• 9 Democrats voted for an amendment to block "race-based theories" from schools run by the military.
• GOP Rep. Chip Roy gloated that those Democrats were "feeling heat from their own constituents."
• Rep. Jake Auchincloss, who represents a solidly-Democratic district, called it a "tough vote."

Nine House Democrats on Thursday voted for a Republican-led amendment to the annual defense authorization bill that would prohibit "race-based theories" from being taught in military-run schools.

Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, a member of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus, proposed the amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) as part of a broader goal of pushing back on what he called "social engineering" in the military.

The amendment passed and was added to the NDAA, which cleared the House on Friday morning in a mostly party-line vote. It's unclear if the provision will make it into law, given that the Democratic-controlled Senate is simultaneously drafting its own version of the typically-bipartisan bill.

The text of the Roy's amendment lays out several "race-based theories" that should be forbidden from the curriculum in schools run by the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA), which runs K-12 schools for the families of service members on military bases around the world. 

Those theories include the notion that any race is inherently superior or inferior to others, that the United States is a "fundamentally racist country," and that individuals bear "responsibility for the actions committed by other members of the individual's race."

It comes as part of broader concerns on the right over the last few years about so-called "Critical Race Theory" and how race is discussed in American education. And it was just one of dozens of amendments to the defense bill that dealt with hot-button culture war issues.

In a brief interview with Insider on Friday, Roy complained that educators are "trying to teach that our country is racist."

But most Democrats have pushed back, arguing that race does have a key role in education, or that Republican concerns are overblown or manufactured.

But on Thursday evening, the following 9 House Democrats voted for Roy's amendment:

• Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts
• Henry Cuellar of Texas
• Jared Golden of Maine
• Don Davis of North Carolina
• Seth Moulton of Massachusetts
• Wiley Nickel of North Carolina
• Chris Pappas of New Hampshire
• Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington
• Kim Schrier of Washington

Insider reached out to all nine offices for comment on the vote, but only received a response from Auchincloss and Nickel.

'Reluctant to lend credence'

Several of those Democrats represent competitive districts, and many of them have built their political brands on occasionally voting for Republican bills. Two of them, Perez and Golden, recently voted to block President Joe Biden's student debt relief plan.

"I think at least nine of our Democratic colleagues are recognizing [the issue] and they're feeling heat from their own constituents," said Roy.

Nickel, for his part, told Insider that while he believed there were "some parts of that amendment that were concerning," he thought "Republicans were on the right track."

But he also criticized the amendments brought by Republicans, some of which dealt with abortion or healthcare for transgender service members, as "poison pills," which led him — and all but four Democrats — to vote against the House version of the defense bill.

"I'm very optimistic that we'll get a good bipartisan bill after we get it back from the Senate," said Nickel.

Nickel later provided a statement adding that while supported "teaching our students an accurate history of our nation and its diverse communities," he agreed with the text of the amendment as written. "I fully agree that our students deserve an educational environment free from such division," he said.

Auchincloss and Moulton, meanwhile, represent solidly-Democratic districts in Massachusetts.

Moulton, who ran for president in 2020, once told an interviewer during that campaign that white people need to "look ourselves in the mirror" when it comes to racism in America.

When approached for comment outside the House on Friday, Auchincloss, a military veteran, said he wasn't "doing any comments" and declined to speak on the matter. But his office later provided a statement to Insider calling it a "tough vote."

"On one hand, I was reluctant to lend credence to the GOP's parade of preposterous claims about the military, an institution I served and deeply respect for historically being on the vanguard of diversity and inclusion efforts," he said. "On the other hand, the amendment was tightly constructed to affirm that the military shouldn't teach service members' children that any race is inherently superior to any other or that an individual's worth is determined by their race." 

"I think that's an appropriate affirmation for military schools at a time when both the military and schools are under increasing political pressure from bad actors on the right," he added.

Correction: August 2, 2023 — An earlier version of this story did not list Rep. Don Davis of North Carolina as one of the 9 Democrats who voted for the amendment. This story has been updated to include his name.

I had ChatGPT write some SQL code for me. I probably could have figured it out in a couple of hours, but instead it took me five minutes to specify the problem, and it took ChatGPT another five minutes to code it up and explain it to me. I wanted to see how many feeds each FeedLand user is the "first subscriber" of. Here's an archive of the conversation.

