Tootfinder

Democratic lawmakers repeatedly called on Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign
as they confronted her on Trump’s immigration crackdown during a heated House Homeland Security Committee hearing Thursday.
Congressmember Delia Ramirez, announced that she would begin taking steps for her impeachment.
The Department of Homeland Securityis “operating as a criminal organization” under Noem’s leadership, Ramirez tells Democracy Now!
“She thinks that she is above…

“A Force of Terror”: Rep. Delia Ramirez on ICE Abuses & Her Push to Impeach DHS Chief Kristi Noem
Democratic lawmakers repeatedly called on Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to resign as they confronted her on Trump’s immigration crackdown during a heated House Homeland Security Committee hearing Thursday. We speak with Congressmember Delia Ramirez, who reiterated her call during the hearing for Noem to resign and announced that she would begin taking steps for her impeachment. The Department of Homeland Security is “operating as a criminal organization” under Noem’s leadershi…

Source: Microsoft quietly becomes one of Anthropic's top clients and was recently on pace to spend nearly $500M/year for Anthropic to power Microsoft products (The Information)
https://www.theinformation.com/articles/microsofts-spending-anthr…

Microsoft’s Spending on Anthropic AI Is on Pace to Hit $500 Million
OpenAI is Microsoft’s most important AI provider and its biggest cloud server customer. But as OpenAI does more business with Microsoft’s cloud rivals, Microsoft is doing more business with Anthropic, OpenAI’s archrival. Microsoft has quietly become one of Anthropic’s top customers and was ...

For #Caturday, a reminder that Widget remains available for adoption in the NYC metro area. She would prefer a calm house without kids (we are not a calm house). She's super affectionate! #CatsOfMastodon

Day 22: Yuki Urushibara
I've got a few more mangaka left on my short list, and might very well get to at least one more, but Urushibara is the author of Mushishi and anyone who knows either the manga or anime understands immediately why she appears here.
Mushishi is a "seinen" anime, which means it's written for adults, not children or teenagers (although it's very accessible for all ages). It deals with a vast array of life's circumstances through the lens of a traveling mushi expert and the various whimsical supernatural creatures he is called on to deal with. He's not an exorcist though, instead understanding that humans must live in harmony with the mushi, and working like an ecologist to sort things out. As is probably obvious, Urushibara is an incredible world-builder; she's also a top-notch artist and above all, her stories are overflowing with kindness, humanity, and respect for the natural world.
Besides Mushishi, I've read "Suiiki", and it's one of the few manga I stumbled through in the original Japanese, which says a lot given my limited reading vocabulary (and the fact that it doesn't include rubi). It weaves the supernatural into a story of childhood innocence and curiosity in a lovely way.
Much like Shirahama who I mentioned earlier, Urushibara's stories are full of gentle wisdom for all ages, but Urushibara's work is quieter and less dramatic, with an adult main character confident in his expertise instead of a young-and-learning protagonist.
#30AuthorsNoMen

When Congress recessed in December, it left three crucial cyber priorities in the air, including the confirmation of Sean Plankey's nomination as CISA Director.
Although Plankey's renomination announcement is good news, experts say Congress's delay in acting on cyber priorities damages the nation's ability to counter rising threats.
Check out my latest CSO piece, which looks at the setbacks created by Plankey's confirmation delay and the other key priorities l…

US cybersecurity weakened by congressional delays despite Plankey renomination
Sean Plankey’s renomination as CISA director offers some relief, but stalled legislation on cyber threat information sharing and state and local grants continues to strain the nation’s ability to counter rising cyber threats.

Time for a social experiment. I have 5 questions:
- What should we work towards as a society?
- What's one thing that doesn't exist now in your community but should?
- What's one action you could take in the coming year to align your life with that goal?
- What's one thing you could achieve in the coming year to get closer to making that thing exist?
- Imagine that we changed everything and you're living in the world you want to see exist. What does the world look like?
I've asked variations of these already (and am still getting great responses), but this time there's a catch. Get together some of your friends (3-5 people) and ask these questions of the group. Come up with *one* answer that everyone in the group agrees on and post it here, then write a bit about your experience.
If you don't know people locally (or otherwise can't do this in person), tag some folks in here or wherever your people are at digitally. Just add some info on if it's online or in person.
For anyone bold enough to actually do this, let me know if you'd be OK with me putting this in an upcoming entry (https://anarchoccultism.org/building-zion/).

Today’s one small action to push SF progressives away from the embrace of car brain.
All candidates who have filed in that district oppose the park, so it’s an easy call that she would be my first place vote if I lived there, regardless. But unless that stance changes, am I spending my precious time on her campaign? Nah. #sfpol

ICE agents kidnapped a U.S. citizen in Chicago -- because she didn’t “look” American to them.
Maria Greeley, 44, was on her way home from a double shift at her job earlier this month when she was
surrounded, seized, and zip-tied
by three ICE masked agents without cause or warning
and interrogated for an hour.
ICE concluded she was an undocumented immigrant
because she didn’t “look like a Greeley".
Greeley, who was born in Illinois,
is …

ICE Detains U.S. Citizen After Saying She Doesn’t “Look” American
She even had her U.S. passport on her.

Re: discourse about #FediSoWhite
I'm a white man. Was on Twitter throughout #BLM and gained an awful lot of free education from Black folks on there. That was the start of me consciously following diverse folks which is a strategy that's improved my life immensely.
Back on Twitter before the Muskening, there was a lot of diversity. Black Twitter was a thing, and not just first-world (anyone else remember "O jewa ke eng?"). When I went looking for people to follow to diversify my feed, I found them in abundance.
That's why it's so clearly false to me when people claim that the fediverse is secretly diverse, and why anyone making that claim sounds suspect to me. Sure there are a ton of great Black and other POC folks you can find on here, if you look hard. But it's nowhere near the levels of diversity and community that were on Twitter. Which you would know had you been following those people before, so now I have to assume you weren't, and wonder why you feel qualified to make statements about diversity even though you haven't made an effort to engage with diverse voices before?
Also, if you were actually following some of the excellent POC voices on here, you'd know that across different servers and interest groups, almost every group has had a discussion of #FediSoWhite at some point. If all the Black people you follow are independently talking about the lack of community and diversity here, you've either got to believe them or start putting on your clown makeup, and the later is absolutely a choice.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS),
India’s largest Hindu far-right organization,
initiated a well-funded lobbying effort in the U.S. earlier this year
Squire Patton Boggs,
one of the top lobbying firms in the U.S.,
registered as a lobbyist on Jan. 16 for the RSS, according to lobbying disclosures

Exclusive: India’s largest far-right Hindu organization hires U.S. lobbyists for congressional influence campaign
Squire Patton Boggs lobbied U.S. lawmakers on behalf of the RSS, a Hindu nationalist group linked to discrimination and violence against Muslims