Sunday, June 5, 2022
Stop guns by cutting off credit card sales
Mastercard Shareholders to Vote on Treasurer Magaziner’s Proposal to Restrict Purchases, Sales of Untraceable Ghost Guns
Rhode Island General Treasurer Seth Magaziner today filed a letter with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) urging Mastercard (NYSE: MA) shareholders to vote for his shareholder proposal, which calls on the company’s Board of Directors to address the risks of processing payments for the sale and purchase of untraceable firearms known as "ghost guns." Shareholders will consider and vote on the proposal at Mastercard’s annual meeting on June 21, 2022.
Ghost guns are increasingly becoming the firearm of choice for individuals engaging in violent crime because they are not required to have a serial number, making it difficult for law enforcement to determine where by whom, and when they were manufactured, as well as to whom they were sold or otherwise distributed. Sellers of 'ghost gun' kits often advertise that their products are meant to be built into operable firearms with no serial number, records, or background check.
Mastercard continues to process transactions by known sellers of ghost guns, despite taking action to forbid the sale of other dangerous products and services on its platform.
How COVID nasal vaccines work
Nasal COVID-19 vaccines help the body prepare for infection right where it starts – in your nose and throat
Mayuresh Abhyankar, University of Virginia
 |
| Seven nasal vaccines for COVID-19 are currently in clinical trials around the world. VSargues/iStock via Getty Images |
1. What are nasal vaccines?
Nasal vaccines are administered, as the name suggests, through the nose. More accurately called intranasal vaccines, these vaccines are liquids that can be given as a spray or through a dropper or syringe. The most common nasal vaccine is FluMist, a nasal spray that uses inactivated flu virus to protect against influenza. An intranasal vaccine could be a weakened live virus similar to FluMist, a nucleic acid vaccine like mRNA coronavirus vaccines or a protein vaccine like Hepatitis B vaccines or the CorbeVax coronavirus vaccine.
Intranasal vaccines are best suited to protect against pathogens that enter through the nose, like the flu or the coronavirus. By mimicking the first step of natural exposure to an airborne pathogen, these vaccines help train a person’s immune system at the potential place of infection. Scientists have shown that the first immune response in the respiratory tract after a person is exposed to an airborne virus can influence how sick a person gets. So in theory, intranasal vaccines could provide better protection than vaccines given through a shot in the arm.
How US Christians helped make birth control mainstream
Protestants and the pill
Samira Mehta, University of Colorado Boulder
 |
| Protestant Christians have been debating – and more often than not, supporting – modern contraceptives since they first appeared. Bettmann/Bettman via Getty Images |
Meanwhile, other conservative Christians have been working on a related target: limiting access to some contraceptives.
In July 2020, when the Supreme Court ruled that organizations with “sincerely held religious or moral objection” are not obligated to provide contraceptive coverage to their employees, many conservative Christians applauded.
Six years before, the evangelical owners of crafting chain Hobby Lobby took their objections to covering the IUD in their health insurance plans all the way to the Supreme Court. Hobby Lobby argued – incorrectly, according to most medical authorities – that it was a form of abortion, and therefore they should not have to cover employees’ health insurance for it. The justices sided with the chain’s owners.
Yet as access to both abortion and contraception comes under threat, the vast majority of Protestants use or have used some form of contraception. Their actions are supported by almost 100 years of pastoral advocacy on the issue. In my work as a scholar of religous studies, gender and sexuality, I have researched the Protestant leaders who campaigned to make contraception respectable, and therefore widely acceptable, in the mid-20th century.
History, I have found, provides a different story about the relationship between Protestants and birth control.
Saturday, June 4, 2022
Spending state ARPA money wisely
EPI Report details four transformative and equity-centered ways Rhode Island can invest ARPA funding
By Economic Progress Institute
“We stand at a crossroads,” said Weayonnoh Nelson-Davies, executive
director for the EPI. “With eight areas of focus and over fifty proposals, many
further subdivided, the Governor’s overall plan for spending $1.2 billion of
ARPA SFRF between FY2022 and FY2026 risks spreading the federal aid too thinly
to spark transformative change and meet our greatest challenges.”
EPI has identified close to $300 million in spending
on projects not focused on equity and/or transformation among the
Governor’s budget proposals, including some that can be funded through other
sources. The report outlines four areas in which new or enhanced investments
should be made, many in line with the recommendations made in the Rhode Island
Foundation’s October 2021 Make It
Happen: Investing for Rhode Island’s Future report.
Something else to worry about: Skydiving salamanders
Salamander living in redwoods is able to maneuver in freefall, suggesting adaptation to living at heights
University of California - Berkeley
Salamanders that live their entire lives in the crowns of the world's tallest trees, California's coast redwoods, have evolved a behavior well-adapted to the dangers of falling from high places: the ability to parachute, glide and maneuver in mid-air.
Flying squirrels, not to mention numerous species of gliding
frogs, geckos, and ants and other insects, are known to use similar aerial
maneuvers when jumping from tree to tree or when falling, so as to remain in
the trees and avoid landing on the ground.
Similarly, the researchers suspect that this salamander's
skydiving skills are a way to steer back to a tree it's fallen or jumped from,
the better to avoid terrestrial predators.
"While they're parachuting, they have an exquisite amount of maneuverable control," said Christian Brown, a doctoral candidate at the University of South Florida (USF) in Tampa and first author of a paper about these behaviors.
"They are able to turn. They are able to flip
themselves over if they go upside down. They're able to maintain that skydiving
posture and kind of pump their tail up and down to make horizontal maneuvers.
The level of control is just impressive."
The aerial dexterity of the so-called wandering salamander (Aneides
vagrans) was revealed by high-speed video footage taken in a wind tunnel at
the University of California, Berkeley, where the salamanders were nudged off a
perch into an upward moving column of air simulating free fall.