If you're interested how the music of my generation (born 1955, Boomer) came about, I can't more highly recommend the two-part documentary Laurel Canyon, currently streaming on Amazon Prime. I got real interested in the music of Laurel Canyon when I was exploring the story of CSNY and all the members individually after David Crosby died. I wish I had been part of a creative community like that. That was what I was dreaming of for my life back then, and it was right there and until now I didn't know it existed. Learning a lot about my own life these days, by studying what was going on around it. I don't think any of this could have happened without Wikipedia, YouTube and podcasting. It's amazing how well our media cover history now. This could be the golden age of history. Weird idea, I know.

In 1999, Slashdot editor Hemos said Greg Bear was "rightly recognized as a master of hard science fiction" (introducing a review of Bear's then-new book, Nebula-winning book Darwin's Radio). In 2011 Bear began writing the Forerunner Saga , a trilogy of books set 100,000 years before the events in the game Halo. Today theGamer.com writes that Bear has passed away at age 71: Bear's family and fans are paying tribute to the legendary author, who had more than 50 sci-fi novels to his name. Many share fond memories of reading Bear's work and meeting him at conventions, describing him as generous, welcoming, and brilliant. Fans are also sharing their favourite books from Bear in tribute, encouraging others to explore his works to celebrate his legacy. Bear's wife, Astrid Bear, confirmed the news of his passing in the early hours of Sunday. This was after she revealed that her husband has been placed on life support, with no chance of making a full recovery after the stroke. More from File770.com: Bear's novels won Nebulas for Moving Mars (1995) and Darwin's Radio. Three other works of short fiction won Nebulas, and two of those — "Blood Music" (1984) and "Tangents" (1987) — also won the Hugo.... Bear sold his first short story, "Destroyers", to Famous Science Fiction at age 15, and along with high-school friends helped found San Diego Comic-Con. He also published work as an artist at the beginning of his career, including illustrations for an early version of theÂStar Trek Concordance,Âand covers forÂGalaxyÂandÂF&SF. He was a founding member of the Association of Science Fiction Artists. He even created the cover for his novel, Psychlone...

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A friend who emigrated (“high skill”) to the U.S. from Eastern Europe (not Russia itself!) texted our chat group:

I drove into Harvard Square for the first time in about 3 years. Driving through Cambridge: George Floyd yard signs, fair share yard signs [extra tax on the rich], BLM, resist, persist, love is love … The city is as decorated as Red Square was on the anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution

What’s the “fair share” amendment? It will undo the injustice in the Maskachusetts constitution that prevents the nation’s most progressive state from imposing a progressive income tax:

To provide the resources for quality public education and affordable public colleges and universities , and for the repair and maintenance of roads , bridges and public transportation , all revenues received in accordance with this paragraph shall be expended, subject to appropriation , only for these purposes . In addition to the taxes on income otherwise authorized under this Article, there shall be an additional tax of 4 percent on that portion of annual taxable income in excess of $1,000,000 (one million dollars) reported on any return related to those taxes. To ensure that this additional tax continues to apply only to the commonwealth’s highest income taxpayers , this $1,000,000 (one million dollars) income level shall be adjusted annually to reflect any increases in the cost of living by the same method used for federal income tax brackets. This paragraph shall apply to all tax years beginning on or after January 1, 2023 .

I wonder what the base is for the inflation adjustment. The value of $1 million on Election Day 2022? The value of $1 million on January 1, 2023? The value of $1 million in April 2024 (the first time that the tax has to be calculated)? At current rates of inflation, this is an important question!

Some inequality in and near New Bedford, MA, 2020 (photo: my friend Tony; helicopter flying: me):

Needless to say, property owners and realtors in Florida will be delighted if this new tax passes! (See “The Flight of New York City’s Wealthy Was a Once-in-a-Century Shock” (NYT): “The Manhattan residents who moved to Palm Beach County had an average income of $728,351, IRS data showed.”)

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Google Chrome will no longer show whether a site you are visiting is secure and only show when you visit an insecure website. Bleeping Computer reports: To further push web developers into only using HTTPS on their sites, Google introduced the protocol as a ranking factor. Those not hosting a secure site got a potentially minor hit in their Google search results rankings. It has appeared to have worked as according to the 'HTTPS encryption on the web' of Google's Transparency Report, over 90% of all browser connections in Google Chrome currently use an HTTPS connection. Currently, when you visit a secure site, Google Chrome will display a little locked icon indicating that your communication with the site is encrypted, as shown below. As most website communication is now secure, Google is testing a new feature that removes the lock icon for secure sites. This feature is available to test in Chrome 93 Beta, and Chrome 94 Canary builds by enabling the 'Omnibox Updated connection security indicators' flag. With this feature enabled, Google Chrome will only display security indicators when the site is not secure. For businesses who wish to have continued HTTPS security indicators, Google has added an enterprise policy for Chrome 93 named 'LockIconInAddressBarEnabled' that can be used to enable the lock icon again on the address bar.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The rapper Cardi B interviewed Joe Biden and a full transcript is available from Elle:

