Communick News

cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/tech/p/1367347/lawmakers-added-1-to-texans-car-insurance-policies-that-money-paid-for-thousands-of-floc

Prosecutors have already excluded statements that Mohammed made after his capture when he was held by the CIA in overseas prisons and subjected to brutal treatment including waterboarding before his transfer in 2006 to Guantanamo, the Times reported.

But the trial judge Lieutenant Colonel Michael Schrama has concluded that Mohammed's subsequent interrogations in 2007 at Guantanamo were also inadmissible.

Schrama cited an "unbroken continuation of the CIA’s psychological conditioning and severe coercion," and also found that FBI agents intentionally failed to tell Mohammed that he had a right to be silent and to consult a lawyer. (Reporting by AFP)

In all of those years, in addition to a broadly scoped AUMF, Congress failed to clearly distinguish the line between peace and war, appropriating trillions of dollars to spend on rooting out “terror”—a tactic, not an enemy. In other words, it largely rejected law enforcement as the preeminent framework to combat groups abroad that engage in terrorism and invested heavily in an indefinite war posture for the U.S. and its partners. It is possible Congress’s role as authorizer and funder of various forever wars—which continue today—has desensitized it to armed conflict, especially against an alleged “terrorist” enemy—and left it untethered from its human rights obligations.

Both parties have contributed to this shift from peacetime as the norm into a permanent armed conflict mindset against “terrorist” groups. (See various administrations’ expansion of the law to substantiate more killing.) To justify the boat strikes, Trump has asserted that as president he can determine the U.S. is at war with “narco-terrorists” and thus legally is able to target them.

To many Americans who have watched decades of drone strikes against non-state groups the executive branch has described as terrorists and determined the U.S. military can lawfully target, the boat strikes might seem like business as usual. But they are distinct. Notwithstanding the many valid criticisms of the ways in which executive branch lawyers have interpreted the AUMF, the drone strikes against al-Qaeda and its affiliates were at least tethered to that congressional authorization and, generally speaking, part of actual wars. By contrast, Trump’s strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific are no doubt extrajudicial killings. It is lawmakers’ job to know that and speak the truth plainly.

Understanding the distinction is important for several reasons.

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First, to refute Trump’s attempts at fabricating reality, lawmakers need to appreciate that under international law the existence of a war—which would trigger the law of war and allow the use of lethal force as a first resort between the parties—is a factual matter, not something that can simply be declared. To prove the existence of a war requires a fact-based analysis that, in this case, would mean demonstrating the necessary duration and intensity of a conflict between a state and an organized armed group. Experts have provided thorough analyses on this issue, demonstrating no war exists.

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Second, lawmakers must be attuned to the fact that misunderstanding the boat strikes as part of a war has wasted valuable time on red herrings when the heart of the matter is simple: All of the boat strikes are murder.

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Another red herring legislators have fixated on is the Defense Department’s targeting criteria, which, while the details are classified, some senators have noted do not include the requirement of drugs or weapons on the boat. But it is erroneous to provide a contrast between striking boats with drugs or weapons and those without—either way it is murder. Just like it would be murder if a policeman shot someone on the street in the U.S. merely because they were transporting drugs. The Defense Department’s targeting criteria are a distraction; the key message is that all of these strikes are extrajudicial killings.

A federal appeals court ruled Friday that states can regulate prediction markets like gambling, dealing a major blow to the booming industry.

….it didn't take long for certain fans to point out that Dolly Parton's Imagination Library – a literacy initiative which has gifted more than 330 million books to children since 1995, and one of Parton's many philanthropic causes - has been defunded by the Trump administration. … …Now, in one of his latest AI slop posts, Trump took to Truth Social to share an illustration of him arm in arm with Parton walking around the White House.

So many of then keep saying 'we are a community", "our little community" and so on. Who is this "community"?, the country?, the state?, the town? Politicians love saying for 'the community" and "us the community" like it's some kind of buzzword. I think this is just some tribal mentality of us versus them.

