Again no CC. But the story is important. This is what happens in a country of uncontrolled capitalism where the wealthy get to suck every drop of money from the lower incomes. How is it acceptable that hedge funds bought up most of the housing in the US paying over market prices so they could then jack up rents. Builders see the profit and are buying up land at over market value. Cities are cracking down on homeless as more and more people have no where to live but in their cars or on the streets. Here where I live any wooded areas are being cleared out because the homeless set up camps in them, often at the risk of their lives. I have talked about James moving back home to afford housing even though he works every hour he can get at a county job. He talks about in three or five years moving from Florida. Ron and I want too also. But the where to go that is decent on a fixed income with what we can get for our home. More and more the governments at every level, local, state, federal are working for the wealthy to increase their wealth but do nothing for the people as we slide into desperation. This is why tRump won the first time, he spoke of helping the people. Democrats speak of that every four years but never do it. The Democrats have shown that most of them are corporate owned as much as the Republicans. Build Back Better would have helped the people out immensely and it would have cost less a year than the aid to Ukraine so far, but the wealthy / large corporations in the US cannot have the government helping the people. Businesses in the US need a desperate work force to make the most profit. The people must be kept desperate so they will accept any job at any low wage under any harsh conditions and be grateful they got it. Notice right after months of debate about giving the people of the country scraps, the congress then approved a 800 billion dollar plus military budget without any debate. None. Just passed it. A military we are now afraid to use in Ukraine to save those people. Why do we have it then and deny ourselves other services? Because the profit generated for the defense contractors. It comes down to what kind of country do we want, other advanced countries don’t live this way. Canada doesn’t? Mexico doesn’t either and we use to call them the poor people? Ever wonder why the immigrants at the southern border are not majority Mexicans? We are the ones with a lower standard of living now. They are growing better standards for their people; the US is regressing to the days of robber barons.
Category: Health / Healthcare / Illness / Vaccines
CNN goes to frontline city where Ukrainians remain amid constant shelling
I am sorry there is no CC with this. The point of these stories are these are people living on the front lines that Russia is shelling. They cannot leave and have nowhere to go. They are old and disabled. They survive by the aid that gets brought to them. The area has no military targets yet Russia has kept up bombardments of the area. This is terrorism. The driving out of the population and making the death toll and pain as high as possible so the Ukrainians will give in. Russia doesn’t see a difference between military targets and civilians, it is all just targets. We have the ability to stop this. We have a duty to help stop it. Aid wont last, and military aid can not get there fast enough. The Ukrainians barely have half the bullets they need because their weapons don’t use the same ammo as Nato guns. Lets not only give them NATO guns, lets send in NATO troops to use them, to show the Ukrainians how to use our equipment. The Ukrainians are a democracy fighting to survive against someone who has threatened to take large parts of other countries. Do we just let Putin do it? And what about the next country that wants some of their neighbors’ lands? The strong protect the weak in a just world, those that can, have a responsibility to do. We can, and we have a responsibility to do so.
CNN’s Sam Kiley goes to Severodonetsk, Ukraine, a frontline city in the war with Russia, to talk to Ukrainians desperate for resources as they live amid Russian shelling.
Republican HUMILIATES herself with bananas defense of Kevin McCarthy
Trump Forced Governors To BEG For Natural Disaster Aid
“Former President Donald Trump made governors flatter him personally for federal aid after natural disasters, a new book says. The revelations are made in an upcoming book, “This Will Not Pass: Trump, Biden, and the Battle for America’s Future,” by New York Times reporters Jonathan Martin and Alex Burns, according to The Independent. In the book, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, said Trump told governors who wanted aid: “You have to call and ask me nicely.” Hogan claimed that Trump had a policy in which only Texas and Florida, two states with governors Trump considered close allies, would be given federal aid when needed without question. Governor Ned Lamont of Connecticut, a Democrat, recounted a similar experience, The Independent reported. Lamont said he asked the White House for assistance in obtaining federal disaster aid after a storm in August 2020 left parts of Connecticut without electrical power.”
Let’s talk about Bishop Evans and Operation Lone Star….
Intel Develops Controversial AI to Detect Emotional States of Students
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-students-ai-controversy
(Image credit: Shutterstock)
An Intel-developed software solution aims to apply the power of artificial intelligence to the faces and body language of digital students. According to Protocol, the solution is being distributed as part of the “Class” software product and aims to aid in teachers’ education techniques by allowing them to see the AI-inferred mental states (such as boredom, distraction, or confusion) of each student. Intel aims to expand the program into broader markets eventually. However, the technology has been met with pushbacks that bring debates on AI, science, ethics and privacy to the forefront.
The AI-based feature, which was developed in partnership with Classroom Technologies, is integrated with Zoom via the former’s “Class” software product. It can be used to classify students’ body language and facial expressions whenever digital classes are held through the videoconferencing application. Citing teachers’ own experiences following remote lessons taken during the COVID-19 pandemic, Michael Chasen, co-founder and CEO of Classroom Technologies, hopes its software gives teachers additional insights, ultimately bettering remote learning experiences.