Cardi B: And also what I want is free Medicare. It’s important to have free [healthcare] because look what is happening right now. Of course, I think we need free college. And I want Black people to stop getting killed and no justice for it. I’m tired of it. I’m sick of it. I just want laws that are fair to Black citizens and that are fair for cops, too. If you kill somebody who doesn’t have a weapon on them, you go to jail. You know what? If I kill somebody, I’ve got to go to jail. You gotta go to jail, too. That’s what I want.

Biden: There’s no reason why we can’t have all of that. Presidents have to take responsibility. I understand one of your favorite presidents is Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt said the American people can take anything if you tell them the truth. Sometimes the truth is hard. But right now, we’re in a position where we have an opportunity to make so much progress. The American public has had the blinders taken off.

Cardi B: I’m always so focused on Medicare and college education, and I never really thought about how important child care is. Nobody is more motivated than a mom. Nobody wants to go hustle out there and get the money for the kid like a mother. [But] how are you supposed to do that when you probably don’t have a babysitter for your kid? Fortunately for me, I have my mom to help take care of my child, but a lot of people, their mom cannot retire and take care of the kids. The mom has to work, too. I feel like this country is so hurt, to the point that this year, a lot of people couldn’t even celebrate July 4th, because not everybody feels like an American. A lot of people feel like [they’re] not even part of America.

Joe Biden: Absolutely. One of the things that I admire about you is that you keep talking about what I call equity—decency, fairness, and treating people with respect. John Lewis, one of the great civil rights leaders, used to say the vote is the most powerful nonviolent tool you have. Look, I’m a lot older than you, to state the obvious. When I was in high school, the civil rights movement was just being started, and along came Bull Connor and his dogs. He thought he was going to drive a wooden stake into the heart of the civil rights movement. But when all those folks saw what was happening in the South—[when] they saw Bull Connor with dogs [attacking] elderly Black women going to church and kids being knocked down with fire hoses—all of a sudden, as Dr. King said, we had the second emancipation. We had the Voting Rights Act and we had the Civil Rights Act. It changed things because people said, “Oh my God, that’s happening.” [Today], the cell phone has changed America. Because we’re at a point where some brave kid can stand there for a total of 8 minutes and 46 seconds and take a of a Black man [being] brutally murdered. And people around the world were saying, “My God. This really happens?” And now they’re demanding change.

What strikes me about the interview is that it seems to be Cardi B, the 27-year-old rapper, who has the concrete policy ideas. The 77-year-old Joe Biden, on the other hand, is mostly silent and/or vague on what he would actually do as president.

Readers: What do you think? Cardi B for President 2028?

Related:

• “Nobody wants to go hustle out there and get the money for the kid like a mother. [But] how are you supposed to do that when you probably don’t have a babysitter for your kid?” said Cardi B. Hunter Biden’s plaintiff shows one straightforward way to solve this problem. See “Hunter Biden’s child support is finalized with his stripper baby mama” (Daily Mail, regarding a mom who was smart enough to move to Arkansas, which offers unlimited child support profits, prior to giving birth to a baby conceived in Washington, D.C. (practical child support revenue limited to about $2 million))

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: A social media boosting startup, which bills itself as a service to increase a user's Instagram followers, has exposed thousands of Instagram account passwords. The company, Social Captain, says it helps thousands of users to grow their Instagram follower counts by connecting their accounts to its platform. Users are asked to enter their Instagram username and password into the platform to get started. But TechCrunch learned this week Social Captain was storing the passwords of linked Instagram accounts in unencrypted plaintext. Any user who viewed the web page source code on their Social Captain profile page could see their Instagram username and password in plain sight, so long as they had connected their account to the platform. Making matters worse, a website bug allowed anyone access to any Social Captain user's profile without having to log in -- simply plugging in a user's unique account ID into the company's web address would grant access to their Social Captain account -- and their Instagram login credentials. Because the user account IDs were for the most part sequential, it was possible to access any user's account and view their Instagram password and other account information with relative ease. The security researcher who reported the vulnerability provided a spreadsheet of about 10,000 scraped user accounts to TechCrunch. "The spreadsheet contained about 4,700 complete sets of Instagram usernames and passwords," the report says. "The rest of the records contained just the user's name and their email address."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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"In Chicago, it used to be claimed that even death couldn't stop a person from voting," writes Slashdot reader lunchlady55. "But in the Deep South, there are new reports of discrepancies in voter turnout with the approval of new electronic voting systems." Ars Technica reports: [I]f any state is a poster child for terrible election practices, it is surely Georgia. Bold claims demand bold evidence, and unfortunately there's plenty; on Monday, McClatchy reported a string of irregularities from the state's primary election in May, including one precinct with a 243-percent turnout. McClatchy's data comes from a federal lawsuit filed against the state. In addition to the problem in Habersham County's Mud Creek precinct, where it appeared that 276 registered voters managed to cast 670 ballots, the piece describes numerous other issues with both voter registration and electronic voting machines. (In fact it was later corrected to show 3,704 registered voters in the precinct.) Multiple sworn statements from voters describe how they turned up at their polling stations only to be turned away or directed to other precincts. Even more statements allege incorrect ballots, frozen voting machines, and other issues. "George is one of four states in the U.S. that continues to use voting machines with no ability to provide voters a paper record so that they can verify the machine counted their vote correctly," the report adds.

