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On Thursday, the first day of the 116th Congress, Congressman Ted Deutch (D-FL), Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA), Congressman Jamie Raskin (D-MD), and Congressman John Katko (R-NY) introduced a bipartisan constitutional amendment to get big money out of politics and restore democratic power to the American people.

The Democracy for All Amendment affirms the right of states and the federal government to pass laws that regulate spending in elections, reversing the concentration of political influence held by the wealthiest Americans and large corporations capable of spending millions of dollars in our elections. This legislation comes days before the ninth anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s disastrous ruling in the Citizens United case.

For more information on the amendment, click here for a background summary and click here for a section-by-section and answered FAQs.

Sexism Claims From Bernie Sanders’s 2016 Run: Paid Less, Treated Worse

Bernie Sanders says he was not aware of claims of sexism in 2016 campaign

Bernie Sanders apologizes for allegations of sexism in 2016 campaign

Sexism Isn’t a Problem for Just the Bernie Sanders Campaign

We have to get the weird old capitalist out of the room. #Warren2020!

"The secret not yet told": Women describe alleged abuse by nuns

"It's not abuse, it's education."

General

This is a post / TFS text pre-processor designed specifically for use with soylent.org

It is Python CGI that must be installed upon a webserver, and is then used via the web page it generates.

Capabilities:

• Generates <abbr> tag pairs with terminology expansions for caps / numbers / caps+numbers sequences
  • Over 1000 term expansions (as of Jan 1st, 2019)
  • Can expand electronic components such as R2, VR5 and IC44 (default on)
  • Can ignore specified terms on-the-fly
  • Can list all expandable terms (default off)
  • Flags unknown terms that may be expandable on the web page
  • Handles pre-existing <abbr> tag pairs when you want to add one-off uses
  • Handles HTML and won't try to expand within HTML tags
  • Includes test code to verify file containing expansions, generate statistics
  • Includes command line tool to check to see if term already present in expansion list
• Built-in macro language
  • Can list available macros (default on)
  • Multiple random/selected user signature generator (default off)
  • Includes macros to make posting easier (you can add as many as you like):
    • blockquote {bq quoted text}
    • strikeout {strike struck text}
    • bold {b bolded text}
    • italic {i italicized text}
    • bulleted lists {ul item|...|item}
    • numbered lists {ol item|...|item}
    • links, canned and/or on-the-fly {link URL|linked text}
    • temperature display and conversion {f NN}, {c NN}
    • let me google that for you {lmgtfy search term}
    • smile (emoji) {smile}
    • shrug (character art) {shrug}
    • escapes: {vb}=|, {ls}={, {rs}=}, {sqig text}={text}
• Handles unicode posting
• Incorporates basic self-test when run from command line

The project can be found here on Github.

--
If ignorance is bliss, why aren't more people happy?

Why is the War on Christmas such a big deal for people?

First of all: the War on Christmas does not exist. No one is declaring war on a holiday. Some people may not want to participate. Some people may not want to say Merry Christmas. Some people may hate Christmas with a passion and every Christian too. So what? This does not make a war.

Around these parts this was taken to the next level inside of a community I'm a member of. Right around the start of the holidays 2 people out of say 10 regulars and 30 non-regulars started an aggressive Merry Christmas campaign. Aggressive as in saying Merry Christmas to as many people as possible? No, this is a weaponized Merry Christmas.

"Merry Christmas and I hope that does not offend you and if it does too bad go somewhere else." Sigh. No one ever even mentioned any such thing at all. This just came out of the blue. The holidays really brings out the worst in some people I guess.

Around the same time true colors started to come out. These Christmas Warriors (not sure what else to call them) I suppose then became comfortable with each other and really let their opinions be known. You see, it's the Jews fault. They are terrible people - all of them. In fact they are a bunch of whiny cry babies that weren't even murdered that much in WWII really.

What is the end result? The community is vacant of all but 1 of these people now. And that person is constantly asking if anyone is around and wondering why the place has been vacant.

Thanks for driving everyone away - quite the Christmas present. It's obvious your heart is full of love and Christian ethics.

Women's March in California canceled over concerns it would be 'overwhelmingly white'

A California Women’s March was canceled because of concerns that its participants have been “overwhelmingly white,” the march’s organizers said.

Organizers announced Friday that the Women’s March would not take place in Eureka, in Humboldt County, California, on Jan. 19 as previously planned due to issues of representation.

“Up to this point, the participants have been overwhelmingly white, lacking representation from several perspectives in our community,” a post on the march’s Facebook page read. “Instead of pushing forward with crucial voices absent, the organizing team will take time for more outreach.”

Eat your own. #Unity

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On 29th March we remove ourselves from our local, and very successful, trading bloc, the EU.

I have been preoccupied making plans and making my objections known in a peaceful and democratic manner. I'm afraid that politics and worrying about the future has taken over.

I figured I should brush up on my French and I've made a stash of supplies so that we can eat after the borders close on 29th March. We import most of our food. And that food which we do grow is often picked by migrant workers who will no longer be welcome after Brexit.

