Slovakia upsets Team USA in men's ice hockey, advancing to semifinals with shootout victory
Slovakia beat the United States 3-2 in the men's ice hockey on Wednesday, with the team advancing to the semifinals after a dramatic penalty shootout.
The US held a 2-1 lead late in the third period, but a goal by Slovakia’s Marek Hrivik tied the game with 43.7 seconds left in regulation.
What should I ask Thomas Piketty?
I will be doing a Conversation with him. So what should I ask?
Do note he has a new book coming out A Brief History of Equality.
The company has been ordered to pay the penalty by the Federal Court.
On Thursday (17 February) ASIC confirmed that Aware, then StatePlu, has been fined $20 million for charging over 25,000 customers fees for financial services it did not provide.
San Francisco homeless man: ‘they pay you to be homeless here.’
Belarusian Philosopher, Imprisoned Since August, Is Now on Hunger Strike
Uladzimir Mackievič (Matskevich), a philosopher in Belarus who has been critical of Alexander Lukashenko, the country’s longtime dictator, has been in prison since last August, charged with “organizing of actions that grossly violate public order.” Owing to lack of progress with his case, he began a hunger strike on February 4th. (more…)
Librarian’s lament: Digital books are not fireproof - ZDNet – Chris Freeland is a librarian and Director of the Internet Archive’s Open Libraries program: “The disturbing trend of school boards and lawmakers banning books from libraries and public schools is accelerating across the country. In response, Jason Perlow made a strong case last week for what he calls a “Freedom Archive,” a digital repository of banned books. Such an archive is the right antidote to book banning because, he contended, “You can’t burn a digital book.” The trouble is, you can A few days ago, Penguin Random House, the publisher of Maus, Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, demanded that the Internet Archive remove the book from our lending library. Why? Because, in their words, “consumer interest in ‘Maus’ has soared” as the result of a Tennessee school board’s decision to ban teaching the book. By its own admission, to maximize profits, a Goliath of the publishing industry is forbidding our non-profit library from lending a banned book to our patrons: a real live digital book-burning. We are the library of last resort, where anyone can get access to books that may be controversial wherever they happen to live — an existing version of Perlow’s proposed “Freedom Archive.” Today, the Internet Archive lends a large selection of other banned books, including Animal Farm, Winnie the Pooh, The Call of the Wild,and the Junie B. Jones and Goosebumpschildren’s book series. But all of these books are also in danger of being destroyed. In the summer of 2020, four of the largest publishers in the U.S. — Penguin Random House among them — sued to force our library to destroy the more than 1.4 million digital books in our collection. In their pending lawsuit, the publishers are using copyright law as a battering ram to assert corporate control over the public good. In this instance, that means destroying freely available books and other materials that people rely on to become productive and discerning participants in the country’s civic, economic, and social life…”
Modernizing Congress U.S. Rep. Derek Kilmer Applies Technology to Democracy
LegisPro: “Hudson Hollister – We recently interviewed Rep. Derek Kilmer, Chair of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress. This transcript has been edited for clarity.”
- Hudson Hollister – Representative Kilmer, Chairman of the Select Committee on the Modernization of Congress, thank you so much for joining us.
- Hudson Hollister – Congressman, tell us a bit about your passion for government innovation, the passion that brought you to decide to lead this committee.
- Rep. Derek Kilmer – Well, I think there’s sort of two components of it for me. First, a lot of my background was in, in business and in economic development. I was a consultant for McKinsey and Company and then worked professionally in economic development. [In that industry] we’ve seen how innovation can drive organizational improvement. So, as an organizational improvement nerd, I thought, why wouldn’t we apply some of this to the workings of Congress? The second piece, just as an everyday American, is a belief that Congress ought to be working better on behalf of the American people. Part of the reason I came here, part of the reason I’m serving in this job is because I want things to work better – I want the federal government to work better. And I think my constituents want the federal government to work better. In the district I represent, the largest employer is the federal government. When there are government shutdowns, and when there’s continuing resolutions – when the car stalls out – my district and its citizens really feel it. And so, starting several years ago, you know, I was part of some bipartisan conversations about how we might drive some change in Congress to just make it work better. [Those conversations led to the formation of the Select Committee.]..”
American Geophysical Union: “People with lower incomes are exposed to heat waves for longer periods of time compared to their higher income counterparts due to a combination of location and access to heat adaptations like air conditioning. This inequality is expected to rise as temperatures increase, according to new research. Lower income populations currently face a 40% higher exposure to heat waves than people with higher incomes, according to a new study. By the end of the century, the poorest 25% of the world’s population will be exposed to heat waves at a rate equivalent to the rest of the population combined. Poorer populations may be hit with a one-two punch of more heat waves from climate change due to their location and an inability to keep up with it as a result of lack of heat adaptations like air conditioning. The study analyzed historical income data, climate records and heat adaptations to quantify the level of heat wave exposure that people in different income levels face around the world. Exposure to heat waves was measured by the number of people exposed to heat waves times the number of heat wave days. Researchers paired those observations with climate models to predict how exposure will change over the next eight decades. The study was published in the AGU journal Earth’s Future, which publishes interdisciplinary research on the past, present and future of our planet and its inhabitants…”
- This research study, “Increasing heat-stress inequity in a warming world” is published with open access and is freely available. Download a PDF copy of the paper here.