Gaythia Weis @Gaythia@social.cleverlibre.org

On Election Day, Biden will be 29,936 days old.

Trump will be 28,634 days old.

Biden will be ~4% older than Trump.

Is Biden at least 4% more honest?
4% more intelligent?
4% more experienced?
4% more stable?
4% more qualified to be president?

Many, many times that, folks.

Trends in November #Arctic sea ice thickness over the last four decades. Unsurprisingly, ice is thinning across the entire Arctic Ocean.

Simulated data from PIOMAS. For more information: https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-17-0436.1

"Thanksgiving" is an annual celebration of settler colonialism, manifest destiny, and white supremacy, on which white European-American Christians give thanks to their god for having "given" them territorial control and ideological hegemony over a continent inhabited by other people with other ideas, and reify the myth that the Puritans (violently intolerant religious fundamentalists) were seeking "religious freedom" rather than seeking an opportunity to impose their control and beliefs.

It would be a totally different story if the 81 year old was bad at his job because of his age. In fact, I think his age has been a PLUS in a very complicated time. He's gotten A LOT of things done. I'm not on board with all his choices, but SO FUCKING WHAT. OVERALL, he's done very well. He's a BRIDGE to the future. The future WE HAVE TO CHANGE TOGETHER. So, save the bullshit, juvenile take that someone is only good if they do EVERYTHING YOU think is right in this moment in time.

Bernie: “The blank check approach must end. The US must make clear that while we are friends of Israel, there are conditions to that friendship & that we cannot be complicit in actions that violate international law & our own sense of decency.”calls for end to indiscriminate bombing, the right of displaced Gazans to return; no long-term Israeli occupation of Gaza; an end to West Bank settler violence & a freeze on expansion; commitment to talks for 2-state solution. #gift https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/22/opinion/bernie-sanders-israel-gaza.html?unlocked_article_code=1.AU0.OBHq.vOardFzlLFX5&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

""The whining, the snowflakery coming from the Trump people," Scarborough added. "I mean, a snowflake falls on their shoulders, and they're victimized. They're victimized by history books on Hank Aaron, they're victimized by kids' books on Roberto Clemente. They're victimized by tweets – you name it, they are victimized by everything. They are such weak snowflakes, and they're using that victimization to justify violence against their opponents."

https://www.rawstory.com/is-donald-trump-a-fascist/

"The war is only serving Hamas and Benjamin Netanyahu. As the war goes on, he will get support from our politicians and from world leaders, this is his strategy."

~ Maoz Inon, whose parents were killed in the October 7 Hamas attack on Israelis

#Israel #Hamas #Palestinians #ceasefire #Netanyahu

https://www.thedailybeast.com/israeli-victims-family-calls-for-ceasefire-war-is-only-serving-hamas-and-netanyahu

"Safety teams within the company pushed to slow things down. These teams worked to refine ChatGPT to refuse certain types of abusive requests and to respond to other queries with more appropriate answers. But they struggled to build features such as an automated function that would ban users who repeatedly abused ChatGPT. In contrast, the company’s product side wanted to build on the momentum and double down on commercialization."

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/11/sam-altman-open-ai-chatgpt-chaos/676050/

Who wants to bet the AI is working exactly as United designed it to work

https://arstechnica.com/health/2023/11/ai-with-90-error-rate-forces-elderly-out-of-rehab-nursing-homes-suit-claims/amp/

Excellent expose (with photos) of Alberta Canada’s horrifying oil sands.

Climate killing carbon pollution the equivalent of burning 90 BILLION POUNDS OF COAL.
Every year.

https://thenarwhal.ca/alberta-oilsands-photos/
#ClimateChange #Energy #FossilFuels

Hey!
Second round of #free, delivered-to-you COVID #tests. Get yours, and test everyone before partying during the holidays. Few things would suck more than giving everyone there #COVID that you didn’t know you had.

https://www.covid.gov/tests

A jury ruled that Trump committed violent sexual assault.

A judge ruled he committed financial fraud.

Now another judge has found (what we all saw for ourselves) that he engaged in an insurrection.

