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[Starver]

"[...] If you do not use the intelligence with which God endowed your mind to resist believing impossibilities, you will not be able to use the sense of injustice which God planted in your heart to resist a command to do evil."

Related to the "use your intelligence..." bit, at least, is "It is good to keep an open mind, but not so much so that your brains fall out...", (U. Nat Tributed.). Not directly in conjunction with the above discussion, but a useful maxim in general and certainly has some use in this circumstance...

[Frumple]

Though I don't think I've ever seen that quote used by anyone not being a close-minded asshole, tbh. It don't have a good track record for conscientious use.

[Starver]

Though I don't think I've ever seen that quote used by anyone not being a close-minded asshole, tbh. It don't have a good track record for conscientious use.

Well, it might tend to be used by those who have got beyond the stage of trying to usefully inform someone with a frankly incomprehensible belief of the very basic reasons why they're on the right track, and has had to deal with increasingly irrational denialisms.

Obviously someone who tries to provide good proof of the Earth being round/whatever is going to seem pretty close-minded to hocus 'proof' that only the stubbonly gullible (or deliberately trolling LARPer) is going stick to like an areldite-coated rare-earth magnet. Could they be an asshole for not casting that discussion adrift, beforehand? Maybe. How about all those people who would just back away slowly (or throw a smoke-capsule and run) and leave the delusions intact with far less thought about possible (only to be later proven) fruitless enlightenment?


Maybe you've just seen (or been on the wrong end of) the particularly exapserated version of it. (Or, conceivably the weaponised turn-around version from the "don't believe anyone's proof, it's wrong; believe my wrong proof!" crowd.)


The world would be better if people didn't fall down all the usual rabbit holes in the first place, though.

[nenjin]

https://mastodon.social/@ashleygjovik/112668309100333232

TLDC (Too long didn't click):

Apple set up a manufacturing space .02 miles from residential apartments and were storing and improperly disposing of hazardous waste, up to and including aerosolising caustic chemicals and venting it into surrounding neighborhoods from the roof. People finally caught on when they started getting headaches and nausea. The EPA got involved and it was discovered....Apple basically didn't seek permits for any of their hazardous waste operations. They were storing flammable, explosive and caustic materials and waste byproducts improperly, without using the right storage equipment. They were storing explosive and flammable material without a lid because "we didn't want fumes to build up and explode" despite there being clearly regulated containers for exactly that kind of stuff.

Apple was even tipped off to the inspection by the city before it happened, and the EPA still found plenty.

Gee, I wonder why they didn't seek permits. Maybe because there's no way it would have been allowed near residential zoning for...exactly this reason? I get the feeling Apple is so massive that merely saying they wanted to buy property in the city was probably greeted with open arms and no one even dared to apply a modicum of oversight for their operations. That and given Biden's later stance on domestic Semiconductor manfacture being so important, I'm sure no one was going to cause any fuss about lil ol toxic fumes drifting right into where people live.

[McTraveller]

Is there a real news site link? I don't twitter or mastodon.  From the little I could find, it looks like there is not likely anything true there, at least nothing reported in official channels. There was a reference to some redacted EPA paper "on dropbox" that I could find, but... why wouldn't it just be in the EPA records?

Also since the claims are from 2019-2020, I don't see how Biden's administration or new policies for semiconductors would even be applicable.

This feels like a human-generated form of fake news, just like the inevitable article I saw earlier today about how Meta's "this was AI-generated" watermarks were being applied to human-generated material.  I fear we're truly getting into the real endgame here, when the general population is no longer capable of determining what is real and what isn't.  This is, incidentally, why I started talking about that Voltaire quote...

[nenjin]

She's a real person, which took me 6 seconds of Googling to find. Although what I found isn't flattering to her.

[Frumple]

Is there a real news site link?

Doesn't seem to be; the only thing pulled up from a quick check was from websites called Hacker News and Appleinsider, which basically just reposted the mastadon/dropbox link. If there's anything more substantial, it'll take more effort than a check via google to confirm, heh.

[nenjin]

Going by Wikipedia, well.....

