Feel free to copy or take points from my letters to elected representatives for your own letters to reps.
đ Note: If you have a cat, refrain from giving them raw meat or raw milk, including freeze dried or raw diet cat food.
The drones, Orionâs Belt, and distracting propaganda.
The things that comes to mind with the drone media are that itâs got a very diversionary feel, and that we really need more investment in night sky and aviation education so people can recognize planets, constellations, satellites, and aircraft.
Please consider supporting or advocating for your local astronomy club if you can, because they often have public demonstrations and educational opportunities for the general public.
Massive power consuming data centers won't save us.
Massive data centers consuming large amounts of energy have eyes on South Dakota By Joshua Haiar, South Dakota Searchlight Route Fifty December 9, 2024 âUtilities are getting calls every week,â state regulator says.âWeâre talking loads that eclipse some of the largest cities in South Dakota,â he said. A single data center campus can require anywhere from 300 to 500 megawatts of electricity to operate. One megawatt can power hundreds of homes. By one estimate, there are over 1,000 hyperscalers worldwide, with the U.S. hosting just over half of them. Ryan Long, president of Xcel Energy, headquartered in Minneapolis, illustrated the extreme nature of the demand. âWe now have, I would say, north of seven gigawatts of requests across the Xcel Energy footprint for data centers to locate in one of our eight states,â he said. âAnd Iâll be very frank that thereâs no way that weâre going to be able to serve all of that in a reasonable amount of time.â Protecting existing customers from potential costs or energy shortages is another shared concern. Utility representatives emphasized the need for coal and natural gas to maintain a reliable âbase loadâ when renewable sources like wind and solar are unavailable.
Letter to reps:
Data centers need to be strictly regulated to protect communities.
Owen Morgan read âThe Turner Diariesâ so I didnât have to.
I was never going to read that, so this was welcome. Itâs interesting how a lot of mainstream right-wing spin talking points actually come from The Turner Diaries.
Campaign funds, secretive nonprofit pay for Josh Shapiro's sports tickets by Stephen Caruso of Spotlight PA | Dec. 17, 2024 Shapiroâs camp has insisted that the governor has done nothing wrong by accepting tickets from Team PA or political donors, including a lobbyist for a gaming industry at the center of a messy political fight. But good-government advocates have previously argued that Shapiro is violating his own ban on taking gifts from people with business before the government. They say third parties financing Shapiro and other policymakers' attendance at pricey events is problematic no matter how it happens. There are âmany ways money can flowâ from special interests to elected officials, Michael Pollack, executive director of the good-government group March on Harrisburg, told Spotlight PA. Whether a campaign contribution, gift, or something else, the end result is the same, Pollack argued: an expectation that the recipient will prioritize donorsâ interests over everyday peopleâs.
Letter to reps:
Elected officials attending pricey events paid by special interest industry movers and shakers, at a minimum gives the appearance of impropriety and definitely signals that such a representative is prioritizing donor interests over the general constituency. It shouldnât even be legal.
Letter to state reps in Pennsylvania:
We need a gift ban to stop lobbyists from legally bribing elected representatives who are supposed to represent the people, not just people with money.
Ken Klippensteinâs report here includes a photo of FBI Tampa Bay Safe Streets Task Force challenge coin depicting memento mori themed skull grim reaper images that are really quite weird as a âsafetyâ team emblem:
FBI Tampa Bay Safe Streets Task Force challenge coin
Letter to reps:
Why are law enforcement agencies allowed to use grim memento mori themed swag for their âtask forcesâ and such? It seems very unprofessional and has a depressed juvenile quality to it. I donât think this is healthy for society.
Bradford County Library gets funding cuts to own the libs.
Bradford County Commissioners slash library funding by 30% By Isabela Weiss | WVIA News | Report for America Published December 12, 2024 at 5:18 PM EST Kim Pitcher, who unsuccessfully ran for commissioner in 2023 and for state Senate against incumbent Gene Yaw last month, claimed McLinko reduced the libraryâs budget and fired its interim director as an act of censorship against library content. She referenced a comment McLinko made on the Average Joe Show, a podcast hosted by Joe Carreon. He said, âI am not anti-library. Iâm anti-crap in libraries, Iâll tell you that much. [I] donât want to see the drag queens and all this other stuff going on in our libraries ⌠Iâm also not going to fund nonsense that shouldnât be done ⌠with our children.â This is the second county meeting where residents and reporters spoke about McLinkoâs comments on the podcast. Pitcher said during a recent Friends of the BCL meeting, the libraryâs citizen group, that she will review whether McLinko could be impeached because of his comments on the podcast. On Thursday she added, âIt was just a few short weeks after this, our library director was fired and escorted out by sheriff deputies.â
No, I don't want the Trump administration to succeed in terrible plans.
I'm in Pennsylvania and I'm a constituent of US Senator John Fetterman, who recently said that he wants Trump to succeed and all Americans should want that. Trump & Trump admin connected people have spelled out their various agendas - including in Project 2025, and in all those podcasts and on social media, they've all said all sorts of plans. Aside from the fact that "dissent is patriotic", I think it's a little creepy to try to assert that everyone should be MAGA and not raise any opposition. It makes no sense to wish myself to be subject to swatting raids by deputized anti-vaxxers, so no, I donât want the Trump administration to succeed in allowing that, or any of the many other bonkers and detrimental things theyâve been proposing.
Iâm compiling a list of verifiable asserted plans that lots of us don't want to succeed, so I can write John Fetterman about all the plans I do not want to succeed, and I will start posting them on my substack & tumblr, etc, so others in PA can join me in writing Fetterman, or people elsewhere can write representatives about these things that no, we don't want the Trump administration to succeed at.
Please send me suggestions of the undesirable goals you donât want to succeed, with any reference links you have where theyâve stated this is the goal, where to see a video clip, or the page in Project 2025 or whatnot. Thanks!
Hereâs a mixed bag simple list of proposals Trump has reportedly made âin writing, on video and in interviews and rally speechesâ compiled by Ron Filipkowski:
