Tootfinder

It’s true that my fellow students are embracing AI – but this is what the critics aren’t seeing https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/29/students-ai-critics-chatgpt-covid-education-system?CMP=Sh…

The french far right and their centrist allies vote for " 40,000 premature deaths a year".
The anti-green backlash continues, in part fed by poorly socially mitigated policy implementation, by centrists again.
French MPs vote to scrap low-emission zones in blow to Macron - BBC News

French MPs vote to scrap low-emission zones in blow to Macron
Critics said the zones hit those who cannot afford less-polluting vehicles the hardest.

Looking to spend your money someplace that doesn't support Trump and MAGA? The MAGAs have conveniently made a list of businesses to avoid.
#AntiMAGA #boycott

Ontario NDP, Liberals successfully stall Bill 5 after filibustering until midnight Thursday | CBC News
Bill 5 would create so-called "special economic zones" where the government can exempt companies or projects from complying with provincial laws or regulations. It would also replace the province's endangered species act, replacing it with an new law that critics say waters down protections.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-ndp-liberals-stall-bill-5-after-filibuster-1.7546691

DOGE's push from tape archives to cloud-based "permanent modern digital records" (not a thing) opens the door to increased software obsolescence, hacking, and climate impact. Greater transparency? Maybe—or these wannabe nerds just plan to surveil and monetize govt data

Some wear balaclavas. Some wearneck gators, sunglasses and hats. Some wear masks and casual clothes.
Across the country, armed federal immigration officers have increasingly hidden their identities while carrying out immigration raids, arresting protesters and roughing upprominent Democratic critics.
It’s a trend that has sparked alarm among civil rights and law enforcement experts alike.
Mike German, a former FBIagent, said officers’ widespread use of masks was unprecedent…

“It is a cruel joke that taxpayers who could never dream of sending their own kids to such superbly well-resourced schools are indirectly subsidising those that can,” said Matthew Wade, a sociologist at La Trobe University who has studied the scheme for years.
“We should all be offended by witnessing something so manifestly unfair continue unabated.”

Trump's Education Secretary mocked after critics spot embarrassing grammatical errors in threatening letter to Harvard
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14685541/Trump-Education-Secretary-critics-spot-e…

The NYT appoints Ligaya Mishan and Tejal Rao as co-chief restaurant critics, part of an effort to expand starred restaurant reviews across the US, not just NYC (Katie Robertson/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/11/business/medi…

New York Times Names Ligaya Mishan and Tejal Rao as Co-Chief Restaurant Critics
The pair, Ligaya Mishan and Tejal Rao, are part of an effort to expand starred restaurant reviews across the country, the company said.

Brock Purdy contract: George Kittle defends 49ers QB after critics question five-year, $265 million deal

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/brock-p

After Google's two antitrust losses in the past year, a look at critics' claims that its breakup might be better for investors, customers, and innovation (David Streitfeld/New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com…

What if Google Just Broke Itself Up? A Tech Insider Makes the Case.
Prosecutors aren’t the only ones arguing for a smaller Google. Some critics say it might be better for investors, customers and innovation.

Court’s gender-affirming care ruling will impair all sex-based rights, say critics | US supreme court | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/18/supreme-court-gender-affirming-care-decision

“I, Harry the Hake, do solemnly declare that I will live and die British. I would rather be left to rot on the jetty than be fed to some Frenchie or Kraut. God save the queen. Sorry, king.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/…

The US government is blatantly misrepresenting events captured on video
in an effort to intimidate powerful officials and ordinary citizens who seek to challenge the White House’s policies.
Alec Karakatsanis, the founder of Civil Rights Corps, a nonprofit legal advocacy group, argued:
👉 “By relentlessly telling the population that ‘two plus two equals five’, it helps determine who is willing to go along with ‘two plus two equals five’ and deny basic truths.
“It’s also…

155. What District Court Critics Aren't Telling You (Steve Vladeck/One First)
https://www.stevevladeck.com/p/155-what-critics-of-district-courts
http://www.memeorandum.com/250602/p115#a250602p115

"Ed Miliband says Labour will ‘win fight’ against UK net zero critics"
#UK #UnitedKingdom #NetZero #Climate

HM Govt is flushing another **fourteen billion pounds** down the toilet that is Sizewell C, a plant which will certainly never generate a kilowatt hour of unsubsidised electricity, probably never generate a kilowatt hour of needed electricity, and certainly cost our descendants far more to decommission than it costs us to build.
At the same time as stealing money from tidal and wave installations we urgently need.

