John Seekins @john@toot.robot-house.us

ever sit back and remember how Leonard Peltier is 75 years old and has been in prison since 1977 and has no hope of parole until 2024, and how Mumia Abu-Jamal is 66 and has been in prison since 1982 and was on death row until 2011, and is still serving a life sentence, and how Assata Shakur has been living in Cuba in exile since 1979, and how the trials for literally all of these activists were utter bullshit kangaroo court nonsense?

Hello everyone.

There is a non-zero possibility that major US cities are about to get their civilian communications infrastructure turned off or significantly restricted. If this idea scares you too much to contemplate, please move on. I can't think of how to CW this appropriately, so my apologies for your anxiety, but this is important to my social circle, so I'll continue.

If you're worried about COVID-19 but you still want to make a positive impact, you can help to prepare for this eventuality.

The best way I can think to fight against comms being shut down is to use Dual Power Structure thinking: let's make our own network. This is not as unrealistic as it sounds. HAM Radio folks are already doing it. The software is open source, and runs on a massive number of surplus hardware. Check out the AREDEN Compatibility Matrix: https://www.arednmesh.org/content/supported-platform-matrix

If you work your local network and make a few fast Amazon orders, I bet you'd have several square miles of coverage ready to go in an instant, and ready to backhaul internet to people who need it to protest.

You might say, "But Endomain, I'm not a licensed ham operator!"

I am not telling you what to do, but a lot of folks are breaking a lot of laws just by protesting. Folks are rightfully afraid of COVID-19 and that's fair, but you know what's socially distant? Rooftops of boarded up or looted buildings that are empty but still have electricity. Maybe this is a risk folks, licensed or not, are willing to take to take to keep comms up for protesters.

I just received a letter from the IRS (form 1444). It concerned me at first that I was getting something from the IRS. When I opened it I found out it was essentially a campaign mailer for Trump. I guess putting his name on the stimulus check wasn’t enough. This pisses me off that tax payer money is being used for his campaign. The Trump campaign should reimburse the American people for the cost of this mailer.

Boost if you agree

You cannot spell "piss" without ISP.

JSON Statham

Microsoft is making things shitty enough that I am considering just moving over to Linux full time... again... for the second time in two weeks.

America once led the world to stamp out polo, but today this once-proud nation is struggling even to manage the symptoms of football.

Olivia Newton-Johns Hopkins

Posted because 1) I'd only just learned of this myself (yes it IS a very nice rock I'm living under) and 2) there are several petitions and calls to action circulating.

The cold-blooded murder by a former police detective and district attorney investigator is beyond evil.

EXTREMELY TRUE HORSE FACTS!
* The first horse in the world was called Eugene.
* Horses have diplomatic immunity in most nations.
* The fastest recorded speed of a horse was 155mph driving a Ford Mustang.
* You are never more than 20 feet from a horse.
* All horses are communists.
* A group of horses is called "a lot".

🖼

@aral Hi folks! Please do consider adding your name to the list of opponents to the sale if not already done: https://savedotorg.org/

after this is all over, be sure to remind people, as often as they'll allow you to get away with it, that:

telecoms did not need data caps, had plenty of capacity to donate to low-income folks, and were never in danger of going bankrupt because of the lack of data caps or the additional usage
folks who work on computers all day can do that wherever computers are; most tech offices are merely trophies to show off to other tech offices.
the government wasn't concerned with helping people, it was concerned with helping business. it was people who were helping people and often the government merely got in the way of that.
trillions of dollars was found to allocate as soon as they wanted to; every time anyone asks how anything will be funded it's merely to shut down the conversation.

keep a running list of your favorite facts and get them in front of as many folk as you can, as often as you can, and maybe, just maybe, we can get more folks on board for change

Daylight savings time should be extended all year long - the fall back, spring ahead loss of an hour causes sleep deprivation and even injury. Let’s just pick a time and stick to it.
https://www.yang2020.com/policies/extend-daylight-savings-time-all-year/ …

@thegibson "In the mid-1980s, Clorox and 7-Eleven provided the primary funding for the Daylight Saving Time Coalition behind the 1987 extension to U.S. DST. Both senators from Idaho, Larry Craig and Mike Crapo, voted for it based on the premise that fast-food restaurants sell more French fries during DST, which are made from Idaho potatoes."

"In 2005, the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association and the National Association of Convenience Stores successfully lobbied for the 2007 extension to U.S. DST."