Republicans Brought the Fire to Her, But She Deserved So Much More

Human-wildlife conflict is one of the biggest issues relating to the ability of the world's wildlife and people to coexist. Whether it’s living through a cicadapocalypse, having your crops stolen by hungry elephants, or the impact of war on wildlife, there are basic rules when it comes to living side by side with the creatures of the world. Not leaping off a boat to try and "body slam" an orca shouldn’t need to be one of them.The Department of Conservation in New Zealand became concerned when a video of a man leaping off a pleasure boat into the sea, in a deliberate effort to touch or even “body slam” an orca, surfaced on social media.              "The video left us genuinely stunned. As well as the initial attempt to dive onto the animal, the man stays in the water and then swims toward it again in a second attempt to touch it," said DOC Principal Investigation Officer Hayden Loper in a statement. "This is stupid behaviour and demonstrates a shocking disregard for the welfare of the orca. It is extremely irresponsible."The 50-year-old man leapt into the water with both a male orca and a calf swimming round the boat, the video shows. Other people on the boat can be heard laughing and cheering in the background. "Orca are immensely powerful animals, and this really could have ended horribly – with either the startled whale being injured, or the man responsible being harmed by the aggravated animal," continued Loper. Working with the police, the man was identified and fined $600 NZD (around $370 USD) for his behavior. Loper said, "It’s a very clear breach of the Marine Mammals Protection Act. Orca are classified as whales under conservation legislation and it is illegal to swim with whales, or disturb or harass any marine mammal."Killer whales are actually the largest member of the dolphin family, and while they have a large distribution worldwide, they are thought to only number 150-200 off the coast of New Zealand. They are extremely intelligent and have been known to sink yachts in the Mediterranean. A further shocking incident of human-wildlife conflict occurred recently when a group were spotted pulling bear cubs out of trees in North Carolina, USA. Up to now, there's never been a recorded instance of an orca attacking a human in the wild – but there's always a first time...

According to a new study, just 10 “superspreaders” were responsible for over a third of the misinformation posted on Twitter (now X) during an eight-month period in 2020.Misinformation has become a serious concern in recent years. On the face of it, this type of content may appear to be simply irritating, but it can also have significant negative impacts. In particular, misinformation can sow distrust in democratic institutions or even threaten faith in public health systems. The January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol is an extreme example of how misinformation can lead to violent political unrest, while similar conspiratorial information seriously disrupted measures to address COVID-19 during the pandemic.For some time, researchers have been aware that some individuals on social media are more apt at spreading misinformation than others. So-called “superspreaders” – users who consistently spread a disproportionately high amount of low-credibility content – may well be responsible for much of the problem. In fact, a study into the impact of the misinformation on the 2016 US election found that 0.1 percent of Twitter users were responsible for sharing 80 percent of the dodgy content that circulated at the time.During the pandemic, an analysis of the proliferation of low-credibility information related to COVID-19 was shared by popular pages and accounts that had been verified by Facebook and Twitter, respectively. More worrying still, in 2021, the Centre for Countering Digital Hate identified 12 accounts – the so-called “Disinformation Dozen” – who were responsible for spreading almost two-thirds of the anti-vaccination claims on social media.With the response to the rise in misinformation being shared, social media platforms are under increasing pressure to shore up their efforts to address it. But how do you identify superspreaders, especially when existing studies have used different methods to find them?That’s the inspiration behind this latest study, conducted by researchers from the Observatory on Social Media at Indiana University, and the Department of Computer Science at the University of Exeter, in the UK. The team analyzed 2,397,388 tweets containing low-credibility content – which they defined as “content originally published by low-credibility, or untrustworthy sources” – that were sent by 448,103 users between January and October 2020.According to their analysis, over a third of these posts came from just 10 accounts, while only 1,000 were responsible for 70 percent.These superspreaders mostly belong to anonymous “hyperpartisan” accounts, as well as high-profile political commentators and strategists. Included among them were official accounts from both the Democratic and Republican parties, and the account of @DonaldJTrumpJr, belonging to former President Trump’s son and political advisor.It is worth noting that many of these superspreader accounts were identified in 2020 and have now become inactive or have been banned from the platform. At the time, Twitter was experimenting with ways to combat misinformation, but this approach stands in stark contrast to the situation now. X decided to lay off much of its content moderation staff and has even disbanded its election integrity team.It is also important to note that the majority of low credibility information in the data remained high even after 2,000 bot accounts were removed.“In this paper we address two research questions at the core of the digital misinformation problem. Specifically, we compare the efficacy of several metrics in identifying superspreaders of low-credibility content on Twitter,” the authors wrote. “We then employ the best performing metrics to qualitatively describe these problematic accounts.”“A manual classification of the active superspreaders we identify reveals that over half are heavily involved in political conversation. Although the vast majority are conservative, they include the official accounts of both the Democratic and Republican parties. Additionally, we find a substantial portion of nano-influencer accounts, prominent broadcast television show hosts, contrarian scientists, and anti-vaxxers.”The team’s results show that the removal of superspreaders from the platform does result in a large reduction in the spread of low-credibility information. However, they note that the suspension of accounts to reduce harm may be interpreted as an effort to limit the freedom of speech.“The effectiveness of other approaches to moderation should be evaluated by researchers and industry practitioners,” the team explain. “For instance, platforms could be redesigned to incentivize the sharing of trustworthy content.”Although this work focuses on superspreaders of misinformation, it may well open the door for future research into “amplifier” accounts, users who may reshare misinformation originally published by others.The study is published in PLOS One.

