Another artist I “e-met” on Google+, way back. These are always thinkers, some are especially nice.
Zen Pencils by Gavin Aung Than for August 05, 2024
Zen Pencils
Category: Written Media / Books
Thanks to Zorba
I love Jim Hightower!
Project 2025 in Two (2) Minutes …
A couple of things in The Guardian today-
Last night, I saw Judge Chutkan’s order (.pdf) that denied the Don’s defense motion to dismiss. The story is here, in The Guardian. Here’s a snippet:
“Judge Tanya Chutkan’s ruling is the first substantive order since the case was returned to her Friday following a landmark US supreme court opinion in July that conferred broad immunity for former presidents and narrowed special counsel Jack Smith’s case against Trump.
“In their motion to dismiss the indictment, defense lawyers argued that Trump was mistreated because he was prosecuted even though others who have challenged election results have avoided criminal charges. Trump, the Republican nominee in the 2024 presidential race, also suggested that President Joe Biden and the US justice department launched a prosecution to prevent him from winning re-election.
“But Chutkan rejected both arguments, saying Trump was not charged simply for challenging election results – but instead for “knowingly making false statements in furtherance of criminal conspiracies and for obstruction of election certification proceedings”. She also said that his lawyers had misread news media articles that they had cited in arguing that the prosecution was political in nature.” (snip-More)
Also in today’s Guardian, a book review of Fred (III) Trump’s book, “All In The Family”. The review is no doubt not as salacious as the book could be, but the review is strict:
“What Fred III calls the ‘T-word’ – almost as odious as the forbidden N-word, which he remembers Donald using when enraged by vandals who damaged his car – undergoes some slick mutations in the course of this chronicle. Fred Zero was born Friedrich Drumpf, which sounds like a belch or sneeze. Anglicised, the surname evokes trump cards and trumped-up accusations, a better match for the family’s ruthlessly competitive creed. Fred I’s middle name was Christ, rhyming with mist, which he derived from his German mother. But he worried that this might repel the Jewish tenants in his New York apartment blocks, so he dropped the “h” and called himself Crist instead. Fred III adopted the new spelling when he bizarrely christened his first son Cristopher; there would be no Fred IV, he decided, because ‘it was time to stop counting’.”
Some things to read while you stay safe and cool this afternoon!
He is too young for these books anyway
Inside The Homes of Black History Legends
This is a slide show, on the page. I sometimes enjoy seeing bits of the lives of people I admire. Click through to see the slide show, here’s a snippet of the text:
-Almost everyone has been on those Victorian house tours where they give stories about the white people who lived there, potential ghosts sightings and whatnot.
-Well, allow us to take you on a trip through the homes of some of the most beloved Black history legends. Not everyone stops to think about the four walls Martin Luther King Jr. grew up in or the massive estate of Madame C.J. Walker, both of which are among other historic locations preserved for touring. The architecture, lofty details and machinery we wouldn’t even know how to operate today, but they keep alive the memory not only of our historical figures but also show us what Black life looked like through their lens.
-If you’re planning a trip to some of these historical sites, first take get a preview into the homes of some our favorite Black historical figures. (snip-photos on the page, with More)
https://www.theroot.com/inside-the-homes-of-our-black-history-legends-1851599161
Portrait of Peter Tatchell hung in National Portrait Gallery
LGBTQ+ and human rights campaigner ‘delighted and honoured’ to have painting by Sarah Jane Moon on display
Harriet Sherwood Tue 30 Jul 2024 00.00 EDT
Peter Tatchell’s portrait is in the History Makers gallery alongside other prominent public figures. Photograph: National Portrait Gallery
A vibrant portrait of the LGBTQ+ and human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell has been hung in the National Portrait Gallery’s History Makers gallery as part of a drive to better reflect the diversity of the UK.
The painting by Sarah Jane Moon shows Tatchell in a casual pose, seated with his hands clasping his left calf. The 72-year-old activist is sporting a rainbow tie to celebrate almost six decades of fighting for LGBTQ+ rights.
Tatchell, who has experienced more than 300 violent assaults and has been arrested or detained by police more than 100 times, said he was “delighted and honoured” to have his portrait in the gallery “alongside so many esteemed public figures”.
“I love the bold, expressive, joyful style [of the painting], which reflects the spirit of my campaigns,” he added. He consciously chose brightly coloured clothes for sittings in order to avoid “the sombre, dark tones” of many portraits.
Although few men routinely wear ties these days, it is not unusual for Tatchell. He realised many years ago that people had “preconceptions about campaigners in T-shirts. I put on a tie and people started treating me much more seriously, so I’ve stuck with ties ever since.” (snip-More)
House kills child online safety bills that could’ve hurt LGBTQ+ kids & allies
Photo: ShutterstockDespite passing in the Senate earlier this week, the Kid’s Online Safety Act (KOSA) is reportedly dead in the U.S. House after progressives, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), worried that it would possible censor LGBTQ+ content. Some Republicans also opposed the bill, stating that it would violate free speech protections for social media platforms and their users.
KOSA would have mandated that social media companies take measures to prevent recommending any content that promotes mental health disorders (like eating disorders, drug use, self-harm, sexual abuse, and bullying) unless minors specifically search for such content. Opponents worried that Republican attorneys general who see LGBTQ+ identities as harmful forms of mental illness would use KOSA’s provisions to censor queer web content and prosecute platforms that provide access to it.
“KOSA was a poorly written bill that would have made kids less safe,” said one of the bill’s most vocal opponents, Evan Greer, director of Fight for the Future, a nonprofit that protects human rights in the digital age. “It’s good that this unconstitutional censorship bill is dead for now, but I am not breathing a sigh of relief.”
