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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.
The largest part of the site is the political notes, and they are typically updated every day.
I'm looking for people to
Richard Stallman will giva a talk in Quito at Central University of Ecuador, November 17 at 08:30. Free software and freedom in the digital society. The talk is in Spanish at Central University of Ecuador in Quito
Richard stallman will give a talk in Quito to the INCISCOS event at Central University of Ecuador, November 19 at 10:00. Free Software and freedom in digital society The talk is in Spanish in Quito at Central University of Ecuador.
Richard Stallman will give a talk at Central University of Ecuador, November 10 at 10:00. Free Software and freedom in digital society The talk is in Spanish in Guayaquil at Central University of Ecuador
Richard Stallman will hold a talk in Quito at Salesian Polytechnic University on November 25 at 10:00. Free Software and freedom in digital society The talk is in Spanish in Guayaquil at Central University of Ecuador.
Richard Stallman will give a talk in Cuenca at the Salesian Polytechnic University on November 30 at 16:00. Free Software and freedom in digital society The talk is in Spanish in Cuenca at the Salesian Polytechnic University.
US citizens: call on your congresscritter and senators to protect Head Start from the executive branch sabotage.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on the DHS to restore refugees' opportunity to defend themselves.
Here's the message I sent.
Stop creating opportunities to rush to ruin refugees' lives.
In common decency, the DHS must withdraw this interim final rule and restore the 30-day period for refugees to respond to a Notice of Intent to Terminate (NOIT) under 8 CFR 207.9. And give them all the reasonable chance to make their cases.
Your new rule is a blatant attempt to rig the process, to make it unfair. Any fair-minded person, anyone who values justice, can see that at a glance. This will bring dishonor on my country -- so, in the name of decency and patriotism, I call on you to cease and desist.
Sincerely,
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: call on Congress to investigate LICE's arrests of children.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass a constitutional amendment to allow regulation of spending on political campaigns.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
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.
* Abandoned coalmines and oil and gas wells are now one of the biggest sources of the powerful greenhouse gas methane, new data shows, and little effort is being made to clean them up.*
I expect that the fossil fuel companies to divest themselves from old mines and wells in ways that will avoid liability for them — just as they sometimes disconnect themselves from responsibility for supporting former workers.
So I suggest making it a felony to implement a restructuring of business or assets in a way that is likely to result predictably in strand assets that carry financial responsibilities with no one capable of shouldering the responsibilities.
A pitifully weak attempt to solve a real problem: asking for a federal law that would permit victims of domestic abuse and stalking to demand that data brokers delete information about them.
Data, once collected, will be abused. The way to prevent that abuse is to facilitate refusing to hand it over in the first place.
Here is my proposal for protecting the specific people known to be in particular danger, and everyone else who could be harmed if individuals, businesses or governments use their personal data against them without a search warrant: require services to be available anonymously.
The selfish interest of those who keep trade secrets is rational but antisocial. In many cases the only harm it does is to hold back the general advance of technology. But sometimes it does really nasty things. For digital hardware and software, it often gives companies a way to subjugate their users. Regarding use of toxic chemicals, it endangers public health.
Why would legislators pass laws to "protect" companies instead of protecting the people they harm? I suspect it is partly because these companies are influential and the legislators seek their support, and partly because the legislators ask them for campaign funds.
But it is also partly the result of the mindset of "trickle down", which assumes that the only way to get more funds for the state is to let increase the size of the economy by letting companies have what they want. Unfortunately, what they want is often to be allowed to harm the public.
Most Democrats in Congress got corrupted this way in the 80s and 90s. (The exceptions are the progressive Democrats.) Now in the UK Starmer is guiding Labour into that sort of corruption.
Clearly our laws should say that any public need to know about the presence of toxic substances in a business facility overrides the desire to keep them secret.
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.
Here are some quotations that I particularly like.
You can now read the political notes on Mastodon.
US citizens: call on your congresscritter and senators to protect Head Start from the executive branch sabotage.
See the instructions for how to sign this letter campaign without running any nonfree JavaScript code--not trivial, but not hard.
US citizens: Join with this campaign to address this issue.
To phone your congresscritter about this, the main switchboard is +1-202-224-3121.