CBS’s Stephen Colbert and Comedy Central’s Michael Kosta and Troy Iwata continued the left-wing efforts to smear Justice Samuel Alito as some sort of insurrectionist or theocrat on their respective Thursday installments of The Late Show and The Daily Show for flying a Revolution-era Appeal to Heaven flag at his home. Colbert was especially bad because, while he admitted the flag’s original purpose had nothing to do with January 6, he just doesn’t care, “The Appeal to Heaven flag is not a new flag. It was first carried during the American Revolution, but it's more recently been co-opted by Christian nationalists, specifically championed by a right-wing Christian author named Dutch Sheets.”     After some jokes about Sheets’s name, Colbert got back on track and threw Speaker Mike Johnson into the conversation as well, “Mr. Sheets made it his mission to promote this flag among right-wing nutjobulists, and it's working because Speaker Johnson has also hung the flag outside his office. When asked about it, Johnson said, ‘It's George Washington's flag... It has nothing to do with stop the steal.’” Colbert was not happy, “Yes, it does! When a nearly forgotten symbol is brought back and widely co-opted, you don't get to use it in the old way. If a guy named Brandon says, ‘Actually, this swastika above my bed is referring to the ancient sanskrit symbol for good luck,’ he's a Nazi, Cheryl!” Despite his loathing of the January 6 rioters and the Stop the Steal movement, Colbert sure is willing to give them a lot of power to redefine Revolution-era symbols. Furthermore, mature people can differentiate between actual Nazis and people from South Asia using the swastika in its traditional context, just like mature people can differentiate between Revolutionary War and Founding-era history buffs and Stop the Steal followers. Circling back to Alito, Colbert added, “Sam Alito keeps saying that everyone on the Supreme Court is completely unbiased and non-political! I mean, there's nothing wrong if Aaron Judge wears a Yankees jersey, but it's different if the umpire does it! Balls and strikes, right? Balls and strikes.” Over at Comedy Central, Kosta huffed, “Look, I'm not an expert, but I always thought a judge was supposed to be impartial and neutral and I'm not naive, I know he's not, but can he at least respect us enough to pretend to be? It's not like he's a judge on American Idol. He's a Supreme Court judge. But he's stunting on us like a soccer player popping his jersey after a goal. ‘I killed Roe v. Wade, bitches! I killed Roe v. Wade, bitches!’"     Kosta also introduced Iwata who pretended to be reporting outside Alito’s home. Part way through the bit, the flag behind Iwata changed, leading him to report, “Oh, okay, so it's a big blue wave? I'm guessing that means Alito likes surfing? Or maybe they're fans of that Japanese wave painting that white people put in their first apartment. I'm going to look it up. Okay, so the wave is Noah's flood washing away the Sodomites, and drowning them in an ocean of tears.” Iwata claimed that Alito could clear up any confusion over his flags’ meanings by putting up flags that have clear messages, such as “a flag like Saudi Arabia. I can't read Arabic, but I know what a sword is. Like, message received! Maybe Samuel Alito should hire Saudi Arabia's flag guy.” It’s not really the sword that brought Iwata to the Saudi flag, it’s the fact that Saudi Arabia is a model society for the left’s straw man version of Alito. If it was literally about weapons, why didn’t Iwata choose Mozambique for having an AK-47 on its flag? The flag behind Iwata then changed again in case viewers were still confused over whether The Daily Show thinks Alito is a theocrat or simply a George Washington fan, “Okay... It's a Bible... Holding a gun? Oh, my god. I love it! See, I get that! Straight to the point! I am pissing my pants in fear, but I know why! Yes! Thank you, Justice Alito!” Just because the left is unfamiliar with Founding-era flags doesn’t mean other people are and waving their flags doesn’t make them a theocrat, an insurrectionist, or a Nazi. Here are transcripts for the May 23 shows: CBS The Late Show with Stephen Colbert 5/23/2024 11:39 PM ET STEPHEN COLBERT: The Appeal to Heaven flag is not a new flag. It was first carried during the American Revolution, but it's more recently been co-opted by Christian nationalists, specifically championed by a right-wing Christian author named Dutch Sheets. Dutch Sheets, of course, named after someone who's been hit in the head with a brick trying to remember the name of IKEA. "We gotta go to the place, uh, the Dutch one with the sheets. After that, I think we should go to the hospital."  