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"Richard_Stallman_at_LibrePlanet_2019" by Ruben Rodriguez
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"Richard_Stallman_at_LibrePlanet_2019" by Ruben Rodriguez
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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.
Richard Stallman has cancer. Fortunately it is slow-growing and manageable follicular lymphoma. Treatment put it into remission, and he can expect to live many more years. However, he now has to be even more careful not to catch Covid-19.
I urge you to vote in Democratic primaries for the progressive candidate, if there is one. And in the final election I urge you to vote for Democrats, unless a liberal independent had a good chance of winning.
The largest part of the site is the political notes, and they are typically updated every day.
I'm looking for people to![[America Means Civil Liberties / Patriotism Means Protecting
Them / www.aclu.org/safefree ]](flag_set_vectorized.png)
US citizens: call on CNN to apologize to Rep. Rashida Tlaib for falsely claiming she had attacked the Michigan Attorney General for bring Jewish.
In fact, Rep. Tlaib reproached her for arresting peaceful protesters.
US citizens: call on the Senate to pass Sanders's resolution to block weapons sales to Israel.
When Sanders was young, he went to Israel and lived in a kibbutz. That he now advocates refusing to arm Israel is proof of how clear the case is for that policy.
US citizens: call on NYC Mayor Adams to stop trying to force retiress onto Medicare "Advantage" plans.
These insurance plans are convenient for people who are basically well, but can get incredibly expensive for people who are sicker. When that happens they are far more expensive than basic Medicare.
US citizens: call on Michigan Attorney General Nessel: Drop charges against campus protesters.
US citizens: call on Congress to tax Elon Musk before he becomes a trillionaire.
If the wrecker grabs the presidency, he will twist laws to help Musk become a multi-trillionaire by the end of the wrecker's fourth term in office.
US citizens: call on Georgia officials to sue to stop MAGA election interference.
US citizens: call for abolition of the death penalty.
US citizens: call on Senate Democrats to abolish the filibuster to restore reproductive rights.
US citizens: call on DoorDash, Google, Walmart, CVS, and other major corporations to stop funding Mark Robinson's Nazi-excusing and queer-hating campeign for governor of North Carolina.
US citizens: Support the USDA's proposed regulations to limit the amounts of added sugar in foods included in school meals.
US citizens: call on Comcast to stop funding anti-abortion campaigns.
US citizens: call on Networks, Media, and Press to stop "sane-washing" the corrupter.
In the US: call on CNN and Josh Kraushaar to issue a retraction to correct their false reporting on Rep. Rashida Tlaib.
US citizens: call on the Pentagon to stop funding Elon Musk's anti-democracy power grab.
US citizens: call on the DOJ to investigate Texas Republicans' voter purge.
US citizens: call on Biden to de-escalate the Israel-Hezbollah war.
I'm looking for a cartoonist who would like to draw cartoons for me once in a while. If you're interested, please write to rms, which refers to me, at the location gnu period org.
Boycott Chevron, in the name of Steven Donziger.
Whether the owners are Chinese is a question that there is no need to ask, because the state should never give money to a business "to support it." Instead it should offer to lend money to the company for suitable repayment, or else buy equity at a fair price.
These two ways of supporting a company avoid giving the owners an opporunity to rip off the state -- which the company's owners are likely to try to do, if they can, regardless of which country they are from.
With a policy like this, it wouldn't matter which country the company's owners are from.
It is exciting that SB 976 turns towards restricting recommendation algorithms. But these options should not be limited to minors — every user should have this choice. (Please do not refer to teenagers as "children"; that feeds the US tendency to treat them like children and retard their development.)
However, I suggest taking a step beyond just choosing to use or not use the platform's addiction system. Recommendation algorithms should be completely separated from platforms!
If you want to use a nontrivial recommendation algorithm, you should be able to choose it yourself and use it anonymously. You could send it the URLs you want it to base its choices on. These might be some of the pages you had visited, and perhaps pages you had not visited.
Then it should send you its recommendations. You could pass all, or just some, or none of those recommendations to the platform to look at them.