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"It wasn't the first time my key card failed, I assumed it was time to replace it." So began a sequence of events that saw Ibrahim Diallo fired from his job, not by his manager but by a machine. From a report: He has detailed his story in a blogpost which he hopes will serve as a warning to firms about relying too much on automation. "Automation can be an asset to a company, but there needs to be a way for humans to take over if the machine makes a mistake," he writes. The story of Mr Diallo's sacking by machine began when his entry pass to the Los Angeles skyscraper where his office was based failed to work, forcing him to rely on the security guard to allow him entry. "As soon as I got to my floor, I went to see my manager to let her know. She promised to order me a new one right away." And that was just the beginning. Mr Diallo soon realized that he was logged out of his work system and "inactive" status was appearing next to his name, his colleagues told him. He was then informed by his recruiter, who was just as puzzled, that his contract has been terminated. Next day, says Mr Diallo, he was locked out of every system, except his Linux machine. Things continued to go south, as two people approached Mr Diallo to escort him out of the building. The story continues: It took Mr Diallo's bosses three weeks to find out why he had been sacked. His firm was going through changes, both in terms of the systems it used and the people it employed. His original manager had been recently laid off and sent to work from home for the rest of his time at the firm and in that period he had not renewed Mr Diallo's contract in the new system. After that, machines took over -- flagging him as an ex-employee. "All the necessary orders are sent automatically and each order completion triggers another order. For example, when the order for disabling my key card is sent, there is no way of it to be re-enabled. "Once it is disabled, an email is sent to security about recently dismissed employees. Scanning the key card is a red flag. The order to disable my Windows account is also sent. There is also one for my Jira account. And on and on."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Naughty or nice, at the beginning of December, we always post an assortment of book lists so you can pick something up to read over the holidays or find just the right book for the bookworm on your list. While some of our own favorites will come out over the next month or so, this will get you started on your holidays.

As a voracious reader you can check out a list of all the books I’ve read in 2016. If you’re still hungry for my recommendations see all the books I’ve read since 2014. The members of our learning community created a great list this summer and have been passing great recommendations on our slack channel. (Joining our learning community might be the best present you can give yourself.)

There are books that will improve your general knowledge of the world. If those are not for you, try these five noteable non-fiction books or books for doing new things. We has a curated list of timeless books published way back in the spring.

Here are some book recommendations from famous CEOs like Mark Zuckerburg, Don Graham, and Bill Gates. Amazon’s editors also selected their top 100 picks for the year. And the New York Times picked the 10 best books.

If that doesn’t satisfy your curiosity you can refer to our 2015, 2014, and 2013 recommendations.

--
Sponsored by: Slack - Making teamwork simpler, more pleasant, and more productive.

The BEA released its Third Estimate of Third Quarter GDP today. In the third estimate GDP rose at 3.5% annualized, up from 3.2%.
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"At school, she is herded like cattle, not treated like a child. At school she is forced to sit in a chair most of her day watching a screen."

The Grande 16 in Pier Park is showing "The Shining" at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Oct. 23 and Oct. 26.

Saturday

jgphilpin

It's a beautiful morning. Just thought I would share.

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An anonymous reader writes: Google today launched Chrome 45 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Android with some expected changes and new developer tools. First and foremost, Chrome now automatically pauses less important Flash content (rolling out gradually, so be patient). This has been a longtime coming from both Google and Adobe, with the goal to make Flash content more power-efficient in Chrome: In March, a setting was introduced to play less Flash content on the page, but it wasn't turned on by default, and in June, the option was enabled in the browser's beta channel. Now it's being turned on for everyone.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Live from Bullwinkle Plaza: Well played, NBC and SurveyMonkey, well played!