Sizewell C nuclear plant gets £14.2bn government investment
The chancellor calls it a "landmark decision" but critics say the cost of the project is still unclear.

I spotted this '100 best movies of all time' (maybe most popular/influential, see how they chose them) list via Empire, some I agree with, some I'm disturbed by. Now I can't stop thinking about it. Check the list, agree/disagree? What would YOUR top ones be? I'm gonna throw mine together and see what I get. Can I even come up with 100 that are WORTHY? 😂

The 100 Best Movies Of All Time — And Where You Can Watch Them
Explore Empire's top 100 best movies, ranked by our critics. From blockbusters to cult classics, see what made the list and what you need to watch now!

OH – food for thought: “They've found ways to be successful critics – emphasis on successful. They get invited to conferences, win awards, maintain influence … that success might come from never truly threatening the system.
Maybe aggressive rhetoric and a bridge-burning approach isn’t a bug but a feature. When the house is on fire, you don’t negotiate with the arsonists about fire safety regulations. You sound the alarm, loudly and repeatedly.
In a truly existential fight, w…

Of course they would. Just when we need it most.https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/15/business/trump-online-misinformation-grants.html?smid=url-share

Trump Administration Cancels Scores of Grants to Study Online Misinformation
Federal agencies say that by axing the funding they are protecting the First Amendment. Critics see it as stifling scientific inquiry into sources of harmful online content.

Why Google should proactively break itself up: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/02/technology/google-antitrust-breakup.html?unlocked_article_code=1.L08.oUPn.B0yCN3RUyZxS&smid=url-share…

What if Google Just Broke Itself Up? A Tech Insider Makes the Case.
Prosecutors aren’t the only ones arguing for a smaller Google. Some critics say it might be better for investors, customers and innovation.

Critics give @markhamillofficial.bsky.social two thumbs up for his BAFTA Awards wardrobe malfunction.
(taken from The Late Show With Stephen Colbert)
#StarWars #funny #markhamill

'The grift never ends': Critics blast Trump over 'cheap Chinese android device' - Alternet.org
https://www.alternet.org/donald-trump-2672385937/

Trump’s sudden announcement Saturday night that he bombed three Iranian nuclear sites has Republican skeptics of U.S. military action against Iran largely falling in line.
The prospect of strikes against Iran had sparked backlash from Democrats and days of infighting within Trump’s MAGA coalition
But after the president posted on Truth Social that the U.S. has bombed Iran,
several GOP critics cheered the strikes as a "limited action".
Several top Democrats …

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, emboldened by his Trump administration ties, is cracking down on journalists along with dissenting lawyers and activists (Samantha Schmidt/Washington Post)

Bukele, emboldened by Trump, is arresting prominent critics
While the Trump administration deepens ties with El Salvador, its millennial president is cracking down on dissenting lawyers, activists and journalists.

This https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.01016 has been replaced.
initial toot: https://mastoxiv.page/@arXiv_csLG_…

Optimistic critics can empower small actors
Actor-critic methods have been central to many of the recent advances in deep reinforcement learning. The most common approach is to use symmetric architectures, whereby both actor and critic have the same network topology and number of parameters. However, recent works have argued for the advantages of asymmetric setups, specifically with the use of smaller actors. We perform broad empirical investigations and analyses to better understand the implications of this and find that, in general, sm…

As Trump contemplates direct US participation in Israel’s war with Iran,
including the possible use of “bunker buster” bombs on the heavily fortified Fordo uranium enrichment site,
William Kristol has made it known that he still has that hawk in him.
“You’ve got to go to war with the president you have,” he told The New York Times on Wednesday.
“If you really think that Iran can’t have nuclear weapons, we have a chance to try to finish the job.”
In a series o…

Those Sometimes-Trump Neocons Are Returning to the Fold Over Iran
As the president backs Israel’s long-awaited war with Iran, his neoconservative critics find themselves in an awkward position.

