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*"I'm a dead man walking": ex-Russian spy says defectors in the UK are at risk.*
Part of the current shortage of workers is because of people who have become physically unable to work. That could be due to Covid-19 damage.
New York State is considering two approaches to decriminalizing sex work. One would legalize the profession; the other would continue the threat to punish everyone involved except the prostitutes themselves.
I agree that it is important to protect sex workers from enslavement and exploitation. However, prosecuting customers and answering services makes no sense at all.
Legalization does not have to imply deregulation -- many other kinds of businesses are regulated, and sex businesses can be too. When trafficking becomes frequent in any kind of business, the regulations can be designed to catch traffickers.
Ukraine gave up the nuclear weapons that it inherited when the Soviet Union broke up. Putin's invasion is the sort of thing that will make other countries in the future cling to nuclear weapons.
US supermarkets are making great profits but finding sneaky ways to cut some workers' pay.
Ukraine says that Ukrainian forces defeated and expelled Russian forces from Kharkiv and that Russian soldiers surrendered in groups.
One can't trust announcements from any side in a war, though.
Germany will give antitank and antiaircraft missiles to Ukraine.
Putin announced that he has "transferred the deterrence forces of the Russian army to a special mode of combat duty."
I think that is his way of saying, "I'm a maniac swinging a loaded gun around, so do exactly what I say." But I don't think he is really a maniac -- I think this is manipulation.
How the west influenced Putin's thinking for the worse.
*If the UK government had set out to undermine and degrade our country, it couldn't have done a better job.*
I suspect that, in practice, the difference between "undermine the country" and "drive the non-rich into penury" is not very big.
The International Red Cross warns that global heating is a threat to the national security of every country.
Conjecture: the availability of inexpensive tea made Britons healthier in the 19th century because, to drink tea, they had to boil the water.
I speculate that Britons can thank the rebellious American colonists for the 1784 decrease in the British tax on tea.
Proctorio, the company which makes nonfree software that takes total control of a student's computer in the name of preventing cheating, is using legal harassment against organizations that criticized it.
Students, please organize and demand that your school stop demanding that you run vicious surveillance software.
On the risk of disaster posed by Ukraine's nuclear power plants.
The UK plans to prohibit anonymous use of many internet platforms -- in the name of "protecting children", of course.
The US military must stop showing Faux News, with its insurrectionist and anti-vax propaganda, on military bases.
A Republican congresscritter proposed expelling all students of Russian nationality from US universities. That would be mindless scapegoating -- exactly what one expects from Republicans. Those students are not serving Putin by going to school in the US.
I urged countries to limit the number of students from China, but that is not a matter of trying to hurt Chinese students. It is because China has an organized system of forcing Chinese nationals (and people who have relatives in China who can be used as hostages) to act as instruments to pressure students, faculty, and the universities themselves.
The US, UK, Europe and Canada have joined to limit Russia's use of the SWIFT bank transfer system.
*SWIFT action, at last, brings meaningful sanctions against Putin regime.*
*Armed with hammers and pistols, Ukrainians wait at barricades for the Russians.*
It's not going to be very effective at resistance if Putin tells the Putin army to plow through them.
*Veteran Hershey's Workers Lead Union Drive to Benefit New Hires.*
The governor of Texas has ordered prosecution of anyone (including parents) involved in providing sex-change treatments to transgender youth. This attempts to twist a law that Republicans failed to actually change. Some DAs in Texas have said they will refuse to comply prosecute.
However, those families (and many others) may be persecuted anyway as state agencies investigate them, looking for an excuse to take their children away.
Republican congress-fascist openly advocated violence against trans people.
DeJoy has finished the procedure for ordering a new fleet of gas-powered trucks for the Postal Service.
It seems that Biden's new postal commissioners have been confirmed. We were told that they would replace DeJoy, Why has this not happened?
The Canadian military launched an operation to collect data on activists as part of a plan to test propaganda techniques on Canada's public.
(satire) *U.S. Shocked Russia Would Invade Another Country After Seeing How Badly America's Recent Invasions Went.*
The Tories are planning a massive increase in what graduates with low incomes will have to pay for their university education.
China is pushing for world dominion by 2030, but it is boosting greenhouse gas emissions so much that its power is likely to be broken by the cost of global heating effects by 2050.
(satire) *Scotch-Brite Unveils New Scouring Bread For Wiping Up Leftover Pasta Sauce On Plate.*
(satire) *Amazon Transfers Insubordinate Employee To Shifts Working In Solitary Warehouse.*
The steady right-wing pressure to maintain maximum harshness against convicted criminals seizes on and magnifies any outlying case.
Every decision about policies in dealing with crime is a probabilistic one. If you replace policy A with policy B, there will be cases where the result of B is better and cases where the result of B is worse. Whether B is a change for the better overall depends on the frequency of better and worse outcomes.
A wave of indignation is not a substitute for a rational evaluation of the results of using policy B, not even in one specific case. We don't know yet whether convict Tubbs will commit more crimes after experiencing juvenile hall than she would have committed after a sentence in adult prison. Indeed, the general experience with adult prison suggests it often directs prisoners toward a life of crime.
If B turns out to give worse results in an identifiable subset of cases, that doesn't necessarily imply that going back to A is the best change. Maybe some variant B would be better than either A or B in such cases.
So I think that Gascon's latest decision was premature.
The lies that Dubya forced into US intelligence reports about Iraq caused a lasting skepticism about US intelligence reports, which did harm just now, as people distrusted the reports about Putin that we now know were valid.
Now US intelligence says that Putin's army is considering taking the relatives of Ukrainian soldiers hostage and killing them if the soldiers don't surrender.
Putin has established a pattern of shocking the world by taking barbarity further than people could have believed. Threatening war if Sweden and Finland join NATO is the latest example. That doesn't prove he would descend to terrorism, but it would fit his pattern.
We must not allow him to win victories by threatening barbarity. The proper response to such barbarity is, "Wanted dead or alive."
However, even if Putin is planning to do that, he has not done it yet. There is a big moral difference between "may do X" and "has done X." Putin still has the option of not murdering hostages.
*Russia speaks total lies. That doesn’t diminish America’s half-truths.*
However, the article's real point is that a government that speaks half-truths can sometimes be your only protection from the total lies.
Matt Taibbi apologizes for the error that blinded him to how horrible a deed Putin would do. He had become "so fixated on western misbehavior" that he didn't realize that the west's enemies could be worse.
*US fossil fuel industry leaps on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to argue for more drilling.*
Fossil fuel companies led the US and Europe to become so dependent on those fuels that we became vulnerable to Putin. We must not let them off the hook.
The long-term way to defeat Putin and other petrostate autocrats is by decarbonizing.
*The Russian leader’s pretext for invasion recasts Ukraine’s Jewish president as a Nazi and Russian Christians as true victims of the Holocaust.*
UPS is so profitable that it is cutting wages.
*El Salvador’s former president charged over 1989 massacre of six Jesuit priests.*
*The west has a duty to help defend Ukraine –- and to help Russia [adjust to the loss of its empire] by ensuring its defeat.*
The antivax protest at New Zealand's parliament draws people with opposition views that are within the domain of rationality, then indoctrinates them into conspiracy ideation.
*Israel Surpasses 1,000 Demolitions in the Occupied West Bank Since Joe Biden Took Office.*
Spanish banks have been eliminating branches and ATMs, trying to push people to pay digitally and suffer tracking. Retired people have organized and pressured banks to back down.
People should do this in other countries, too. But don't put the petition on change.org! That company requires people to run nonfree software to sign.
*Western powers have realised Russia is largely immune to sanctions.*
In effect, the warnings of disaster that we heard coming from Biden were more exaggeration than I guess they were. Rather than a standard-issue paper tiger, they were more like a tissue-paper tiger.
The chance we had to prevent this war was months ago. Starting then, we could have provided Ukraine with the military strength to deter the attack.
*[Putin] has hardly kept his worldview secret – and now Ukraine is paying the price for western leaders who looked the other way.*
Progressive politicians are endorsing Biden's nominee for the Supreme Court.
I had read she was associated with harsh policies in criminal justice, but if these politicians don't see them as a grave problem, I'm satisfied.
Ukraine's operating nuclear power reactors could meltdown and spew radiation if they shut down and lose grid power with which to keep the fuel cool.
War could force them to shut down even if no army intends to do so. But Russian attacks towards the plant could kill the staff or drive them away. If Russian troops seize the plants and try to force the staff to work as prisoners, there is no telling what might happen.
It is ominous that Russian troops have seized Chernobyl and imprisoned the staff that work there. The wrecked reactors are not a weapon and provide no service to Ukraine that Putin might threaten to shut off. It would have been easy and safe to ignore the place and leave the staff alone.
I can only imagine that he plans to use the wrecked reactors to do something vicious, such as poison Ukraine with radioactive waste. But that doesn't make sense either; I can't see that it would gain him anything.
*Judge orders new trial for US woman sentenced to six years for trying to register to vote.*
Historic England, which until now has preserved the old buildings of the wealthy and important, has decided to preserve also some buildings where the non-wealthy lived or worked.
Prominent Russians are denouncing Putin's war, though they know they may be blacklisted or fired, while ordinary citizens protest on the street knowing they will immediately be dragged away.
In these photos of protests around the world, I was moved especially by the Russians who condemn Putin's war. Please let's not blame Russians for what Putin does -- under his contemptuous tyranny, which crushes dissent and cites absurd reasons, they have no say in what Russia does.
President Zelenskiy and other Ukrainian high officials say they will stay in Kyiv to boost morale for the fight to defend the city.
I hope that the vice president and some other officials are safe in another country where they can constitute the government in exile if Kyiv falls. That will be important to deny Putin control over Ukraine's foreign assets and its embassies.
Putin threatened to attack Sweden and Finland if they join NATO.
A week ago he was describing NATO as a threat so powerful that he was compelled to attack Ukraine to forestall its joining NATO. Now he treats NATO as so weak that he can bully countries not to join it by threatening war against them. There is a fundamental contradiction here.
But what he says is not meant to be valid. It is all part of bullying.
The UK allows people to fire lead shot at birds, and the lead gets into other birds and makes them toxic.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and senators to support the Right Whale Coexistence Act.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on banks to defund the Coastal Gaslink pipeline.
Pipeline opponents used axes to wreck construction equipment being used to construct a gas pipeline along Canada's Pacific coast.
Intentional destruction of property is a crime. But is the destruction of equipment for building fossil fuel infrastructure as bad a crime as building that infrastructure? We know that that will cause, over a few decades, the destruction of a far larger amount of property, and much of that will be to property of ordinary people rather than a planet-roaster enterprise.
The people that attacked the work camp avoided attacking humans, but global heating is already killing millions of people per year and will surely kill tens of millions per year in a few decades.
Thus, I think that the necessity defense applies morally, even if not legally.
What disturbs me about this attack is that it is an escalation. It may inspire other escalations, in retaliation and/or by right-wing extremists. I wish it had not come to this.
Australia approves fossil fuel facilities based on estimates of how much greenhouse gas the facility will emit once operating. But there is no effort to verify it stays within that limit. Some facilities emit a lot more.
It seems that the system has been designed to avoid inconvenience for planet-roasters.
* Rising temperatures pushing much more freshwater towards poles than climate models previously estimated.*
This means that predictions of droughts and desertification will need to be revised upward.
I wonder how this affects the threat to turn off the ocean currents in the North Atlantic — the gulf stream and the conveyor. That would cause disaster for coastal countries in that region, including Ireland, Britain and Scandinavia.
*US government halts [the wrecker's] plan to approve mining road in Alaska.*
Humanity has a chance to eliminate malaria, tuberculosis and AIDS, but it will require more money.
Ukraine says it was attacked from Russia, Belarus, and the Crimea.
Many major cities have been attacked. It is clear that though Putin sent "peacekeepers" using Luhansk and Donetsk as a pretext, their mission has no particular relation to those insurrections or to the provinces they are in.
Putin said he intends to "demilitarize and denazify" Ukraine. Translated through his propaganda system, I think that means he threatens to remove the current "Nazi" government of Ukraine (never mind that it's led by a Jew) and impose a puppet government. Perhaps with permanent Russian "peacekeepers" to keep it in power.
That doesn't mean it is what he actually intends to do. Like his US protege Trumputin, Putin loves lying, and the more brash and absurd, the better.
If Biden declares a climate emergency, he would have the authority to take important steps to prevent new fossil fuel development and to speed the construction of renewable energy facilities.
The WHO has decided to help five more non-rich countries make RNA vaccines.
One crucial question I have not seen answered: are these countries allowed to make vaccines for other countries, or only for their own use? What are the rules for this?
"Influencing" is based on suckering young people with the idea of beating everyone else in who can sucker more people in.
It's similar to multi-level marketing, in that of the many who enter at the bottom, very few make a success of it. Most of them become part of the many that the successful ones exploit.
The UK system for student loans had one good quality: if you didn't get a good income afterwards, you didn't have to pay back all of that. Now, the Tories think that gives poor people too good a deal.
Three Minneapolis thugs who failed to prevent the murder of George Floyd have been convicted of federal hate crimes for failing to intervene to prevent Chauvin from killing him and helping to deny him medical attention during the while.
*Elon Musk and brother under investigation for alleged insider trading.*
*The UK wants to bar Russia from the international payments network [Swift] — but others doubt the sanction’s value.*
* It will take years for the consequences of 24 February to play out, but there is still much the west can do to help Ukrainians.*
I'm glad someone agrees with me that we should have given Ukraine enough weapons and training to deter Putin from invading.
*Greens unveil a $19bn plan to subsidise coal workers to transition away from fossil fuel jobs.*
Oops! If you offer coal miners that cushy deal, coal mine owners will demand to be paid to transition away from fossil fuel investments.
During the pandemic, England allowed women to obtain abortion pills by mail and take them at home. It's not ideal for women to do this alone, but it's better than being forced to have a baby.
The US should make sure women can do likewise, in Texas and other states where Republicans are blocking them from getting the pills.
Ecuador's former foreign minister: the UK's goal all along was to send Assange to the US.
*As a Russian, I don’t know how to live with the shame of Putin’s aggression.*
*Massive feeding effort underway to save starving Florida manatees.*
But Republicans are working hard on eliminating the remaining seagrass and the remaining manatees.
Cory Doctorow believes that Facebook is doomed.
I hope so, but that will be nothing to celebrate if Facebook is replaced by another online dis-service that has the same basic injustices. These include requiring people to run nonfree software, collecting data users don't ask it to hold, and promoting whatever postings tend to cause outrage.
Don't be a zucker — don't be used by Facebook! But don't assume that everything else is ok!
