Notices by Jonathan Kamens (jik@federate.social), page 2

I need to apologize for taking https://generalstrikeus.com/ seriously and encouraging people to sign up.
Discord is not praxis, and I can't take anybody seriously who doesn't understand that.
Discord's security is a joke, and they're only "free" in the sense of "if you're not the customer then you're the product," same as Meta.
These folks could have gone with a _truly_ free and secure platform such as Matrix. Opting for Discord and describing it as free and secure means they're clueless.
*sigh*

NPR's Fresh Air just broadcast an absolutely infuriating interview about the dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education: <https://www.npr.org/2025/03/12/nx-s1-5325731/what-trumps-cuts-to-the-department-of-education-mean-for-schools-and-students>
This is the message I just sent Fresh Air and NPR's Public Editor about it.
If you care about the future of our democracy you may wish to send feedback as well. Fresh Air: <https://help.npr.org/contact/s/contact?request=Contact-an-NPR-show-or-podcast&show=Fresh%20Air>, Public Editor: <https://help.npr.org/contact/s/contact?request=Ask-the-Public-Editor-about-ethics>
#politics #USPol #NPR #journalism

Yesterday I started getting regular notifications from my NAS about multiple failed logins from all over the world. Apparently someone has sicced a botnet on my NAS. Joke's on them, my "admin" account is disabled exactly to foil this type of attack.
Nevertheless, I wrote a script to email abuse reports to the owners of all the IP addresses, letting them know there's a compromised device on their network participating in a botnet.
Don't know if it'll help, but it makes me feel better.
#infosec

Since the notifications from my NAS about failed admin login attempts continue to pour in, I rewrote my script to make it even more automated. It now pulls the logs from the NAS directly so I don't have to take a screenshot from Synology Active Insights, parses the IP addresses out of the logs automatically, caches whois lookups so I don't have to keep reselecting abuse addresses to use, and keeps historical records of how many IPs have been attacking for the past 24 hours.
#infosec

Oh, thank God, #EdMarkey and #ElizabethWarren both voted against cloture for the continuing resolution.
I mean, it didn't help in the end because #ChuckSchumer is a #FecklessCoward who sold us out to the #GOP, but I can be _slightly_ less angry at my two senators for at least the next few days.
P.S. If you live in NV, IL, PA, NY, NH, MI, or HI, you should be VERY mad at one or both of your Dem senators. Find the group that's working on primarying them and volunteer.
#politics #USPol #MAPoli

The #FecklessCoward Democratic senators who voted in favor of cloture on the continuing resolution:

Cortez Masto (D-NV)
Durbin (D-IL)
Fetterman (D-PA)
Gillibrand (D-NY)
Hassan (D-NH)
Peters (D-MI)
Schatz (D-HI)
Schumer (D-NY)
Shaheen (D-NH)

None of them should ever win another election.
Ref: https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1191/vote_119_1_00128.htm
#politics #USPol

@DrPsyBuffy The "funny" thing, of course, is that our healthcare system was already on the verge of collapse because it never recovered from COVID, and there weren't nearly enough new doctors and nurses being trained to stave off that collapse, and now it's just going to be accelerated.
Ditto for elder care and memory care, which are primarily staffed by immigrants and Trump wants to deport all the immigrants and scare new ones out of coming here.
We're all completely fucked.

After waiting more than a month for my U.S. Representative, #AyannaPressley, to send a message to her constituent email list after I subscribed to it, she finally sends this message today, and it literally does not have a single word in it about what Trump and DOGE are doing or what she is doing about it.
What, and I cannot stress this enough, the fuck is wrong with these people? Why aren't they sounding the alarm as loudly as they can through every possible medium?
#politics #USPol #smdh

NOTE: You need to CALL today. Sending email is not enough. Senators take calls much more seriously than emails.
If you're a man it's even more important to call; far fewer men call electeds than women, so when they get a big flood of calls from men they know people are serious. (Yes, this sucks, but it is what it is, and we need to use it to our advantage here.)
DON'T WAIT, CALL TODAY, IT'S CRITICALLY IMPORTANT.
#politics #USPol

