'Homegrowns are next': Trump doubles down on sending American 'criminals' to foreign prisons
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Yup, though this isn't an argument for why plastics are certainly dangerous. It doesn't really matter, there are many reasons plastics are a problem, even if we don't have that smoking gun yet on how actual plastic is hazardous. BPA, BPS, PVC, and other additives are already horrible, the reliance on plastics are part of what is destroying the earth's climate, and these materials are not recyclable or re-usable, it's an environmental disaster on a scale we have never seen, etc.
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yeah, this is probably a bit like when people thought smoking wasn't bad for you.
The higher concentration of microplastics are correlation studies, they don't establish a causal link (which would be huge news and the discovery of a century). For example, the correlation could just be due to the poorer lifestyles of those who consume more microplastics (for example, they're more common in processed and fast foods, which tend to be less healthy, for example and may also just be more common in people with lower economic status who then have less access to healthcare and more likely to die younger for a variety of reasons). The point is that they don't have the smoking gun, yet.
We should just be clear about where we are at with the evidence, I'm not saying we shouldn't be concerned or the lack of evidence is somehow exonerating or that we should be confident this isn't a public health concern - I am very much concerned.
And of course there are lots of other reasons to avoid plastics, including its impact on the ecology and agriculture. It's terrifying that China for example will just till plastic sheeting into the soil rather than bother to pull it up (and perhaps concerning plastic sheeting is used as a mulch in the first place, both in China and other countries like the U.S.).
I don't know what to tell you about additives, they absolutely do make plastics without some of the known-to-be-hazardous additives, though I'm not saying that has in any way been adopted across the board or has solved the problem (I don't know enough about that to be honest, but I'm cynical industrialists are going to give a shit).
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As I understand it, plastics themselves have no known negative impact on human health - it's the additives in the plastics that are a problem. But I don't think the BPA hazards listed above can be fairly generalized to all microplastics.
EDIT:
from the hazards sheet:
HEALTH HAZARDS IN THERMAL PAPER WITH BISPHENOLS (BPA & BPS)
So BPA and BPS, and they're talking about thermal paper with those in particular.
I guess this has more details about BPA hazards: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_effects_of_Bisphenol_A
The U.S. FDA states "BPA is safe at the current levels occurring in foods" based on extensive research, including two more studies issued by the agency in early 2014.[2] The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) reviewed new scientific information on BPA in 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2015: EFSA's experts concluded on each occasion that they could not identify any new evidence which would lead them to revise their opinion that the known level of exposure to BPA is safe; however, the EFSA does recognize some uncertainties, and will continue to investigate them.
As usual, it's highly contextual when something is a hazard and to what extent it is.
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Above that it mentions:
HAZARDS FOUND IN LABORATORY TESTS INCLUDE:
- Obesity
- Diabetes
- Early Puberty
- Cardiovascular system disorders
- Abnormal reproductive system development
- Hormone abnormalities in children
- Susceptibility to various cancers
- Resistance to chemotherapy
- Diminished intellectual capacity
Great, so receipts are going to be like our version of the leaded gasoline and mercury of past generations? 🫠
the link wasn't working for me, so I archived it:
religion has never been about truth or consistency, it's a matter of power
Read the actual Watchlist entry instead of Time magazine: https://monitor.civicus.org/watchlist-march-2025/
The United States of America (USA) has been added to our Watchlist as the country faces increasing undue restrictions on civic freedoms under President Donald Trump’s second term. Gross abuses of executive power raise serious concerns over the freedoms of peaceful assembly, expression and association.
Following his inauguration on 20 January 2025, Donald Trump has issued at least 125 executive orders, dismantling federal policies with profound implications for human rights and the rule of law. Some of these orders have eliminated federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes, falsely framing them as discriminatory, and have introduced measures targeting undocumented migrants and transgender and non-conforming people.
Since mid-January, many civil society organisations, both in the US and abroad, have been forced to terminate or scale back essential human rights and humanitarian programmes due to growing uncertainty caused by the arbitrary suspension of foreign aid and a broad freeze on federal funding. The lack of clear guidelines has sparked legal challenges at the national level.
The administration has taken steps to dismantle the US Agency for International Development (USAID), a decades-old institution, and laid off thousands of its employees. It has also withdrawn from the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the UN Human Rights Council, exited the Paris Climate Agreement, rejected the Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals, and announced sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC), targeting its personnel as well as individuals and entities that cooperate with it. These actions could further undermine global efforts for climate justice, human rights, and civic freedoms.
These measures come amid a broader potential curb on the freedom of association. On 21 November 2024, the US House of Representatives passed a bill allowing the Treasury Department to revoke the tax-exempt status of non-profits it deems to be supporting terrorism, without due process guarantees. This would grant the executive branch sweeping authority to financially cripple civil society organisations based on broad and vague criteria.