Paul Krugman: Behold the Deep Bench: "NBC has the first post-debate poll...

...an online poll, but using a methodology that worked very well in the midterm elections. And it does not, it turns out, show the predicted Trump collapse and rise of the establishment candidates. As some of us have been saying, the GOP is no longer a normal political party.

An anonymous reader writes with news that Mark Shuttleworth plans to have a Ubuntu smartphone that can be used as a PC out sometime this year. "Despite the recent announcement that Windows 10 phones will be able to be used as PCs when connected to an external monitor, Ubuntu—the first operating system to toy with the idea—hasn't conceded the smartphone-PC convergence race to Microsoft just yet. 'While I enjoy the race, I also like to win,' Ubuntu Foundation founder Mark Shuttleworth said during a Ubuntu Online Summit keynote, before announcing that Canonical will partner with a hardware manufacturer to release a Ubuntu Phone with smartphone-PC convergence features this year.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

McGruber writes: 83-year-old Woodland Hills, California resident Ron Dorff usually pays $51 a month to AT&T for a landline, which he uses to access the Internet via an old-school, low-speed AOL dial-up subscription.... but then, in March, AT&T sent him a bill for $8,596.57. He called AT&T and their service rep couldn't make heads or tails of the bill, so she said she'd send a technician to his house. None came, so Dorff figured that everything was ok. Dorff's next monthly bill was for $15,687.64, bringing his total outstanding debt to AT&T, including late fees, to $24,298.93. If he didn't pay by May 8, AT&T warned, his bill would rise to at least $24,786.16. Droff then called David Lazarus, business columnist for the LA Times, who got in touch with AT&T, who wasted little time in deciding it would waive the more than $24,000 in charges. AT&T spokeshole Georgia Taylor claims Dorff's modem somehow had started dialing a long-distance number when it accessed AOL, and the per-minute charges went into orbit as he stayed connected for hours. AT&T declined to answer the LA Times questions about why AT&T didn't spot the problem itself and proactively take steps to fix things? AT&T also declined to elaborate on whether AT&T's billing system is capable of spotting unusual charges and, if so, why it doesn't routinely do so.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A U.S. federal jury in Texas ordered Apple to pay $532.9 million in damages on Tuesday after it found the company's iTunes digital media purchasing and distribution system in infringement of three patents held by licensing firm Smartflash.

An anonymous reader writes with news that a journalist linked to Anonymous, Barret Brown, has been sentenced. "Barrett Brown, a journalist formerly linked to the hacking group Anonymous, was sentenced Thursday to over five years in prison, or a total of 63 months. Ahmed Ghappour, Brown's attorney, confirmed to Ars that Brown's 28 months already served will count toward the sentence. That leaves 34 months, or nearly three years, left for him to serve. In April 2014, Brown took a plea deal admitting guilt on three charges: "transmitting a threat in interstate commerce," for interfering with the execution of a search warrant, and to being "accessory after the fact in the unauthorized access to a protected computer." Brown originally was indicted in Texas federal court in December 2012 on several counts, including accusations that he posted a link from one Internet relay chat channel, called #Anonops, to another channel under his control, called #ProjectPM. The link led to private data that had been hijacked from intelligence firm Strategic Forecasting, or Statfor."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

oxide7 (1013325) writes "In June 2011, Julian Assange received an unusual visitor: the chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt. They outlined radically opposing perspectives: for Assange, the liberating power of the Internet is based on its freedom and statelessness. For Schmidt, emancipation is at one with U.S. foreign policy objectives and is driven by connecting non-Western countries to Western companies and markets. These differences embodied a tug-of-war over the Internet's future that has only gathered force subsequently. Assange describes his encounter with Schmidt and how he came to conclude that it was far from an innocent exchange of views."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officers deal with calls just like any other law enforcer. They also deal with similar excuses.

Dr. Dre is closing a deal on the custom California estate that Tom Brady and Gisele built, according to Page Six.

The purchase price is unclear, but the Brentwood house was listed for $50 million.

The couple bought the land in 2009 and built the 14,000-square-foot, five-bedroom home from scratch.

It has an infinity pool with a view of the Pacific Ocean, a gym, an outdoor kitchen, and a moat.

The house sits on four acres in Brentwood.

The infinity pool, with a view of the Pacific Ocean.

The view of the canyons.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider