Friday news dump

The Gifford Fire air show in Cottonwood Canyon Aug 4th #GiffordFire

A crowd gathers around Naga, the 100-foot long sea serpent debuting in the Rainbow Falls Pond in Golden Gate Park last nite

When we were kids, hunting for critters at Rainbow Falls was kinda fun.
The tables have turned.
#naga

DOGE fired all the levee level checkers and maintenance workers

April 22, 2025 Today is Earth Day, celebrated for the first time in 1970.

April 22, 2025

Why was the first Earth Day in 1970?

In 1969, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District recorded 65 days out of compliance with the ozone health standard, a record that still stands today. Santa Clara County was regularly blanketed in smog and breathing for many was a daily struggle.

Annoyingly Cory Booker proving a very effective advertisement for the vegan lifestyle.

Feds: Influencer Ricci Wynne has ‘track record’ of sexually abusing girls as young as 13 The right-wing social media influencer has been suspected of pimping since at least 2018, has been caught with underage girls multiple times, and allegedly filmed himself sexually abusing a 13-year…

Social media influencer and SF critic Ricci Wynne is in even deeper trouble than previously thought. Prosecutors describe him as a serial sexual abuser of children and say there's video evidence to back it up:

www.mercurynews.com/2025/03/20/f...

Wired is dropping paywalls for FOIA-based reporting. Others should follow As the administration does its best to hide public records from the public, Wired magazine is stepping up to help stem the secrecy

They're called public records for a reason. Starting today, WIRED will *stop paywalling* articles that are primarily based on public records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, becoming the first publication to partner with @freedom.press to offer this for our new coverage.

Logo for the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, with Wayback in red and Machine in black.

🔗 Websites vanish. Links break. But knowledge can live on with your help. Use the Wayback Machine’s Save Page Now tool to archive webpages that are important to you. 🕰️ 💾

📌 Try it now: web.archive.org/save

Walking with the fishes in San Jose, Calif. a pedestrian passes the Harumo Sato mural, "Celebration Under the Water."

It’s Time.

The ‘Wayback Machine’ is preserving the websites Trump’s White House took down | CNN Business The White House has ordered thousands of government web pages to be taken down over the past month, leaving virtually no trace of some federal agencies’ policies regarding critical topics such as sexu...

The ‘Wayback Machine’ is preserving the websites Trump’s White House took down

More photos from President's Day protest in San Jose. Our story: www.mercurynews.com/2025/02/17/n...

San Jose protest

Anatomy of an AI Coup | TechPolicy.Press DOGE is gutting federal agencies to install AI across the government. Democracy is on the line, writes Tech Policy Press fellow Eryk Salvaggio.

My latest for @techpolicypress.bsky.social, “Anatomy of an AI Coup.” With the takeover of the US government by tech elites underway, we must examine its goals and next steps — and how we will know if it has succeeded. www.techpolicy.press/anatomy-of-a...

In a statement, AP editor Julie Pace said the White House told the AP if it did not align its editorial standards with Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, it would be barred from accessing Trump's executive order signing

Colleen Shogan on LinkedIn: This evening, President Trump fired me. No cause or reason was cited. It… | 49 comments This evening, President Trump fired me. No cause or reason was cited. It has been an honor serving as the 11th Archivist of the United States. I have zero… | 49 comments on LinkedIn

We are in a war on knowledge, a war on facts, and a war on truth. The atrocious sacking of the 11th Archivist of the United States, Colleen Shogan (which she announced on her LinkedIn account last night) heralds a new era of burning of the books. www.linkedin.com/posts/activi...

All-Star Game sign hangers at the Oakland Arena are dwarfed by a picture of Stephen Curry.

All-Star Game signs go up at Oakland Arena.
The old home of the Golden State Warriors will be hosting celebrity game and practice events, while Chase Center will host the 2025 game.

Trump may have pardoned the rioter who viciously attacked officer Michael Fanone on January, but Judge Amy Berman Jackson made a few things clear when she dismissed the case, as she had to:

A rainbow fills the sky over the twin white tents of the Shoreline Amphitheatre during a break in Thursday's storm.

Anyone need a rainbow?
I found one over Shoreline Amphitheatre.

Exclusive | DOGE Staffer Resigns Over Racist Posts A staffer for Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency whose access to U.S. Treasury payment systems was approved by a federal judge on Thursday has links to a deleted social-media account that...

"I was racist before it was cool"

"I would not mind if Gaza and Israel were wiped off the face of the Earth"

“You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity"

“Normalize Indian hate"

-- Top Musk/DOGE aide; posts discovered by WSJ's @klong.bsky.social

Gift link www.wsj.com/tech/doge-st...

Day Seven of the Trump-Musk Treasury Payments Crisis of 2025: “Yours and WIRED's Reporting is Actually Doing Something” Notes on the Crises pivoted over the weekend into around the clock coverage of the Trump-Musk Treasury Payments Crisis of 2025 Read Part 0, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 & Part 4 If you are a current or fo...

EMERGENCY PIECE: My piece, out at 6 am today, is the exclusive source for the information that Marko Elez HAD fully read & write access and his access got downgraded to "insert only" a "read and limited write" access according to the best available understanding

www.crisesnotes.com/day-seven-of...

White House Says Musk Will Police His Own Conflicts of Interest The White House said Elon Musk, the billionaire leading President Donald Trump’s government cost-cutting efforts, will determine if there are conflicts of interest between his work reviewing federal s...

The White House said Elon Musk will determine if there are conflicts of interest between his work reviewing federal spending and his overlapping empire of six companies

Government workers when DOGE shows up.

Inside Musk’s Aggressive Incursion Into the Federal Government (Gift Article) The billionaire is creating major upheaval as his team sweeps through agencies, in what has been an extraordinary flexing of power by a private individual.

Our deep dive into Musk's takeover: Even some officials who like what Musk is doing feel helpless to hold him accountable. His allies are diving in to agencies, gaining access to systems, planning layoffs, and proposing a sweeping AI initiative to review contracts. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/03/u...

Elon bought America for way less than he did Twitter.

If a 19-year-old Canadian who calls himself Big Balls marches into your federal agency and demands access to your system, telling him to fuck right off should be the mildest reaction you have.

Screen shot of Elon Musk posting that USAID is a criminal organization and that it’s “time for it to die.”

This might give some pause to anyone who thinks of Musk’s DOGE as just a dispassionate accounting firm trying to make everything run more smoothly.