Blackbeard

But the lack of a good story is hurting Israel in other ways. Israelis are being asked to send their sons and daughters to fight every day against Hamas and Hezbollah foes — yet cannot be sure if they are going to war to save the state of Israel or the political career of their prime minister.

Because there is more than enough reason to believe that Bibi wants to keep this war going to have an excuse to postpone testifying in December at his corruption trial, to postpone an independent commission of inquiry as to how his government failed to prevent the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust, as well as to forestall new Israeli elections and maybe even to tilt our presidential election to Donald Trump. Netanyahu’s far-right Jewish supremacist partners have told him they will topple his government if he agrees to stop the war in Gaza before an undefined “total victory” over Hamas and if he tries to bring the West Bank’s Palestinian Authority, which has embraced the Oslo peace process, to help govern Gaza in the place of Hamas — something that Hamas greatly fears.

This absence of a story is also hurting Israel strategically. The more Israel has a legitimate Palestinian partner, like a reformed Palestinian Authority, the better chance it can get out of Gaza and not preside over a permanent insurgency there, the more allies will want to help create an international force to fill any vacuum in Southern Lebanon and the more any Israeli military strike against Iran would be understood as making Israel safe to try to make peace with the Palestinians — not safe for an Israeli annexation of the West Bank and Gaza, which is what some of Netanyahu’s far-right partners are seeking.

I cannot guarantee that there is a legitimate Palestinian partner for a secure peace with Israel. But I can guarantee that this Israeli government has done everything it could to prevent one from emerging — by strengthening Hamas in Gaza at the expense of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

Late in Tuesday night’s vice-presidential debate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) dodged a question about whether he and running mate Donald Trump would accept the 2024 election results by pivoting to a favorite topic: what he called the “censorship” of Americans by social media companies, terming it “a much bigger threat to democracy.”

His statement drew on a years-long Republican contention that Silicon Valley tech giants have suppressed conservative views on platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter. That narrative has underpinned congressional hearings, Republican fundraising campaigns, the dismantling of academic research centers, Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, state laws seeking to restrict online content moderation, and multiple lawsuits that reached the Supreme Court this year.

But is it true? Well, yes and no, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Conservatives and Trump supporters are indeed more likely to have their posts on major social media platforms taken down or their accounts suspended than are liberals and Joe Biden supporters, researchers from Oxford University, MIT and other institutions found. But that doesn’t necessarily mean content moderation is biased.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/20457749

Over the past 15 years, North Carolina lawmakers have rejected limits on construction on steep slopes, which might have reduced the number of homes lost to landslides; blocked a rule requiring homes to be elevated above the height of an expected flood; weakened protections for wetlands, increasing the risk of dangerous storm water runoff; and slowed the adoption of updated building codes, making it harder for the state to qualify for federal climate-resilience grants.

Those decisions reflect the influence of North Carolina’s home building industry, which has consistently fought rules forcing its members to construct homes to higher, more expensive standards, according to Kim Wooten, an engineer who serves on the North Carolina Building Code Council, the group that sets home building requirements for the state.

“The home builders association has fought every bill that has come before the General Assembly to try to improve life safety,” said Ms. Wooten, who works for Facilities Strategies Group, a company that specializes in building engineering. She said that state lawmakers, many of whom are themselves home builders or have received campaign contributions from the industry, “vote for bills that line their pocketbooks and make home building cheaper.”

Over the past 15 years, North Carolina lawmakers have rejected limits on construction on steep slopes, which might have reduced the number of homes lost to landslides; blocked a rule requiring homes to be elevated above the height of an expected flood; weakened protections for wetlands, increasing the risk of dangerous storm water runoff; and slowed the adoption of updated building codes, making it harder for the state to qualify for federal climate-resilience grants.

Those decisions reflect the influence of North Carolina’s home building industry, which has consistently fought rules forcing its members to construct homes to higher, more expensive standards, according to Kim Wooten, an engineer who serves on the North Carolina Building Code Council, the group that sets home building requirements for the state.