Water matters

At some point every coffee nerd has to do a piece on coffee water. It is, after all, the main ingredient in our favorite beverage. The topic can get genuinely extensive and intimidating; the rabbit hole is deep, and others have explored far deeper than I ever could. This is a condensed, easy-to-implement version with just a handful of points that have made an appreciable difference in my brews without overcomplicating my brewing.

For a proper deep dive, I recommend the Coffee Chronicler's guide to the best water for coffee, which even includes a TLDR section. He also offers a paid course if you seek true mastery. My other favorite source is James Harper's The Science of Coffee podcast (Filter Stories)— he has several excellent episodes on optimizing water, and he's a joy to listen to.

What to measure

TDS, GH, and KH

The Chronicler's TLDR is handy, but I think it over-simplifies a bit: it's worth spending a few dollars on a simple fish-tank test kit to check the GH (General Hardness) and KH (Karbonat Hardness, or alkalinity / water's buffering capacity) in your tap water.

• TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) is the overall mineral load measured by simple conductivity. A cheap TDS meter is the best place to start and the easiest way to tell if your tap water is drifting over time. Keep in mind that consumer-level meters don't correct for water temperature, and it makes a big difference — always measure water that's settled to room temperature.

• GH is the calcium and magnesium salt concentration.

• KH is alkalinity, which buffers against acidity.

My target ranges

Here's the simple starting point that has served me well. You can absolutely tune these to taste or to match specific roasts, but these numbers get you into a good place. If your current numbers are way off from these, try tweaking your brews a bit before dismissing what might be a significant taste change – I genuinely believe you’ll find better cups overall if you give these a chance.

• TDS between 40 and 150 ppm (I prefer 50–75)

• GH between 40 and 80 ppm

• KH between 25 and 65 ppm

• GH should be higher than KH (ideally around 2:1, but don't stress the ratio)

I'd be a little more flexible on the GH and KH numbers and a little more focused on the TDS range — it's the anchor that tells you when your tap water has changed.

Simplified Workflow

Most people can build a very good coffee water by blending tap water with filtered water. If that doesn't get you there, try filtered plus bottled, or start from distilled water (in the US it's usually labeled for machine use, but it's perfectly safe to drink) and add a commercial coffee water mineral kit. You can tune the tap-to-filtered ratio by taste, but tap water changes over time, and re-tinkering blind is frustrating — you want anchoring numbers to work from. That's where the Culligan ZeroWater pitchers come in: they have a TDS meter built into the lid, which simplifies the whole workflow enormously. Yes, I’m plugging this product, but rest assured I have no conflicts of interest. You’ll need to ditch the filter (or get two of these if you don’t have a way to purify water already), but once you’ve figured out the ratio of purified water to tap water that achieves the parameter ranges above, you can then quickly mix your water in real time in the ZeroWater pitcher to dial in the TDS. I fill mine and store it in the fridge for nearly a week's worth of coffee water. Yes, it takes a bit more time and energy to heat in the kettle, but it's still fast enough that it's rarely a bottleneck in my sleepy morning pour-over routine. Remember, the TDS on the meter will drop by about 20 points once it’s in the fridge and this is simply an artifact of how TDS meters work.

Espresso tweaks

The same basic rules apply, but this is where you can really dial in acidity. Keep the TDS very low (15–30 ppm) if you want to emphasize acid notes, and bring it up (60–90 ppm) to smooth it over. You can do similar tricks with pour-over, but I find it most remarkable with espresso.

TLDR;

• Get a cheap TDS meter and a fish-tank test kit for GH/KH.

• Aim for TDS 40–150 ppm, GH 40–80, KH 25–65, with GH above KH. Find your favorite TDS with the water options available to you.

• Blend tap water with filtered water to hit your numbers.

• For espresso, drop TDS low for acidity, raise it to smooth things out.

If GrapheneOS stops supporting future Pixels, and Motorola is only targeting the flagship market for their compatible phones, we're looking at truly dark days ahead.

Dutch people cycle an average of 2.6 kilometres each per day. If this pattern was replicated worldwide, the study suggests, annual global carbon emissions would drop by 686 million tonnes.

This mammoth figure exceeds the entire carbon footprint of most countries, including the UK, Canada, Saudi Arabia and Australia.