The sustained onslaught on peaceful pro-Palestine solidarity at university campuses has seen students and faculty members increasingly subjected to harsh sanctions without justification. On 30 January 2025, President Donald Trump, signed an executive order purportedly aimed at combating antisemitism, which calls for the cancellation of visas and the deportation of non-citizen college students and others who have participated in pro-Palestinian protests. On the same day, reports alleged that a far-right group was compiling a list of pro-Palestine protesters for potential deportation.
Authorities have also targeted climate justice activists protesting the Mountain Valley Pipeline project in Virginia and financial institutions supporting fossil fuel expansion. Another concern is the growing role of private corporations in suppressing environmental activism. Two key developments exemplify this: the USD 300 million lawsuit against Greenpeace by the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline; and research exposing the fossil fuel industry’s role in driving the proliferation of anti-protest laws.
The first months of 2025 have seen an alarming legislative push in multiple states, further threatening restrictions on the freedom of peaceful assembly. At least 12 state-level bills introduced between January and February 2025 would impose new restrictions on protests. Notably, bills in Indiana (SB 286), Iowa (HF 25), Missouri (HB 601), New York (S 723), and North Dakota (HB 1240) seek to criminalise the use of masks during protests. They could also expose protesters to heightened surveillance technologies and intimidation tactics, as evidenced by the doxingattempts over the past year against pro-Palestine protesters.
Meanwhile, Minnesota’s new bill (SF 1363) introduces new civil and criminal liabilities for those supporting protesters who engage peacefully in demonstrations on a critical public service facility, pipelines or other utility property. These restrictions show a broader trend since 2017 of escalating constraints on protests and could trigger a new wave of repression against those expressing dissenting views.
There are also serious concerns about freedom of expression and access to information, particularly for journalists covering politically sensitive issues. On 11 February 2025, two journalists from the Associated Press (AP) were banned access to White House-related press briefings due to the agency’s editorial policy to continue to refer to the Gulf of Mexico by its internationally recognised denomination rather than the presidentially decreed “Gulf of America.” AP filed a lawsuit against administration officials, but a federal judge denied the agency’s request for the immediate restoration of full access to presidential events for its journalists, ruling that access to the president is at his discretion and not a constitutional right.
Moreover, on 25 February, the White House press secretary announced that the administration will decide which media outlets can access the presidential press pool. These recent decisions raised concerns about unprecedented restrictions on public access to independent reporting on government affairs.
ohhh, interesting - I wouldn't have expected that.
In my particular case, I just used archive.is to get a link that doesn't link to blogspot dot com as a workaround, so there is no immediate need on my end - was more curious than anything else.
Meaning there isn't an instance for women, nor are there multiple communities - as far as I know there's just this one community.
this is a bit of how Blahaj works as I understand it, so it's a good model - if anything I would think Blahaj might already be poised for this kind of instance-level protection of women
EDIT:
one of the Blahaj guidelines does include removing bigotry, including sexism, and would be a candidate for a safe space for women:
Inclusion and Acceptance
Embracing inclusion and acceptance means listening when people tell you who they are and what their needs are. It means not telling people that you know their experiences better than they do. It means not gatekeeping experiences of identities of others. It means no bigotry such as racism, sexism, anti LGBT commentary, ableism etc. It means doing your best to ensure that you don’t over-talk the voices of folk who don’t share your privileges.
That said, the women spaces on Blahaj are mostly for trans women, so a more general women's community would be nice.
unfortunately I think this is the current answer, at least on Lemmy.
I actually can't type in QWERTY anymore.
was trying to figure out what the stats are on vision impairment, and found this:
A National Institutes of Health (NIH) study has found that although 94 percent of Americans aged 12 and older have good vision, the remaining six percent, or 14 million, are visually impaired.
So 6% of Americans are visually impaired, and of those, 3/4 can be corrected with glasses.
gonads that produce the correct sex hormones
that is a good point that I should have thought of sooner, lol
Honestly, our own sight is a kind of "metaphor" - what we see is a construction the brain creates to make sense of visual data, but it is not those visual data themselves, in some sense we only see in metaphors.
Maybe that bends the meaning of metaphor. Maybe better examples would be like skeumorphisms in graphical user interfaces, e.g. a trashbin on a desktop that you can drag files to. Obviously there is no literal trashbin, but I think people start to think in terms of those metaphors and forget there aren't actual files and folders and a trashbin, and when the computer behaves in a way that doesn't accord with those metaphors, it's frustrating and confusing for them.
yes, very pro body pillows, though as you're saying, they don't have to be Japanese comfort pillows to be a body pillow 😆
at what point is this not just a reactionary coup - the president's complete disregard of the Supreme Court's ruling and the Constitution means the United States of America is over, no? I mean, whatever this government is, it's no longer operating by the fundamental rules and laws that established this country, that define this government - this is a new, autocratic government operating by different rules.