How is it possible that he's still a candidate for president?

OPB: Yakama Nation descendants search for unmarked graves at former boarding school site

“At Fort Simcoe Historical State Park, the volunteer team is also using laptops, mapping tools and ground-penetrating radar to find potential burials.”

https://www.opb.org/article/2023/11/20/yakama-nation-descendants-search-unmarked-graves-fort-simcoe-boarding-school/

#Washington

I feel bad for asking this, and it blows my mind that this is even an issue, as I always thought better of the human race, but when you're in a long checkout line, and you turn around and look right at someone who has a cane or crutch, who is OBVIOUSLY struggling furiously to remain standing upright, please, please invite them to cut in front of you. It's just polite. It's very, very hard for #Disabed people to even leave the house, but unexpected long lines are very, very painful

#ChronicPain

"3M dumped chemical waste in Lake Elmo, Oakdale and Woodbury landfills for years, but didn’t notify the state until 2003. The state health department began sampling the landfills in 2004 once it developed the right technology."

PFAS and similarly related chemicals are going to be a huge problem as analytical methods improve and agencies are finally able to detect all the PFAS.

I would recommend, as a water scientist, that you use either a refrigerator filter or a similar product on any tap water you drink. Even low-level repeated exposure should be avoided.

And make sure you change the filter regularly! An old filter won't cut it.

#PFAS #WaterPollution #Minnesota

https://minnesotareformer.com/2023/10/02/lake-elmo-family-has-been-fighting-17-years-for-city-water-after-state-pushed-pfas-into-their-well/?emci=87b65f12-3861-ee11-9937-00224832eb73&emdi=d5f98e41-3961-ee11-9937-00224832eb73&ceid=381474

"...evidence of an increasing risk of central nervous system cancers, low birth weight, preterm birth, and some birth defects in children exposed prenatally to nitrates in water. Importantly, these adverse health effects were found among children who were prenatally exposed to levels below the country's current 10 milligram nitrate standard.

"There's a growing body of evidence that the current standards are not sufficiently protective..."

A private well owner who drinks water contaminated with nitrate is probably also drinking 12-18 pesticides at low levels..."

There is too much nitrate in many drinking water sources, and people are getting sick because of it. It is beyond time to regulate nitrate more strictly, especially from agriculture.

#groundwater #nitrate #pollution

https://m.startribune.com/environment-water-dodge-county-west-concord-health-nitrate-atrazine-roundup-farms/600307012/?fbclid=IwAR2sO03d7ibfFQ-E1k8MufrY3RsDyfbWVcFqgu_Wzv20IKVfNx3xJI1QY8I

"The biggest threat to the corn lobby, though, isn’t a repeal of the mandate, it’s electric vehicles. When people no longer need gasoline, they can no longer be forced to buy corn ethanol.

Electric vehicle sales reached 5% of the U.S. new car market in 2022, and already this year they’ve hit 8.6%. JD Power projects 70% of new vehicles will be electric by 2035, with California leading the way at 94% by then.

Many agricultural communities are in denial about EVs, preferring to believe they will never catch on in numbers enough to threaten the importance of the corn crop."

#EV #BigAg #Environment

https://southdakotasearchlight.com/2023/09/30/a-bright-spot-at-the-intersection-of-farming-electric-vehicles-and-solar-energy/?fbclid=IwAR2DF6sDQpbfuvnCO62QKV8lq3qyVIPzFKW6edQWgOHBdHKeuto5pjjPblU

Shut. The. Front. Door!

This is a very cool website that NAGT (National Association of Geoscience Teachers) shared.

Will definitely find ways to utilize in future courses.

https://beta.visiblegeology.com/?fbclid=IwAR2H_7A9AKIG3aWx0G201zJHvbxiXaEWLJYJZcNSloMwgTxhjE__yIev92o

#EarthScience #Education

I often think that red-breasted nuthatches look a bit annoyed (or at least sassy) because of the eye stripe. You can also clearly see the large hind claw that helps them to go down tree trunks head first.
#birds #birdsofmastodon #birding #WildCanada #ornithology