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This is the personal web site of Richard Stallman.
The views expressed here are my personal views, not those of
the Free Software Foundation or
the GNU Project.
For the sake of separation, this site has always been
hosted elsewhere and managed separately.
If you want to send me GPG-encrypted mail, do not trust key servers! Some of them have phony keys under my name and email address, made by someone else as a trick. See gpg.html for my real key.
Canadians: I suggest you seek election advice at a local chapter of a group that pushes to curb global heating and has the courage to say, "Canada should stop exporting fossil fuel." It will at least use the right goals to suggest who to vote for in your area.
Join a Friday climate strike.That page is made by scraping Fridays for Future so you can get the information without running any Javascript code. I would be very glad if they made the information on their own site accessible from the Free World; then we could simply refer people to their site and do without the scraping etc.
The largest part of the site is the political notes, and they are typically updated every day.
![[America Means Civil Liberties / Patriotism Means Protecting
Them / www.aclu.org/safefree ]](flag_set_vectorized.png)
Institut für Wirtschaftsinformatik Aula - Brückenstrasse 73, BFH Bern
The talk is gratis and attendees do not need to register.
GENÈVE
HEG-GE- Campus Batelle, 1227 Carouge
Gratuit. Les spectateurs devront s'enregistrer mais ils ne seront pas obligés de divulguer leurs noms officiels.
MOUDON
www.agri-bio.ch
- Route de Siviriez 1
Gratuit. Les spectateurs devront s'enregistrer mais ils ne seront pas obligés de divulguer leurs noms officiels.
That disused law prohibits mailing "lewd" or "obscene" materials through the post, and also prohibits mailing birth control and abortifacients. Republicans want to enforce it against mailing of mifepristone. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
If you phone, please spread the word!
Thomas's corruption serves Republican interests, so I expect they won't vote to impeach him, or vote to remove him from office if he has been impeached. Nonetheless, it may help strengthen the will to do other things, such as expand the Supreme Court, after the next election.
Or else they should rename it to Billones Mertos, because that's where busting the carbon budget is likely to lead.
The special danger of thugs in schools is that they can direct students into the school-to-prison pipeline. They do this for minor matters of indiscipline that in the past would not have involved the state at all.
If you phone, please spread the word!
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
The National Rifle Association used to work dedicate itself to teaching how to safely use and own guns. It was turned into a tool for spreading fear to promote gun sales a few decades ago.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
RMS will be giving talks in Switzerland.
[The Switzerland talks are Thursday, Saturday, Monday and Tuesday (not Sunday).]
Boycott Chevron, in the name of Steven Donziger.
There should be a law requiring online services, if they close a user's account, to permit the user to continue to download whatever information perse had left in the account.
To be sure, it is foolish to rely on an online service to hold any data for you; you should store it locally, and use online services only as backups (encrypted). Preferably more than one online service in parallel, for redundancy. But we should not allow online services to cite this as an excuse for arbitrarily causing people great avoidable harm.
It should be a crime to knowingly approach a person while maskless inside a building or vehicle.
The extreme of this is represented by the Amazon warehouse, where a worker's every move is controlled by the computer system. This is one of many reasons to refuse to buy from Amazon.
Unfortunately, surveillance of workers is not limited to Amazon. I think states should pass laws to limit surveillance of workers. It should cover independent contractors as well as employees.
The law should completely forbid demanding that workers run any specific software on their own computers (keep in mind that portable phones are computers); the employer who wants that must furnish the computer at no charge.
Now it can cause you to be arrested randomly for walking down the street.
If stores use face recognition inside the store, they should not be allowed to use photos for matching against people in the store except for photos they have taken in that store, and photos of people convicted of theft and fraud.
Here are some quotations that I particularly like.
Chinese dissident Ruan Xiaohuan was able to evade Chinese censorship and post messages opposing the regime. He kept it up for 12 years before they caught him.
Musk announced that Twitter would censor access to tweets in Turkey to placate Erdoğan.
This is the same excuse that Apple used for helping to carry out Chinese censorship in China. But is Turkey really better off having Twitter keep operation under Erdoğan's censorship, than having him very visibly shut it down? I don't think so.
*Musk, with business relationships in Turkey, comes under fire for Twitter censorship aiding [Erdoğan] whom he knows personally.*
Is Musk's excuse bogus as well as wrong? Others claim he is censoring Twitter more than the Turkish regime demands of other media. Maybe Musk simply desired to boost autocracy in Turkey, and only pretends he is doing so under threat.
