Jacob Ward discusses how the US government is contracting Palantir in order to process information on residents and compares it to Estonia’s digital identification. A key difference is that Estonia is focused on keeping the data siloed while here a goal seems to be removing barriers to data access.
An All-American Surveillance System Is Coming (The Rip Current)
One of the central arguments made by opponents of public education is that North Carolina taxpayers spend too much on their children and schools. Even as the state continues to rank near-bottom in the nation for school spending, some on the political right charge that the number is still too high. Specifically, opponents blame “administrative bloat” in North Carolina’s public school system for soaking up resources that should go to classrooms instead.
In but one example, failed Republican candidate Michelle Morrow claimed that there had been a 265% increase in funding for “administrative and bureaucratic stuff” (what time frame she was referring to was left unclear). Failed Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson repeatedly decried a “bloated bureaucracy” in the school system, which he said needed to “cut the fat.”
But like much of what Robinson and Morrow had to say, these claims do not survive the first contact with evidence.
Miles Kirkpatrick
The Myth of Bloated School Administration (Carolina Forward)
We set speed limits, we put them on signs, and we expect people to follow them. But in reality, it plays out a little differently. People don’t really drive based on what a sign tells them. So if signs don’t work, what does?
Justine Underhill
Why speed limits don’t matter (Justine Underhill – YouTube)
A new song from Kate Nash that I think is worth a listen.
Girl listen up,
You’re not radical
Exclusionary, regressive, misogynist
Germ! Germ
Nah you’re not rad at all
Kate Nash
The music video is age-restricted due to nudity, so I can’t embed it here. You can watch on YouTube: Kate Nash – GERM (Official Lyric Video) (Kate Nash – YouTube)
In the Who Cares Era, the most radical thing you can do is care.
Dan Sinker
The Who Cares Era (Dan Sinker /blog)
Carolina Forward takes a look at potential changes to North Carolina’s Constitution that could help reduce some of the dysfunction seen in the state’s government:
Does North Carolina’s constitution need a re-write? (Carolina Forward)
This was an interesting video from Sarah Taber. I had never heard of screwworm before or how they were eradicated within the United States and the rest of North America.
Screwworm: MAGA is bringing back flesh-eating maggots 😦 (Farm to Taber – YouTube)
Cochliomyia hominivorax (Wikipedia)
After spending over six months vigorously contesting his narrow loss in the 2024 North Carolina Supreme Court election, Jefferson Griffin conceded the race on Wednesday following a federal judge’s ruling against him.
Griffin, a Republican judge on the state Court of Appeals, lost the election to Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs by 734 votes. But he and the state Republican Party refused to accept the results, instead embarking on an unprecedented campaign to challenge over 65,000 votes in a legal battle that has roiled the state and drawn national rebuke.
Earlier this week, Chief U.S. District Judge Richard E. Myers, an appointee of President Donald Trump, decisively ruled against Griffin’s efforts, saying that he sought to “change the rules of the game after it had been played.”
Kyle Ingram
Griffin concedes NC Supreme Court race, ending unprecedented effort to overturn election (The News & Observer)
Proposed cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the agency whose weather and climate research touches almost every facet of American life, are targeting a 57-year-old partnership between Princeton University and the U.S. government that produces what many consider the world’s most advanced climate modeling and forecasting systems. NOAA’s work extends deep into the heart of the American economy — businesses use it to navigate risk and find opportunity — and it undergirds both American defense and geopolitical planning. The possible elimination of the lab, called the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, in concert with potential cuts to other NOAA operations, threatens irreparable harm not only to global understanding of climate change and long-range scenarios for the planet but to the country’s safety, competitiveness and national security.
Abrahm Lustgarten
White House Proposal Could Gut Climate Modeling the World Depends On (ProPublica)
In less than 100 days the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has been converted from a media and telecom watchdog into a bizarre, rights-trampling grievance machine built for one purpose: to coddle and protect the ego of President Donald J. Trump.
Karl Bode
Brendan Carr’s FCC is an anti-consumer, rights-trampling harassment machine (The Verge)
Scott Boehmer 