“The home builders association has fought every bill that has come before the General Assembly to try to improve life safety,” said Ms. Wooten, who works for Facilities Strategies Group, a company that specializes in building engineering. She said that state lawmakers, many of whom are themselves home builders or have received campaign contributions from the industry, “vote for bills that line their pocketbooks and make home building cheaper.”

North Carolina’s chief administrative law judge and former head of the state’s environmental regulatory agency has eliminated a state cap on the amount of a chemical solvent some municipal wastewater treatment plants discharge. Chief Administrative Law Judge and Director of the Office of Administrative Hearings Dr. Donald van der Vaart revoked permit limits of 1,4-dioxane for wastewater treatment plants that discharge the chemical substance, one the federal Environmental Protection Agency classifies as a likely human carcinogen, into the drinking water sources of tens of thousands of people.

North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality officials did not follow the letter of the law written in state statutes when they calculated discharge limits and established an enforceable water quality standard for 1,4-dioxane, van der Vaart ruled. In his Sept. 12 decision, van der Vaart also said DEQ erred by considering the chemical substance a carcinogen. “The [Environmental Protection Agency] has characterized 1,4-dioxane as ‘likely to be carcinogenic to humans,’” he wrote. “The EPA has not characterized 1,4-dioxane as ‘carcinogenic to humans.’”

DEQ has 30 days to appeal van der Vaart’s decision.

The highest peak at Great Smoky Mountains National Park is officially reverting to its Cherokee name more than 150 years after a surveyor named it for a Confederate general.

The U.S. Board of Geographic Names voted on Wednesday in favor of a request from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians to officially change the name Clingmans Dome to Kuwohi, according to a news release from the park. The Cherokee name for the mountain translates to “mulberry place.”

A dredging company launched with $15 million in state money must cease its work in the Oregon and Hatteras inlets after digging deeper and wider than permits allowed hundreds of times, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said Wednesday. EJE Dredging Service is led by an influential North Carolina Republican who is under scrutiny by a federal grand jury.

EJE Dredging was formed by Judson Whitehurst, a Greenville business owner, three months after state lawmakers provided the $15 million to Dare County for dredging. The following year, company documents showed Jordan Hennessy, a former legislative aide who helped convince lawmakers to provide funding for the dredging, working on behalf of EJE Dredging. He’s been the CEO for at least two years.

Hennessy has been named in two subpoenas linked to a federal criminal investigation for his work on another project funded by state lawmakers in 2020. Subpoenas issued over the past three months show a grand jury seeks information about Hennessy and one of his businesses as it investigates a domestic violence prevention program funded with $3.5 million also appropriated by state lawmakers.

Dare County is a hub for commercial and recreational boating, and has struggled for decades to keep navigational channels open. The Corps operates dredges, but its resources are stretched thin. The federal government, meanwhile, in 2003 decided against a plan to build jetties in the Oregon Inlet that would limit the shifting sands, according to the National Park Service. The $15 million from state lawmakers in 2018 appeared to provide a solution. Then-state Sen. Bill Cook, a Beaufort County Republican, persuaded lawmakers to include the money in the budget that year. Hennessy and Marion Warren, a former director of the state Administrative Office of the Courts, co-wrote the legislation that provided the money. The federal subpoenas also seek information about Warren. Hennessy could not be immediately reached on Wednesday.

After a bit of discussion with @laverabe, we've agreed to update the sidebar with a more specific rule set. We have about 2 decades of moderation experience between us, and we're more or less on the same page about how to kick-start the community and get things rolling.

To put it simply, we are significantly less interested in enforcing our rules on opinions or content than we are on behavior and your treatment of others. Barring truly horrific opinions (which probably violate Lemmy's ToS in the first place), we're open to any and all perspectives, no matter how tasteless, crass, or toxic other people may believe them to be. There is no shortage of people on the left who think people on the right should be censored, just as there's no shortage of people on the right who think people on the left should be censored. We will not censor opinions because they're liberal, conservative, libertarian, egalitarian, utilitarian, humanitarian, Rastafarian, muggle, sith, Borg, etc. We will remove content that's abusive. So just don't be an asshole and everything will be peachy.