*Disgust is an emotion that evolved to keep us out of danger, but people have long misused it to inflict cruelty and catastrophic harm.*
Right-wing fanatics apparently fail to feel disgust for lies.
I reproach the author for advocation flat-out censorship, such as "laws against hate speech". Under the First Amendment, unpopular opinions, whether fascist or progressive, are not prohibited.
"Sustainable" investment funds are accused of greenwashing fossil fuel businesses by investing almost $400 billion in them.
The article explains the system's perverse incentives.
The UK system of "student loans" is really a tax on graduates. But not a fair one: graduates who get higher incomes will end up paying less than graduates with lower incomes.
There is no need for the state to establish separate taxes to pay for various state activities. One unified set of taxes — income tax and inheritance tax — can pay for all state expenditures, provided it taxes people with high incomes at a high effective rate. Those who get more income due to their education will, indeed, pay more.
Proposing George Santos as the bullshitter's next running mate.
They are just made for each other.
*Most Credit Cards Still Deny Access to Justice with Forced Arbitration Clauses.*
This requirement makes it unlikely that the cardholder will get a fair outcome. It also keeps the public in the dark about the substance and outcomes of the disputes.
Scientists report that the main cause of the 25% decrease in wild bird populations in Europe is the heavy use of pesticides and fertilizers in intensive farming.
Erdoğan finished first in the first state of the Turkish presidential election.
It is not certain who will win the runoff, but each day gives Erdoğan more chances to cheat or to throw over the board.
Over 1000 scientists and academics carried out nonviolent protests calling for a rapid decrease in carbon emissions.
Some of them face criminal charges, basically "annoying protest" but stated in different words.
US citizens: call on Congress to repeal the Comstock Act.
That disused law prohibits mailing "lewd" or "obscene" materials through the post, and also prohibits mailing birth control and abortifacients. Republicans want to enforce it against mailing of mifepristone. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Stock Buybacks Act which would prohibit corporations from buying back their own stock so as to raise the stock price. The Capitol Switchboard numbers are +1-202-224-3121, +1-888-818-6641 and +1-888-355-3588.
If you phone, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Congress to impeach Justice Thomas.
Thomas's corruption serves Republican interests, so I expect they won't vote to impeach him, or vote to remove him from office if he has been impeached. Nonetheless, it may help strengthen the will to do other things, such as expand the Supreme Court, after the next election.
US citizens: call on the DA in Atlanta to drop charges against Cop City protesters.
US citizens: call on the EPA to regulate and reduce mercury pollution from (fossil fuel) power plants.
(satire) *Picking up thousands of incapacitated Americans by their wrists and ankles and tossing them down to the sidewalks below, Covid-19 patients were reportedly flung out of hospital windows across the country Thursday as the public [Covid-19] emergency officially ended.*
Democracy is in trouble because most people are biased and most people are often mistaken. But democracy can be effective when it is structured to lead to discussions in which people present arguments for various sides.
The article refutes the claims of certain rich people who argue that markets, or the cleverest people, should rule. They call themselves "libertarians", but I don't think they deserve that term since they advocate subjugation of nearly everyone. Like most people who call themselves "libertarians", their real goal is for the an elite to dominate most of society and to get rid of systems that help the non-rich. That is why I call them "antisocialists".
How unregulated lending business tends to suck people into unpayable debt.
The EPA's new pollution rules for fossil fuel power plants are predicated on the assumption that carbon capture will work and will be used.
So far, it doesn't work, and the only reason anyone assumes it will work is due to fossil fuel lobbying.
Human Rights Watch and Article 18 condemned Erdoğan's control of the internet in Turkey, saying he will use that to twist the election.
Sad to say, right-wing rich people own the principal news sources in most countries, including the US and the UK.
The four factors of the apocalypse:
global heating, global hating,
global eating, global mating.
Copy this button (courtesy of R.Siddharth) to express your rejection of Facebook.
Non-oppressive Commercial E-books
Facebook's face recognition demonstrates a threat to everyone's privacy. I therefore ask people not to put photos of me on Facebook; you can do likewise.
Of course, Facebook is bad for many other reasons as well.
I'd like to make a list of countries that do not require a national identity card, and have no plans to adopt one. If you live in or have confirmed knowledge of such a country, please send email to rms at gnu.org.
Here's my list of countries with no national ID cards and no plans for one: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK. Australia's previous government tried to institute national ID cards, but the Labor government dropped the plan.
India has mostly finished imposing a national biometric ID number in a grand act of oppression.