🎣 New study maps the fishmeal factories that supply the world’s fish farms
https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/new-study-maps-the-fishmeal-factories-that-supply-the-worlds-fish-farms/

New study maps the fishmeal factories that supply the world’s fish farms
Fish farms boomed globally in recent decades — more than half the world’s seafood now comes from aquaculture — but it’s not a boom all environmentalists support. One argument that critics of industrial aquaculture make is that the fishmeal and fish oil used to make the feed for popular carnivorous species like salmon is not sustainably […]

Church wants to add a 17-bed homeless shelter. Town says pickleball courts would be a better use of the land. Far too many residents agree. #EminentDomain #NIMBY #DamnedIfTheyDo

Pickleball over people? NJ town moves to seize church and block homeless shelter
Toms River officials say it's about recreation. Critics say the city wants to push the homeless out of sight.

Marco Rubio bans u.s. visas for israel critics
https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=ISDESTjH11I
Hey, asshole, listen up:
Fuck israel.
Fuck the usa.
And fuck you.
You can take your visa and stick it up your ass. I’m very happy not to visit your shithole …

As the head of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt has done little to uphold his organization’s claims to fight antisemitism
as the “leading anti-hate organization in the world.”
Instead, he’s shored up the ADL’s role as little more than a fierce pro-Israel lobby group known for defending Israel by attacking its critics.
With no sense of irony, much of this effort manifests as defamatory speech
— at least in the everyday, if not the legal, sense
— by…

MIT Student Condemned Genocide — So ADL Chief Said She Helped Cause Boulder Attack
Jonathan Greenblatt accused commencement speakers of spreading antisemitic lies — and suggested they’re responsible for violent attacks.

Inter(sectional) Alia(s): Ambiguity in Voice Agent Identity via Intersectional Japanese Self-Referents
Takao Fujii, Katie Seaborn, Madeleine Steeds, Jun Kato
https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.01998

Inter(sectional) Alia(s): Ambiguity in Voice Agent Identity via Intersectional Japanese Self-Referents
Conversational agents that mimic people have raised questions about the ethics of anthropomorphizing machines with human social identity cues. Critics have also questioned assumptions of identity neutrality in humanlike agents. Recent work has revealed that intersectional Japanese pronouns can elicit complex and sometimes evasive impressions of agent identity. Yet, the role of other "neutral" non-pronominal self-referents (NPSR) and voice as a socially expressive medium remains unexplored. In a…

The first amendment is measurably under attack in ways it has not been since the presidency of Richard Nixon.
A double standard has also emerged:
if you protest, criticize, or publicly object to the president’s agenda, you’re a target.
Katherine Jacobsen, the project coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists in the US, Canada and Caribbean region, said:
“The thing with the first amendment and free speech in general is that you have to respect everyone’s rig…

What does the death of Julius Caesar and probability have to do with the future of knowledge? Join me at noon EDT today for a webinar on how AI, like a JPEG, compresses information, risking a future where history is endlessly rewritten https://maine.zoom.us/webinar/register

Key to whether Trump can tilt America decisively into authoritarianism will be his efforts to assert control over the armed forces.
“Trump’s ramping up of the effort to politicize the military can still go in multiple directions,” Levitsky said.
“It could be really ugly and bad, because the only way that you can get from where we are to real authoritarianism like Nicaragua or Venezuela or Russia is if Trump has the military and security forces on his side,
and he’s taken s…

A succession of opposition politicians, including Alex Padilla, a US senator, are handcuffed and arrested by heavy-handed law enforcement for little more than questioning authority or voicing dissent.
A judge is arrested in her own courthouse and charged with helping a defendant evade arrest.
Masked snatch squads arrest and spirit people away in public in what seem to be consciously intimidating scenes.
The president deploys the military on a dubious legal premise to confro…

