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From the GNR Newsroom: Happy and/or respectful Memorial day from the Monday Good News Roundup [1]
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Date: 2023-05-29
Its time again for the Monday Good News Roundup, where your intrepid GNR Newsroom (Myself, Killer300, and Bhu) gather all the good news to start your week off right.
Its Memorial day. A few years ago, if you didn’t know, I got some people angry at me in the comments because I wished everyone a happy Memorial day. There was also some pushback to the pushback, by people who didn’t have a problem with it. The point is it was a bit of a divisive topic.
I can understand how the holiday is a solemn event for some people, but for just as many people its a marker of the beginning of Summer, a time to barbecue and enjoy some quality time with the family. I know because my dad (a Vietnam vet himself) and his friends have been grilling the last couple of days and inviting me to dinner (Burgers on Saturday, Chicken on Sunday, and today they are planning roast beef. Yum Yum). So with that in mind, I have made it a tradition of my own to split the difference; If you see memorial day as a time of mourning and reflection, then I support you 100%. And if you see it as a time for barbecue and beer, well that’s okay too. The important thing is you have a good Memorial day.
Anyway, I’ve rambled enough, its time for good news.
The fine was issued by Ireland's Data Protection Commission, which regulates Facebook across the EU, after it ruled that the social network's data transfers to the U.S. "did not address the risks to the fundamental rights and freedoms" of EU users and violated General Data Protection Regulation. The fine constitutes the largest ever imposed under the EU's GDPR privacy law, the previous one being a €746 million penalty issued to Amazon in 2021 for similar privacy violations. In addition to the fine, Meta was given five months to suspend any future transfer of personal data to the U.S., and six months to end "the unlawful processing, including storage, in the U.S." of transferred personal data. Instagram and WhatsApp, which Meta also owns, are not subject to the order.
Guys like Zuckerberg seem to think they are above the law, so its always satisfying to see them getting slapped down.
A first-of-its-kind bus depot near Washington, D.C. will soon produce its own zero-emissions fuel to replenish its public bus fleet. On Thursday, officials from Montgomery County, Maryland announced plans to add large arrays of solar panels and batteries at one of its main transit centers. The technology will provide clean electricity to run an electrolyzer, which splits water into oxygen and hydrogen — and in turn creates enough juice to fill the tanks of 13 new fuel-cell buses.
Very cool news, I hope more bus depots start doing this as well. The less emissions the better.
The staggering amount of utility-scale solar that must be built in the coming decade to meet net-zero targets is going to require new construction methods that make use of robots and automation. In 2022, about 12 gigawatts of utility-scale solar capacity was installed in the U.S., according to the Solar Energy Industries Association — but 358 gigawatts of new solar capacity is expected to be deployed between 2023 and 2030, driven by the incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act, according to the latest New Energy Outlook from BloombergNEF. Annual installations could expand to more than 100 gigawatts per year by 2030, according to some projections.
I think I say this every week. But I am gonna keep saying it: I love living in the future.
California’s grid operator has just approved a $7.3 billion plan to build the thousands of miles of new high-voltage transmission lines the state needs to hit its climate goals. Thursday’s unanimous vote by the board of governors for the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) is an important next step in a long battle to modernize a grid that’s lagging far behind the state’s needs. It’s also the result of years of wrangling over transmission policy and represents “close coordination with regulatory agencies, load-serving entities and other key stakeholders,” Elliot Mainzer, CAISO president and CEO, said in Thursday’s announcement.
Always nice to see broken stuff getting fixed.
In California, at least, it seems clear that not even the most heart-wrenching testimony will persuade the districts to do the right thing. If it did, we wouldn’t have to go out on strike up and down the state. But we do—and the recent strikes by Oakland and Los Angeles school workers illustrate how educators are using contract negotiations as a vehicle to better society as a whole, both in California and across the nation.
With every successful strike we learn more of what will work and what wont in a strike, better preparing us for the future. Lets keep it up.
Protests in China are often small- scale. On 17 May, a handful of workers at an air-purifier factory in Xiamen, a coastal city in Fujian province, south-east China, gathered to demand the payment of wages that, they said, were in arrears. The protest was quiet, but it was one of nearly 30 similar demonstrations this month alone. With China’s factories reopened and draconian coronavirus measures abandoned, workers are also going on strike at a remarkable rate. This year in China there have already been at least 130 factory strikes, more than triple the number in the whole of 2022, according to data compiled by the China Labour Bulletin (CLB), a Hong Kong-based non-governmental organisation.
All over the world workers are coming together to fight for a better future. It really is a sight to behold.
This turmoil has created acute hardship for musicians. But it has also generated something else: the will to fight back against the hyper-consolidated, increasingly tech-run industry that appears determined to rob musicians of a sustainable career. Since 2020, a small but powerful labor movement has emerged within the industry, uniting musicians, industry workers, and organizers in an attempt to get back a slice of the pie. “People realized: ‘Oh, this is not getting better. This is only getting worse,’” says DeFrancesco.
Yeah we’ve all heard about the WGA strike (which has just been joined by SAG and the DGA, so more good news there), but that isn’t the only entertainment industry where the workers are fighting back.
In today’s polarized context, progressive movements need their best strategic thinking. One source for inspiration should be the Golden Rule, a historic sailing ship that’s currently visiting ports along the Eastern U.S. Organized by Veterans for Peace, this national tour puts the 1958 Golden Rule voyage back in the news. Nearly 65 years ago, the Golden Rule defiantly sailed toward the Pacific Ocean site where U.S. nuclear weapons were being tested, sparking a movement that forced the U.S. government to sign the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Proof that big things can come from small and unusual beginnings. A single ship can put an end to potential atomic Armageddon.