Investors are betting on your butt
Betting on ‘Golden Age’ of Colonoscopies, Private Equity Invests in Gastro Docs
Having just moved back to San Antonio, the 30-something searched for a doctor to manage her Crohn’s disease, an inflammatory bowel condition that is successfully managed with medications and lifelong monitoring — including regular colonoscopies.
Mariel booked an appointment and learned she would be on the hook for a $1,100 colonoscopy — about three times what she had paid for the same test in a different state. Almost three-quarters of the bill would be a “facility fee” for the in-office procedure at a colonoscopy clinic. (KHN agreed not to disclose Mariel’s last name because she is concerned speaking out might affect her doctor’s willingness to manage her medical condition.)
Preventive colonoscopies are covered without patient cost sharing under the Affordable Care Act, but colonoscopies for patients with existing conditions, like Mariel, are not. A 2019 study found patients with inflammatory bowel diseases, including Crohn’s disease, incur about $23,000 in health care costs a year. Medication treatments alone can cost tens of thousands of dollars annually.
But shopping around proved frustrating. Although San Antonio has plenty of gastroenterology offices, more than two dozen of them are controlled by the same private equity-backed group.
In 2018, one of the nation’s largest independent gastroenterology practices, Texas Digestive Disease Consultants, announced a deal with the Chicago-based private equity firm Waud Capital to expand by offering management services to other physicians. At the time, the Dallas-based practice had 110 locations, mostly in Texas — including San Antonio. Today its management group, the GI Alliance, operates in a dozen states with more than 400 locations — and is growing fast.
With market dominance comes the business opportunity to set and maintain high prices. “It’s pretty much the only game in town,” Mariel said.
Private equity, known for making a profit on quick-turnaround investments in struggling businesses across many industries, has taken an increasingly active interest in health care in the past decade. It has invested in gastroenterology practices in recent years to tap into the revenue potential in meeting growing demand.
“We are in the Golden Age of older rectums,” one investment manager wrote in 2017.
Eavesdroppers can hack 6G wireless frequency with DIY metasurface
Just when we were getting used to 5G
Rice University and Brown University
Crafty hackers can make a tool to eavesdrop on some 6G wireless signals in as little as 5 minutes using office paper, an inkjet printer, a metallic foil transfer and a laminator.
The wireless security hack was discovered by engineering
researchers from Rice University and Brown University, who will present their
findings and demonstrate the attack this week in San Antonio
at ACM WiSec 2022, the
Association for Computing Machinery’s annual conference on security and privacy
in wireless and mobile networks.
“Awareness of a future threat is the first step to counter that
threat,” said study co-author Edward Knightly,
a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rice. “The frequencies
that are vulnerable to this attack aren’t in use yet, but they are coming and
we need to be prepared.”
In the study, Knightly, Brown engineering professor Daniel Mittleman and
colleagues showed that an attacker could easily make a sheet of office paper
covered with 2D foil symbols — a metasurface — and use it to redirect part of a
150 gigahertz “pencil beam” transmission between two users.
Friday, June 3, 2022
Court deals a blow to fake fire districts
Democracy comes to Bonnet Shores Fire District
Court ruling applies to Charlestown's fake fire districts (Shady Harbor and Central Quonnie) too
By Melissa Jenkins in UpRiseRI
.webp) |
| Fake fire districts are a legal dumpster fire. The best solution: abolish them. You can't be a fire district unless you actually fight fires. -Will Collette |
Not only was the Fire District Council denying the right to vote to renters, non-deeded spouses, or trust-held property residents, they were granting voting privileges to thousands of people who did not live in Bonnet Shores and may never have even visited Bonnet Shores.
They voted by proxy, using the council-adopted rules to
benefit the privately owned Bonnet Shores Beach Club. That’s right – while I
was denied a ballot, thousands of people who did not live in Bonnet Shores were
declared eligible to vote there by virtue of property ownership. That property?
A beach club “cabana”, storage closets as small as 4 feet by 4 feet with
multiple deeded owners who all could vote on policies and leadership for my
community while I could not.
Not only were my constitutional rights being violated, those of every resident of Bonnet Shores were. With 800 or so homes in the district, we were vastly outnumbered and effectively disenfranchised by the thousands of non-resident voters.
Even if every single
resident voted, there was no way to take back our community by voting. If
you’re wondering why non-residents would want to vote, consider how investors
in this private club might benefit from decisions such as the ability to
receive public, private, and legislative grants, from beach, sewer, and roadway
enhancements, and from the ability to use facilities and property under the
stewardship of the Fire District, as have occurred in recent years while most
or all elected Council members were cabana owners.
So, despite clear guidance from the Secretary of State and Attorney General’s offices, they refused to comply. What’s an activist to do? First, it was important for the community to know what was going on.
State House rally calls for action on gun violence in Rhode Island
Nothing but crickets from local GOP legislators Flip Filippi, Elaine Morgan, Justin Price
By Uprise RI
 |
| Jennifer Boylan from Moms Demand Action |
Ahead of a rally in front of the Rhode Island State House where over 200 people called for five gun violence prevention bills to be immediately brought to the floors of the Senate and House for a straight up or down vote, General Assembly leadership released a short statement.
“We are committed to
passing meaningful gun reform legislation this session,” said Senate
President Dominick Ruggerio (Democrat, District 4, Providence) and
Speaker of the House Joseph Shekarchi (Democrat, District 23,
Warwick). “We have been working on this issue with the sponsors and
committee chairs for several months.”
This message from leadership was not the promise those outside the State House were looking for. Being “committed” to “meaningful” gun “reform” legislation is not the same as bringing the five bills to the floor, and some State House insiders, speaking off the record, noted that there were ongoing negotiations to blunt the bills.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)