Some of you may be questioning whether it is a good idea for Democrats to be "responsible" for shutting down the government by filibustering the "continuing resolution" (in quotes because it's not a clean CR, it's got all sorts of awful new goodies for Trump and Musk in it).
To answer this I want to share with you what Josh Marshall has to say:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/here-are-the-arguments-for-why-senate-ds-should-vote-yes-and-why-theyre-wrong
I know it's a long read, but this is a complicated topic. If you're in doubt, I encourage you to read this.
#politics #USPol

The only time tariffs are good for an economy is when there is domestic capacity to quickly replace the flow of goods impeded by the tariffs.
In literally any other situation, tariffs harm the economy of the country imposing them.
The United States does not have domestic capacity to replace the goods Trump is putting tariffs on.
That leaves two possibilities:
1) Trump is a complete idiot.
2) Trump is hurting the economy on purpose.
These are not mutually exclusive.
#politics #USPol

One wonders if the folks who support Trump and whom he is literally going to kill will find it within themselves to acknowledge, before they die, that their support was misplaced.
One suspects mostly not.
#politics #USPol

USians, It is ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL for you to CALL your senators TODAY: tell them to filibuster the continuing resolution unless it includes written commitments to spend the money appropriated by Congress, prevent DOGE from rampaging through the government, and undo the unauthorized budget cuts that DOGE has already implemented.
Your Senators NEED to hear TODAY that you support a government shutdown if that's what it takes to stop DOGE.
https://5calls.org/ can help.
#politics #USPol

TIL that when you migrate a #Synology NAS shared drive from one storage volume to another one, hard links are not preserved; linked files are turned into independent copies (taking up twice as much space) during the migration.
Not ideal.
#SysAdmin #fail

"the 2024 U.S. election was a trolley problem" <- yes, absolutely
"flipping the switch could only change who would be crushed" <- no, absolutely not
The fundamental idea of the trolley problem is that flipping the switch HARMS FEWER PEOPLE.
Most people when confronted with the problem agree that's the right thing to do.
Harris would have harmed far fewer people.
It's incredible that even now some people still struggle with this concept.
#politics #USPol
Ref:
https://mastodon.nl/@abhayakara/114132500366031146

Here's the email I just sent to Markey about the town hall
#EdMarkey #politics #USPol #MAPoli

On the way out of the auditorium I told someone on Markey's staff that I came to the "town hall" (ftr, 2/3 of the time spent on speeches and no open mic is not a town hall) to hear what Markey was going to DO, not to hear how bad things are.
He said I should call the office and tell them that and it would be tallied and summarized to Markey.
I said I don't want Markey to be tallying public opinion, I want him to be LEADING.
Why do they not understand this?
#EdMarkey #politics #USPol #MAPoli

Here is what I think: Markey still does not understand, or at least is not willing to admit in public to understanding, that Trump and Musk are using an extra-Constitutional strategy and therefore fighting back within the Constitutional system is not going to work.
In this I am certain he is joined by many other Democrats in Congress.
I walked out of this "town hall" less hopeful than I was walking into it.
#EdMarkey #politics #USPol #MAPoli

@lackthereof This is a great statement, but are they just putting out a statement or are they actually sending it to their constituents? Getting it printed in newspapers? Talking about it on TV and radio news and talk shows? Getting it on social media? If all they're doing is putting up statements on their web sites it's just navel-gazing.
@blaise

He's giving a stump speech about what's wrong, not saying how he's going to fix it.
People just started yelling from the audience what he's going to do about it. Lots of yelling from the audience.
The courts are going to be used to fight back.
Markey says he was at the EPA last week.
Markey says he's going to do everything he can. No specifics.
Litigate, legislate, organize, and fight.
#EdMarkey #politics #USPol #MAPoli