry about the governor appointing a right wing replacement. And she is so solid and capable – and not in her 70s – so there’s no question she’d fill the role extremely well.
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Mt Airy is a neighborhood in Philly. Leafy, NW section.
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This (i.e. the release) was in MD:
Years ago I remember reading an essay by someone who was helping sea turtles (and nests) along the Florida coast. Not sure when they (FL) started protecting the nests (maybe it was a long time ago) but I don’t remember these in FL until last summer:
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Can’t hear the name without thinking about Pieces of a Dream:
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I’ve done a trip to a Florida atlantic beach every summer of my life (my grandparents lived there). Those turtle nest signs I’ve only seen the past couple years, but the turtle patrol has been monitoring the nests and marking them with a stake and tape for over a decade.
On night walks I’ve gotten to see a mama loggerhead coming in to lay eggs and another year babies hatching and going out to sea. The army of hatchlings going down the beach was one of the coolest things ever.
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Hope for the future?
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