A progressive "good guy with a gun" stopped a right-wing gunman who attacked volunteers supporting a protest. When official thugs came, they didn't believe the survivors' report and arrested the good guy.
It's very rare that a "good guy with a gun" is present when someone starts committing murder. In this case, his presence was not a matter of luck. He was there to protect people at the protest. The protest organizers realized in advance that the violent tone of right-wing hatred might inspire someone to shoot protesters, and wisely arranged to have some guards.
This one even managed to disable the killer without killing him, so he will face trial.
Theory: what Putin really wants in Ukraine is to create a "frozen conflict" that would make NATO refuse to admit Ukraine.
It makes sense, and it may be part of the truth. But it can't be the whole truth, because (1) Putin had already created frozen conflicts in Ukraine, by seizing the Crimea and by creating a permanent rebellion in parts of Luhansk and Donetsk, and (2) he has announced the intention to seize all of Ukraine and impose a government under his control.
Moderna patented a short subsequence of a natural human gene. Natural genes are not supposed to be patented, but patenting a subsequence of one is basically equivalent and should not be allowed either.
This was noticed because it turns out that SARS-CoV-2 contains that same sequence. How did that happen? It could be the result of genetic engineering if anyone did that, but it is no proof that the virus was engineered because it could have randomly incorporated that sequence as RNA while adapting to a human host.
The article is slanted in support of the lab leak theory, and it's not impossible, but not proven either. If it is someday established that a lab leak played a role, we could learn important precautions to take in the genetic engineering of viruses. However, even if the virus did not pass through a lab, we might nonetheless learn some important precautions.
(satire) Either way, Moderna's patent lawyers will sue the virus, and it won't dare reproduce any more in countries with vigorous patent enforcement. Then WIPO will tout this as proof that patenting of gene sequences is vitally important for everyone.
Los Angeles thugs kept Bethany K Farber of California in jail for 13 days before they figured out she was not Bethany K Farber of Texas. They could have determined this in 5 minutes if they had checked the most obvious things.
The article describes the physical mistreatment she experienced in jail that are surely suffered by other prisoners as well. That's something that the city must correct.
The corrupter's supporters, while engaged in a coup to impose their control permanently over the US, constantly accuse their opponents of doing something like that.
The corrupter just praised Putin directly. They use similar methods of brash and outrageous lies. But I wonder now whether they really are allies.
Converting a Cracker Into a Soup
* "For the one in four people in the U.K. who are clinically vulnerable, the current approach appears a perilous and politicized pandemic response," wrote more than 2,000 physicians and scientists.*
London trains and buses no longer require people to wear masks.
This means considerable danger for clinically vulnerable people who don't have cars, if they travel anywhere. And this is for the sake of a small degree of comfort for the other passengers.
When several southern states adopted "stand your ground and kill" laws, the rate of deaths by shooting increased immediately by 16 to 32 percent.
Curiously, there was no such increase in states elsewhere in the US that did the same thing.
Some Russian oligarchs give or route money to the Tory Party.
Russia's economy is hardly vulnerable to economic sanctions.
*San Francisco police will stop misusing sexual assault victim DNA to investigate unrelated crimes.*
It's good of them to adopt this policy, but there are thousands of cities in the US, as well as county sheriff's departments and state thug departments. We need to make this a legal requirement.
*Proposing a 21st Century Economic Bill of Rights—a Bill of Rights.* These are eight rights that enable people to have a decent life.
In addition to these eight rights to the things that make for a decent life, people also deserve freedoms.
The world is constructing 44,000 miles of gas pipelines, and planning 76,000 more. If they are built, the $500 million "investment" will motivate the owners to do anything whatsoever to keep gas flowing through them, even though burning that much hydrocarbon would destroy the ecosphere and civilization.
America's Putin, the wrecker, praised Putin for the brazenness of his lies about Ukraine.
This confirms the article which presented Putin as the model for today's Republicans.
Guns are now the biggest cause of loss of years of life, in the US, surpassing vehicular collisions.
The states with weaker gun control have more loss of life due to guns.
Clarence Thomas's wife is a right-wing extremist activist who arranges to bring cases to the Supreme Court, where her husband votes for her side.
Reportedly Salafi Arabia is cooperating with Russia to drive up oil prices.
Starmer declares that the UK Labour Party will treat business as a "partner", which will put non-rich people in second place. Labour will become the milder plutocratist version of the Tories, just as "mainstream" Democrats are the milder plutocratist version of the Republican Party before that turned into the right-wing extremist party.
When water melts on top of the Greenland ice cap, it falls down to the bottom. Its gravitational potential energy converts into heat, which melts more ice at the bottom. This means the melting is faster than scientists previously recognized.
(satire) *Woman Desperately Seeking Excuse To Assault Retail Workers Now That Mask Mandate Lifted.*
George Monbiot: *What price British democracy when a rich elite has the government’s ear?*
He invites us to imagine that a foreign power had the control over the British government that the rich have.
It's broadly similar with the rich in the US, and the plutocratist senators (and other officials) they buy.
Social and psychological reasons to stop using streaming dis-services.
This is not just a matter of advantages and disadvantages of two formats. CDs are free technology — you don't need nonfree (and probably malicious) software which controls your access to their contents. Streaming dis-services impose DRM, and jerkmaking contracts in which users promise to be bad neighbors, and also require them to identify themselves.
Out, out, damned Spotify!
US citizens: call on Justice Department to take action against people that attack service personnel in airports.
US citizens: call on the USPS not to buy gas-fueled trucks.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass a war powers resolution to end US involvement in the war in Yemen.
US citizens: call on Congress to bring back the child tax credit.
US citizens: call on Secretaries of State to disqualify all insurrectionists from serving in office, including as poll workers and election officials.
*More than 1,000 Hershey’s workers vote on plan to unionize Virginia plant.*
Arguing that Putin is not worried about sanctions against Russian oligarchs, but sanctions against the officials that serve him would cause him real trouble.
Robert Reich believes the Democrats can keep control of Congress in this year's election, if they handle it right. I hope so.
It isn't enough for Democrats to control Congress. We also need to replace some plutocratist Democrats with progressive Democrats.
Democrats might be able to win support in rural America again if they make it their target to break up the large landholdings and give land back to the rest of the citizens.
(satire) *Doctor Assures Family Of Dying Patient He Billing Everything He Can.*
Scientists predict a 30% increase in wildfires by 2050.
The increase won't stop in 2050. As long as global heating continues, fires will get worse. The report says that some of those fires will be impossible to extinguish with known methods.
*Oil and gas facilities could profit from plugging methane leaks, IEA says.*
The US would be more convincing when condemning Putin's invasion of Ukraine if it had not supported occupations and carried out conquests.
Putin announced his intention to seize the whole extent of Luhansk and Donetsk provinces -- far larger than the territory his proxies actually hold.
That would require real fighting. The announcement was a declaration of real war.
The province of Donbas includes the important city of Mariupol. Western experts speculated some weeks ago that Putin would try to capture it. Ukraine will surely resist that attack strenuously.
*How to save [the UK's] precious public services? A windfall tax on those who got rich from Covid.*
Coping with Covid-19 is expensive, especially if you're not careful to spend money wisely. The UK spent a lot of money, much of it incompetently or corruptly.
In the minds of Tories, like other plutocratists, this is an opportunity to cut the support that keeps penurious people alive. They have been pushing for more than a decade to undermine and ruin the National Health Service, and they see success within their grasp.
Swiss banking secrecy made Switzerland an ideal place for dictators and crooks to hide money. A treaty made Switzerland pull back the secrecy for clients from European countries, but third world embezzlers still take advantage of it.
Many other countries help disguise profits for rich people.
European governments agreed that airlines would not be penalized (with cancelled departure or arrival slots) if they cancelled empty or nearly-empty flights. But airlines flew empty flights anyway.
From personal experience I know that many fewer flights were scheduled from the US to Italy flew in April and May, 2020. And many of those scheduled were cancelled a few days in advance.
Is it possible that the "ghost flights" started after May?
In any case, it is clear that governments ought to demand statistics about number of paying passengers, and publish them. The simple wish of a business to keep something secret should carry very little weight in the decision about whether to allow it to do so. Any significant public interest should be enough to override that wish.
*The [UK's] "living with Covid" strategy fails to provide testing, or address the impact of future variants, long Covid and inequality.*
The US may provide for testing more than the UK does. But neither one will do what is necessary to assure Covid-spreading staff are not handle your order, or preparing your food. That calls for (1) testing them so they know they have Covid-19, (2) requiring them to stay home when sick, and (3) giving them paid sick leave so they can afford to stay home when sick.
Theory: plutocratist Democrats treat Republican insurrectionists like fellow members of the plutocratist (and, to some extent, racist) elite, even as the Republicans plot to overthrow democracy.
Canadian cops are ready to end further truck blockades without delay. They say they will scrupulously respect the right to protest in other ways, and they seem to have done so this time.
One of the nasty consequences of nonfree software is that programs become unobtainable at the whim of some company.
Nonfree software means some "owner" officially owns all copies, and has power over all who use the program. That's an injustice in itself, and it is the root of many other injustices. It even includes power over whether anyone can get a copy, as described above.
Covid-19 has led Australians to care more about how the state aids people's wellbeing, and to give lower priority to "law and order".
The Dakota Access pipeline has finally lost its fight against the court decision requiring a new environmental impact study. However, the pipeline will continue operating until that is done.
The company will surely try to delay the actual report. How many years of delay can they arrange? And if Republicans seize power, all they need to do, to keep the pipeline operating forever, is to slow down this environmental impact study so that it never reports any result.
George Washington University secretly tracked the movements of students and faculty, for a statistical study of how the campus facilities were used and how people travel around campus.
Making a statistical survey would be harmless, if it were impossible to recover any individual's data from it. With this survey, extracting data about an individual is possible. If it tracks people by their IP addresses, they should start changing those. Does the system try to stop them?
In order for people to trust the university, it needs to show them it cannot track them. Once tracking becomes an option that the university can turn on and turn off at will, people will feel they are being watched.
The Tories plan to cut the budget for research into Covid-19.
Apparently, eliminating rules to retard the spread will be an excuse to decide that the disease can be ignored by society.
US immigration courts are so understaffed that asylum-seekers may not be notified before their hearings.
New Zealand will maintain requirements to reduce contagion of Covid-19 until the case rate stabilizes at a new, low level, and only then consider removing some of them.
That is a wise approach. Furthermore, it would be wise to terminate measures one by one, and see what effect each one has on the rate of infections before going on to the next one.
It is a mistake to decide by counting deaths. Some percentage of the people who survive the initial infection will develop permanent disabilities. With Omicron, it may still be too early to get such data, since large numbers of people didn't catch Omicron until around 3 months ago.
It is important to remember also that a substantial fraction of people would probably die if they ever catch Covid-19, despite being vaccinated, because they are immunocompromised or have other medical problems. To eliminate mask and vaccination requirements for everyone else would force that fraction into permanent isolation, along with any family members who join them in isolation.
*US claims Russia creating lists of Ukrainians "to be killed or sent to camps."*
I would not treat this as certain based on the unsupported word of the US. But this is what Putin does in Russia, so he will surely do it in Ukraine too.
As for dissidents (Russians or Belarusians) in exile in Ukraine, Putin will surely persecute them if he gets his hands on them. I doubt he will hesitate to go as far as his ally, Lukashenko, has already gone.
Those dissidents need to flee Ukraine right away. They can't wait and apply for asylum first -- they must travel by land and then apply for asylum. People with Ukrainian passports are welcome to visit European countries, but those in exile in Ukraine probably don't have those. Will Poland let them in?
Countries facing a guerrilla resistance in an occupied country often arrest its influential sympathizers. The US did this while occupying Vietnam.
and maybe also in Iraq -- I don't remember off-hand. (We should not equate a resistance movement with a terrorist campaign.)
Most recently, India arrested everyone in Kashmir who was in any sense a leader, immediately after converting it, in effect, from an Indian state to an occupied territory.
*Vladimir Putin: the Authentic Leader of the Republican Party.*
*Real constitutional reform [in the UK] goes beyond abolishing the monarchy.*
I don't think the question of whether the UK has a constitutional monarch or no monarch is very significant at all. The system of government is the problem.
Easter Island has over 1000 of its large stone statues, but the inhabitants resent that a few were moved to other places, such as Santiago, Chile.
Colombia's Supreme Court has "decriminalized" abortion.
This is clearly a great step forward, but the choice of the word "decriminalized" rather than "legalized" suggests that some step remains to be taken.
Republican states are deregulating the use of teenage workers, allowing employers to make them do dangerous jobs or work so many hours that it cuts into their education.
It's entirely congruent with the Republican philosophy that the wealthy should be able to pressure everyone else into something close to slavery.
*Biden administration freezes new oil and gas drilling leases after court rules against key climate tool.*
That is the right thing to do, after all.
Fossil fuel companies are demanding billions of dollars in damages from countries that are blocking development of new oilfields, or even cutting down on the use of coal. They are doing this through a business-supremacy treaty, the "Energy Charter Treaty", which has an ISDS clause ("I Sue Democratic States")
It is hard for the victims of the treaty to cancel it; they would need to rebel against the global systems for enforcing the payments.
However, countries could pass laws that recognize that these companies are engaging in attempted mass murder -- which is the truth -- as well as any lawyers that represent them in the treaty cases. Then they could start a global manhunt to prosecute them. With luck, this will cause the treaty to become ineffective.
The main threat to Americans is not from China or Russia -- it is from plutocracy. And likewise the main threat to Biden's reelection.
Not only Biden, but most Democrats in Congress too, support plutocracy.
(satire) *Beijing Streets Overrun By Hundreds Of Stray Olympians After End Of Games.*
(satire) A man realized that *over the years he had become just a shell of his imagined self.*
Putin has started a small invasion of Ukraine: he has recognized the independence of the two rebel areas (which he created with Russian money, arms and soldiers), and saying he will send soldiers there as "peacekeepers".
At one level, this announcement acknowledges a fact he has hitherto denied: Russian arms and troops are in Donetsk and Luhansk. At another level, calling them "peacekeepers" signals that they will attack. Putin's approach to truth is like Republicans': he reverses important truths to show that no one has the power to make him stop lying.
Because this is a small invasion as invasions go, it puts NATO in a quandary. To disregard it means Putin can seize anything and get away with it, as long as he does so by small steps. But because it is so small, any substantial response is too big, disproportionate.
US citizens: call on Congress to a corporate profits minimum tax so that large, profitable corporations don't pay $0 in federal income tax.
US citizens: call on Congress to make prisoners' phone calls inexpensive.
New South Wales is allowing farmers to divert more rain water upstream, though this will endanger the wildlife life in downstream reaches of the rivers.