Since November 2024, Serbia had a sharp rise in attacks on journalists amid political unrest, including 23 physical assaults and 128 total attacks and threats (Attila Mong/Committee to Protect Journalists)
https://cpj.org/2025/06/alarming-escal

Alarming escalation in attacks on journalists amid political crisis in Serbia - Committee to Protect Journalists
Berlin, June 3, 2025—What journalists called a “witch hunt” atmosphere against government critics in Serbia one year ago has since escalated into a rise in attacks and threats against the press, following a deadly railway station collapse in November 2024 that triggered a widespread anti-corruption movement. Initial protests demanding accountability for the tragedy have turned...

'This Is So Targeted and Intentional': New U.S. Military Grooming Policy Is ‘Racist,' Singles Out Black Servicemembers, Critics Say
https://atlantablackstar.com/2025/06/02/branches-of-the-u-s-military-target-black-men-as-they-tighten-or-rescind-shaving-waivers-on-medical-condition-that-affects-more-black-men-than-any-other-group/

Donald Trump has repeatedly encouraged or defended violent attacks on Democrats and political critics.
As just a few examples:
— In 2015, during Trump’s first primary campaign, white attendees at one of his campaign rallies tackled and beat a Black protestor.
Trump approved of the attack, telling Fox News,
“Maybe he should have been roughed up because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing.”
— In 2018, Trump praised then-US Rep. Greg Gianforte for physi…

MAGA political violence claims more victims
Trump’s movement relies on terror.

Following Abrego Garcia’s indictment, Ben Schrader, a high-level DOJ official within the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Nashville
(where the charges against Abrego Garcia were filed)
abruptly resigned from his position.
While Schrader, who ran that office’s criminal division, did not explicitly state that he resigned over the charges,
sources told ABC News that his decision was based on concerns that the allegations against Abrego Garcia were politically motivated.
A…

DOJ Official Resigns After Trump Administration Charges Kilmar Abrego Garcia
Critics say the administration’s human trafficking charges against Abrego Garcia should be viewed with skepticism.

Trump walked out to a thunderous standing ovation as Kid Rock’s “American Bad Ass” boomed from the sound system.
He watched martial artists slug it out behind a chain-link fence.
A female champion let the US president try on her gold belt.
It was a night of machismo, spectacle and violence.
Shortly before he joined an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event in Newark, New Jersey, on Saturday night,
Trump had signed an order deploying 2,000 national guard troop…

Little more than a year ago,
Kristi Noem’s political prospects appeared to be in freefall.
The then South Dakota governor was criss-crossing the country on an ill-fated book tour,
widely seen, at least initially, as an audition to be Donald Trump’s running mate.
Instead, Noem found herself on the defensive – a position Trump never likes to be in – after revealing in her memoir that she had shot the family’s “untrainable” hunting dog,
a 14-month-old wirehair poi…

Trump sent the National Guard to Los Angeles at a time when state and local officials said they had protests there under control.

The move reflects an increasingly evident pattern of his presidency:
Trump declares an emergency or crisis where many others do not see one,
enabling him to take sweeping actions,
rally supporters and fight on political terrain he finds favorable.

Trump’s declaration of an economic emergency in April enabled sweeping tariffs.
…

For Trump, seizing emergency powers has become central to governing
President Donald Trump has declared emergencies in various areas. He says strong action is needed; critics say the emergencies don’t exist.

With the federal hiring freeze lifting in mid-July, the Trump administration has rolled out a humiliating federal hiring plan that critics warn will politicize and likely slow down the process rather than increase government efficiency.
De-emphasizing degree requirements and banning DEI initiatives
—as well as any census tracking of gender, race, ethnicity, or religion to assess the composition of government
—the plan requires every new hire to submit essays explaining which e…

New federal employees must praise Trump EOs, submit to continuous vetting
Trump will continuously monitor all federal workers for “trustworthiness.”…