AB 1949 is admirable because it gives a small boost to privacy for users of all ages, not only for children. It isn't enough, though — users should also be guaranteed the right and possibility to access through the Tor network and to use aliases. And collection of a user's data by the state should require a warrant against the user.
The door plug that blew out of a Boeing 737 Max 9 airplane was missing four bolts meant to hold it in place. They were missing because Boeing maintenance removed them and did not put them back in again.
Some workers actually made the mistake, but they were working as part of a work system that Boeing management was responsible for setting up and running. That's where the real fault is.
I suggest passing a law to require aircraft manufacturing and repair companies to have a certain fraction of licensed commercial pilots on their boards. Perhaps 66%.
Private equity is gobbling up large parts of the US nursing home business. This puts patients in danger since private equity can amass lots of money, create an oligopoly, and get away with abuses.
The study suggests that "regulation may be needed." I will take a stronger stand and call for firm limits — perhaps even prohibiting private equity combinations from owning home nursing businesses.
I'v also proposed prohibiting private equity from buying up lots of rental housing.
Here are some quotations that I particularly like.
You can now read the political notes on Mastodon.
*Activists say they have proof [Tory] ministers tried to influence police over [protests against] Israeli arms firm [Elbit].*
Leaked documents show that Blinken lied when he stated, in an official report, that "we do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of U.S. humanitarian assistance.”
Veterans for Peace calls for him to be prosecuted. I'd be satisfied if the US government officially reversed that false statement and began applying the law to arms shipments to Israel.
Island countries in the Pacific are denouncing Australia for authorizing expansion of some existing coal mines. One leader accuses Australia of proceeding to drown them.
This is true in the deepest sense, but superficially an exaggeration.
Humanity is indeed carrying out the inundation of the atolls. Of their habitable land, nothing atoll will remain. Later, after global heating and ocean acidification have caused the extinction of coral (along with most mollusks and crustaceans), there will never be atolls again.
The exaggeration is that this is not specifically the fault of coal, nor specifically the fault of Australia. All fossil fuels contribute. and so does deforestation. Australia participates in bringing global disaster, but so do the US, China, Brazil, and many other countries.
It's inaccurate to put the blame on Australia alone. Every country that opens new mines or wells for fossil fuel is more or less to blame for this crime-in-progress. However, since Australia is one of the major perpetrators, and located in the Pacific, it is entirely legitimate for those victims-to-be to focus their ire there.
* Labour used “economically illiterate” analysis paid for by water companies in order to argue against the nationalisation [of the water companies] in England.*
I am not surprised by this — it is the soft of thing that Tory Lite would do.
*[The corrupters' former] advisers help to grow pro-Russia website that spreads misinformation.*
Julian Assange spoke to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
about how the US actions against him and others related to Wikileaks put freedom of the press globally in danger.
The Council of Europe
predates the European Union and has more countries as members.
Kenan Malik: *Too white? Too black? Too woke? Politics by labeling is a disease of our times.*
*There is, in fact, a long history of hate speech laws being used to criminalize minorities.*
The Madeira river basin, in the Amazon, is beset by wildfires — promoted by global heating and lit for the sake of deforestation.
The Israeli air raid that killed Nasrallah killed 90 other members of Hezbollah — probably many of them leaders.
It will not be easy to replace them with experienced new commanders.
There must still be hundreds of commanders who can order their units to keep firing missiles. That doesn't require cleverness, great authority, or special cleverness. For Hezbollah to change its course of action will be far more difficult. Especially difficult would be any reduction in the level of conflict. In effect, Hezbollah may now be too weak to be flexible.
*Scientists criticize UN agency’s failure to withdraw livestock emissions report,* which they criticized for understating the importance of reducing these emissions for avoiding climate disaster.
Robert Reich: *[The bullshitter] is gaining on Kamala Harris in the polls. I have some theories why.*
Basically, he theorizes that the bullshitter is attracting the major media from the issues of substance where Harris would have an advantage.
It would be true.
Arthur Schubarth of Montana was convicted of using tissue from large Asian Marco Polo sheep to make a clone and then a "giant" hybrid.
The judge seems to have said that the real crime was modifying breeds of animals, but that is done all the time. The article does not say that the project involved any genetic engineering (as distinct from ordinary breeding), but that is not a crime either.