*Five ways AI is saving wildlife -– from counting chimps to locating whales.*
Identifying animals and poachers is an important part of a system for protecting the animals, but won't do anything without the rest of the system, and there are often political obstacles to doing that.
Belgians propose to melt a statue of King Léopold II, and make it into a statue depicting the suffering caused by his colonial rule over the Congo.
Progressive politicians must stop being scared of the vague accusation of "woke".
Many right-wing smear words work by being vague. They seize on an extreme fringe view which has real flaws, lump it together with other views which don't partake of those flaws, give one name to all so as to attack the latter for the flaws of the former. "Woke" is one example. "Critical race theory" is another.
US citizens: call on the Senate to pass the Recovering America's Wildlife Act.
It would provide funding to every state, territory and the District of Columbia to proactively conserve more than 12,000 at-risk fish and wildlife species.
For saving these endangered species, and hundreds of thousands of other species, we must urgently reduce greenhouse emissions in addition to making specific conservation plans.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code from the web site, use the Salsalabs workaround.
US citizens: call on senators to confirm Fed nominees Raskin, Cook, and Brainard.
General Smedley Butler wrote that "war is a racket."
Ralph Nader: *California Advocates Counterattack Corporate Crime and Control.*
Nader refers to the bills that are so complex that it is hard to tell whether they are correct -- followed by customer dis-service departments designed to make people give up trying.
*[Indigenous] American tribes sue North Dakota over ‘sickening’ gerrymandering.*
They may have legal grounds available under their treaties that could fill gaps created for the rest of us by the right-wing Supreme Court.
The Church of England plans to "engage" with planet roasters rather than divest from them.
People that profit from fossil fuels have found their way into various councils in institutions that are supposed to serve the public good. They use the resulting influence to protect their future profits by blocking moves that would serve the institutions' goals by reducing greenhouse emissions.
See the example of WGBH and its science programs (David Koch left the board, but kept influence on NOVA ; he died in 2019).
Experience shows that "engaging" with oil companies means nothing more than choosing to believe their greenwashing.
Sea-level rise will raise groundwater in coastal areas, and release toxic chemicals that people have buried there. To avoid poisoning people and animals, we will need to dig out those areas and convert the toxins. The resulting ponds can be very useful -- for floating neighborhoods, as in the Netherlands.
I doubt that poor countries will have the means to do this. I think that hundreds of millions of the inhabitants of those regions will have to struggle to survive. Some will survive by being terribly exploited, and the rest will die. And it is too late to avoid this by reducing greenhouse emissions now.
Those peoples can reduce the number of people who suffer those effects by having fewer children.
The CDC has kept important Covid-19 statistics unreleased. For some kinds of data, this has gone on for more than a year.
If adults under 50 don't benefit from booster doses, that's great. That could free up US vaccine for unvaccinated people in other countries.
The Tories plan to politicize the now-independent election-monitoring body.
This, together with their plans for voter suppression, indicate their intention to impose their rule through a pretend democracy.
Joseph Stiglitz: *Credit Suisse has allowed the morally bankrupt to steal from the poor for too long.*
Unlike Stiglitz, I have no sympathy for countries that operate as tax havens or provide a service of disguising ill-gotten gains. No matter whether be small, obscure islands such as Nevis or Jersey, or large, prominent islands such as Britain or Ireland, or continental countries such as the US. Saying "this is so we don't export addictive drugs" is no excuse.
Bogus Johnson's latest bogus policy is to make it harder for Britons who catch Covid-19 to avoid spreading it, by charging them to get tested.
He seems to be awfully confident that Covid-19 will continue decreasing anyway, but what if that's not so?
The Mountain Valley Pipeline never had a valid environmental study, and it is too late to make one now since the construction of the pipeline has already caused damage to habitats and there is no way to measure what they were before. Thus, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is obligated to stop construction.
But since it disregarded the law before, can we expect it to obey the law now?
Most of the Republicans in Congress are trying to sabotage the non-nuclear deal with Iran. Since convincing Iran not to develop nuclear weapons is important for US national security, and reestablishing the deal is the only way to achieve that, those Republicans have shown that they are willing to harm their country to get power over it.
Fossil fuel companies have cut their employment by 30% since 2014. They pretend to employ lots of people, but it's not true.
Even if that claim were true, it would not be significant. It makes no sense to cause the death of hundreds of millions to get a hundred thousand jobs now.
Belarus says that the Russian soldiers will remain there indefinitely.
Pfizer is using the new Covid-19 treatment pills to gouge sick people. Instead of absolutely banning generic production, it is playing favorites to limit generic production which is almost as bad.
We should abolish patents in the field of medicine, and fund the costs of drug research directly through the state.
The Tories still refuse to determine the ultimate owners of billions of dollars worth of real estate owned through front companies by people unknown, not even though Russian oligarchs could use this to evade the sanctions they are being threatened with.
The UK is right when it criticizes EU countries for allowing themselves to be dependent on gas from Russia. However, trying to play "what about you" with this is a distraction. Both criticisms are valid.
The principal reason for identifying the real owners has nothing to do with the Ukraine crisis. It is to put an end to using them for tax evasion or as a channel for hiding the proceeds of crime.
Here is an example.
The principal reason to stop burning Russia's natural gas is that it contributes to global heating, which endangers civilization.
Even if Russia and NATO made peace tomorrow, Russian planet-roasting would remain just as dangerous as US planet-roasting or any other country's.
Europe has done little to reduce its demand for natural gas because fossil fuel companies are presenting arguments for going slowly.
Arguing that recovery from Covid-19 should be considered equivalent to getting one dose of vaccine.
For three decades, 1942 to 1972, American scientists intentionally infected over a thousand subjects with hepatitis to study what would happen.
I can't tell from this book review what, if anything, the subjects were told about what was going to be done to them. At one extreme, they may have been forced outright. At the other extreme, they could have been offered a good deal given their situations, and asked for informed consent -- but the text seems to imply that the experimenters did not do that. What did they do? This seems to be the crucial moral question.
*To begin unravelling the Kremlin’s tendrils from Britain, the government [i.e., the Tory Party] must return millions in political donations.*
The royal family sells "honors" for large sums of money, but this is not considered a bribe, because it is a centuries-old tradition and in the past was not hidden.
Fossil fuel companies in the UK secretly provide personnel to help run some committees of Parliament. In some cases they serve as the contact point for the committee, which gives them tremendous power.
This arrangement is outright corruption, and ought to be prohibited absolutely.
The US is making a mistake by encouraging people to stop wearing masks now. There are still many new cases.
The only way it would be wise to stop insisting people wear masks indoors or close to other people is if protecting oneself with an N95 mask is so reliable that one no longer needs to be concerned about whether the people around one are wearing masks themselves.
The data broker X-Mode bought location data about 20,000 people collected by around 100 different malicious apps.
This shows how much it has become true that you must expect all non-libre programs to mistreat their users. There are surely a few exceptions, but that's no reason to allow this level of mistreatment to continue.
The way to stop it reliably is to get rid of nonfree software.
The New York City thug department boasted of arresting 23 people for stealing diapers. The average amount each stole was around 80 dollars' worth -- which is not a large amount nowadays. It looks like these people were stealing due to desperate poverty.
Nevada Republicans have proposed to scare away voters from disprivileged groups by stationing National Guard troops around polling places, as well as more ordinary methods of rigging the election.
The Jewish National Fund was established to acquire land in Palestine for Jews to settle. Initially, with Turkey and then Britain ruling the area, it did this by buying land from its owners. But under Israel's rule, it can fabricate excuses to cheat.
NATO is planning how to arm the Ukrainian resistance if Russia attacks.
As the few survivors of the internment of the Japanese die, we Americans must not forget the lessons we ought to learn from that wrong.
19 Austin thugs have been charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon for attacking Black Lives Matter protesters.
"Beanbag round" is a euphemism for a bag containing lead balls such as might be fired with a shotgun. In fact, a shotgun is the way to fire it.
US citizens: call on US TV cable companies to drop Fox (Faux) News.
I prefer another form of this campaign which I've seen proposed before: to ask those cable companies to drop Fox from the basic minimum package. That way, customers would still be able to get Faux News if they request it and pay extra for it. But I support either one.
The Abortion Support Network helps women travel to another country where they can get abortions. Even in Europe, this is necessary.
Some twisted logic has convinced the Pentagon to permit exemptions from vaccine requirements because of people's religion.
The idea of a "religious exemption" from public health requirements is absurd. Your religion, whatever it may be, does not entitle you to violate public health precautions and put other people in danger.
There is no telling how far these "religious exemption" will go after this. Suppose your religion says that fire is an act of the fire god and people must not resist divine will. Does that entitle you to a religious exemption to the building codes?
(satire) *Biden Shoots Self In Foot In Hopes Of Getting Discharged From Presidency.*
The EU is about to discard 55 million Covid-19 vaccine doses because they will be too old to use. If governments had paid attention to vaccination of Africans, they could surely have sent some tens of millions of doses there while time remained to use them.
President Lyndon Johnson's secret phone call recordings show that Nixon, as a candidate, sabotaged peace negotiations with Vietnam. Johnson considered this treason, and I agree.
I've read that Reagan similarly sabotaged peace negotiations with Iran to defeat Carter's reelection.
*Just 6% of US House Seats Expected to Be Competitive Thanks to Rigged Maps.*
The other 94% will be foregone conclusions.
The rate of deaths from Covid is increasing, world-wide, even though fewer new cases are being recorded. This suggests that perhaps the rate of new cases is actually increasing too, but governments don't notice because they are doing fewer tests.
A secret recording shows Amazon's threat of illegal retaliation against workers that vote for a union.
Over 50 US prosecutors have signed a petition against the death penalty.
I support their stand, and I've stated my reasons before.
A campaign pushes for initiative petitions to eliminate poverty wages, especially for workers that currently depend on tips.
*It's Time to Get Loud on Abortion Rights.*
A controlled study of somewhat vulnerable patients with Covid-19 found that giving patents Ivermectin gave them no benefit compared with a placebo, and sometimes it caused side effects.
The article does not say whether the study was blinded.
Canada has ended the right-wing occupation of central Ottawa. Right-wing fanatics were involved in organizing the occupations, and at least a few brought guns.
It is interesting to compare this with Occupy Wall Street, which went on for a long time, but stayed in a park rather than using trucks to block streets for weeks.
Public transportation in London has banned ads for junk food, and it has had a macro effect.
US citizens: call on the Bureau of Land management to block the enormous planned "Willow" oil field.
US citizens: call on Biden to release the legal memo advising him about his power to cancel federal student debt.
US citizens: call on Starbucks to halt its union-busting tactics.
US citizens: call on the Department of Justice to oppose state-level restrictions on the right to protest.
US citizens: call on Biden to regulate the emissions of heavy-duty trucks more strictly.
*Sanders Blasts GOP, Manchin Over 41% Spike in Child Poverty.*
The way the US treats members of the military demonstrates that social democracy is possible and effective in the US.
All we need is to offer these benefits and services to the rest of the population.
*Six African countries to begin making mRNA vaccines as part of WHO scheme.*
A bitcoin mining company bought a coal-fired power plant that was about to be shut down permanently, and are keeping it running much more than before, releasing lots of CO2.
We must not allow such a heavily polluting industry to continue unless they make it cleaner.
30 years ago. journalist Chris Mullin interviewed real Irish terrorists confidentially as part of an effort to exonerate people falsely convicted of a terrorist bombing. (They were in fact exonerated.)
Now he faces the threat of jail if he does not hand over those interviews.
The SEC proposes to put firm limits on "private equity" purchase and trashing of profitable companies.
"Gators" are companies that buy many small manufacturers that sell on Amazon.
The gator is better placed to stand up to Amazon's bullying than a small manufacturer, but the result is a second layer of oligopoly.
Uber and Lyft lost billions in 2021 despite raising prices.
I hope they won't be able to keep this up much longer. Their surveillance systems must be eliminated. Then we only need to make sure that we can use taxis without identifying ourselves.
Arguing that there are fundamental reasons why today's cryptocurrencies are insecure and wasteful, and they cannot yield the benefits people hope to get from them.
Arguing that the internet has succeeded in making most people better informed, overall, and that the growing problems are due to increased polarization rather than simple ignorance.
One specific claim is a confusion. He claims that Republicans are becoming less right-wing overall, and cites a few policy areas. He might be right about them; but Republicans have become far more right-wing in the areas of banning abortions, supporting fossil fuels, crushing immigrants, attacking elections, defending and imposing racism, and undermining constitutional government.
One news site's unclear redaction of another site's story about some scientific research produced unclear wording, which appeared to report that vaccination increased the amount of virus patients would transmit. Antivaxxers trump-eted this editorial mistake as supposed "proof" that vaccination could backfire.
This article compares the two stories and shows what the researchers actually reported.
In effect, right-wing conspiritorialists play a million parallel games of Telephone, and each time one yields words that seem to endorse their cause, they play it for all they can get.
*Biden Issues More Gas and Oil Drilling Permits [in his first year] Than [the wrecker did] in His First Year.*
California is considering a ban on neonicotinoid pesticides.
Some pipeline in Louisiana is leaking 100 tons of methane per hour, but the pipeline owners all say "It's not our pipeline!"
Tennessee established gratis "pre-kindergarten" school for a number of poor children, and chose by a lottery which children got in. A study found out that the children who were not admitted to the pre-kindergarten were doing better, a few years later, than the children who the children who had gone through the pre-kindergarten.
Suggestions for how to encourage rapid construction of more low-income housing.
I have two more suggestions:
Eliminate zoning limits on density of residential housing. Zoning creates scarcity, and with millions of homeowners looking for a way to sell their homes for a higher price, they will always find (or create) a way.
Without the artificial scarcity, construction will bring housing prices down. We will also be able to limit urban sprawl and make mass transit more efficient.
Forbid corporations to own residential buildings with four or less units. An individual owner of many residences for rent will someday get old, and perhaps infirm, and eventually die. Some of per properties will get sold, and might be bought by a new homeowner. By contrast, the corporations that make rental housing their business will never sell.
*[The corrupter] improperly took away classified material, National Archives says.*
*New York City will begin removing homeless people from subways at night.*
The mayor said that this will not involve arresting them, but what will actually happen to them? Where will they be able to go? That's the crucial moral question which will determine whether making them leave the subway is acceptable.
The Russian proxy separatists in eastern Ukraine are increasing their artillery attacks against neighboring areas, while spreading disinformation claiming that Ukraine is attacking them.
They also claim that schools outside their zone, in areas controlled by the Ukrainian state, were bombarded by the Ukrainian state.
A few weeks ago, the US warned that Putin was preparing to do something like this.
The US grabbed Venezuelan diplomat Alex Saab off of a plane (with the help of Cabo Verde) and has imprisoned him and brought charges against him.