We have oil and gas pipelines that cross continental Europe and we buy gas from that nice Mr Putin who only wants the best for his patriotic friends. We also import electricity directly from France via a 2GW cable under the English Channel. Obviously this gets more and more expensive as Sterling continues to lose its value.

Several prominent Brexit supporters, including Jacob Rees-Mogg decided it would be better to move their business to Ireland (in the EU) and the great patriot John Redwood advised his customers to pull their money out of the UK and invest in places like the EU in the light of Brexit.

There's still the unsolvable problem of the border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Dinosaur-deniers the DUP are propping up a minority Tory government and staunchly preventing any progress because they don't want a "border" between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, despite the fact there's already a physical one in the form of the Irish Sea.

The Scottish Government brought a case to the European Court of Justice asking for a ruling on whether a country (eg the U) could unilaterally revoke Article 50 (the statement of intention to leave the EU). The UK Westminster government opposed the Scottish governments action, but was unsuccessful. The ECJ ruled that the UK can unilaterally revoke Article 50 without the agreement of the other 27 EU member states. All we need is a vote in the Westminster Parliament (which is sovereign). So it's not over yet!

The banks in the City of London have been making further preparations. About £700M of assets have moved to Frankfurt.

We also have to consider the extra delays at the borders for goods and raw materials coming in and out of the country. Much of our trade goes through Dover, in Kent. In Kent, they're preparing by creating another motorway-lorry-park, this time the M26. Industry will perhaps find it difficult to produce and to sell when things are held up in Kent.

Believe it or not, we have a Kipper in the family. He's also a Baptist. Goodness knows where he got that from. He was shown Father Ted when young but hey ho. I was treated to an entertaining conspiracy theory about Silicon Valley and the EU deliberately suppressing "right wing free speech." A long, convoluted "explanation" followed.

This conversation also confirmed a conclusion that I'd reached over the years regarding Kippers (UKIP members). They have a very naive and simplistic view of countries, nationalism, the modern world, "free speech," "hate speech," conservatism, economics, science, international relations, history (the World Wars and the Cold War, the rise of Nazism) and have precious little clue about "their own country" i.e. the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. They get it confused with England and are pretty ignorant about Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

When mentioning that I was now in favour of Scottish Independence and that I didn't want to lose my right of Freedom of Movement, and that I hoped Scotland would join the EU, the classic Kipper ill-informed and patronising reply came back, "I can't understand why you'd want to regain your sovereignty only to give it away again to the EU." It's a trading bloc and it is democratic. It's more democratic that British First Past the Post Westminster Centralised "democracy."

My sister had the right idea. She settled in Germany years ago. The mayor of her town wrote to all British citizens inviting them to apply for German citizenship which she has done and will be sitting her citizenship exam in a couple of months time.

Finally, I asked why UKIP had appointed Stephen Yaxley-Lennon as its advisor for being mean to brown people. That didn't go down well. I got chapter and verse on what a nice man he really is and has brown friends etc.

And don't mention Trump. It'll just get blamed on Obama. And Mr Putin is a very nice man.

Game over UK. We have fallen to the fascists. Run while you can.

Recently I was talking with a non-technical person about the Internet, speed of light, and speed of communications. As a part of that discussion I got curious about the fraction of the speed of light that the Internet will move data around for me. I picked a few spots, sent a few pings, and did a bit of math.

Assuming a round trip time splits the duration evenly between send and receive latency my first measurements gave me approximately 1/5th the speed of light for a one way packet of right around 37,000 miles per second. Later on I repeated this experiment.

How does this work? Pick a geographic location some distance from you (I've done this with 150 miles and 1500 miles so far), pick an IP in that location then traceroute it to make sure the route isn't a mess, then ping it and note round trip time. Also estimate the rough distance to that location as the crow flies.

speed one way = 2 * miles / seconds - here are some values from where I sit:

RTT for ~150 miles: ~7ms = ~42,000 miles/sec
RTT for ~1500 miles: ~34ms = ~70,000 miles/sec

That puts the speed of a ping in a very respectable range of around 1/4 to 1/3rd the speed of light. G'damn that's pretty amazing.

I'm curious about the results from other people. Can anyone replicate?

Italy circumcision kills toddler, with one man charged

A two-year-old boy has died from blood loss following a failed circumcision at a migrant centre in Italy. The boy's twin brother also underwent the procedure in Rome's north-western suburb of Monterondo and is recovering in hospital.

A 66-year-old man has been charged with murder, according to Italian media. Some 5,000 circumcisions are performed in Italy each year but more than a third are carried out illegally, according to health charity Amsi.

Cultural non-profit group Arci said the procedures had taken place at a refugee centre it runs with the local council in Monterondo. "It is a tragedy that leaves us speechless," Arci said in a statement on Facebook, adding that it would take civil action once those responsible for the child's death had been determined by police.

The two boys, who have not been named, were born in Italy in 2017 to a Nigerian mother who has five other children in Nigeria. Local media say the mother had asked for the operations in respect for Nigeria's Islamic traditions, despite being Catholic herself.

The medical credentials of the doctor are reportedly being questioned by police. Ansa said the man arrested was an American citizen of Libyan origin.

There's a lot of snark I could put here but I'll just go with "Merry Christmas!"