Last year Tom Bonier and I were able to come to a more accurate understanding of what was happening in the election by expanding the data we were looking at beyond polling to include things like special election performance, candidate fundraising, changing voter registration patterns, and eventually the early vote. This additional data gave us a more complete picture of what was happening in the electorate, one that also proved to be more accurate. I think it’s time for political analysts to do this same data expansion exercise with the American economy to gain a more complete, and more accurate, understanding. For it’s my contention that like the “red wave” that never came last year, the prevailing narrative about the economy - struggle, decline, recession, Americans failing behind - is incomplete, or even wrong.
Things are never bad as we think they are, and we need to take a look at how we measure things.
A Republican in Wyoming says the Christian nationalism movement has "hijacked" both the GOP and her religious community "by blurring the lines between church and government and in the process rebranding our state's identity." Susan Stubson, a lawyer and a member of Wyoming's Republican Party, described the transformation in an opinion piece published in The New York Times this week. Stubson is married to Tim Stubson, also a Republican, who served in Wyoming's House of Representatives from 2008 to 2017 and ran in the primary against Liz Cheney for a seat in the US House.
Well you know what they say, the first step to fixing a problem is acknowledging that problem exists. Bit late to the party but whatever.
here are two main points I want to make here, emphatically: The US government is not going to default on its debt. Not now, not soon, perhaps not ever. The odds aren’t 20 percent or even 2 percent. For it to ever happen the world would have to be structured very, very differently from how it is today. The idea that a default could happen is a political fiction used by both parties as they wrestle for leverage in the eventual deal. Nothing more.
Not sure if this is going to be out of date by the time I post this, but I do want to allay some fears here.
And now, its time for an extra long Memorial day LIGHTNING ROUND
Climate doomscrolling strikes again
How solar power is keeping Lebanon’s lights on
Spain Sweden and Belgium setting new Wind and Solar records
India to close 30 coal mines to pave way for forests and waterways
How Toronto’s Don river came back to life
Benin and Mali eliminate trachoma as a health problem
Suicide rates are dropping worldwide
FDA just approved rub on gene therapy for Butterfly children
No, 50% of AI researchers don’t think there is a 10% that AI will kill us
Shocking discovery about phantom limb sensations could revolutionize prosthetics
One state just became the national leader in child care. Here’s how
Boston rolls out free digital libraries at some bus stops
US universities are building Semiconducter workforce
No interest loans helping Australians back on their feet
And that is our lightning round, back to the regular news.
The demographics of the Alaska Legislature looked slightly different after the 2022 election. Alaskans sent more Independents to Juneau than ever before. More Millennials won office as the years-long retirement trend among Baby Boomers continued. The share of women legislators held about steady. Racial diversity ticked up modestly. We wanted to know whether Alaska’s first-time use of open primaries and ranked choice general elections affected any of these demographic changes.In an open primary, candidates run on a single ballot, regardless of party, and all voters may participate in choosing one candidate per race. The top four vote-getters then advance to the ranked choice general election. In ranked choice voting, voters simply rank the candidates from most to least –favorite, and they are free to rank as many or as few candidates as they like. (This quick video shows how election officials count ranked choice ballots and determine a winner.) ">* Given the multiple factors involved and the very small sample size of one set of election results, the job seemed futile. The exceptionality of 2022 showed itself early with the unexpected death of Alaska’s longest-serving Congressman, and it persisted for reasons other than the debut of Alaska’s election system. The 10-year redistricting process reshaped legislative boundaries and put 19 of 20 Senate seats, along with all House seats, on the ballot (normally, Senators serve staggered 4-year terms and House members serve 2-year terms). The open seat in Congress triggered a special election. And a record number of incumbents chose not to run again. Attributing all the new faces and dynamics in Juneau to the election system would overlook these and a host of other factors that influenced who ran and how voters made their selections.
The GOP can only win nowadays by cheating, and this proves it. The time of their relevance is slowly coming to an end, and the future generations are gearing up to stamp them out.
On a cool, clear April morning just past 8 a.m., the sprawling corporate campus of the world’s second largest asset manager was suddenly roused from its suburban Philadelphia calm. While about 20 activists broke into song, unfurled banners, stepped into the road and began blockading Vanguard’s entrances, around 80 more stood by in support. The ensuing commotion snarled traffic around the borough of Malvern, eventually slowing the flow of rush hour on Route 202 as drivers craned their necks toward a fleet of beaming police cars. Before most Vanguard employees had fired off their first email of the day, 16 people — aged 22 to 84 — were zip-tied at the wrists and hauled off to Chester County Prison. The activists represented a broad coalition of grassroots organizations that had come to Malvern to stage an intervention over Vanguard’s $300 billion investments in fossil fuels. And while it wasn’t the first or even the largest of such interventions at the firm’s 115-acre campus, the April 19 action was arguably the most elaborate, with four teams operating in parallel across four sites.
Our two favorite things at the GNR newsroom: protesting and fossil fuel divestment. If there was something about affordable housing or zoning reform this would be a slam dunk.
In any case, that does it for this week’s GNR. Have a good rest of your week, and however you celebrate Memorial day, I wish you nothing but the best.
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