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/11008497

Over 113,000 people crossed the border between Russia and Georgia in just one week, at a time when rumors of a new mobilization are increasing. The Kremlin denies preparing such a measure, but recruitment is becoming more aggressive, and many Russians prefer to leave the country ahead of the parliamentary elections in September.

Traffic through the Verhni Lars border crossing, the main land route between the two countries, has increased significantly in the second half of August. According to Russian authorities, over 20,000 people crossed the border on some days.

In total, over 33,000 vehicles and 113,000 people crossed the border in just one week, writes Politico.

The number is reminiscent of the chaos in the fall of 2022 when Vladimir Putin announced the „partial” mobilization of 300,000 reservists. Over 100,000 Russians entered Georgia in just a few days, and hundreds of thousands fled to Armenia, Kazakhstan, Turkey, or other destinations.

This time there is no official mobilization order yet. That is precisely the difference: people are no longer waiting for the Kremlin’s announcement but are trying to leave preve

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Rumors point to the period after the elections for the State Duma, scheduled between September 18 and 20, as the moment when the Kremlin could announce a new call to arms.

At the beginning of August, the Russian Supreme Court excluded the federal list of the Yabloko party from the elections, the only party that was trying to participate with an explicit anti-war program.

Ukraine claims that Vladimir Putin aims to bring hundreds of thousands more people into the army. President Volodymyr Zelensky stated that Russia intends to recruit 300,000 soldiers after the September elections and another 300,000 next year.

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Official denials have not dispelled fears, especially after human rights organizations reported an intensification of forced recruitment.

In several regions of Russia, police and military recruiters have reportedly started picking up men from the streets, workplaces, or even from their homes. They are taken to recruitment centers and pressured to sign contracts with the Ministry of Defense.

„It has turned into a manhunt,” described human rights lawyer Alexei Tabalov. According to him, the methods used include deception, blackmail, violence, and threats.

Recruiters target vulnerable individuals, such as men with debts, suspects in criminal cases, detainees, students with problems, or people who can be easily coerced. There are also cases where conscripts have allegedly been forced to sign contracts to be sent to Ukraine.

In the city of Omsk, a 31-year-old man was reportedly detained for drinking beer in the street and taken directly to a military selection center, where he was pressured to enlist. In the Penza region, locals reported that men are taken from the streets or searched from door to door.

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The system is starting to show signs that it can no longer cover the losses on the front. According to Western officials cited by The Guardian, Russia loses about 6,000 more troops each month than it can recruit, despite bringing in almost 1,000 people into the army daily.

A new mobilization would be risky for Putin. The one in September 2022 sparked protests in several regions, a massive exodus of the active population, and a decline in trust in authorities. The departure of a large number of specialists also affected the economy, already facing a labor shortage.

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Archived

Boufeldja Benabdallah says for the past year and a half, he's witnessed a rise in vandalism and anti-Muslim rhetoric targeting mosques and cultural centres around Quebec — but he doesn't understand why.

Still, the spokesperson and co-founder of Quebec City’s Islamic Cultural Centre says his community is responding the best way they can — with vigilance.

For the first time in his memory, his mosque issued a public warning this past week reminding its community of security measures to increase safety in light of recent incidents.

In June, the windows of the Mauricie Islamic Cultural Centre were smashed in an act of vandalism following a surge of online threats and harassment targeting the Muslim community in Trois-Rivières, Que.

A month later, Montreal police launched an investigation into a hate crime outside the Verdun Islamic Centre after an artificial imitation of a severed, blood-covered human hand was left at the door.

As Musk’s SpaceX, Bezos’ Blue Origin, and other companies expand into space, they risk causing more problems for Earth in the process: air pollution, climate effects, and light pollution. The practice of downplaying these negative consequences while trumpeting the message that space operations can make life better on Earth has a new name: “starwashing,” a term the space researcher Melissa E. Yingling helped popularize in an article published in The Conversation earlier this month.

It’s a play on the term “greenwashing,” used to critique companies that highlight small sustainable investments to divert attention from the pollution their businesses cause. Space companies are appealing to a sense of “cosmic wonder” and making promises to benefit humankind, along with promoting their environmental bona fides, Yingling wrote.