We liked the name Dutch Sheets so much that we have another joke we want to do. Dutch Sheets, of course, also what it's called when you fart over the covers. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Peabody, please.  Mr. Sheets made it his mission to promote this flag among right-wing nutjobulists, and it's working because Speaker Johnson has also hung the flag outside his office. When asked about it, Johnson said, "It's George Washington's flag... It has nothing to do with stop the steal."  Yes, it does! When a nearly forgotten symbol is brought back and widely co-opted, you don't get to use it in the old way. If a guy named Brandon says, "Actually, this swastika above my bed is referring to the ancient sanskrit symbol for good luck," he's a Nazi, Cheryl! Get out of there! I don't care if his haircut is crisp. You know, the crisp haircut. Besides, Mike Johnson is a political figure. It's one thing if he wants to fly the team flag. Sam Alito keeps saying that everyone on the Supreme Court is completely unbiased and non-political! I mean, there's nothing wrong if Aaron Judge wears a Yankees jersey, but it's different if the umpire does it! Balls and strikes, right? Balls and strikes.   *** Comedy Central The Daily Show 5/23/2024 11:09 PM ET MICHAEL KOSTA: Look, I'm not an expert, but I always thought a judge was supposed to be impartial and neutral and I'm not naive, I know he's not, but can he at least respect us enough to pretend to be? It's not like he's a judge on American Idol. He's a Supreme Court judge. But he's stunting on us like a soccer player popping his jersey after a goal. "I killed Roe v. Wade, bitches! I killed Roe v. Wade, bitches!"  But if you're upset about this, the good news is, the Supreme Court has a code of ethics. Now, the bad news is, they wrote that code of ethics, and they don't follow it. So, I guess there is no good news, and the bad news is even worse. For more on the flag controversy with Justice Alito, we turn to Troy Iwata! Troy! Troy, you're outside Justice Alito's house at the Jersey shore right now. What's the mood down there? TROY IWATA: It's awful, Michael. It's the Jersey shore. Stop sending me here! It's like if Florida wore too much cologne. KOSTA: Okay, but what can you tell us about the flags at Alito's house? They're very provocative! IWATA: Well, it's worse than that, Michael. These flags are very confusing! I don't know what any of these weird right-wing symbols mean. One is upside down. This one has a clip-art pine tree on it. I don't get the message! The first time I saw that Blue Lives Matter flag, I thought the Smurfs finally got citizenship. KOSTA: Well, right-wing nationalists use this pine tree flag to symbolize how God gave them the divine right to violently overthrow the government. IWATA: Then [bleep] say that! Write "This is a reference to whatever shit Michael just said" on the flag. Because right now, this is just an ugly flag with a Christmas cookie on it. KOSTA: I think the bigger question is what Justice Alito thought the flag meant. IWATA: I'm going to stop you there, Michael, because he just put up a new flag. Oh, okay, so it's a big blue wave? I'm guessing that means Alito likes surfing? Or maybe they're fans of that Japanese wave painting that white people put in their first apartment. I'm going to look it up. Okay, so the wave is Noah's flood washing away the Sodomites, and drowning them in an ocean of tears. KOSTA: Troy, that's terrible. That's a terrible flag. IWATA: I know. I did not get any of that from the fun wave flag. If you're going to be hateful, stop being so subtle! Add a tiny gay person drowning under the wave. Or something! You know what flag works? That Don't Tread on Me flag with the angry snake. I get that. I know where not to tread. Or the punisher skull? When someone is wearing that on their shirt, I know that they're saying, "I'm divorced," you know? Or you can have a flag like Saudi Arabia. I can't read Arabic, but I know what a sword is. Like, message received! Maybe Samuel Alito should hire Saudi Arabia's flag guy. KOSTA: Okay, Troy, hold up, there appears to be a new flag up behind you. IWATA: Okay... It's a Bible... Holding a gun? Oh, my god. I love it! See, I get that! Straight to the point! I am pissing my pants in fear, but I know why! Yes! Thank you, Justice Alito! God, it must be nice to own a home.