The software makes use of students’ video streams, which it feeds into the AI engine alongside contextual, real-time information that allows it to classify students’ understanding of the subject matter. Sinem Aslan, a research scientist at Intel who helped develop the technology, says that the main objective is to improve one-on-one teaching sessions by allowing the teacher to react in real-time to each student’s state of mind (nudging them in whatever direction is deemed necessary).
But while Intel and Classroom Technologies’ aim may be well-intentioned, the basic scientific premise behind the AI solution – that body language and other external signals can be accurately used to infer a person’s mental state – is far from being a closed debate.
For one, research has shown the dangers of labeling: the act of fitting information – sometimes even shoehorning it – into easy to perceive (but ultimately and frequently too simplistic) categories.
We don’t yet fully understand the external dimensions through which people express their internal states. For example, the average human being expresses themselves through dozens (some say even hundreds) of micro expressions (dilating pupils, for instance), macro expressions (smiling or frowning), bodily gestures, or physiological signals (such as perspiration, increased heart rate, and so on).
It’s interesting to ponder the AI technology’s model – and its accuracy – when the scientific community itself hasn’t been able to reach a definite conclusion on translating external action toward internal states. Building houses on quicksand rarely works out.
Another noteworthy and potential caveat for the AI engine is that expressing emotions also vary between cultures. While most cultures would equate smiling with an expression of internal happiness, Russian culture, for instance, reserves smiles for close friends and family – being overly smiley in the wrong context is construed as a lack of intelligence or honesty. Expand this towards the myriad of cultures, ethnicities, and individual variations, and you can imagine the implications of these personal and cultural “quirks” on the AI model’s accuracy.
According to Nese Alyuz Civitci, a machine-learning researcher at Intel, the company’s model was built with the insight and expertise of a team of psychologists, who analyzed the ground truth data captured in real-life classes using laptops with 3D cameras. The team of psychologists then proceeded to examine the videos, labeling the emotions they detected throughout the feeds. For the data to be valid and integrated into the model, at least two out of three psychologists had to agree on how to label it.
Intel’s Civitci himself found it exceedingly hard to identify the subtle physical differences between possible labels. Interestingly, Aslan says Intel’s emotion-analysis AI wasn’t assessed on whether it accurately reflected students’ actual emotions, but rather on its results being instrumental or trustable by teachers.
There are endless questions that can be posed regarding AI systems, their training data (which has severe consequences, for instance, on facial recognition tech used by law enforcement) and whether its results can be trusted. Systems such as these can either prove beneficial, leading teachers to ask the right question, at the right time, to a currently troubled student. But it can also be detrimental to student performance, well-being, and even their academic success, depending on its accuracy and how teachers use it to inform their opinions on students.
Questions surrounding long-term analysis of students’ emotional states also arise – could a report from systems such as these be used by a company hiring students straight out of university, with labels such as “depressed” or “attentive” being thrown around? To what measure of this data should the affected individuals have access? And what about students’ emotional privacy – their capacity to keep their emotional states internalized? Are we comfortable with our emotions being labeled and accessible to anyone – especially if there’s someone in a position of power on the other side of the AI?
The line between surveillance and AI-driven, assistive technologies seems to be thinning, and the classroom is but one of the environments at stake. That brings an entirely new interpretation for wearing our hearts on our sleeves.
What bothers me is there are legal safeguards over what can be done with recording and using cameras on children, but no such safeguards on adults. We are getting used to every aspect of public life being under the watch of cameras and those that can tap into them. Plus many people have cameras in their homes, on their electronic devices, in their autos that all record or report on them. Over the years since 9/11 we have given up any real idea of privacy, our lives are a fishbowl. Even our TV’s report back what we watch, when we stop or pause. Our homes have cameras that the police want access to (ring system) that neighbors can join to share their cameras with. Now these face things on your computer. Ask this question, will they have to ask you to use your camera, or will the bad actors simply use them anyway. I run security programs to prevent access to my computer cameras and on my desktops when I am not using them I unplug them. But what about new independent digital cameras and phone cameras? Will you get notified when a company accesses them? The microphones? Do the terms of service you just ignore to get the app you want give them the right to spy on you? I wish I could say the government will protect us but the government is one of the biggest abusers of the system. After 9/11 the Patriot Act gave away most privacy rights of US citizens in favor of the feeling of being safe. Do you feel safer now? In some areas the public has to install cameras in their homes in case the police break in to protect the occupant that lives there. WTF has happened to the independent freedom loving Americans? Oh yes they are attacking school boards over mask policies and trying to stop people from reading books that have the true racist history or god forbid be about LGBTQ+.
Trump utterly HUMILIATES himself at disastrous rally appearance
Michael Lewis on why U.S. COVID response was so…crappy. (My word)
This audio only but I watched the beginning with the CC on and I thought it followed very well during the intro that I had it on.