“KOSA was always too controversial to succeed, and divided our coalition,” Greer added. “If we want to take on Big Tech and win, we have to quickly regroup and make a plan for next Congress. We need strong privacy, antitrust, and algorithmic justice legislation that address the harms of Big Tech without endangering free expression and human rights.”
Many other groups opposed the bill, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the Woodhull Freedom Foundation, the LGBT Technology Partnership, as well as LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations in six states.
While KOSA passed in the Senate earlier this week in a 93-1 vote, three senators voted against the bills: Ron Wyden (D-OR), Mike Lee (R-UT), and Rand Paul (R-KY) — all three made statements explaining why.
Wyden specifically said he voted against the bills because he worried a future administration could use the legislation to “pressure companies to censor gay, trans, and reproductive health information,” The Hill reported.
Lee said, “This legislation empowers the [Federal Trade Commission (FTC)] to censor any content it deems to cause ‘harm,’ ‘anxiety,’ or ‘depression,’ in a way that could (and most likely would) be used to censor the expression of political, religious, and other viewpoints disfavored by the FTC.”
Paul wrote in a recent Louisville Courier Journal opinion article, “KOSA would impose an unprecedented duty of care on internet platforms to design their sites to mitigate and prevent harms…. This requirement will not only stifle free speech, but it will deprive Americans of the benefits of our technological advancements.”
KOSA was introduced by anti-LGBTQ+ Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who said that one of the bill’s top priorities is to protect children from “the transgender in this culture.” Blackburn’s office told LGBTQ Nation that her comment had been “taken out of context” and wasn’t related to KOSA. Nevertheless, the anti-LGBTQ+ conservative think tank Heritage Foundation has also said it wishes to use the law to “guard” kids against the “harms of… transgender content.”
Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at the ACLU, said, “KOSA compounds nationwide attacks on young peoples’ right to learn and access information, on and offline. As state legislatures and school boards across the country impose book bans and classroom censorship laws, the last thing students and parents need is another act of government censorship deciding which educational resources are appropriate for their families.”
How to strip metadata from your files
https://getsession.org/blog/how-to-strip-metadata-from-your-files
You are being sold with every email, every picture, every blog post, every Instagram post, every thing you put on X or Facebook, you are the cash cow these companies want to milk. I have been taking steps for years to reduce how much these businesses can strip mine my stuff data about me. Here is a program I like, and here is a free tutorial on how to remove a lot of the metadata out of your images and files. I recently realized how much information about myself I include in messages, so I looked into this program by Sessions. Hugs. Scottie
January 07, 2022 / Alex Linton
Metadata is a big deal — especially for people who are trying to protect their online privacy. For any files on your computer, there is probably a bunch of metadata about the file — such as location data, when the file was created, when it was last changed, or even what device created the file. If you ever give that file to someone else (or upload it to the internet), the file’s metadata will be transferred as well — which means they can see all that info.
There are plenty of reasons you might want to share a file without wanting to share the metadata as well — such as preserving your privacy or anonymity. To do that, you’ll want to strip the file’s metadata. Stripping metadata from files removes all that extra information and leaves you with just the information in the file itself. Some messengers—like Session—strip metadata from your image files when you attach them to a message. This is because they can contain sensitive EXIF data, which contains device and location information. Other file types—like MP3s—might have less sensitive metadata (such as a song name or artist) which won’t be stripped.
However, if you want to be sure, you can always manually strip the metadata from your files. Here’s how!
How to remove metadata from files using Windows
Scrubbing your files on Windows is relatively easy, you can do so directly in the File Explorer without relying on any third party software.
Locate the file you want to strip in Explorer
Right click on the file and select Properties
Select the Details tab to see the associated metadata
Click Remove Properties and Personal Information
Select the metadata you want to remove
Select to either Create a copy (if you want to preserve the original) or Remove properties from this file
Click OK
Ta-da! Metadata removed, now you can safely share the file without extra personal information being attached.
How to remove metadata from files using macOS
Unfortunately things aren’t as simple on macOS. There’s no catch-all option for all file types, and you can only remove specific kinds of data. For images, you can remove location data using macOS’s built-in Preview application.
Open the image in Preview
Hit CMD + i to display the image’s metadata
Navigate to the Info tab (circle with an ‘i’ inside it)
Click on GPS to see the location metadata
Click Remove Location Info to remove the GPS information stored in the image
For anything more thorough than this (or any file type other than images) you’ll need to use third-party software, such as Acrobat Pro for PDFs.
How to remove metadata from files using Linux
Thankfully, things are much easier on Linux! Note: Instructions may be different depending on your distro.
If you’re using a Debian-based system (such as Ubuntu), you can install MAT (which comes pre-packaged) using this command:
$ sudo apt-get install matYou can then launch the MAT GUI using this:
$ mat-guiAdd the file you want to strip to MAT by clicking the Add icon in the top navigation bar
Once the file is added, click Check to scan for metadata
If metadata is detected, MAT will mark the file as ‘Dirty’, you can double click the file to see what metadata has been detected
Click Clean to strip the metadata from the file
Simple as that!
Keep your files safe
Stripping metadata from your files before you share them is a good idea — especially if you’re going to upload them somewhere public on the internet. If you want to be certain that the files you send are completely metadata free (even to the people you send them to) — make sure to strip them first! To ensure your files stay private, it’s also important to consider how and where you store your files. Make sure you’re encrypting your hard drives, and be careful about what Cloud storage providers you use and what upload.
These days, it’s a normal everyday thing to share files on messaging apps and social media — but it’s important to be mindful about what exactly you’re sharing. Once those files hit the internet — they could end up anywhere!
Scottie's Playtime 