Please spread the word.
Defenders of "free trade" policies often argue that free trade between two countries "benefits both countries". That conclusion might be valid if you measure "benefit" by total income for the population of each country. But often it results in more total income for each country's rich and less total income for each country's non-rich.
That's where they ask us to have faith that the increased income of the rich will "trickle down" to the rest. Meanwhile, the rich cite this faith as an excuse to block the channels by which some of that wealth might reach the non-rich.
Mayor Mamdani is finding it difficult to curb the NYPD from actions that assist LICE in its violence, which they find excuses for.
Scientists attribute 50,000 deaths in Europe's cities this summer to excess heat, and 2/3 of that to global heating.
Serbia has arrested some government thugs for seizing and torturing protesters last year.
Calling on Australia to ban the importation of products (including dates) from Israel's colonies in the West Bank.
*[The saboteur in chief]'s billionaire-blue collar coalition has been smashed by class politics.*
Crackers took control of refrigerators in French blood banks and tried to ruin the blood products. That is not funny &mdash it can kill people.
I enjoy hacking. I have had little to do with cracking.
How impeaching saboteur officials (not the saboteur in chief) could strengthen Congress's power if it is handled the right way.
A company aims to develop genetically engineered dog cyborgs guided by computers.
Mink farms can act as incubators, developing new virus strains that humans can catch. This article suggests monitoring them carefully, but Utah doesn't want to talk about it.
British thugs eagerly arrested hundreds of protesters for calmly stating they support Palestine Action. Officials seriously claim that the protest deserves to be condemned as "crime" simply because they have arbitrarily declared it so.
The defeat of many magats in Congress, motivated by resentment against high prices they imposed, does not imply that Americans have learned to firmly reject fascism and trumpery and defend freedom, democracy, and honesty. We must not take for granted that bullying, cruelty, corruption and tyranny will not take power again. The magat officials still in place, including on the Supreme Court
We must reinforce our weakened system of democratic checks and balances, human rights, and honesty, so that it can expel officials that spit on those values.
The bullshitter said he would cease military aid to Israel to deprive senator-elect El-Sayed of a criticism to make.
If he really does this, it would be a step forward. But the bullshitter's statements of future plans are hardly serious, so we should not take his statement seriously. It is meant as manipulation, like his other statements to the public.
(I suppose he does make serious commitments to billionaires.)
The UK should make reparations to the current descendants of former slaves, but financial burden should not fall on the general British public, who can't afford it.
Some in Britain became rich through the slave trade. Many of them exploited British workers too. In many cases, their heirs still have fortunes today. It would be justice to take the reparations from those fortunes.
This suggests a legal principle that, if a certain fortune was originally British, it remains British forever — and subject to British taxation no matter where the heirs may happen to live.
The EPA plans to shut down its online archive. This would be a disaster for environmental monitoring and science, and a great gift to polluters.
Harmeet Dhillon, principal sabotage agent in the Justice Department, has resigned in advance of an expected congressional investigation.
LICE agents drive around, and when they see someone who looks Hispanic and that they get a hunch about, they jump out and attack — sometimes violently.
They know that the blackwhitingly named "Department of Justice" will protect them from justice.
In order for Congress's power to investigate the conduct of federal agents to be able to stop this, it needs to be augmented with the power to start criminal cases against agents. If Congress needs the help of the Justice Department to do that, sabotage by the attorney general can make the department immune to all checks on its depredations.
Two candidates preaching a progressive and kind version of Christianity won election to the US Senate from generally conservative states.
Nothing could convince me that there is room in our universe for gods or resurrection of the dead. But those candidates' attitude of kindness wins my admiration.
Despite that, I always feel a twinge of fear when a candidate brings per religion into political actions and argumentation. Of course, I feel this way when magats cite religion as the reason for cruelty. But I worry when a progressive politician cites religion as the reason for helping others. That is not evil, but it carries a seed than can easily be adapted by other politicians into support for cruelty.
* Natural Resources Defense Council shows how federal rules changes will spike up public's exposure to carcinogens.*
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".
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.
A song parody, Colors of the Lisp, by Jefferson Carpenter.
The text to a filk song, Johnny v. N., by Paul Rubin.
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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