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From the GNR Newsroom: Its the Monday Good News Roundup, post Christmas edition [1]
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Date: 2022-12-26
Welcome friends, to the Monday Post Christmas Good News Roundup, where the GNR Newsroom (Myself, Bhu and Killer300) Bring you the good news to start your week off right.
I hope everyone who celebrates Christmas had a good one. I had a good lunch/dinner put on by my dad; we had Lasagna, Chicken Parmesan, Meatballs, cheese and crackers, cookies, Buffalo Chicken dip, the whole spread.
Sadly some people aren’t having as good a Christmas, I called my mom and her dog is sick and possibly dying, and with the weather she can’t get them to the emergency room. So please keep my mom in your thoughts this holiday season.
But enough sad stuff, lets get on with the good news.
That’s one summary of how 2022 went. As a reader of The Progress Network (TPN), though, you know that there are other ones to choose from. 2022 was also a year of “uplifting human rights victories, extraordinary conservation wins, big milestones in global health and development, and an unprecedented acceleration in the clean energy transition.” That’s how our partner Future Crunch put it in our collaborative roundup of 99 of the best good news stories from 2022. Read them all here, and end up like this guy:
As I said last week, I don’t think I’m out of line in saying that 2022 was a good year (or at least better than the years we have been having. Low bar I know but at this point we should be grateful its not another 2016).
Today, AI can write poems, essays, research and scientific papers and also scripts for movies with such sublimity that it often becomes difficult to judge whether an AI or a human authored the content. OpenAI, the company spearheading most of the AI development and innovation in recent times, has a solution to this—watermarking. Stock image companies such as Getty Images often protect their images with watermarks. A watermark could be a logo or text superimposed on an image. While it is easy to watermark photo or video content, how does one watermark AI-generated text? Scott Aaronson, a researcher at OpenAI, has the answer.
Once again a lot of people are worried about AI generated content and the possibility of it supplanting human artists. I don’t see that happening, but its good people are taking preemptive steps to keep that from happening anyway.
EPA released a proposal today that would phase down the use of climate superpollutants in products like refrigeration and foams for which more climate-friendly substitutes exist. The draft rule will be open for public comment for 45 days and marks the next step in EPA’s overall strategy for cutting the production and use of hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, by 85 percent by 2036. That’s the goal laid out in the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, which the U.S. ratified on Halloween, and it’s the goal of a law that passed by Congress with bipartisan support in December 2020. “This proposal will support a transition away from super-pollutant HFCs in key sectors of our economy while promoting American leadership in manufacturing of new climate-safe products, making our nation more globally competitive and delivering significant environmental and economic benefits,” said EPA Administrator Michael Regan in a press release.
Once again the Biden administration taking action to make the world a greener place, and we love em for it. Lets strive to make 2023 the greenest year on record.
The number of jobs being created in the renewable energy industry is growing four times faster than the overall UK employment market, it has emerged. Data shows that 2.2% of all new UK jobs have been classified as “green”, although concerns are rising over London’s dominance in the sector. The number of green jobs advertised has almost trebled in the last year, equating to 336,000 roles, according to the second edition of consultancy PwC’s annual green jobs barometer.
And this is a good start for that.
nflation in the United States slowed again last month in the latest sign that price increases are cooling despite the pressures they continue to inflict on American households. Consumer prices rose 7.1% in November from a year ago, the government said Tuesday. That was down sharply from 7.7% in October and a recent peak of 9.1% in June. It was the fifth straight decline. Measured from month to month, which gives a more up-to-date snapshot, the consumer price index inched up just 0.1%. And so-called core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy costs and which the Federal Reserve tracks closely, slowed to 6% compared with a year earlier. From October to November, core prices rose 0.2% — the mildest increase since August 2021.
Yes, the thing that we thought would sink Biden in the midterms (and probably would have until the SCOTUS decided to declare war on women’s rights) is starting to ease off, even the gas prices seem to be going down again (funny how its happening now after the election, almost like they were keeping prices high in order to try and make Biden look bad or something, but I’m sure its not that).
Rent prices fell 0.4% in November — the largest month-over-month drop since Zillow started tracking this data in 2015, according to the real estate company’s latest rent report.
Good. Housing should be a right. I pay 400 dollars a month and that’s considered crazy low by a lot of people. That seems crazy to me. Everyone should have a home.
Rural and small-city voters are key to winning statewide races, controlling legislative chambers, and making progress on the big challenges facing our families and communities. For too long, we have watched these voters shift to the right, a consequence of decades of policies that have sapped rural livelihoods. But sustained investment in year-round organizing, renewed focus on populist economic policies, better messaging to overcome perceived cultural divides, and locally rooted, working-class candidates are beginning to win over rural voters. These strategies have led to small gains across rural areas that can provide the margin of victory for Democrats. Together, they make the case for more investment in organizing rural voters.
Yeah don’t forget a lot of people like me live in rural areas, there are good people out here, don’t forget us!
The US Military Academy will begin removing Confederate monuments from its campus, including a portrait of Robert E. Lee that shows him wearing a Confederate uniform. The academy will undergo a “multi-phased process” during the holiday break to remove all 13 identified references and installations honoring the Confederacy, the academy’s superintendent, Lt. Gen. Steve Gilland, wrote in a letter to the West Point community last week. That includes the portrait of Lee from the library, a stone bust of Lee from the campus’ Reconciliation Plaza and a “bronze triptych” at the entrance to Bartlett Hall.
Ha! Good riddance. Toss it right in the trash.
Energized by a perfect record on ballot measures in last month’s midterm elections, abortion-rights groups are setting their sights on more victories over the next two years. Activists are already planning citizen-led ballot initiatives that would enshrine abortion rights in the constitutions of 10 states: Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma and South Dakota. Those states all ban or restrict abortion, and it is also legal for citizens to initiate ballot proposals that amend the states' constitutions. It's a crucial combination that make them the best targets, according to abortion-rights advocates, who were victorious this year in all six states that featured ballot initiatives about abortion access.
Repealing Roe Vs. Wade was a terrible mistake for the GOP, and one that will haunt them for a long time coming. We will not go back.
SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal judge has temporarily banned San Francisco from clearing homeless encampments, saying the city violated its own policies by failing to offer other shelter. Magistrate Judge Donna M. Ryu in U.S. District Court in Oakland granted an emergency order Friday night that bars the city from taking away tents and confiscating the belongings of encampment dwellers, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
I just watched the Fisher King earlier tonight so this kind of hits me where I live. Leave the homeless alone (and lower rent so they can, you know, stop being homeless).
That does it for this week. I hope everyone has a good new years, and I will see you in 2023.
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