This reminds me of what Belarus did to the dissident, Roman Protasevich.
Saab stated in US court that he was also working with the DEA as an informer all the time.
If he presents evidence of this, it means the US violated diplomatic immunity to arrest its own informant.
*San Francisco DA drops charges against woman whose rape kit DNA linked her to a property crime.*
It is more important to encourage people to report grave crimes than to prosecute them for minor offenses.
When Theresa May was prime minister, her staff pressured another minister to cancel plans for new systems to stop rich crooks from hiding their wealth in the UK.
Major oil companies' environmental claims are greenwashing — a study finds that they are increasing their spending on extracting more fossil fuels.
As banks start investing in cryptocurrencies, they create a risk of financial crises.
*[Interior Secretary] Ryan Zinke lied to agency ethics official about his involvement with foundation to advance project in his Montana home town.
New South Wales, a state in Australia, has accelerated the destruction of habitats for native species.
This is been a highly contested political issue, and the greedy bastards have been winning.
Local campaigns in Mali are changing social opinion about female genital mutilation.
Men are joining the campaign.
The UK plans to teach people not to worry about Covid by making them pay to get reliably tested.
*Students' [legal] complaint argues it's illegal for US universities to invest in fossil fuels.*
Australian planet-roaster business interests have published an exaggerated estimate of what it would cost to stop opening new extraction facilities for coal and gas.
*World spends $1.8tn a year on subsidies that harm environment, study finds.*
Fossil fuel subsidies make up 1/3 of that total. Other large parts come from deforestation, pumping fossil water out of aquifers that will take ages to refill, and pollution.
The campaign of Zemmour, the far-right French candidate for president, is found to be racist and deceptive, accuses someone who infiltrated it.
Right-wing extremists see nothing wrong with racism or lying, so we should expect them to do those things.
* The Dutch state condoned and concealed a systematic use of extreme violence such as extrajudicial executions and torture during the 1945-9 Indonesian war of independence.*
*Police stop brawl by letting white youth sit on sofa as black teen is handcuffed.*
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry, capitalize both words or neither one.) I object to bigotry, and normally I decline to link to articles which promote it. But I make exceptions for some articles which give important information about racism or the fight to eliminate racism. That article is one of the exceptions.
I corrected this bigotry in the title when I cited it.
*US has suffered more than 1m excess deaths during pandemic, CDC finds.*
This exceeds the 900,000 deaths explicitly attributed to Covid-19. Some of them are people who did not catch Covid-19, but died due to the conditions of the pandemic — for instance, because hospitals had no capacity to treat them for other conditions such as cancer.
*Oath Keepers, Anti-Democracy Activists, and Others on the Far Right Are Funding Canada's "Freedom Convoy".*
Bernie Sanders describes the dangerous power that big Wall Street investment companies have over all areas of business. Also the way "private equity" investors buy up businesses people depend on, and destroy them.
We need to prohibit those operations — I believe they were illegal until the 1980s and that it was Reagan that authorized them — but today's plutocratist legislators won't help.
Elon Musk has endorsed the mad right-wing exaggeration of comparing Trudeau to Hitler.
Exaggerations like this enable right-wing extremists to vaunt their contempt for sense and truth, to shamelessly equate requiring life-saving measures is the moral equivalent of murder.
The new Texas obstacles to voting by mail have been extremely effective. In the county that includes Houston, almost 40% of mailed-in ballots were missing what was necessary.
That doesn't count the people who didn't vote because they were no longer allowed to vote by mail and their responsibilities didn't let them go to vote on a Tuesday.
*Belgian Workers Win Right to Request Four-Day Week.* This right may depend on having a union contract in place which authorizes working 10 hours per day on each of the four working days. I am not sure.
UK thugs destroyed a Black Lives Matter activist group by trying to recruit one of its supporters as an informer. She showed other members what was happening, and the rest got scared of persecution and the group collapsed.
Some Republican candidates are using advertisements to encourage political violence.
The US passed a law in 2008 to investigate unsolved murders of civil rights activists in the 1960s, but the effort has not produced one single indictment.
Global heating is changing Australian ecosystems: more plants, fewer fur seals.
Sea-level rise is accelerating: scientists expect another foot by 2050, if we don't rapidly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.
US states with stricter gun control have lower rates of killings with guns.
The states with weak regulations have more than three times the gun killings per capita as states with strong gun control.
*Major banks pledging "net zero" are pouring money into [coal mining].*
Republicans are undermining religious freedom for Americans by subcontracting state services to religious organizations that refuse to serve people who don't meet their religious characteristics.
This extends a long-standing practice in which state-supported hospitals that are owned by religious organizations refuse to cooperate with abortion.
All levels of government should take a strict stand: when state-funded and state-licenses services are not allowed to impose any religious criteria on who they serve or what services they provide.
Australia keeps refugees in immigration prison for almost two years on the average. A few have been in immigration prison for ten years.
US citizens: call for a Democratic primary challenge to Senator Sinema, to replace her with someone that won't support the filibuster.
Alas, the chance to do this will not happen until 2024.
US citizens: call on Whole Foods to set an example by reducing use of throw-away plastic.
US citizens: Tell the Republican National Committee that violent insurrection is not "Legitimate Political Discourse."
I don't post petitions that only vent feelings. They should have a chance of influencing outcomes. The RNC will not heed our complaints about Republicans' betrayal of the US Constitution's letter and spirit, but some Republicans may, and some may reject the Republican Party over this.
US citizens: call on Congress to close the gaps in inheritance tax that billionaires use to pass on billions to their heirs.
US citizens: support the End Child Poverty Act.
US citizens: oppose the anti-encryption "EARN-IT" Act.
US citizens: call on Congress to ban "no-knock" warrants. They are a recipe for great damage.
Greg Palast's take on the Ukraine situation.
Escaped pet parrots in New Zealand, mostly brought from Australia, may breed and increase the threat to many endangered native birds.
Releasing a pet into the wild is a bad idea. If that species lives wild in your area, it may not matter. But if it doesn't. At best that pet will die. At worst it will destroy the ecosystem.
The CDC is considering relaxing the harshest aspect of the war on pain sufferers, which denied people strong painkillers when they were suffering from excruciating acute medical problems.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the 4th Amendment Is Not for Sale Act, to stop "security" agencies from illegally snooping on Americans without warrants.
US citizens: call on the USPS Board of Governors to fire DeJoy.
Why haven't they done so? What's going on here?
US citizens: call on Amazon to stop selling neonicotinoids.
*The fall of Cressida Dick [ex-commissioner of the London thug department] gives us the opportunity to truly reform Britain's police.*
Curing a pervasive problem of attitude in an organization will tend to stir up resentment. A person whose general approach is to try to be popular with the staff is likely to turn away from tackling the problem.
*The US private equity firms funding dirty energy projects.*
Putin seems to be planning to add 10 more years to Alexei Navalny's sentence.
Court rulings like this in Russia are as arbitrary as they were in the Soviet Union. But that should be no surprise.
What horrifies me is that there is no way to prevent megacorporations such as Chevron from doing this to people in the US.
*Belgium to give workers right to request four-day week.*
The UK post office falsely accused 700 employees of theft, and ruined their lives, based on a computer system known to be faulty.
The relatives of students shot in Sandy Hook got Remington Arms to agree to pay to settle a lawsuit The company was potentially liable because it marketed the rifle based on the possibility of killing people with it.
Cuba has sentenced people to as much as 20 years in prison for protesting.
Paris is installing systems to detect illegally noisy vehicles and identify their license plate numbers so as to give them tickets.
I think it is basically legitimate to do this, provided that the system recognizes the vehicle's license plate number only when it has detected a violation. It is wrong ever to track vehicles without a specific cause.
Online dating platforms are screwing up the way people choose who they will date. Some reject a priori anyone they meet outside of a dating platform.
These platforms collect lots of personal data, and I wouldn't reveal my identity to any of them.
Republicans are legislating obstacles to obtaining and using abortion drugs.
Can the federal government permit these drugs to be mailed from another state?
Canadian police shut down the Canadian right-wing & antivax bridge-blocking protest gently, with no violence. Once they announced they would tow the trucks and arrest the drivers, most drivers left.
Future protests will be allowed, but not blocking the road.
It surprised me how long officials permitted the protest to continue as long as they did. They have not acted against the occupation of Ottawa but say they will do it soon.
(satire) *Los Angeles Bulldozes SoFi Stadium After Reports That Thousands Of Vagrants Convening There.*
Major league sports teams are a machine billionaires to extract money from the state. Allowing others to invest in them would not change much.
My idea for a remedy is to prohibit any sort of public subsidy or tax incentives for the teams or the stadiums they will use.
The anti-Valentine’s Day movement is catching on in Britain.
Can we get it going in the US? Let's fight the commercial pressure to make us feel an obligation to buy gifts for various people just because it is such-and-such day.
To keep this on track, we must resist attempts to distort it into another excuse for obligatory spending.
*Climate Crisis Has Made Western US Megadrought Worst in 1,200 Years.*
The other droughts during that time period include those that wiped out ancient towns in Arizona and New Mexico. Those towns were never reoccupied.
Los Angeles County is investing in recycling wastewater, and plans to get 70% of its water locally (local rain and recycling, I suppose) by 2035.
That will help provide drinking water, but won't do much for California farms or California forests. I fear they cannot survive if we don't stop global heating.
A commander in the London thug department, who drew up the policy for repression of drugs, faces dismissal for taking marijuana and two psychedelic drugs while on vacation outside the UK.
When a person's conduct conflicts with a rule, at least one has to be wrong. When the person has publicly defended the rule, at least one aspect of per conduct must be wrong. But which one?
Don't assume blindly that it was right to repress drugs and wrong to try them. These drugs are not addictive and there should be lawful ways to get them and try them. I think the commander's wrong was to participate actively in repression of these drugs.
*The largest 25 European banks -— all purportedly committed to "net-zero" goals -- have provided more than $400 billion in financing to 50 corporations expanding oil and gas production since 2016, with no signs of slowing down.*
*We Need Answers About the Unconstitutional Mass Surveillance of the CIA.* And Congress must put an end to it.
Sad to say, Congress is rushing to do the exact opposite, with the "EARN It" act that would prohibit services from offering end-to-end encryption.
(satire) *Artificially Intelligent Amazon Supercomputer Stuck In Dead-End Retail Job.*
Cambodia plans to extend total repression of opposition views onto the internet by centralizing network communication.
China is not the only country to have done this -- Russia has done it too.
A nexus of trumpery is a connection between Covid-19 disinformation, profit from ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, and the wrecker's claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
The Department of Harshness and Sadism (DHS) is studying the use of walking robots to patrol the border with Mexico. They like to call these robots "dogs", but they have no actual relationship or resemblance to dogs, so that is PR.
The robots being evaluated now are not armed, but since the US is in favor of deploying armed robots, that would tend to follow.
US citizens: call on the Senate to pass H.R. 3076, the Postal Service Reform Act.
US citizens: call on Congress to expand the Supreme Court.
US citizens: call on Biden not to designate the Houthis as terrorists.
The US should not support Salafi Arabia and the UAE (two repressive and cruel states) in this war.
US citizens: call on the PR agency Edelman to drop its oil, gas, and coal clients.
UK climate activists are planning direct action against oil facilities.
*From politicians to academics, Americans who speak against Hindutva face harsh backlash, protests, and violent threats.*
The threats appear to be organized by powerful right-wing organizations in India.
More than half the money visibly donated to the anti-vax roadblocks in Canada came from Americans. A little over 1/3 came from Canadians.
In effect, these money-transfer sites have become a system for destabilizing Canada. It would be wise to prevent their use for this purpose.
I suspect that American right-wing billionaires are providing money secretly to be used to pay their parking tickets.
If the protesters are being supported by rich foreigners, it enables right-wing protesters to disregard fines the way megacorporations do. In both cases, this calls for increasing fines until they are too much to ignore.
Rivers around the world are polluted by medicines, including antibiotics. In some cases the concentration is enough to be dangerous to wildlife. The antibiotics can breed bacteria for resistance, and that can kill humans later.
Several arguments why Afghanistan's 7 billion dollars should go to help Afghanistan begin trading again, and not be given to anyone else.
The argument that "this money belongs to the government of Afghanistan" is weak, since that government ceased to exist. But the other arguments are sufficient without that one. I think using some of that money for immediate relief to Afghanistan is acceptable.
Prison thugs in Arkansas gave ivermectin in large doses (and other drugs) to several prisoners without asking them, or even telling them. They started having serious symptoms that are not typical for Covid-19.
The article doesn't say what the other drugs were. Each one was an experiment without consent, and several others might also have been dangerous for all we know.
*Beware of this deadly mix: oligarchic economics and racist, nationalist populism.*
The US has not reached the oligarchic stage, but oligarchy implies plutocracy (which already exists in the US).
Plutocracy makes political improvements on the most important issues very hard, and that might explain why people turn to twisted forms of faith that attack various scapegoats (immigrants, Muslims, Jews, blacks, vaccine companies, witches, …).
Methane emissions have increased substantially since 2007. Before that, they were declining. Scientists worry that this may due to a positive feedback loop in which rising temperatures are releasing buried methane.
If that's true, we may be in for a catastrophic release of methane and global heating of much more than 2C.
A white Republican college student is studying critical race theory in the University of Mississippi, and defends the subject.
Global heating has facilitated a plague of pine-borer beetles that are killing millions of trees in Canada. The cost of lumber has gone up.
Protesters against the UK bill to repress protests are being charged with rioting, which indicates the intention to give them long prison sentences.
The charges refer to protests in which the thugs violently attacked protesters, and some protesters fought back.
In Georgia, each county has its election board, which is locally elected. The state is removing Democrats from election boards and appointing Republicans to replace them.
The Republicans on the board will be in a position to kick lots of black voters off the voter list.
The corrupter, while president, tried to destroy many of the records of his conversations, rather than hand them over to the National Archive as the law requires. He may still be holding on to them.
Some wondered if he was doing this out of madness, but I suspect it was a lifelong habit of silencing critics by being over the top.
Biden should appoint a Supreme Court justice with experience representing people with no particular power.
(satire) *The coming MAGA cultural revolution?*
(satire) *Inflation Jumps 7.5% Before Janet Yellen Realizes She Leaning Against "Turbo" Lever.*
Biden should have federal agencies completely stop arguing in court against bankrupt student debtors that seek to escape their student loan debt.
Biden promised to cancel most of these debts, and has not done so. Instead, his officials are doing the exact opposite.
The new Los Angeles football stadium sets an example by having been built with no government subsidy.
The government should use its funds to do things that the public needs, not to subsidize rich sports team owners.