Switzerland has national ID cards which are optional, but they or some other government ID card are needed for some purposes.
Iceland doesn't have ID cards as such, but they have ID numbers that citizens are forced to use frequently. For example, the national ID number is often required to rent a video or use a gym.
Denmark issues non-photo ID cards with a "person number", and many services use this card to identify people.
Norway will impose a national biometric ID card.
Ireland - national ID card by stealth.
ACLU: the five dangers of national ID cards.
Wikipedia has a list of identity card policies by country.
Stay away from certain countries because of their bad immigration policies.
Avoid flight connections in these airports because of their treatment of passengers.
People often ask how I manage to continue devoting myself to progressive activism (such as the free software movement) for years without burning out. The best way I can answer is by recommending a book, The Lifelong Activist by Hillary Rettig.
I disagree with the book on one theoretical point in the last part of the book: we shouldn't think of political activism as being marketing and sales, because those terms refer to business, and politics is something much more important than mere business. However, this doesn't diminish the value of the book's practical advice about borrowing techniques from marketing and sales.
Disclosure: I am friends with the author.
Personal Declaration of Richard Stallman and Euclides Mance on Solidarity Economy and Free Software.
I have reposted some of Rick Falkvinge's articles. As posted on his site, you can't see them in a browser without running some nonfree Javascript code which is apparently non-free. These versions show the same text, without the obstacle.
These are my political articles that are not related to the GNU operating system or free software. For GNU-related articles, see the GNU philosophy directory. You can also order copies of my book, Free Software, Free Society, 3rd edition', signed or not signed.
"Those who profess to favor freedom, yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."Frederick Douglass, American Abolitionist, Letter to an associate, 1849
Here are notes about various issues I care about, usually with links to
more information. The current notes are
here. For all previous
notes, see this page.
See this page for information on efforts to maintain links in the political notes.
Political notes about the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa, Italy are being archived on their own page.
Richard Stallman's bio and publicity photos, and other things of interest to the press, have been moved to a separate page.
The Free Software Song, by Richard M. Stallman. You can listen to a performance of the song: Free Software Song performed by Thor Here is a variant of this song called "The Free Firmware Song".
A song parody, Colors of the Lisp, by Jefferson Carpenter.
Earth under attack from planet Koch.
On doxing, and how to spell it.
A Spanish cartoon: La Ruleta
Española. 
Here I am wearing my "power tie".
Wine snobs get their comeuppance.
Here I am struggling to open a bottle of water.
My application to an join Marian Henley's ex-boyfriends list.
My funny poetry and song parodies.
My Puns in English (Little Leaguer, August 2019).
My Puns in Spanish (New pun: Apostasía April 2019)
My Puns in French (New pun: Microsoft à l'école July 2019)
My Puns in Italian (New pun: Quale pesce fa starnutire? New 10/2018)
My Puns in German (New 02/2016)
Linguistic Swifties (Now with: Wintu, Penutian, Cochiti, Taos, and Towa.)
--Saint
IGNUcius-- The Church of Emacs will soon
be officially listed by at least one person as his religion for
census purposes.
There are no godfathers in the Church of Emacs, since there are no gods, but you can be someone's editorfather.
Stallman Does Dallas: "I have to warn you that Texans have been known to have an adverse reaction to my personality…"
The Dalai Lama today announced the official release of Yellow Hat GNU/Linux.
I found a funny song about the Mickey Mouse Copyright Act (officially the Sonny Bono Copyright Act) which extended copyright retroactively by 20 years on works made as early as the 1920s.
If you are a geek and read Spanish, you will love Raulito el Friki, who said "Hello, world!" immediately after he was born. Here's an archive of this now-defunct comic strip.
Sleeping with Stallman at MIT.
ESR's favorite programming language: Objectivist C.
No Kludges in Cluj (June 2014)
Made for You (December 2012) (local copy) Esperanto translation
A science fiction story: Jinnetic Engineering (in Portuguese, Farsi, Spanish, Armenian, Russian, French, and Italian).My book of essays about the philosophy of Software Freedom, is available from the GNU Press.
Avec des chapeaux French song parody.
My radio program of Music from Georgia, originally broadcast on WUOG in Athens, Georgia on Oct 13, 2014.
Quantum Theory and Abortion Rights
A proposal for gender neutrality in Spanish, suitable for both speech and writing.
On Hacking: In June 2000, while visiting Korea, I did a fun hack that clearly illustrates the original and true meaning of the word "hacker".
Predicting the attack on Pearl Harbor
I would like to thank:
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