Saturday, July 22, 2023

Bits: Revising inconvenient history; Internet safety; Hunter files an ethics complaint

One thing that most or all authoritarian demagogues feel a need to do is to revise inconvenient history. That helps their dark free speech campaigns to create a false images of themselves as an often persecuted hero who is valiantly protecting the nation and its people from often or usually imagined enemies and threats. These days favored faux threats include immigrants (a long-time favorite), atheism (a millennia long favorite), socialism, tolerant secularism and same-sex marriage. In his run for power in 2024, DeSantis has been a leader in revising inconvenient history. The NYT writes:
After an overhaul to Florida’s African American history standards, Gov. Ron DeSantis, the state’s firebrand governor campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination, is facing a barrage of criticism this week from politicians, educators and historians, who called the state’s guidelines a sanitized version of history.

For instance, the standards say that middle schoolers should be instructed that “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit” — a portrayal that drew wide rebuke.
Slavery developed skills in slaves that could sometimes be applied their personal benefit. Notice the nuanced way the racists worded their subtle lie. Those skills, whatever they might have been (probably not enumerated because there were none), could in some instances, be applied for their personal benefit. Everyone knows that slaves could not do much of anything for their own benefit other than not pissing off their White owners. For example, they could not protect themselves from being raped by horny White Christian slave owners.

In some instances, pigs could fly. See, flying pigs:



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The WaPo writes about a new safety feature that people can turn on to enhance protection from hackers:
Google has an ‘Enhanced Safe Browsing’ feature. Should you use it?

The short answer to the headline: Yes, probably.

I’ll walk you through the downsides, too, including Google knowing more about your web activity. That’s why Google isn’t turning on these extra security measures without your permission.

But if you just want basic advice, turn on Google’s Enhanced Safe Browsing at this link and carry on.  
Google says that if you turn on Enhanced Safe Browsing that’s available for Chrome and Gmail, the company takes extra steps to warn you when you roam onto suspected scammer sites.
I turned it on in view of rising threats from AI-generated hacking and who knows what else is out there trying to screw me and everyone else. 
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Hunter Biden is in a snit. He's mad at MTG for showing his nude pics in the House of Representatives. The Hill writes:
Hunter Biden’s lawyer filed an ethics complaint against Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) Friday, requesting that an ethics watchdog “immediately” initiate a review of Greene’s conduct after she showed sexually explicit photos of Biden at a congressional hearing this week.

In a letter to the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), Biden attorney Abbe David Lowell slammed Greene’s actions as “abhorrent behavior that blatantly violates House Ethics rules and standards of official conduct.”
Ethics complaint?? Against me?
Bwahahahaha!! 
Giggles 'n snorts all around!
She'll probably get a promotion for her ethical behavior:
The next Senator from the great state of Georgia!
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Scientists have discovered a two-faced star. One face is made of helium and the other hydrogen. STD writes:
Astronomers “Blown Away” by Weird Two-Faced Star
 
The newfound white dwarf, nicknamed Janus after the two-faced Roman god of transition, was initially discovered by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), an instrument that scans the skies every night from Caltech’s Palomar Observatory near San Diego. Caiazzo had been searching for highly magnetized white dwarfs, such as the object known as ZTF J1901+1458, which she and her team found previously using ZTF. One candidate object stood out for its rapid changes in brightness, so Illaria Caiazzo decided to investigate further with the CHIMERA instrument at Palomar, as well as HiPERCAM on the Gran Telescopio Canarias in Spain’s Canary Islands. Those data confirmed that Janus is rotating on its axis every 15 minutes.



The magnetic fields that Janus generates:

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