(satire) *Pope Quietly Moves God To Different Universe After Deity Caught Molesting Altar Boy.*
* The ADL didn't utter a word of concern about the painstakingly detailed descriptions of Israel's apartheid system, nor an ounce of self-reflection about the organization's own unequivocal support for Israel's unjust and discriminatory system.*
The Afghan central bank needs some funds so that people in Afghanistan can buy food.
70 Starbucks stores are now trying to unionize.
*Europeans more likely to vote green after extreme weather events.*
A father and son team decided to murder a black FedEx driver, but he survived to tell what they did.
7 or 8 vaquita porpoises remain alive. Mexico agreed to ban the gill nets that kill them, but has not bothered to enforce the law.
London's mayor says he is determined to end the corruption and bigotry in the London thug department.
However, he supported the commissioner who failed to do this, and continued his support until the last moment.
*Why not re-erect the statue of Edward Colston and topple it once a year?*
I like the idea of such a ceremony, but I wonder if there could be a target more important and better known than Colston. No one outside Bristol had heard of Colston in recent times until his statue was knocked down.
Some Texas prisons are hot enough to make people swelter while sitting down. People with certain medical conditions can die of it.
Many Florida prisons are vulnerable to flooding during storms. Sometimes flooding makes sewage rise inside the cells. People can catch diseases that way.
Four progressive federal lawmakers have called for government agencies to stop using Clearview AI facial recognition, citing the dangers of the use of that technology.
I'm proud to have voted for Ayanna Pressley and Ed Markey, but this is just a first step. Activities such as Clearview AI's business ought to be illegal, pure and simple.
Youtube and TikTok host third-party trackers, meaning that other companies (or other entries) track users and keep dossiers about what those users watch and do in Youtube and TikTok.
A group of young people in Virginia have sued the state for authorizing fossil fuel infrastructure that is expected to damage their health and shorten their lives.
Calling on the Securities and Exchange Commission to start resisting bank mergers.
A legal analysis of what would happen if a cryptocurrency exchange in the US goes bankrupt: customers would probably lose all their "deposits", because the exchange is not a bank and the coins are not really a "deposit."
An interview with Yanis Varoufakis, in which he rejects the idea that cryptocurrencies can reduce the injustice of an oppressive oligarchic economic system.
He describes today's economy as techno-feudalist rather than capitalist, because markets play less of a role than before. (Capitalism, as he defines it, is based on extracting money from most people through markets, whereas feudalism is based on extracting money from most people outside of markets.)
One point he misses in his advocacy of central bank digital currencies to dis-intermediate the commercial banks is the surveillance impact and how dangerous that is. I pay for all the goods I buy in cash, and I would not switch to identifying myself for a central bank digital currency just to screw a private bank.
Varoufakis endorses out-and-out socialism, in which there would no longer be private business. I am not in favor of that radical leap into the unknown -- it could easily make things much worse. However, I find his insights valid and important regardless of that specific disagreement.
After deregulation and mergers, the remaining US railroads became very profitable by cutting employment, skimping on workers' safety, gouging customers with fees, and maximizing efficiency with just-in-time operations. They spent more on stock buybacks than on operating the line.
Covid taught them that just-in-time streamlining is a dangerous mistake whenever something starts to go wrong.
It's the frequent mistake of US industry -- optimizing the usual case and assuming nothing will go wrong.
We don't need price regulation if we make more competition. And we won't need more regulation to improve the treatment of railroad workers if we help workers make strong unions.
Government loans are helping "private equity" wreckers buy up rental housing and screw the tenants.
*Biden administration plans to spend $5bn to build EV charging network across US.*
That is basically a good plan, but if they are not careful, it will impose an unjust surveillance system. Most commercial charging stations accept only credit-card payment. The government should require these chargers accept cash payment given on the premises.
Also they should not be put in places that charge for parking, unless it is possible to pay cash to park and the parking lot does not track who does so.
Interviews with five desperate New Yorkers who lost their income and can't pay rent.
The accusation that the NYC Housing Authority is letting public housing run down to create an excuse to privatize it is horrible corruption. It would be interesting to pressure the new mayor about this and see if he is on the people's side.
US citizens: call on the US government to stop signing contracts for new immigration prisons.
US citizens: call on Pepsico to stop funding antiabortion candidates and parties.
US citizens: call on all government officials to be ready to defeat the corrupter's next coup attempt.
The IRS used to publish information on the 400 highest-income taxpayers each year. The corrupter stopped it. Biden should restart it.
(satire) *Tech Leaders Justify Project To Create Army Of AI-Controlled Bulletproof Grizzly Bears As Inevitable Part Of Progress.*
Republicans are using recall elections to knock out popular Democratic officials, hoping Democrats won't have money to campaign, and that most voters (who elected the Democrats) won't notice there is an election outside the usual schedule.
A German organization connected with BioNTech and Pfizer is trying to bully South Africa into abandoning its effort to reverse-engineer the Moderna vaccine and manufacture vaccines there.
The article digresses onto the topic of patents, but that's a different issue. It is purely an issue of legal threats; morally, there should not be patents in the field of medicine.
Norway talks a good game of climate defense leadership, but it continues to develop large new oil fields that can cause global disaster.
The US government pays to watch Faux News in the Pentagon and other military facilities. It should cut that off.
(satire) *Hollywood Studios Locked In Massive Bidding War For Screenplay Entitled "Existing IP TBD."*
*Public Health Experts Warn Against Premature End of School Mask Mandates.*
Last July, there was another case of a cop who shot someone with a gun while intending to tase him.
The 21st Century Bill of Rights states the progressive program for a livable society.
(satire) *Florida Bullies Concerned ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill Would Make It Tougher To Identify LGBTQ Students To Torment.*
* The CIA has been secretly [and illegally] collecting Americans’ private information in bulk.*
This information comes from senators who are not allowed to state any more details, because the details are secret.
*We know how to save the endangered koala — it starts with protecting habitat.*
Democrat Gary Chambers, running for US Senate in Louisiana, showed his courage by burning the Confederate flag in an campaign ad.
In another ad, he smoked pot, to criticize the unjust effect of US drug laws. I wish I knew what he advocates for drug policy.
A new operating system for surveillance cameras makes it easy to sell proprietary add-on modules for additional kinds of AI for identification and monitoring.
In theory, this changes nothing about what sorts of video surveillance people and companies can do. In practice, it makes enforcement (by law, or by social pressure) of any rules whatsoever more difficult.
Biden has asked court to take Afghanistan's 7 billion dollars in assets deposited in the US, give half to humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, and half to relatives of victims of the September 2001 attacks.
This plan to provide aid to Afghans might be a good idea, if it avoids frittering away a substantial fraction on middlemen and if it gets into operation fast enough to save people from starvation. But I see no justification for giving half to the American victims of an attack carried out by a group of foreigners just because a few of its leaders were hiding in Afghanistan. It should all go to Afghans who need it.
A Michigan farm's beef is heavily contaminated with PFAS.
The article does not say whether any action will be taken against selling beef from that farm.
* As part of a calculated assault on democracy, QAnon steered far-right candidates toward secretary of state contests.*
Congress has passed a bill to stop nondisclosure agreements from being used to block workers from testifying about sexual harassment.
Nondisclosure agreements magnify the power of the wealthy and powerful.
Off one part of the English North Sea coast, the usual sea life has died. Everything is gone. Seals and seabirds, too.
It is not clear what the cause is, but some suspect dredging a river has released industrial toxins from the sediment.
A year ago, Texas's power grid delivered far insufficient electricity because many gas-fueled power plants failed. If Texas had more home solar power, it would have avoided the problem.
DeJoy is gaming a quirk in EPA standards for fuel efficiency to excuse buying gas-powered trucks instead of electric ones.
US citizens: call on Education Secretary Miguel Cardona to use that department's power to fight against efforts to censor and ban books.
US citizens: ask your state representative to oppose laws to impose censorship of "uncomfortable" moral issues, especially in US history.
*A Human Rights Watch report found Cameroonian asylum-seekers forcibly flown back home suffered imprisonment, torture and rape.*
The wrecker seems to have instructed the deportation thugs to disregard the asylum-seekers' rights. It ought to be a crime for government issues to force people to waive their rights.
All managers who accepted these orders should be dismissed for doing so. People inclined to obey illegal orders and then plead "I was only obeying orders" are not fit to work in positions where they can send people to be tortured.
Target is teaching store managers how to recognize signs workers might be organizing. If they detect any, they will work with expensive consultants to quash the attempt.
*How felony charges are weaponized against pipeline protesters.*
British right-wing extremists fabricate and circulated many false accusations. Once in a while, the Tories adopt one and spread it further.
Meanwhile, in Australia the right-wing government hints that Labor is allied with China.
Labor is opposition in some details, but not so you'd notice on the biggest issues.
Some US states are lifting mask mandates while Covid transmission remains high. This will increase transmission to avoid some inconvenience.
Burmese soldiers entered a village and arrested whoever they could catch. Then murdered them.
Anti-mine protesters in Honduras have been convicted of "criminal damage" after spending 2.5 years in jail awaiting trial.
It is not clear what the "damage" refers to, since the prosecutors never said, but the mine polluted the region's water supply and made people sick.
In El Salvador, women who have miscarriages can be prosecuted for (allegedly) having an abortion. They can be imprisoned for decades.
A human rights organization has succeeded in freeing many of them because their trials were bogus. But little can be done for anyone who really had an abortion.
After a settlement agreement, Minnesota thugs are now forbidden to harass journalists.
US citizens: call on Biden to pardon everyone convicted for possession of marijuana.
US citizens: call on the Department of Justice to investigate the corrupter for violating the Presidential Records Act.
The hastily-written Minsk agreement is either a framework for peace between Ukraine and Russia, or a framework for Russia to mess with Ukraine permanently, depending on how some vague provisions are interpreted.
If it is clarified, perhaps it would be acceptable for Ukraine to agree not to join NATO as long as Russia follows the treaty provisions.
NASA is having doubts about whether to permit SpaceX to launch 30,000 additional communications satellites. They might spoil astronomical observations and block launches into all but the lowest orbits.
There is no mention of the risk of creating more space junk. Perhaps there is a reason that is not a danger here. If so, can anyone tell me why?
*General accused of rights abuses made Ugandan head of police.*
Bogus Johnson's weakness in the Tory Party is giving planet-roaster Tories an opportunity to overturn the agreed-on climate defense policies.
Weak as they are (for instance, by talking about "net emissions", which implies treating "offsets" as if they were real), they are a first step. Cancelling them will make things worse.
Influencers are amazingly bland. The blander, the more successful.
If a celebrity is someone famous for being famous, an influencer is someone famous for having nothing to be famous for.
Since I don't use these antisocial networks, I have never actually seen an influencer at work.
A report studies the various ways that the US could have responded to the September 2001 terrorist attacks, other than by war, which could have done more good and less harm.
It should be noted that the US actually won the war in Afghanistan: the Taliban offered complete surrender before the end of 2001. The Bush regime inexplicably preferred to continue the war.
The US could also have secured the stated goals diplomatically without a war. The Taliban offered in the summer of 2001 to kick out al-Qa'ida.
Apparently, Dubya wanted that war for other reasons and, having got an excuse, was not going to let it go.
When container ships sink, likely a few containers contain plastic that will release endocrine disruptors that can cause ecological disaster for sea life, and also for land animals higher up the food chain that will eat the sea life.
That includes humans.
Big Pharma companies' corruption of drug regulation and marketing includes opioids -- and it's not limited to Purdue Pharma.
Vietnam is imprisoning climate activists on multi-year sentences, ostensibly because of tax issues.
Vietnam is trying to sell more coal.
* Instead of ramping up the threats, western nations should be offering Vladimir Putin a ladder to climb down.*
This is made more difficult by his practice of saying, "You need to offer me a way to climb down from the incipient tantrum that I've talked myself into. To do that, start by giving me the concessions I have demanded."
*West Virginia students to stage walkout over Christian revival at high school.*
I'm heartened that there are students in the school who recognize that proselytizing in a public school is intolerable.
(satire) *Declining Bee Population Linked To Increase In Bees' Pornography [use].*
Using porn works, like other works of authorship, does not use them up. They remain and can be used by many other humans, or bees. So please do not call this "consuming" them.
Patients who had Covid-19, even if they were not hospitalized for it, have an elevated probability of heart disease a year later. This is on form or aspect of "long Covid".
This demonstrates the importance of protecting people from catching Covid-19 at all, to the extent this is possible.
A campaign calls on the Interior Department stop selling fossil fuel leases.
(satire) *NASA Slammed For Selecting U.S. Company To Build Rocket On Mars Rather Than Local Martian Engineers.*
Starbucks has fired workers participating in the union drive in a store in Memphis. The fired workers were 7 in number, out of a total of 21 workers at a that store.
Michael Mann debunks the fossil fools' arguments for carbon capture and for planting trees as "carbon offsets".
Co-op apartment buildings in New York have the effect of enabling racism. The co-op directors can reject blacks -- or reject short people -- and it is hard to stop them.
*White House Discusses Reinstating [the saboteur in chief]'s Terror Designation for Yemen’s Houthis.*
This would mean increasing support for a war that has no justification. The US should cease its support for the UAE's (and Salafi Arabia's) intervention in Yemen.
The Tories propose to spread "prosperity" (for a fraction of society) from London to the rest of the country by investing in the tech sector. One city tried this, and the result was that a fraction became wealthy and the city only gentrified.
It's a repackaging of the same old trickle-down.
The Indian state of Karnatika has banned wearing hijabs in high school, supported by the ruling Hinduist party.
Oppressing non-Hindu Indians is that party's central goal, It can be seen especially against Muslims in Kashmir and all Muslim Indians that can't prove their Indian ancestry. However, it also targets Christians. Imprisonment of people that criticize the government is also included.
California never adopted a detailed decarbonization plan to limit global heating to 1.5C. And it looks like losing the courage to make one.
The climate pledges of 25 giant corporations are more exaggeration and distortion than reality.
Joseph Stiglitz: *Although it is anyone's guess what will happen next with inflation, the data show that there is no reason to react rashly with large across-the-board interest-rate hikes. The economy is working through an unprecedented transition that could ultimately be a boon for workers; but only if policymakers let the process play out.*
We objected when Biden reappointed Powell as head of the Federal Reserve because we knew Powell was likely to do things like this. Now, instead of letting Powell be Biden's shield, we must blame Biden for choosing the course that the Federal Reserve is now implementing.
*The pollution paradox. The paradox proposes that the most antisocial commercial interests have the greatest incentive to buy political favor, otherwise they would be regulated out of existence. So politics comes to be dominated by them.*
The result is that the UK allows fossil fuel companies to cheat the public even as they prepare an early death for many of the public.
