Notices by Steve Yelvington (steve@s.yelvington.com)

"Government Requests
When legally forced to provide information to government or law enforcement agencies, we'll disclose the transcripts of that communication here."

https://signal.org/bigbrother/

If you want to see how Putin might handle an agreement to end the war in Ukraine, take a look at Israel.

Corn futures are plunging under the threat of Trump's trade war.

Is the G in Doge pronounced like the G in GIF?

The latest filing in Trump's election interference case is bona fide holy shit.

"Make them riot" is pretty clear to anyone who hasn't scrambled their brains.

My seat was in the rafters and I couldn't hear a thing but I'm glad I went. #harris #Savannah

Turned on CNN. Lasted three minutes. I despise these blowhard panel shows.

I don't know how much "coverage" of the DNC I'm going to be able to stand. Very little actual news + lots of airtime means the networks are going to be filling with their usual dismal product.

Went to the grocery store. Came home and tried the streaming services of the traditional Big 3 networks. Every one of them drove me away by platforming a Republican spewing lies about crime and racist bigotry about immigrants.

I had hoped that the "Kamala Harris for President News & Organizing" group would be the source of interesting and useful posts, but it's been invaded by whackatarians and shills for useless Putin-droids like Jill Stein. So far I've just muted the worst of them, but I'm reconsidering the follow.
@kamalaharrisforpresidentnews

A note I just sent to a friend in Sweden:

I was 100% ready to vote for Biden before his announcement today that he is stepping aside. His mental "deterioration" is a falsehood generated by the New York Times (whose publisher is angry that Biden hasn't knelt before him) and a fleet of Russian bots posting on social media. The media attack on Biden was obscuring the very real mental degeneration of Donald Trump, who repeats his imaginary stories over and over, talking about Hannibal Lecter and windmills and encounters with tearful men who call him "sir."

That said, it is all in the past now, and we have a highly capable candidate in Kamala Harris whose major drawbacks are race and gender. The next three months will be ugly. I may have to avoid commercial television entirely because of the misogynistic and racist attack political advertising.

(From a private chat)

"Now I understand why the Kennedy assassination had so many conspiracy theories."

On the day of the debate, I had the same combination of lung crud and jet lag as Biden. Felt like I was dragging bricks for several days. But it goes away.

If only the dog pack behavior of the national media would be so easy to shake off.

Got a COVID booster today. Fauci was being interviewed on the radio. Folks, this is not over.

Also got a pneumonia booster. Heading for Alaska. Doing what I can to stay safe.

The "crisis on the border" is a fake issue created by politicians to take advantage of the deep, ugly racism in this country.

Change my mind.

The morning after Trump is found guilty of 34 felonies, his campaign claims they raised $34 million in donations from his moron army. Of course, that's a Trump business record, so, whatever.

Is the Earth's rotation speeding up or slowing?

So far, the only negative side effect I have seen of #threads supporting ActivityPub has been the whining and demands for preemptive censorship (from people who have more in common with the book burners than they realize).

I haven't seen a single objectionable post from Threads.

My hope is that I'll be able to delete my Threads account and follow those I care about from my Mastodon account. Mastodon gives me some decent tools for controlling what I see (lists, filters, blocks) and doesn't push me into an unwanted algorithmic feed. I have multiple UI options from both apps and the web.

I understand that any time a social space is opened up to new participants, it is disruptive. But I don't really care. If you want a private discussion space with a culture that you control, you should be using a closed forum. A federated open social network is not the best tool for all purposes.

"Folks say he’s old but I’d rather have a Moses than a Lucifer"

https://www.postandcourier.com/politics/biden-wins-south-carolina-presidential-primary/article_282b192c-c048-11ee-83f2-5ba952e6cfda.html#tncms-source=latest_posts