user listed as the mod @jimrob4@midwest.social was last active 8 months ago.

This ain't exactly the most active community on here and there's yet to be any vitriol on here that'd need moderating but it's at least something to be aware of.

edit: I humbly accept my new status as the regent of the mighty @jimrob4@midwest.social, my reign of terror will be legendary and act as a warning to all those who would dare question

After two days of rain (and snow), it’s nice to see some blue sky!

First thing: Many parts of the school system are done by regional Area Education agencies (AEAs), things like special education, curriculum, media, etc. (heres the link to their website if you want to learn more iowaaea.org). Their boards are elected by school districts.

A version of the changes proposed by Governor Reynolds has already passed the Iowa house (hf2612). The part of the bill I'm focusing on here is how it allows for school districts to use state and federal $ that goes to AEAs and use it for themselves.

The thing that got me to start writing this post was a section of the most recent Iowa press. Todd Abrahamson, superintendent of the Okoboji Community School District and one of the few school superintendents in the state in favor of the proposed changes, when asked about what Okoboji would do with the money said (in more diplomatic language, 8:50) that Okoboji would poach staff from the AEAs to work exclusively for Okoboji and not for other districts.

Okoboji is a relatively wealthy tourism town, and is covered by the Prarie Lakes Area Education Agency in Northwest Iowa. Okoboji is an island of wealth in an otherwise especially rural and economically depressed area of the state where school districts just don't have resources to offer many kinds of resources on their own.

There's other things in the bill as well, shifting parts of curriculum more into the private sector. Also it would put the AEAs under the direct control of the state government.

What could possibly go wrong?

It looks like Iowa DNR - at best - was negligent in reviewing permitting for the water usage of the proposed carbon capture pipeline.

There's certainly something to be said for how this somehow just keeps happening to things on the orbit of ethanol and corn.

Notable excerpts:

OMAHA, Nebraska – A company that planned to build a carbon pipeline through Iowa and four other states is canceling the project.

Navigator CO2 is blaming “the unpredictable nature of the regulatory and government processes involved, particularly in South Dakota and Iowa.”

The rest is various statements from involved organizations.

Excerpts:

According to a release from the office of the governor, the Iowa CDL INfrastructure Grant program will award $4,844,092 to ten community colleges in Iowa. The funds go towards building new facilities or adding onto existing ones, as well as purchasing new equipment.

The release states that the investment in CDL programs will help colleges support an increase of 1,305 participants in their annual class size.

The release specified that the grants will be administered as reimbursement and programs must offer competency-based training or a training course that will allow a student to complete training and take the licensing exam within a 30-day window. Additionally, colleges that are part of the program will have agreed to a 5-year tuition freeze for their CDL programs once the project from the award is complete.

I'm particularly excited to see the tuition freeze agreement to help offset the injection of funds.

Original link

“Democrats are struggling in Iowa because they’ve totally lost touch with Iowa values and our voters,” said Addie Lavis, Hinson’s campaign manager. “ … Ashley’s record of conservative accomplishments speaks for itself, and she and our team are working every single day to keep Iowa red and fire Joe Biden in 2024 so we can take our country back."

Ironically, Red Team isn't wrong here.

By party registration, Iowa is roughly a three-way split between Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. During the last major election cycle, the IDP ran multiple anti-firearm candidates. That same cycle, Iowa passed a ballot initiative to codify strict scrutiny on firearm restrictions in the state constitution. It passed with an unprecedented ~66% support. Red team wins here by simply not shooting itself in the foot in pushing something Iowans clearly reject. This should have been what one would call a sign, yet... they seem to have not learned from this.

During the 2022 cycle, voters were polled for priorities. Most voters considered reproductive health important but not as important as economy/inflation, wages, and education. The IDP campaigned almost exclusively on reproductive health while Red Team won here by speaking to these priority issues voters highlighted - even where it was misinformation or lies. It was such a shit show the Libertarian Party managed to regain major party status. Specific to my district, we lost Axne (D) to Nunn (R) - and with Axne's throwing in with anti-firearm efforts while also throwing in with police-friendly efforts, it was entirely predictable.

Twitter has been full of prospective candidates happy to criticize red team but fuck-all for those same prospective candidates and plans to actually, say, tangibly address Iowan concerns or make lives better for those Iowans.

Locally, the running commentary is that these are all such obvious shortcomings and failings its as if the IDP is trying to lose - even incompetence should eke out a win here and there but IDP loses consistently.

County GOP activists could have picked a less controversial nominee for the auditor's race, but they stuck with Whipple. The move backfired spectacularly.

Overreaching is the norm for the Party now because the base doesn't give a shit about electability anymore. That's good for Democrats... until Republicans stop caring about elections entirely.

Hadn't heard about this guy

Imagine the thought process of "the election was stolen, so I'll vote harder next time"

Extremely American

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/7185453

Excerpt:

To underline Blanchfield’s point, the ChatGPT book selection process was found to be unreliable and inconsistent when repeated by Popular Science. “A repeat inquiry regarding ‘The Kite Runner,’ for example, gives contradictory answers,” the Popular Science reporters noted. “In one response, ChatGPT deems Khaled Hosseini’s novel to contain ‘little to no explicit sexual content.’ Upon a separate follow-up, the LLM affirms the book ‘does contain a description of a sexual assault.’”