On This Date
- 2025/01/27 20:52 UTC [L..T] Trump signs executive order barring transgender people from military service «President Donald Trump signed four executive orders pertaining to the military Monday, including one barring transgender people from enlisting and serving openly and another cracking down on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the armed services.» The order's text lies, of course, about many things.
- 2025/01/27 13:15 UTC [L..T] Death in the Desert «No one will take responsibility for these deaths. Not U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Surely not my local Sheriff Kim Stewart, whose office refuses to respond to reports of dead migrants. "I have crimes that need investigation where I know there are victims," she told KTSM in November. "So I kind of have to choose how I prioritize some of this, don’t I?"» / «She assumes there are no crime victims among these dead. To admit otherwise might call into question U.S. immigration policy.»
- 2025/01/27 12:30 UTC [L..T] Facebook flags Linux topics as 'cybersecurity threats' – posts and users being blocked «Facebook is banning posts that mention various Linux-related topics, sites, or groups. Some users may also see their accounts locked or limited when posting Linux topics. Major open-source operating system news, reviews, and discussion site DistroWatch is at the center of the controversy, as it seems to be the first to have noticed that Facebook's Community Standards had blackballed it.»
- 2025/01/27 12:30 UTC [L..T] Trump tells federal employees, "You're fired!" But wait – not so fast. «As president, he is threatening to cut 50,000 federal positions. There will be federal employees whom he replaces as part of the usual political turnover, and others whom he will fire as retribution for being disloyal. But when it comes to firing most federal employees, it isn’t as easy as it appears on television. Federal employees are protected by a system that upholds accountability and fairness – values that cannot be undermined for political gain.»
- 2025/01/27 [L..T] White House pauses all federal grants, sparking confusion «The White House budget office is ordering a pause to all grants and loans disbursed by the federal government, according to an internal memo sent to agencies Monday, creating significant confusion across Washington.»
- 2025/01/27 [L..T] Moving On from Legacy Media «We will need this "new" journalism going forward, because the dismal truth is that our traditional news sources have sold us out. While they remain somewhat able to report breaking news, they’ve become unreliable narrators who can’t be trusted to tell us either what happened or what it means.» / «So we have to look outside the mainstream – to bloggers, podcasters, and other more tech-forward outlets – to get the information we need. It will be a long slog.»
- 2025/01/27 [L..T] From Meme to Controversy: Australia's journey with Elon Musk has escalated quickly «Let me tell you about a mural in Australia that got attention for reasons far different than the artist likely intended. It was a mural of Elon Musk pointing at Doge, the Shiba Inu meme.» [...] It's not clear what brought the mural into existence, but days after Musk's Hitler-salute on national TV, the mural was first subtly altered to add what could have been a shadow under Musk's nose but was also clearly a Hitler-mustache, and then was later more obviously defaced with hastily-sprayed words including "fascist", "boo", "loser", "Nazi cunt", and "Nazis fuck off" -- words reflecting the sentiments of many in Australia and worldwide.
- 2025/01/27 [L..T] [US:OMB:M] MEMORANDUM FOR HEADS OF EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS AND AGENCIES «Federal agencies must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.»
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