The Taliban are hosting Pakistani Islamist terrorist groups that attack Pakistan.
The new UK anti-porn law may require British users of Twitter and Reddit to identify themselves using government photo id.
*Iranian refugees face deportation from Turkey for attending demonstration.*
Sanders proposes a direction for negotiations with Russia over the Ukraine crisis.
I more or less agree with Sanders, but there is a complication he doesn't address.
Normally the deal we would propose is, "Russia won't invade Ukraine and NATO will not invite Ukraine to join. Everything else stays the way it is now."
That is not acceptable because the current situation includes a Russian-sponsored guerrilla rebellion in eastern Ukraine, as well as its occupation of territory that Russia seized (the Crimea). A real peace would have to resolve these two conflicts. An agreement that lets them continue would not be peace.
It's not hard to envision a fair peace for eastern Ukraine -- though negotiating agreement would be a challenge. It is less obvious for the Crimea. But here is an idea.
The UN will hold a referendum among the people who lived in the Crimea before 2014. If they vote for Russia, the Crimea will remain Russian. If they vote for Ukraine, the Crimea will return to Ukraine, but not immediately.
Rather, Russia will have 5 years to build a replacement naval base in Russian territory. As it replaces each existing Crimea naval facility and shifts naval operations to the replacement facility, it will sell the existing Crimea facility to NATO. The purchase price will pay the cost to Russia of building the replacement facility.
The point is to make it painless and costless for Russia to move. In emotional terms, it won't be a loss for Russia to move its fleet, because NATO will be paying for the move.
*Cut meat and dairy output by a third to save climate, British farmers told.*
Dairy production is more efficient than meat production -- it would be better to reduce the meat production more so as to maintain the dairy production.
Erin Brockovich explains Chevron's persecution of Steven Donziger, the lawyer for the Ecuadorias who sued Chevron/Texaco for polluting their water.
What enables Chevron to get away with using the US legal system as a club to bash people who get in its way is that it has far too much money. We could fix this by chopping it into 100 companies, each much smaller than Chevron is now, and then taxing them a lot more.
ALEC is pushing right-wing state governments to blacklist companies that divest from fossil fuels or boycott fossil fuel companies.
They are step by step declaring war on civilization's survival.
The Taliban have arrested people trying to cross the border into Afghanistan and accused them of being terrorist recruits for PISSI.
It seems the Taliban are sincerely trying to keep international terrorists out of Afghanistan.
* Ottawa’s occupation was a result of unrivaled coordination between anti-vax and anti-government organizations.*
The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1963 suggests ways for de-escalating the Ukraine crisis of today.
The Montana young people's climate lawsuit will proceed to trial.
(satire) *Biden Administration Considering Pivot To Good Presidency.*
The UK establishment responds to inflation, not mostly caused by pay raises, and takes it as an excuse to prevent pay raises.
This as millions of UK workers have become newly poor and cannot afford food even with some government support.
The movement against attacking Iraq was very strong, at the start. This is a look at how and why it faded away.
*Supreme court lets Alabama use maps decried as biased against Black voters.*
It may be planning to approve them permanently, too.
*The Dynastic Wealth of US Oligarchs Is a Threat to Democracy.*
ALEC is pushing a state law (in every state) that would reduce how much damages people get when suing for injuries.
The lack of a national medical system in the US, combined with the general poverty wages, means that many people who are injured have medical bills they cannot pay. They are desperate to sue someone for damages to cover those bills. Of course, this practice creates a mindset which induces most injured people to sue for exaggerated sums, even if they are not broke.
The way to fix the underlying problem is to establish a national medical system and to raise wages, which includes promoting unions, and welfare benefits.
Then it would be time to adopt measures that tend to bring injury damages closer to the level of actual harms.
Which is more important: a telescope that could expand human knowledge of the universe, or one of the thousands of religions that some humans follow?
We all have our emotional attachments to this or that, but an emotional attachment is not enough reason to stop the telescope. There are few places where that telescope could be built and be effective.
*[The corrupter]'s promising pardons for insurrectionists and calling for protests if indicted could help make a case for obstruction of justice.*
Europe's dog population is growing to the point that their urine and excrement are overfertilizing nature reserves, screwing up the ecosystems.
Addressing moral concerns about enforcing the Constitution's rule that insurrectionists are excluded from public office.
Biden has made an executive order to make it easier for federal workers to unionize.
Gig drivers in New York City are trying to unionize.
I hope they succeed, but that would not eliminate the injustices that these companies do to their customers, so I will still absolutely refuse to use them.
China has supported Argentina's claim to the Falkland Islands.
In 1982, when Argentina was ruled by murderous generals, supported by the US, they sent troops to seize the Falkland Islands, very much against the wishes of the British-descended people who lived there. The UK sent a fleet to liberate them.
The generals had used nationalism as a tool to distract the Argentine people from their crimes, but after losing the war, they couldn't hold on and Argentina became a democracy.
China's motive for taking a side in this dispute is surely to win Argentina's support in the new cold war. However, comparing the Falkland Islands to Taiwan is morally accurate. China wants to do to Taiwan the same thing that the Argentine generals did to the Falkland Islands: conquer and permanently rule an unwilling people.
The chemical industry needs a complete overhaul to reduce its substantial greenhouse gas emissions, to reduce its vulnerability to local disasters, and to reduce the air pollution that can poison people or interfere with children's development.
Manchin has come up with another insincere "reason" to reject the Build Back Better (relief) bill.
He is learning the Republican way of speaking: as long as you don't contradict yourself within one sentence, people will accept it.
*Playing with dolls helps children talk about how others feel, says study.*
I wonder whether the expectation and encouragement in our society for girls to play with dolls explains why women tend to develop better empathy and understanding of social interactions than men. I wonder if that is part of the cause of that expectation and encouragement.
*Amazon, Ikea, Nestlé and others will fall [short] of promise to cut carbon by 100%, says NewClimate Institute.*
Thousands of Covid death cultists have occupied Ottawa, blocking all activity in the city. The police say they cannot deal with so many. Only a small fraction of truck drivers in Canada support this protest, but the rest are not assembled to show they disagree.
These Canadians have adopted the gang-of-bullies attitude of the Republicans in the US. The Canadian government must not be intimidated by them.
US citizens: call on the FDIC to quash subterfuges to evade the laws on payday lending.
Payday lending is a form of exploitation to which workers become vulnerable because they don't get paid enough. We need to cure the disease as well as prevent this symptom.
US citizens: call on Biden to end the wrecker's Medicare privatization scheme.
US residents: call on US cities to require gun owners to carry liability insurance.
US citizens: call on the DOJ to challenge the new state laws that repress protests. Some of these laws even encourage killing of protesters.
Farming is under great stress globally, due to unsustainable farming and global heating effects. Ultimately, overpopulation is an important factor.
*The Federal Reserve Is About to Give US Workers the Shaft.*
Real wages of US workers are decreasing, but the Republican head of the Federal Reserve blames wage increases for today's inflation. That shows which side he's on, and that has been obvious all along, which is why I supported the campaign calling on Biden not to renominate him.
Proposing that for people convicted of causing a disturbance on an airplane should not be allowed to fly as passengers on commercial flights. I am in favor of this: the punishment fits the crime and should help to deter it.
The current US "no-fly" list is unjust because it is a secret punishment imposed without trial. This proposed punishment would be part of a sentence for a criminal conviction — thus, not sharing that particular injustice at all.
Rather than lumping this sentence together with the unjust arbitrary punishment that has existed for 20 years, we should contrast them as much as possible.
Biden has restored a sanctions waiver for Iran, which had been cancelled by the wrecker.
He should have done this a year ago, to get the best chance of restoring the non-nuclear deal that the wrecker destroyed.
*Economists Say Raise Pay to Solve Public School Staffing Crisis.*
Every animal ingests substantial quantities of microplastics, including humans. Scientists have discovered many ways they can harm animals.
The editor of a Kashmiri news site, The Kashmir Walla, has been arrested and charged with nasty-sounding crimes that probably stand for "journalism" and "criticizing the government."
Although the universal repression imposed after Kashmir's government was abolished has been reduced, repression of the press is increasing.
*Americans exposed to toxic BPA at levels far above what EU considers safe.* Research has found anatomically visible effects on developing brains in some mammals from extremely low levels of Bisphenol A.
*Sure, let’s be wary of abuse of power, but do we really want to outlaw office romance?*
If the claim is valid that the real reasons for firing Zucker had to do with his work, perhaps CNN's board would have overlooked his romance if he had done his job well.
It's not easy for a scientist's knowledge and careful reasoning to win a debate (conducted like a political debate) against the invincible ignorance of someone under the spell of disinformation.
This is why science doesn't use that method to reach conclusions.
*Texas butterfly sanctuary forced to close after far-right threats.*
Each time these bullies force someone to bow down, they tout it as proof of their strength, and use that to recruit more bullies so they can do something more aggressive. Having forced the sanctuary to close, next they will vandalize any facilities, then burn them down.
The FBI should set a trap so as to arrest whoever tries.
Most Americans don't know even the most basic facts about the Holocaust
(the Nazis' systematic campaign to murder all the Jews they could get their hands on).
If they don't know what was so evil about Nazis, that is likely to make them more susceptible to recruitment by today's Nazi sympathizers and neo-Nazi organizations, including the Republican Party.
When Whoopi Goldberg said that the Holocaust "was not about race," she was using the modern American conception of race. By that conception, most Jews are white, although a few belong to other racial groups.
Those who rebuked her cited the Nazis' conception of race, which was different -- they described Jews collectively as a "race." Going by their definition of "race," the Holocaust was indeed about "race."
I don't think this disagreement was about morality, only the semantics of the word "race." Can we give Goldberg a break?
*Whoopi was Wrong [that is, mistaken] and Wronged [that is, unjustly punished].*
Australia is letting its native animals be wiped out by the effects of business. It pledges funds to protect koalas, because everyone finds them so cute, but has not made a plan that can achieve this.
The main threat to koalas is habitat destruction, due to human activity either directly (cutting down native forests) or indirectly (human-intensified fires that destroy entire forests). Unless Australia makes a plan to end habitat destruction, koalas and many other species will be extinct soon.
Iowa is considering a bill to require a camera in every public school classroom to monitor the teachers and ensure no forbidden education occurs.
It is not clear from the details in this article whether the cameras would allow visual monitoring of the students, but if it contains a microphone it would surely allow listening to all the students. This would tear up their privacy.
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry, capitalize both words or neither one.) I object to bigotry, and normally I decline to link to articles which promote it. But I make exceptions for some articles which give important information about racism or the fight to eliminate racism. That article is one of the exceptions.
A US appeals court has blocked finishing the Mountain Valley Pipeline
On the grounds that the Fish and Wildlife Service failed to properly evaluate its impact on some endangered species.
This pipeline was the object of protests. This is not a final decision, as there remain two stages of appeal.
I support protecting endangered species, and the most important way to do that is to slow the mass extinction that is now starting.
The main cause of that mass extinction is extracting fossil fuels, and that means we must stop projects such as oil pipelines that will create more costs sunk in future extraction.
*How CNN, the New York Times, and Other Major Media Outlets [profit from] Your Data and Lobby Against Regulation.*
I object to using the word "monetize" to mean "profit from".
US citizens: call on Congress to Support the Supreme Court Ethics Act.
US citizens: call on congresscritters to stop taking campaign contributions from Big Oil.
US citizens: call on advertisers to stop supporting Spotify.
The companies that advertise in Spotify include Zoom, Tushy, Athletic Greens, MasterClass, Reebok, McDonald's, Jose Cuervo, Coca-Cola, GAP, Old Navy, Fiat, Taco Bell, LinkedIn, Two Men and a Truck, Condé Nast, Yahoo, Chuze Fitness, and Pepsico.
US citizens: call on the Senate to pass the Protecting Our Democracy Act.
This would make it harder for Republicans (or anyone else) to monkey with the mechanics of US elections.
The UK culture minister advocates state censorship on the grounds that it could be used to prohibit a joke, transmitted on Netflix, that insulted Gypsies.
Meanwhile, the same government is pushing a law to jail British Gypsies if they spend the night in an unapproved place.
Censorship is an offense against human rights. We must tolerate expression of opinions and beliefs that we condemn, or we will make a repressive society like what China has become.
EU medical authorities suspect that frequent repeated Covid-19 vaccine booster shots might overstrain the immune system and cause other immune problems.
We simply don't know. Scientists will observe what happens, when there is time for it to happen.
Many former Israeli ministers, and nonpolitical leaders, acknowledged that Israel already was, or was becoming, an apartheid state.
*South African Scientists Replicate Moderna Vaccine.*
Now the question is, will Moderna sue them if they manufacture that vaccine?
The US claims that Russia is planning to make a high quality fake video showing a Ukrainian attack of some sort. But it has no proof to offer.
I am not surprised there is no proof. For something like this, it would be hard to get any.
I agree that we can't be sure the claimed US intelligence is honest. If the US were presenting the accusation as a reason to preemptively attack Russia, the analogy with the invasion of Iraq would be valid.
However, the US does not propose to attack Russia. Quite the contrary, it doesn't even commit to help Ukraine defend itself if Russia attacks. So the purported analogy is just an insignificant coincidence.
I am not sure what purpose the US has in making this claim. If the claim is honest, perhaps the aim is that the world disbelieve the Russian phony video footage, if such footage appears. If it is not honest, I can't see any point in it.
(satire) *Kavanaugh, Gorsuch Recite Questions In Perfect Unison After Accidentally Memorizing Same Lines From Federalist Society Script.*
As the workers of the Bessemer warehouse vote on unionization for the second time, Amazon is still trying to bully them and surveil them.
10 executive actions Biden should carry out to defend Earth's climate.
The Moderna vaccine has received regular approval.
The staff of Congress are trying to form a union, and progressive members of Congress support it.
The UK's housing ministry took only two days after the fatal housing fire (caused by flammable materials) to start covering up its responsibility.
What I read yesterday suggested that the apartment where Amir Locke was killed was not his own. This article, which is newer, said it was his home.
If that is the case, it is fishy that the thugs didn't know whose apartment it was.
(satire) *Washington Commanders Primed To Sign Free Agents After Receiving $30 Billion From Defense Budget.*
A growing movement in South Korea is made up of young people who have decided not to marry or have children.
What I don't understand is why they feel this obligatorily includes not having dates or lovers, and habitually eating alone.
North Carolina's supreme court rejected the Republican gerrymandering attempt.
The UK is considering a bill that would require communications platforms to check all postings to make sure they are not prohibited before letting anyone see them.
These prohibited kinds of messages are very nasty, and I think posting them is a crime already. However, checking for those messages would require either an enormous staff or a very reliable AI. There are platforms which, if this law applies, would be closed. Wikipedia is one example. Any free software project with an unmoderated development discussion list is another.