This forum is not meant to be focused on any particular topic or region, but we reserve the right to remove content on the rare occasion that it doesn't suit the purpose of the community. Given that nearly everything is political nowadays, that might be an entirely moot point, but just in case we ask that you not post lasagna recipes, driving directions, product reviews, or other unrelated stuff.

Content Rules:

1. Self posts only.
2. Opinion pieces and editorials are allowed on a case by case basis.
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Commentary Rules

1. ~~Obey the golden rule: treat others as you would like to be treated.~~ Don't be a jerk or prevent honest discussion.
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Please upvote/downvote based on quality of contribution to the discussion, not based on whether or not you agree with the post or comment.

Since our rules are new, we'll probably issue a lot of warnings in the early stages. We're not expecting to issue any bans unless something is truly out of bounds and unproductive. We're also just humans who have actual jobs, so we just don't have time to babysit folks who can't be cooperative.

Please provide your thoughts on anything you think should be more or less specific, as well as added or removed. We can't promise that we'll see eye to eye, but we'll make every effort to help you understand where we're coming from and how we see the community developing.

Edit: Updated rule 1 to be more specific, in case someone decided to be rude because they get their rocks off by fighting.

The Federal Reserve is ready to cut interest rates, confident that inflation is easing to normal levels and wary of any more slowing in the job market.

“The time has come for policy to adjust,” Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell said Friday, in his most anticipated speech of the year. “The direction of travel is clear.”

Powell did not specify a timeline, or forecast how much Fed leaders were preparing to lower rates. But his remarks came as close as possible to teeing up a cut at the Fed’s next policy meeting in mid-September. Rates currently sit between 5.25 and 5.5 percent, where they have remained since July 2023. The open question now is whether officials will opt for a more aggressive cut next month — a half-point instead of a more typical quarter-point.

Since 2008, Congress, with bipartisan support, has spent billions on rental aid for unhoused veterans and cut their numbers by more than half, as overall homelessness has grown. Celebrated by experts and managed by the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the achievement has gained oddly little public notice in a country in need of broader solutions.

Progress in the veterans program has slowed as rising rents displace more tenants and make it harder to help them regain housing. But while homelessness among veterans rose last year, the increase was smaller than other groups faced. Admirers say the program’s superior performance, even in a punishing rental market, offers a blueprint for helping others and an answer to the pessimism in the debate over reducing homelessness.

As concerns about returning service members grew during wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Congress in 2008 revived a pilot program, called HUD-VASH, that pairs vouchers from the housing department with case management from the veterans department. Voucher holders pay 30 percent of their income for rent, while the federal government covers the rest up to a local ceiling.

After expanding the program every year, Congress has created about 110,000 vouchers, meaning veterans have much shorter waits for rental aid than other homeless groups. The vouchers cost more than $900 million a year.

“The fundamental reason why homelessness among veterans has fallen so much is that Congress has provided resources,” Mr. Kuhn said.

Notably, the rental aid comes with no conditions: Services like drug treatment or mental health care are offered but not required. That approach, called Housing First, once enjoyed bipartisan support but has recently drawn conservative critics who say it promotes self-destructive behavior.

The state Board of Elections voted to authorize the alternative We the People party, allowing presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to appear on North Carolina ballots in November.

The Board rejected with a 3-2 vote along party lines the Justice for All party, Cornel West’s alternative party. Democrats rejected the Justice for All attempt to become a recognized party in part over questions about signatures on its petitions.

Tuesday’s votes came after weeks of deliberations, a request from Democrats on the board for an investigation into the petition efforts, and pressure from state and congressional Republicans to have both parties approved.