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The plane chartered by the Old Christians rugby club to fly from Montevideo Uruguay to Santiago, Chile after a stopover in Mendoza, Argentina. The post Survival Story: Miracle in the Andes appeared first on Survivopedia.

Former judge and longtime television host Judy Sheindlin explained why she believes so many people have fled woke cities, which have become dangerous for the average family.Sheindlin was a Manhattan family court judge who starred in the "Judge Judy" television show from 1996-2021, eventually starting her own production for a similar show called "Judy Justice." The judge recently gave an interview to pinpoint the reason for the rapid degradation of some of the United States' biggest cities."Oh I know how we got here," Sheindlin began. "We got here because a small group of people who had very loud voices created a scenario where bad people got rewarded. And the victim got punished by the system," she told Fox News."When society started to make excuses for bad behavior, and react to criminality based upon the excuses, it fell apart," she said.The 81-year-old said that there "is never an excuse for bad behavior," but certain jurisdictions have allowed excuses for society and lessened the punishments for criminal activities.'You had district attorneys who didn't know what their job was. And the cities are ruined, people are leaving.'"You're just as dead if somebody who's 18 kills you or 17, you're just as dead," she continued. The judge remarked that a 17-year-old that is convicted of heinous crimes should not be in the same facility as a 12-year-old simply because they are underage.Sheindlin pointed to big cities like New York as examples of where excuse-making has become law."A very small group of people pushed through, in New York state for example, raising the level of criminal responsibility. That's ridiculous. You have a family, you have a mother who's 65 years old that's walking to a grocery store, and some crazy, for no reason hits her over the head with a steel pipe and kills her, and they're 17; that person should never be allowed to walk the street again.""Society can't take a chance. I wouldn't take a chance putting them living next to me, why would I take a chance putting them next to you?"The judge was born in Brooklyn, New York, and became an attorney at just 23 years old. In 1972, she became a prosecutor in the New York family court system. Biography reported that she prosecuted juvenile crime, domestic violence, and child abuse cases.'We better get smart before we get lost, permanently.'In her recent interview, Sheindlin blamed district attorneys for not doing their job and subsequently ruining cities."When you have district attorneys who are charged, whose job it is to do justice, but to keep the community safe. When you have elected district attorneys who don't know what their job is, they should go find another job.""Fill ice cream cones someplace. But don't ruin cities," she added. "What's happened around New York City, Portland, San Francisco, you had district attorneys who didn't know what their job was. And the cities are ruined, people are leaving.""We better get smart before we get lost, permanently."Sheindlin has provided comment in recent years about high-profile cases and even spoke out against cancel culture in 2021."To have a fear of speaking your opinion, for fear of being put on somebody's list and canceled. ... It's a frightening place for America to be."Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Recently, I spoke with Tim Carney, author of "Family Unfriendly," on the ways in which the corporate life and culture of America has made it difficult for families — especially big families — to thrive. This thesis stuck with me, and it changed the way I’ve been thinking about the work-home dichotomy. Following this train of thought, I sought out Regina Bethencourt, founder and CEO of Tenuto Consulting, a company that provides research-based branding solutions for higher education and mission-based organizations. Regina spoke to me about how she's organized her life and company to accommodate big families, and why she believes it is, in fact, possible to be a stay-at-home mom and a working professional — provided you have a little courage and creativity to spare.— Helen Roy“You can’t have it all” has been the common objection to sharing my goals for the personal and professional trajectory of my life. You must choose: Either you limit your number of children (or abandon the idea of being a mother altogether) and pursue a career path, or you settle in for a stay-at-home life usually complete with homeschooling, gingham dresses, and sourdough bread.Both of these paths can be meritorious and deeply fulfilling in their own right, especially for women who feel a specific call to embody the entirety of these two lifestyles. But many women feel that the options are too limited. Those on the career side often lament that they don’t get to spend as much time with their children as they would like, while many women on the stay-at-home side feel a deep desire for a professional or intellectual outlet to expand that side of their person. The job options for these moms in the middle are nearly nonexistent. Often, they will take jobs well below their skill set and pay grade just to find a little flexibility or a boss