Perhaps the law excludes them.
The Republican National Committee declared that the violent attack on the Capitol was "legitimate political discourse".
Does this mean that attacking a meeting of the RNC in a similar way would be "legitimate political discourse"?
Pence stated that the idea that he could have personally overturned the US election was wrong, and the idea he should have done so was "un-American".
I agree he should have done this long ago. However, I think we should recognize this as "better late than never". After decades of loyalty to an organization, it is difficult and painful to recognize that it has been perverted into the enemy of principles it used to stand for. Most Republicans abandon those principles instead.
Minneapolis thugs burst into a home in which a black man, Amir Locke, was sleeping with a pistol that he lawfully owned. As he began to wake up, the thugs saw he had a gun and shot him immediately to death.
I wonder if a white man in the same circumstances would have gone unscathed. It is possible, because unconscious racism is very common. Maybe a white man would have been allowed to drop his gun.
In effect, the decision to mount a no-knock raid is a decision to risk killing anyone on the premises, based on anxiety.
Is it possible for the first two thugs that enter in such a raid to wear armor that will protect them from bullets, so that they don't need to rush the decision of whether to shoot someone?
It isn't directly relevant, but I wonder why Locke was sleeping with a gun in someone else's house. Was he afraid someone was trying to kill him?
Maybe the apartment was in fact his.
Reportedly, some of the corrupter's staff made a plan to get data from the NSA and try to "prove" there was foreign interference in the vote counting of the 2020 election.
US citizens: call on Biden and Congress to choose a Supreme Court justice who will defend Democracy.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
The US has allowed a dangerous fertilizer plant to keep operating for decades without even a fire alarm system. Now a fire started there and it is only luck that the plant did not explode.
How many other dangerous plants are allowed to keep operating under obsolete safety standards?
Two Australian soldiers have testified they saw a particular ex-soldier order the murder of captives on two different occasions.
Amazon treats warehouse workers so badly that on the average they leave after 8 months.
Iceland will end its whaling in 2024.
The EU plans to reduce use of synthetic pesticides by 50%. One of the means under consideration is to ban using them in parks.
*Revealed: [the wrecker] reviewed draft order that authorized voting machines to be seized.*
Indeed, he had long discussions about the details with his advisors. But ultimately he was convinced that the plan had a problem.
*Evade, gaslight, attack: this is the playbook of a corrupt company, not a government.* The article compares Tory government with an organization determined to shield a criminal.
The U.S. border thugs plan to test patrols by robots on the border with Mexico.
A robot patroller can be programmed to be gentle and nonviolent. Or it can be programmed to kill or disappear anyone "unauthorized". It could even be programmed to flip from one to the other on command in an instant.
My conclusion is that there is good reason to be frightened of robot patrollers, because you can't start to predict what it will do to you 20 seconds from now.
US school teachers are increasingly burned out and stressed, and half plan to retire sooner than before.
Part of this comes from the shortage of teachers. To fix it requires paying teachers higher salaries and hiring more teachers.
I worry that the plutocrats will hand most US children over to robot teachers that will snoop on them for Big Tech. They won't learn a lot that way, but plutocratists may prefer if most Americans don't learn much.
Amnesty International has presented the specific reasons for its conclusion that Israel imposes a system of apartheid on Palestinians.
A US court ruled that making a government contractor commit not to boycott Israeli companies would violate its freedom of speech.
The cheapest way to reduce greenhouse emissions over the next few decades is to cancel expensive highway construction projects that will increase car travel. Adah Crandall is campaigning to stop one near her school — not in the name of "Not in my backyard", but in the name of "Not in my planet."
Xiomara Castro faces huge obstacles to her program for Honduras, some of them from the US.
Biden says he will nominate a black woman as Supreme Court justice. Plutocratist Democrat Rep. Clyburn has proposed a plutocratist Democrat judge, who happens to be a black woman.
The last time a president promised to appoint a black justice to the US Supreme Court, we got rigidly right-wing Clarence Thomas. When a president promised to appoint a woman, we got extreme right-wing Amy Barrett. Let's reject these distractions of judging race and sex, and focus on what matters: is the nominee progressive or plutocratist?
Jesse Jackson: *Time for the DOJ to Get Much More Aggressive on [defending] Voting Rights.*
Brown University faculty voted not to approve a planned new institute, which could be a path for Koch's right-wing funding to influence the university.
Ecuador's constitutional court rejected President Moreno's effort to permit oil drilling in a protected indigenous territory.
This is a victory for civilization, whose survival depends on keeping that oil in the ground, as well as for the inhabitants of that region, who might be poisoned by local pollution.
President Lenín Moreno is the one who forced Julian Assange into British captivity. Among his first acts after being elected was to make a surprise military deal with the US.
Putting a "means test" on the Child Tax Credit is a tool to ruin it — an excuse to exclude some poor people or make it inadequate.
*In a Single Year, $1.78 Trillion Was Stolen From the Working Class*, and that's only in the US.
J K Rowling has now been cancelled from the right and from the left.
That makes three cancellations so far, the first being my boycott of Harry Potter. After she sued her own readers, and ordered them not to read the books they had bought, I said it's ok to read her books but you should not buy them.
*Protecting wildlife to stop viruses jumping to humans would save far more than it costs, analysis shows.*
The immediate cost of today's climate mayhem in Washington State has created a move to take funds away from preventing it from getting worse.
That's a death spiral!
Global heating is not the only way humans are changing fire. Fire suppression and deforestation are equally important. Less of the Earth is burning now than in the past, but the fires destroy forests now, and their smoke poisons millions.
The head of CNN ostensibly resigned because his vice president was discovered to be his lover, but arguably that was just an excuse, to avoid talking about the things that were really damaging, as well as decreasing viewer numbers.
The article attacks Jeffrey Toobin with weasel words
that will be taken to mean A but, when challenged, will be defended as meaning B. I have no opinion of Toobin's journalism since I have not read or seen it, but this is the wrong way to criticize anyone.
Snowden reminds us that the NSA suffers no penalty after being found to have failed to follow precautions that were designed to reduce how often it looks in its surveillance data and finds information about Americans.
US food companies and fossil fuel companies have raised prices while making high profits -- they didn't need to, but they could get away with it.
Starbucks is a clear example: profits up 31%, but it plans to raise prices.
The US raided the house of the leader of PISSI, who killed himself to avoid capture.
He used a large bomb that destroyed the upper floor of the house, and killed his own family.
Killing the leader will not cripple the organization. Guerrilla movements can always find new leaders.
People who don't dare risk getting Covid-19 describe what it is like to be frightened to leave their homes, knowing that in stores and transport many refuse to protect them by wearing masks.
Most people who think they have Havana Syndrome have various problems and misattribute them, but the original victims may have been injured by "pulsed electromagnetic energy", or maybe ultrasound.
It should be possible to build detectors for the various frequency bands that are suspected. I wonder if they have done so.
Tesla programmed its cars to go very slowly through a stop sign rather than completely stop, in very limited circumstances, much as many drivers do. This is regarded as "unsafe", but given the special conditions required for the car to do it, I think that officials are exaggerating that danger.
I know of two real reasons why the Tesla car is unsafe.
The "full self-driving" feature is unsafe because it's based on the pretense that the driver will pay full attention to the driving all the time, just as one does while actually driving. Lots of drivers will say they will do so, then not do it.
The computer systems are not safe for drivers because they contain nonfree software, and that is always an injustice to the user.
Over and over we find US cities that squeeze their budgets out of poor people by fining them over and over while threatening them with jail.
It's easier to do this than to make the rich pay fair taxes. Which is why we need to defeat their power.
(satire) *Mississippi Undergoes Controlled Demolition To Make Way For New High-End Luxury U.S. Territory.*
US citizens: Call the Department of Interior at 866-834-8040 and urge Secretary Haaland to accept the court's cancellation of the sale of oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: phone your senators and urge them to confirm Biden's nominees to the Federal Reserve Board.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Congress to support diplomacy to restore the non-nuclear deal with Iran.
Bigotry and hatred are part of the culture of the London thugs: the leadership doesn't support police officers that try to stop it.
*Covid vaccine hesitancy could be linked to childhood trauma, research finds.*
Our society produces trauma for lots of children.
The UK approved a new oilfield in the North Sea, claiming that this does not conflict with its greenhouse gas targets.
I don't know if it is possible to prove that they conflict. Perhaps if the UK never does anything like this again, and pushes hard to reduce emissions in all other ways, it can still achieve those targets, plus the additional reductions necessary because those targets are inadequate.
But anyone who wishes to achieve a target needs to set out as perse intends to go on. "Just one more dose and then I'll quit forever" is an ill-auspicious way to start.
* Formerly rare high temperatures now covering half of seas and devastating wildlife, study shows.*
* Almost no corals on the planet will escape severe bleaching once global heating reaches 1.5C, according to a new study of the world's reefs.*
Australia's three major parties received large donations from fossil fuel companies.
Leonard Peltier has caught Covid-19. It is time to free him from prison. There was little reason to believe he was guilty in the first place.
Jos Beek was an artificial insemination doctor. He told women he would give them sperm from anonymous donors. Anonymous to them, that is.
Years later it was discovered that the sperm was donated by Jos Beek.
People seem to be vexed with this, but I don't understand their complaint. Didn't he do exactly what he said he would do?
If you agreed to have a child with sperm from someone unknown, who could be anyone, why would it be objectionable to find later that it was one particular man?
Norway plans to adopt a new gender-neutral singular third-person pronoun, "hen".
Bravo, Norway. This would address the need for a good way to refer to a person of unspecified gender without causing the damage of making it hard to tell singular from plural.
I suggest that Norwegians state their appreciation of this plan.
Bank of America is arbitrarily refusing to forgive part of some small business PPP loans.
The bank refuses to accept the application for loan forgiveness unless the business enters the lower figure that Bank of America says it is willing to forgive. Businesses can't appeal the refusal unless they enter the application with the smaller amount. But the owners are afraid that entering that smaller amount would be presented as accepting the bank's refusal.
This kind of thing can happen because the US has a few very large banks that are "too big to fail". We should prohibit the operation of any such bank until it splits itself up into many small pieces, each small enough that we wouldn't hesitate to give it a sentence that would wipe it out.
The Tories say they will spend funds on raising the economic level of poor areas -- but the specific plan gives more funds to some wealthy areas.
Plants in the UK now flower several weeks earlier than they did in 1986.
This means that global heating is discombobulating ecosystems in a way that could wipe out some species.
(satire) *FTC Questions Merger Of Google With U.S. Government.*
Scotland plans to plant millions of trees near rivers to cool them and help salmon survive in them.
It can work for a while, but eventually global heating will overwhelm the cooling that the trees are capable of. Scotland must give priority to the long term.
The next Boston rally for Julian Assange will be on the Boston Common near Park St Station, at 1pm on Feb 7.
*EU includes gas and nuclear in guidebook for "green" investments.*
Unusual rains have flooded all the railroads and truck roads from eastern Australia to western Australia, and they are likely to be out for weeks.
I wonder what role global heating played in causing these rains.
A group of 19 London thugs was found to be "bantering" with violent hate: racist, misogynist, and antisemitic.
Sometimes they threatened other cops (that expressed disapproval of this hate) with violence if they exposed the practice.
If it were only 19 thugs in all London that indulged in hate, it would be a small problem -- but there are surely many more.
US citizens: affirm that the January 6 insurrectionists must be banned from running for office.
The NSA has been using its warrantless search power while disregarding the rules that are meant to protect Americans from being snooped on.
The author of California's single-payer medicine bill withdrew it, just before it was scheduled for a vote.
He said this was because the bill would have been defeated -- but the point is to make its opponents go on record against it, and be held accountable.
The Crisis Text Line gives "anonymized" data about callers, and what they said, to an AI company to analyze.
What can be learned about individuals from this "anonymized" data? We must not assume it is zero, or that none of them can be identified from it. If they want this to be trusted, they had better let investigators make simulated help calls, see what data they record from it, and try to deanonymize it. And then they should make a commitment never to include more data than that in the future.
The issue of bogus consent is always significant: "you agreed to the fine print" is not a valid excuse. We should establish by law strict rules for what any such organization can do with personal data, strict enough that you can take for granted any approved organization won't abuse your personal data.
If the US had had the vaccination rate of some European countries (around 80%), it would have had half as many Covid hospitalizations this winter.
I expect that would mean half as many deaths; that would be around 30,000 Americans who would not have died.
Guatemala has convicted some of the murderous officers and paramilitaries who carried out mass murder, but right-wing politicians with old military ties want to release them all.
*Britain's failure to tackle Russian dirty money has enabled Putin’s aggression.*
British banksters serve Russian oligarchs because it is very profitable to do so.
To cease that service is something that the UK needs to do for its own future honesty, even more than as a sanction against Putin. But honesty is not the Tories' priority.
Two Chinese dissidents have been jailed for two years awaiting "trial" for planning dissent, which will surely be followed by long "sentences".
In 1940, Britain imprisoned all German and Austrian refugees, even the dissidents that Hitler had imprisoned.
Most were released later that year; it wasn't as bad as what the US did to the Japanese-Americans.
Decarbonization has become an important election issue in Australia.
Generating hydrogen from renewably generated electricity, then burning it for electricity later, is a form of energy storage. Australia needs more energy storage capacity; the question is whether this method is cheaper than alternatives, such as charging batteries and pumping water uphill.
*I photographed Myanmar’s protesters one day –- and their funerals the next.*
A city in Sweden is paying wild crows to collect cigarette butts off the street and hand them in. They get paid in food.
The article mentions New Caledonian crows, which are native to New Caledonia, not Sweden. Has this project released New Caledonian crows into the wild in Sweden? That kind of action can do ecological harm.
Sinema marketed her defense of the filibuster directly to rich Republicans.
The "silent strike" to protest the coup in Burma showed almost complete participation despite threats by the military to punish participants.
The cheater explored, in 2020, several schemes to seize voting machines with a view to denying the actual votes. He had Giuliani ask on his behalf.
*While Lobbying to Kill Build Back Better, Pharma Hikes Costs of 866 Drugs.*
(satire) *U.S. Sends Military Advisors To Peace-Ravaged Country.*
(satire) *Crypto[-Currency] Executives Assuage Environmental Concerns By Unveiling Digital Avatar Of Glacier.*
*Biden administration to offer $1.2 billion for states to clean up planet-warming methane leaks.*
Cuba is sentencing last summer's protesters to long prison terms, in some cases after beating them up.
I have to note that US thugs sometimes engage in similar violence against protesters, and protesters can face long prison sentences for charges that are disproportionate to any harm they did, if they did any harm.
