Karen Dalton Beninato
@kbeninato.bsky.social
Writer, words in The New Republic, NOLA, Huffington Post, Earth Island. Nonprofit co-founder. Was publicist for legendary Dr. John; now working with badasses artists including Grammy nominated Corey Henry. Grammy mentor. https://karendaltonbeninato.com
Republican power grabs in Kansas and Missouri are going down in flames with 18-25% of votes reported so far. Missouri's Amendment 4 aimed to make citizen-initiated constitutional amendments practically impossible. Kansas' Amendment 1 was designed to flip the state Supreme Court to ban abortion
Shaping like the finale of a Ryan Murphy limited series: American Flag Blue.
Ex-Olympian weighing ‘all options’ after reflecting pool charges dropped
David Hearn has a ‘number of potential remedies’ after being prosecuted in connection with pool damage, his attorney says
theguardian.com
We are dumb. The US withdrew from WHO. DOGE severely downsized a CDC lab that deals with outbreaks like cyclospora. We are in the middle of a cyclospora outbreak, with 11,000 cases in Michigan. Measles hits a 30 yr high. Now this. 🧪 www.nytimes.com/2026/07/30/h...
Former Officials Protest U.S. Plan to Defund Pan American Health Organization (Gift Article)
The group of former health and national security officials warned that Americans will be more vulnerable to infectious disease threats.
nytimes.com
When you get two cats, how do they decide which one will have a tiny chirp like a pixie’s doorbell and which one will wail like the ghost of a jilted bride?
‘In the kitchen the breakfast stove gave a hissing sigh and ejected from its warm interior eight pieces of perfectly browned toast, eight eggs sunny side up, sixteen slices of bacon, two coffees, and two cool glasses of milk. "Today is August 4, 2026," said a second voice from the kitchen ceiling’
One more interesting point: this spring I sat down with Sharyn Alfonsi of 60 Minutes for an extensive interview about my Epstein investigation. Subsequently, CBS pulled the segment and fired the reporter. The MAGA buyout of media has unquestionably aided the Trump administration’s cover up here.
Senator Ron Wyden@wyden.senate.gov · yesterdayBombshell new report out from my investigators this morning spanning our four year investigation into Jeffrey Epstein’s financial records. This report shows exactly how Wall Street protected Epstein and enabled his sex trafficking for decades. Mega thread following with some key points:
"More needs to be made of this," a senior CBS News staffer tells me about the 60 Minutes story that Sharyn Alfonsi was working on about Epstein and banks that appears to have been scuttled after her firing. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
airbnb I’m staying at unintentionally created the toughest punk album cover of 2027
Hit the Museum of Edinburgh first thing and, I gotta say, this country fucking rules
Ophthalmologist Dr. Agatha Aboe led the medical campaign in Ghana to eliminate trachoma (leading infectious cause of preventable blindness globally). It worked. Ghana became the 1st country in sub-Saharan Africa to eliminate the disease, 2018. Now she's helping other countries do it. #WomenInSTEM
“The climate emergency kills,” he said on Monday. “And that’s why it’s not enough to address the consequences, which we do; what we have to do is reduce its causes, anticipate its effects, and, consequently, better prepare our country to protect people’s lives.”
‘Climate change kills’: Pedro Sánchez speaks plain truth to Spain’s deniers
PM has long history of speaking out on realities of global heating but political opponents remain unnmoved
theguardian.com
"You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read." Happy birthday, James Baldwin!
Sipping my coffee ☕️ and thinking about these marvellous Minoan cups! They look so modern it’s incredible to think they were made by Bronze Age potters some 3,800 years ago! Heraklion Archaeological Museum, Crete. 📷 by me #Archaeology
Sir #DavidAttenborough “Things are going to get worse. This is the new extinction. We are in terrible, terrible trouble and the longer we wait to do something about it, the worse it is going to get." #ClimateEmergency
David Attenborough, the voice of Our Planet: “Things are going to get worse”
The voice of some of the most stunning nature documentaries ever made is pessimistic about the future of wildlife on earth.
vox.com
"We have a need for an enlightened, watchful articulate opposition. We have no need for semi-secret societies who are absolutist, dictatorial and would substitute for a rule of law and reason an indiscriminate assault on the institutions that must be held sacrosanct." ~Rod Serling
Peacocks are the closest thing we have to eldritch gods
Peacock Fanning Tail
Alt: Peacock Fanning Tail, which is like a shaky eyeballs demon
static.klipy.com
I work at a public library. People who want to use AI seem to have no trouble doing so. People who don't want to use AI have a harder time. I crowdsourced and then finalized this document "How to disable or avoid intrusive AI" and then gave it a short URL: notoai.org Please pass along if it's useful
In 1944, MN teenager Jeanne Gibson went to work in the Seattle shipyards welding destroyers for the Allies. She then moved to Juneau and joined the Army Transportation Corps supplying ships in the Pacific. She later got a Master’s and her pilots license. RIP, hero. 🫡 www.kron4.com/news/bay-are...
So many sneering elitist journalists with snarky posts over the past months that the Reflecting Pool story was trivial. It was so trivial that the DC US Attny presented false evidence to a grand jury to indict an innocent man to please the President while they both lied about it.
Statement by the FIFA President. The proposal to sell the World Cup is dead. This sounds like a last straw to keep hanging on to his presidency. Despite this, it’s pretty clear to say that Infantino needs to be removed now. Hopefully all stake holders keep up the pressure.
Case is as leaky as Judge Jeanine's box o' wine...
Scott MacFarlane@macfarlanenews.bsky.social · 5d agoFLASH: Justice Dept seeks to dismiss Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool criminal case against former Olympian David Hearn Trump Admin acknowledges: "Damage to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool in June 2026 was the result of flawed installation by the contractor"
NEW: after our coverage of this company's little scheme to use printed books to train AI, it calls it a "test of the market" and walked the entire thing back: www.404media.co/ai-company-t...
Company Offering Printed Books to Train AI Stops After 404 Media Coverage
Citing backlash, ISBNdb removed its webpages about training AI, denied ever buying, scanning, or selling a book for AI training, and said the site was a "test of market interest."
404media.co