Monday, May 15, 2023

And another day of a yawning America, special counsel reports, FL banning DEI at colleges and universities, KS GOP mulls kicking minority/youth/women’s groups out of party leadership, IRS audits Black people more, and online age verification comes to a close:

"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." — Leonardo da Vinci

As debt default looms, America yawns. Whether it's crisis fatigue or a belief that things will work out at the last minute, Americans have not been pressuring their leaders to solve the debt ceiling.

Special counsel issues report criticizing FBI for launching Trump-Russia investigation. The special counsel who spent four years investigating the Trump-Russia probe accused the FBI of acting negligently by opening the investigation based on vague and insufficient information in a sweeping 300-page report made public Monday.

DeSantis signs bill banning DEI degrees at Florida colleges. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation Monday defunding diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs at Florida's public colleges and allowing the state to remove programs, majors and minors that teach "identity politics."..."When lawmakers start voting ideas off the table, no idea is safe from censorship."

Florida teacher under investigation for showing a Disney film with a gay character. In a viral TikTok video posted Saturday, Jenna Barbee, a teacher at Winding Waters K-8 in Brooksville, about an hour north of Tampa, alleged that a parent, who also serves on the local school board, reported her for screening the 2022 title “Strange World” on May 3...Barbee, a first-year teacher, said she showed her students the science-fiction movie because it tied in to her class’s science lessons, and she was also looking to give her students a break after a full day of standardized testing. She added that she received signed permission slips from parents to show her students PG-rated films at the beginning of the school year. “Is a character in the movie LGBTQ? Absolutely,” she said. “Is that why I showed it? No.”

Kansas GOP considers kicking minority, youth and women’s groups out of party leadership. The Kansas Republican Party’s rules committee advanced a proposal this week that would change the party bylaws to remove constituency groups aimed at broadening the reach of the party. It would also oust state and federal GOP elected officials from the board, which oversees party operations and budgetary decisions. The full party state committee is expected to vote on the proposal this summer, as well as a separate proposal to change the party constitution to remove those individual’s seats on the state committee. The change to the executive committee needs a simple majority while the change to the state committee would require two-thirds support. If either proposal passes, it would amount to lost representation for key groups Kansas and national Republicans spent years working to bring into the fold. At the same time, it would enhance the power of chairman Mike Brown, who won his position by just two votes earlier this year.

Turkey election goes to runoff after Erdoğan takes first-round lead. The 69-year-old conservative incumbent confounded pollsters’ predictions and his secular rival to win the first round of the country’s pivotal election, scoring 49.51% against Kılıçdaroğlu’s 44.88% with a small number of overseas votes left to count. The runoff will take place on 28 May. — Apparently many people all over the world have embraced fascism.

IRS admits Black taxpayers are more likely to get audited. The IRS on Monday said an internal investigation has found that Black taxpayers are audited at higher rates than would be expected given their share of the U.S. population. The findings come after researchers earlier this year found that Black Americans are up to five times more likely to have their federal tax returns audited than taxpayers of other races. -- So much systemic racism in this country. But Republicans don’t want you to know about all that. Wear your “wokeness” as a badge of honor.

Texas schools say it’s time to stop tying mental health funding to school safety money. Federal pandemic aid helped build public school mental health services in Texas. School officials now brace for the expiration of those funds next year. They’re urging lawmakers to create a dedicated funding stream for mental health assistance in schools.

Online age verification is coming, and privacy is on the chopping block. spate of child safety rules might make going online in a few years very different, and not just for kids. In 2022 and 2023, numerous states and countries are exploring age verification requirements for the internet, either as an implicit demand or a formal rule. The laws are positioned as a way to protect children on a dangerous internet. But the price of that protection might be high: nothing less than the privacy of, well, everyone…In the US and abroad, lawmakers want to limit children’s access to two things: social networks and porn sites…Age verification systems fall into a handful of categories. The most common option is to rely on a third party that knows your identity — by directly validating a credit card or government-issued ID, for instance, or by signing up for a digital intermediary like Allpasstrust, the service Louisianans must use for porn access. More experimentally, there are solutions that estimate a user’s age without an ID. One potential option, which is already used by Facebook and Instagram, would use a camera and facial recognition to guess whether you’re 18. Another, which is highlighted as a potential age verification solution by France’s National Commission on Informatics and Liberty (CNIL), would “guess” your age based on your online activity. As pointed out by CNIL’s report on various online age verification options, all these methods have serious flaws…But some adult users — especially those with lower incomes — may not have a card, which would seriously limit their ability to access online services. The same goes for verification methods using government-issued IDs…The CRS isn’t totally on board with relying on a national digital ID system for online age verification either, as it could “raise privacy and security concerns.”…It also poses a host of privacy risks, as the companies that capture facial recognition data would need to ensure that this biometric data doesn’t get stolen by bad actors…Inferring ages based on browsing history raises even more problems…But the system hasn’t been explored on a larger scale — where it could involve having an AI scan your entire browsing history and estimate your age based on your searches and the sites you interact with. That would amount to large-scale digital surveillance, and CNIL outright calls the system “intrusive.” It’s not even clear how well it would work…But even with this complex solution, he acknowledges that users in France will be able to get around the method by using a virtual private network (VPN) to conceal their location. This is a problem that plagues nearly any location-specific verification system: as long as another government lets people access a site more easily, users can route their traffic through it. The only surefire solution would be draconian crackdowns on privacy tools that would dramatically compromise freedom online…To privacy and civil liberties advocates, none of these solutions are ideal…The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group, similarly argues that all age verification solutions are “surveillance systems” that will “lead us further towards an internet where our private data is collected and sold by default.”…But concerns over surveillance still haven’t stopped governments around the globe, including here in the US, from pushing ahead with online age verification mandates…Even if many of these rules are shot down, the way we use the internet may never be the same again. With age checks awaiting us online, some people may find themselves locked out of increasingly large numbers of platforms — leaving the online world more closed-off than ever.

Scientists Have Created Cancer-Fighting E. Coli Bacteria. In a new study, they describe their creation of genetically engineered E. coli strains that can kill different types of tumors in mice. More studies will be needed, but the authors believe that bacterial therapy for cancer can become a reality.

Webb telescope spots water in rare comet. The space observatory detected water vapor around Comet Read, which suggests that water ice can be preserved in a warmer part of the solar system.

Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.

Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.