Americans often “forced” to pay medical bills they don’t owe, feds say
It may come as little surprise that many Americans are besieged by medical bills, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic grinds on. Perhaps more eye-opening is that this is often for debt they have already paid or do not actually owe.
In a new report, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found that people’s most common debt collection complaints last year had to do with efforts to collect on a bill that they said did not belong to them.
“In medical debt collection complaints, this issue makes up nearly half of complaints and, importantly, complaint volume about this topic has been increasing,” the federal agency said, noting that such bills often end up on people’s credit reports and force them onto a bureaucratic hamster wheel to clear their financial record.
Between 2018 and 2021, public complaints about collection attempts for medical bills consumers said they did not owe jumped 31%, the CFPB found. Roughly 1 in 5 U.S. households carries debt related to health care, according to federal data. Medical bills are the most commonly reported item on consumer credit reports, according to regulators.
“People also report learning of an outstanding medical bill only after experiencing a drop in their credit score and being told that only paying the bill would remove the negative collections information from their credit report,” the CFPB added.
750,000 complaints
The CFPB said that in 2021 it sent more than 750,000 complaints to roughly 3,400 companies for them to review. Among the agency’s other findings:
- The median medical debt in the U.S. is $310.
- In 2021, 15% of debt collection complaints were about attempts to collect on a medical bill.
- Consumers receiving collection notices for a medical bill often report being unfamiliar with the listed provider.
- Consumers also report that collection notices often contain large amounts of personal medical information.
- Many Americans say they pay medical bills to avoid adverse financial and privacy consequences — even if they feel the debt isn’t valid.
- Communities with more minority or low-income individuals, veterans, and young adults are more likely to have medical bills reported on their credit reports.
“Many Americans feel forced to pay medical bills that they have already paid or never owed to begin with,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in a statement. “The credit reporting system should not be used as a weapon to coerce patients into paying medical bills they do not owe.”
In March, leading credit rating firms Equifax, Experian and TransUnion said they planned to drop most medical debt from consumers’ credit reports starting this summer.
Congress last year sought to address the problem of runway medical bills by passing the “No Surprises Act,” which protects people with health insurance from getting billed for receiving emergency medical care outside of an insurer’s network.
Under the law patients are still responsible for any deductibles and copays they normally would have to pay under their plan, but they may only be billed at their plan’s in-network rate.
Trolls make up fake stories of parents forcing kids to be trans to fuel moral panic
Photo: ShutterstockAn internet forum where people pretending to be parents forcing their children to be transgender has gotten shut down after it was found to be full of fake stories.
As the U.S. plunges even deeper into a moral panic over children who are supposedly being forced to transition, some anti-transgender people are reacting to the fact that that never happens by making up stories about it and trying to pass them off as real.
Related: Why are Kentucky Republicans so afraid of a mediocre 12-year-old athlete?
“Anyone else have trouble convincing your teen kids to continue transitioning?” user “Funkyduffy” wrote on the subreddit r/TransParentTransKid. “My 15-year-old daughter (AMAB) has started refusing her estradiol so I’ve been crushing the pills and putting it in her cereal in the morning.”
Reddit is a largely anonymous internet platform where most users create unidentifiable handles and connections between users aren’t the focus, a contrast to social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. This makes it easier and more accepted for people to create temporary profiles to say whatever they want on various forums called subreddits.
One such subreddit, r/TransParentTransKid, was started last August when some users decided to post fake stories to it to promote the negative stereotype that parents and schools are forcing kids to be transgender. In reality it is common for schools and parents to be obstacles to trans kids expressing their identities while it’s unheard of for schools and parents to impede cisgender kids the same way.
The user who called for the subreddit’s creation said that it would be “filled with stories about how our real/adoptive children magically learned they were also trans after finding out about their parents,” according to Reuters.
According to another subreddit, r/AgainstHateSubreddits, r/TransParentTransKid was shut down for violating Reddit’s rules because they were “engaged in promoting hatred of transgender people, as well as targeted harassment.”
But the stories still spread outside of Reddit to rightwingers who were all too willing to believe them.
“This is fucking child abuse and I’ll die on this Hill,” wrote libertarian author Justin O’Donnell on Twitter, posting a picture of Funkyduffy’s fake story. He got almost 46,000 likes for it.
Ian Miles Cheong – who has a history of posting misinformation about trans people online and even riling Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) up – shared the story with the words “Good parenting.”The story comes as conservative politicians and activists are claiming that there is a massive effort by schools and parents to turn children transgender.
For example, Rep. Greene said in February that there are “these mothers that think [having a trans child] is like having a handbag. They need to have a boy, a girl, and a trans child like as if they’re some kind of accessory.”
Funkyduffy’s story may have been one that pushed her to believe that such parents exist.
“I have never – not once – heard of a child being forced to transition,” said the ACLU’s Gillian Branstetter. “The exception is intersex children who are frequently forced into surgeries, yet every effort to ban gender-affirming care exempts those surgeries.”
Scottie's Playtime 