who won’t hound them for taking a day to stay at home with a kid with an ear infection. Others get caught up in multilevel marketing companies that especially target these moms who then end up exploited rather than supported. It took building my own company, a branding and marketing firm, to find a job with the level of flexibility that would allow me to be as present as I need to be for my children yet still pursue a challenging professional career. As my company gained traction, I realized I could extend this opportunity to other women by inviting them to join my team and experience the same flexibility that I had been able to create for myself. Now, as a team, we have a mission to change the way moms show up to work. Both internally, as we grow our client portfolio and hire more moms in the middle, and externally, as we hope to inspire other CEOs and employers to implement policies that work for moms. Here are a few top tips that break open doors to opportunity for moms:Stop tying compensation to hoursThere is nothing more confining than the prevailing idea that our work has value according to the hours it took to complete it. In our field of branding, sometimes a logo idea comes from a sudden stroke of inspiration and is completed in 10 minutes. Other times, the concept takes longer, the inspiration isn’t there, and the final logo might start taking shape after a week or two of trial and error. Is the second logo worth more than the first? No. When an employee’s compensation is tied to hours worked, it naturally favors the employees who have the most hours available. Moms, because of the demanding physical and logistical challenges of motherhood, naturally have fewer hours available. However, studies show that moms are substantially more productive at work than their counterparts. Which means if we offer moms work that is tied to deliverables instead of hours (for example: 10 social graphics and five flyers per week), moms have the option to be adequately and accurately compensated for their work, while ALSO spending less time working and more time with their kids. Win-win.Full time should not mean Mon-Fri 9-5Connected to the hours culture in the modern-day workplace is also the idea that work needs to be done at a certain time and in a certain place. While certainly some schedule coordination needs to happen to make sure there are times to discuss projects and ideas in person or virtually, the idea that work happens between 9-5 is a leftover from a bygone era. At Tenuto, we require a minimum of only 20% of your availability to fall during traditional work hours and that’s only to allow for client calls or internal team meetings. You manage the rest of your availability according to what works for you and your schedule. Some of our team members only work nights and weekends. Others work long days on Tuesdays and Wednesdays but unplug the rest of the week. As long as they hit their deliverables, they are free to set their schedule according to what works for them.Build backups into your team structureA major challenge that moms face in the working world is how to manage when things don’t go to plan, which is a frequent reality with the schedules and health of multiple children at play. Employers have tried to solve this with subsidized backup childcare policies — which help but often aren’t ideal because they require either inviting a stranger into your home or dropping your toddler off at an unfamiliar location and hoping for the best. It’s not ideal, fundamentally, because there is no real equivalent backup for mom. Ask any kindergartner home with a fever. Instead of backups for childcare, teams should have backups for work projects. If something happens to Sara, Catherine jumps in and takes over her deliverables, and vice versa. Everyone needs help from time to time, so we jump in to help others knowing that that same willingness will be there for us when the inevitable stomach bug hits. We’re humans, not production machines, and we treat each other as such.Child friendly should actually mean child friendlyChild-friendly work culture often means that children are accepted as long as they are quiet, well-behaved, and appear with sufficient advance notice so that everyone else can brace themselves. We define child friendly as a work culture where babies are regularly nursed on client calls, the tousled head of a toddler who escaped from the babysitter may pop into the corner of the video screen, or an urgent “I need to call you back in 15 minutes” is a common occurrence. We don’t pretend that moms can work without support. All of our team members use some degree of childcare, whether from a school, a family member, a babysitter, or a daycare program. But we also don’t pretend that moms can or should make their kids disappear in order to be more successful at work. There is always space for a break for a booboo kiss, a lunch picnic, or stories with mom before nap time.

From George Washington's dentures to James Garfield's agonizing death, learn some captivating presidential facts that even some history buffs don't know. The post 46 Enthralling Facts About The Presidents Of The United States appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Schmidt’s blowout loss to Republican-turned-independent deputy Nathan Vasquez could serve as a bellwether for suburban voters’ feelings about public safety.