In August 2021, Gjøvik filed a whistleblower tip with the SEC related to the Superfund site at Stewart 1 and a potential conflict of interest with Ronald Sugar, an Apple board member and former CEO of the site's owner Northrop Grumman.[6][54][55] After she was terminated, Gjøvik filed a whistleblower retaliation complaint with the DOL and OSHA.[6][54] In September and November 2021, she was notified her OSHA retaliation complaint was forwarded to the California Division of Labor Standard Enforcement (DSLE),[36] where she had already filed a complaint herself,[33] and her SOX and CERCLA complaints were being dismissed as invalid. Gjøvik escalated the complaint to Seema Nanda, the US Solicitor of Labor.[36] In December 2021, the DOL opened an investigation.[6] It was dismissed again in December 2023. She appealed the CERCLA complaint to be heard by the DOL Office of Administrative Law Judges.[37] A hearing is scheduled for March 2025.[56] Gjøvik said she "kicked-out" the SOX complaint, alleging the DOL engaged in obstruction and extortion, adding it instead to a civil lawsuit. The DLSE complaint was also moved to the lawsuit.[35]

On September 7, 2023, Gjøvik filed a lawsuit against Apple under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and whistleblower retaliation under SOX and Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. The lawsuit alleged a wide variety of violations, including wire fraud, mail fraud, and securities fraud, as well as state level bribery and extortion.[35] Her third pleading in the case was dismissed with leave to amend by the court in January 2024 under Federal Civil Rule 8(a) because it was more than 650 pages long and lacked clarity and readability; the ruling created case law imposing a 75-page limit on pleadings.[57] In May 2024, 13 of the lawsuit's 15 claims were dismissed wholly or partially under Federal Civil Rule 12(b)(6). The RICO, whistleblower retaliation claims under SOX and Dodd–Frank, and claims relating to the Stewart 1 office were dismissed with prejudice. The other claims, including the claim related to the DSLE whistleblower complaint, were dismissed with leave to amend. The remaining two claims, retaliation for safety activities and termination in violation of public policy, and the partial claims, relating to Apple's facility in Santa Clara near her apartment, were not challenged under 12(b)(6).[5]

She certainly seems to believe it's real. The law however disagrees with her. "Partial claims relating to Apple's facility in Santa Clara near her apartment" withstanding.

[da_nang]

Julian Assange, WikiLeaks founder, cuts plea deal to avoid US prison

[nenjin]

The Supreme Court issues another banger ruling.

In ruling for the former mayor, the justices drew a distinction between bribery, which requires proof of an illegal deal, and a gratuity that can be a gift or a reward for a past favor. They said the officials may be charged and prosecuted for bribery, but not for taking money for past favors if there was no proof of an illicit deal.

So at the state/local level, you can just straight up pay government officials for doing what you want after the fact. Nice.

[EuchreJack]

It is interesting how much the US Government's Supreme Court is decriminalizing bribery of Government Officials.

[nenjin]

I feel like they've also laid the precedent for absolving Clarence Thomas for all his bribe taking.

[da_nang]

-snip-

I think I can blame that one on Congress. The relevant statute is 18 USC §666(a)(1)(B). It has a mens rea component of "intending to be influenced or rewarded in connection with any business, transaction, or series of transactions of such organization, government, or agency involving any thing of value of $5,000 or more" when "an agent of an organization, or of a State, local, or Indian tribal government, or any agency thereof^[1] [...] corruptly solicits or demands for the benefit of any person, or accepts or agrees to accept, anything of value from any person".

Compare that to the anti-gratuity statute for (federal) public officials^[2], 18 USC §201(c)(1)(B): "Whoever [...] being a public official, former public official, or person selected to be a public official, otherwise than as provided by law for the proper discharge of official duty, directly or indirectly demands, seeks, receives, accepts, or agrees to receive or accept anything of value personally for or because of any official act performed or to be performed by such official or person".

Merely accepting a thing of value given to you for or because of an official act (i.e. a gratuity) isn't proof of mens rea in 18 USC §666(a)(1)(B). The prosecutor must prove that you intended to be influenced or rewarded, e.g. with a prior agreement. All in all, 18 USC §666(a)(1)(B) sounds more like an anti-bribery statute than an anti-gratuity statute, so I can see how the SCOTUS majority came to that opinion.

[1] Limited by 18 USC §666(b).

[2] As defined by 18 USC §201(a)(1).

[nenjin]

The dissenting opinions felt that it was an "a-textual reading" of the statute.

[StrawBarrel]

I'm not too sure what to expect from the upcoming presidential debate, but hopefully something funny will happen.