Was this operation alleged to be harmful? If so, how? Are these sheep dangerous to people? Could they become feral and overgraze areas? I expect it would be easy to control their numbers by hunting, or wipe them out if necessary.
Maybe all that is irrelevant to the accusation — it could be simply that he did not have the required permits.
*Overcharged for substandard housing: untold story of Haitians in Springfield [Ohio].*
Putin's men poisoned the Seym river, which flows into Ukraine and merges into the Desna river. This has killed all the animals in the Desna as far as it has reached. Humans cannot drink the water or even swim in it. This is chemical warfare, banned by a treaty that Putin has visibly violated.
This may resolve an ancient philosophical quandary. It must be possible to step into the Seym river twice, but it may not be safe.
The UK may be planning to use massive surveillance on people who receive government support, then use artificial intelligence to heuristically raise suspicion of fraud or errors.
If this task is done "correctly" it will identify many cases that might involve fraud or error. To separate the real fraud or error from the misidentified cases would require further investigation by human beings. Then the whole system might work correctly.
But there will be a tendency to skip the expensive second step and presume that the computer's results are correct. When they are not, you may face a horrible runaround that could leave you homeless.
*US farms are forcing workers to buy inedible, expensive meals.*
Note that the workers described in the article are US-government-authorized migrants. Farms need workers, so US law arranges for Mexicans to come and work. The same law tries to protect them from exploitation, but the greedy bastards that own the farms never stop looking for loopholes in that protection.
Data analysis shows that a hurricane hitting the US generally causes 7,000 to 11,000 excess deaths in the damaged regions over the following 15 years. This makes it an important cause of death in those regions.
The study looked at statistics for the US, but I see no reason this would not happen similarly in the rest of the world.
This method of analysis does not give information about the chains of events that lead to these subsequent deaths. The researchers speculate that the causes might include "fallout from resulting economic and job losses after storms, suddenly overstretched local government budgets that under fund [medical] providers, the release of environmental toxins as storms hit industrialized areas and the unhealthy impact of stress upon those who have to endure hurricanes."
These effects happen even where there is no hurricane, but a hurricane makes them happen to more people. If we organize better social responses to these problems after a hurricane, and they prevent some of the delayed deaths, the same responses could help the people who suffer these problems due to non-hurricane causes.
It looks like poverty plays a role in causing these deaths; it makes people more vulnerable to whatever goes wrong. Indeed, poverty generally correlates with lower life expectancy.
If the US economic system were not based on dooH niboR, hurricane-caused delayed deaths would be fewer. However, even as global heating has been making hurricanes more powerful,
and thus likely to kill more, plutocratist economic policies and laws have been increasing poverty,
which likewise tends to kill more.
Why lawsuits for defamation are not adequate to protect society from harmful disinformation.
Biden adopted the bully's policy to block people from asking the US for asylum at the border with Mexico. In practice, almost no one can do that any more, but Biden wants to look even "tougher", so he has announced a stricter theoretical criterion for maybe someday allowing asylum requests to be taken again.
People who have been oppressed at home are entitled to political asylum. The US is unable to respond promptly to all the requests because its capacity to judge them is insufficient. The remedy for this is to train and hire more judges so it can respond reasonably fast with "yes" or "no". Then it could allow applicants to stay in the US for the short time it will take to judge their requests.
Asheville, North Carolina, is far away from the coast, and people called it a refuge from the danger of climate disaster.
Alas, Hurricane Helene was so powerful that it reached Asheville and its rain flooded parts of the city. I suppose that the flooding had to do with the major rivers that meet there.
Fast, heavy rain can cause flooding in all sorts of places, and it takes an engineering study to determine where that will happen. The engineering works to prevent flooding generally are adequate up to some postulated level of rain a heavier rain than that would still cause floods.
Geography can make refuges for some global heating effects, but some are not so limited. For instance, global heating effects are messing up agriculture. If (or when) there is a national or global shortage of food because of ruined harvests, you won't be able to escape that just by choosing the right neighborhood to live in.
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 download copies of my book, Free Software, Free Society, 3rd edition.
"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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