50 Starbucks stores' employees are now seeking to unionize.
There are thousands of Starbucks stores in the US. If each store has to unionize separately, that will be a lot of trouble. Furthermore, if each store's workers need to negotiate separately, they won't have the strength of their numbers. I hope they can form a single body.
US citizens: call on the US government to block bank mergers that lead to insufficient local competition.
US citizens: call on the Federal Trade Commission to take action against bait-and-switch salaries in job advertisements.
In Massachusetts, support the Coalition to Protect Workers’ Rights, which is campaigning against Lyft's ballot initiative whose purpose is to permit Lyft (and Uber, and other companies) to deny their gig workers the rights of employees.
A few percent of antivaxxers have pressured the UK into allowing unvaccinated medical workers to stay on the job and interact with patients.
This is dangerous for the patients, as well as for their coworkers. The system could compensate for this weakness by testing all the workers frequently — perhaps every other day.
Modelling suggests that donating half of existing vaccine production to poor countries would protect the world (as a whole) faster from Covid-19, as it would reduce the development of new variants, some of which will surely be dangerous.
The question does not need to be asked if we eliminate the artificial obstacles to producing vaccines much faster. Or, for example, if the new American libre vaccine or the Cuban vaccine does the job.
2800 American convicts have been exonerated in the past 30 years, after trials that gave a mistaken wrong result. Worse, it many cases it was not an innocent mistake — these trials were deliberately undermined.
All of these wrong convictions could have been avoided if the prosecutors and judges had respected the rights of the suspects.
The convictions that have been overturned were surely just a fraction of the total.
How significant is it, whether those that undermined a trial did so because they wanted to frame someone, or because they had jumped to the conclusion that the suspect was guilty?
Morally, it makes a difference, because the framer has crossed an additional moral line. However, when there is a tendency to jump to the conclusion that people of a certain group are guilty — as there is with blacks — the result is systemic injustice even if none of the thugs involved believes perself to be framing someone innocent.
A Tennessee thug has been found guilty of using excessive force against people as he was arresting them.
There is no implication that it was wrong to arrest them; that is not the issue at hand.
Israeli cops allegedly use Pegasus spyware to track Netanyahu's personal enemies, as well as others.
The wrecker is threatening to launch his followers against the prosecutors investigating him. He did not explicitly tell them to do it with violence, but they won't be slow to think of that.
A couple of those prosecutors happen to be black, and the bully took that as an opportunity to spread bigotry.
The House investigation of the Jan 6 attack on the Capitol is strangely soft on most of the people who have refused to testify.
A US appeals court ruled that when electric utilities cut what they pay homeowners for their solar energy, this can constitute unfair competition.
That decision can be very important for reducing the US carbon footprint if it isn't reversed by right-wing judges.
Statistical techniques suggest that there are probably 9.000 species of trees that are unknown to science, and around 3,000 of them are rare.
Some of them may never have been recognized by any human being.
To admit a post-Putin democratic Russia to NATO could make sense.
Indeed, under those circumstances, Russia might replace the US as the mainstay of NATO, if the US has fallen under Putin-like Republicans.
*Covid becoming endemic doesn’t mean it will be mild – or that there won’t be new variants.* It might become like the Polio virus, which most patients didn't even notice, except for the small fraction that it crippled.
Thus, "endemic" does not imply "we don't need precautions against its spread." Not if we are wise, that is.
The Burmese military government threatens to arrest people who participate in a planned silent protest. Some shop owners have been arrested for saying they will close their shops in sympathy.
The bullshitter seems not to have noticed, when he said that Pence "could have overturned the election", that he admitted he lost it.
Recently he said he might pardon the Jan 6 attackers if he were president again. Didn't he tell us that the attackers were supporters of the Antifa (anti-fascist) movement? Why would be want to pardon them?
US citizens: call on regulators to ban ownership of payment systems by the dominant tech platforms.
The main digital payment systems are unjust for two reasons: they require users to run nonfree Javascript code to use them, and they require users to identify themselves. If they were owned by megacompanies, that would be an additional injustice. Preventing that would be good, but would not make them acceptable to use.
*Where to build in a state on fire? California housing projects face growing challenges.*
An oil spill from a broken pipeline in the Ecuadorian Amazon has polluted a river that provides drinking water to almost 30,000 people.
The CEOs of Lockheed and Raytheon -- two major US military contractors -- celebrated increasing world instability as good for their business.
A Burmese dissident calls for prosecution of the military rulers in the International Criminal Court, and a cut-off of arms sales.
Does anyone know which countries still sell arms to the Burmese military government?
Spotify said it will point users at valid Covid-19 information to make up for some of Joe Rogan's disinformation.
US citizens: call on Congress to fund the IRS adequately, so it can provide service to taxpayers and catch rich cheaters.
The National Labor Relations Board is considering whether falsely labeling an employee as an independent contractor should be considered a violation of federal law. This could make a big difference for gig workers in the US.
The US has a near-monopoly on hospital beds. A competitor has recently sued, alleging that the monopolist uses secret, illegal contracts to maintain its market power.
More than 100 people in Afghanistan who were formerly associated with the previous government, or with foreign armies, whom the Taliban says it had no grudge against, have been murdered.
To me, this suggests that the Taliban are not disciplined enough for a policy to be effective. The leadership can announce an amnesty but that doesn't mean all supporters will obey it.
I don't see any solution except to offer asylum to all those who may be next, along with whatever they need in order to get out.
China intensely intimidates foreign journalists -- almost any aspect of life can be perverted into harassment, a threat, or an attack.
One common kind of threat is a bogus lawsuit, which can be used as an excuse to stop you from leaving China. If you're lucky, you're just forced to leave China in a hurry.
China can arrange a pizzagate against anyone at any time.
*Freedom of speech was too hard won to be cavalier now about censorship.*
*Nixon aide: [the corrupter's] pardon promise for Capitol rioters is "stuff of dictators".*
A long list of absurd excuses Tories make to excuse Bogus Johnson's contempt for the public.
The whistleblower who reported abuse and underpayment of workers by Foxconn, making Amazon products, was tortured by China. Now he demands that Amazon and Foxconn pressure China to clear his name.
Several regions of Ethiopia are suffering from drought, with famine on the way.
This is in addition to Tigray, which suffers from civil war and blockage of food and medical aid.
Republicans are passing state laws so medical boards can't punish doctors for prescribing quack remedies for Covid-19.
*Corporations have record profits. Most workers are losing ground. So why not create incentives for corporations to profit-share?*
*ACLU Demands 'Truly Systemic Overhaul' of US [Military's] Civilian Harm Policies.*
Concrete truck drivers in Seattle have been on strike for months. The contract they rejected would have meant a decrease in wages once they are adjusted for inflation.
(satire) *Elite Selective Hospital Only Accepts 9% Of ICU Applicants.* Be sure to apply to several hospitals, including a nonprestigious "safety" hospital.
(satire) Paradises are competing for elite souls, too: *Jesus Christ Starts Rival Eternal Paradise After Family Rift.*
Can you choose Valhalla, or Tlalocan, if that's where your spirit leads you?
300 scientists signed a letter to Bogus Johnson calling on him to support allowing generic vaccine production world-wide, as the way to end the evolution of new variants.
Bogus Johnson doesn't care about anything but staying in power, but it may influence other politicians.
Greedy corporations push hard to keep the filibuster in place in the US Senate. The US Chamber of Commerce admits it, but mainstream media generally try to distract attention from it.
*Why Is It So Hard for [many US prisoners] to Get Access to the Books They Need And Want?*
RSF: members of the European Parliament called on Israel to respect Palestinian journalists' freedom of movement.
US thugs believe that the touch of someone overdosing on fentanyl is deadly, and based on this, put them in prison for threatening thugs' lives.
Arizona Republicans propose to authorize the state legislature to reject election results and order a new election.
The bill would also require counting all the ballots in 24 hours. That is an invitation to confusion and errors, which could provide a pretext to reject election results.
*Myanmar's junta torching "village after village" in bid to quell opposition.*
New superyachts emit as much CO2 as 1500 cars, and almost 1000 are being made per year. I urge countries to prohibit them from entering harbors except in an emergency.
New Georgia voter suppression rules for mail-in ballots would, if applied in 2020, have stopped almost 70,000 people from voting by mail. That's far more than enough to change the outcome.
If Biden is serious about reducing civilian casualties from US war operations, the Pentagon should do more than study the problem.
Reverence for the Thai monarchy is fading away among young people.
Many Republican education bills prohibit teaching a list of "divisive concepts" that are supposedly related to Critical Race Theory. This article presents a list of the "divisive concepts", and it seems to me that (1) all of them are bad things to teach in school, and (2) they have little in common with Critical Race Theory.
The article goes on to explain that many of these prohibitions are likely to be unconstitutional due to various specific conflicts with US legal precedents about freedom of speech.
Alaska's Supreme Court killed the young people's climate damages case.
Ways that the phrase "Everybody knows that" is used to cut off discussion and put people down.
The comments show that there are valid situations to claim that "everyone knows that". Sometimes everyone does know X, but not everyone knows that everyone does know X.
Two fracking former Democratic senators joined a lobby group for fracking.
Frack off, planet roasters!
US citizens: call on Congress to ban members of Congress from buying and selling stocks while in office.
US citizens: call on Pepsico to stop funding antiabortion candidates and parties.
US citizens: call on Biden and Congress to send Americans N95 masks regularly on a continuing basis.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Get Foreign Money Out of U.S. Elections Act, to stop foreign owners of US corporations from donating to US election campaigns.
Donors have provided funds to rebuild the bookshop in Gaza that Israeli bombers destroyed, and books for it to sell.
It is now quite clear that Manchin represents billionaires in the Senate. One billionaire supporter publicly announced his reasons for opposing the Build Back Better bill, and it is totally bogus — he called it "Socialism," which is already a big exaggeration, but what he attacks is an extreme form of Communism that no country ever practiced.
*US judge blocks sale of Gulf of Mexico drilling leases over climate concerns.*
I suppose the Supreme Court will actually decide the case, months from now, and I expect the worst.
A French hospital official proposed charging unvaccinated patients for Covid-19 treatment.
The basic idea that those who go unvaccinated should bear the burden they impose on society is valid, but charging patients is the wrong way to implement it. It is wrong to charge patients for medical treatment. (The US medical system is so bad because it is based on charging patients.)
It is better to punish people directly for refusing vaccination — whether they catch Covid-19 or not.
Also, if hospital facilities are full and it is impossible to treat all the patients at that time, vaccinated patients should have priority.
That situation won't arise if we are careful in precautions to prevent the spread of the disease, so we should all practice them. The main precautions are vaccination, isolation when sick, not spending time close to other people, and wearing good masks. The good masks — FFP2, or even better N95 with its tight head straps — will give you substantial protection.
We must make sure that all workers have paid sick leave available, so that they can afford to stay home when sick.
* In the past half century, North America has lost a fourth of its birds. Earth is now a coalmine, and every wild bird is a canary.*
However, it is a mistake to make too much of the fact that birds are remotely descended from dinosaurs (they split off about 100 million years ago). After all, birds are also descended from fish, around 300 million years ago. Neither of these facts causes a hawk to closely resemble a velociraptor, or a tuna.
The UK's Environment Agency threatened to fire staff if they talked with each other about how the agency was neglecting its mission to protect waterways.
The US Environmental Protection Agency has a history of systematic dereliction of duty, going back decades. The corrupter intentionally made it more corrupt, to the point that I called it the Environmental Poisoning Agency.
The CIA tortured Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn ("Abu Zubaydah") around 20 years ago to experiment with torture techniques. To keep the torture secret, the US government decided to keep him incommunicado for life. Now there is movement towards ending the cruel secrecy.
Neil Young and Joni Mitchell are boycotting Spotify because of its support for Joe Rogan with his Covid misinformation.
I disapprove of his misinformation, but I have been boycotting Spotify for unjust treatment of its customers, so I have no way to boycott it harder. The latest thing for star musicians is to sell their song catalogs to Big Music. Those that do so won't have the option of joining in a boycott like this one.
* If Tory legislation is left unchallenged, it won’t just be the right to protest that ordinary Britons will lose.*
"Fort Bragg", California, was named after General Bragg when he was in the US Army, before the Civil War.
He was not a traitor then, but he became one subsequently. In my opinion, the name should be changed. Will it be possible to convince the people of the town to change it?
REI is a cooperative — of customers, not of workers. Some of its workers are trying to unionize, and the company is opposed.
More info.
Private voter-suppression in Chile: private bus companies stopped their service on election day to stop non-rich people from getting to polling places.
I have a feeling that some cities had closed the polling places in working-class neighborhoods, as a first blow.
Chuck Palahniuk says that China's altered ending of the film, Fight Club, makes it closer to the ending of his book.
*'No More Hiding': Sanders Says Make GOP Vote on Popular Policies.*
I've made this suggestion here.
US crop insurance payments have increased since 1995 by a factor of 5. The cause is global heating, and that means it will get a lot worse in the next 25 years.
When the US prioritizes car travel over public transit, it systematically hurts the poor.
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry, capitalize both words or neither one.) I object to bigotry, and normally I decline to link to articles which promote it. But I make exceptions for some articles which are important enough.
American workers are not benefiting from the "strong economy", but it is not because of inflation — it's because they are not unionized.
Six Japanese who lived near Fukushima and developed thyroid cancer since are suing TEPCO, the plant's operator, for damages.
Thyroid cancer is one of the common consequences of fallout from nuclear fission
King crabs have invaded British waters. They have wiped out the native fisheries of Norway, and may now do the same to Britain.
Europe is making good progress on reducing the amount of antibiotics routinely fed to farm animals.
I suspect it is even more important to restrict which antibiotics are given routinely to animals -- never give them the ones that are still fairly likely to cure humans' diseases.
Hungarian journalists will sue Hungary and the company that made the Pegasus spyware, which was apparently used to snoop on them.
Biden got a secret memo about the extent of his authority to cancel student debt, and he refuses to reveal what it says.
The suspicion is that it says he can cancel a lot of debt, but he has made some deal by which he will not do it.
(satire) *Police Flip Through Unsolved Crimes To See What Else They Can Pin On Mentally Disabled Man.*
The US is withholding part of an arms sale to Egypt on grounds that Egypt violates human rights.
Part of the sale is going through -- radar systems and transport aircraft -- but those, while useful in a war, won't actually shoot anyone.
This might be an effective way to tell al-Sisi that it is time to start respecting human rights, without being so nasty that he will run off bitterly angry.
(satire) *Biden Meets With Senate Democrats To Discuss Breaking Up Supreme Court Nominee And Confirming Her In Parts.*
Progressives in Congress demanded that Biden compel vaccine companies to share their secret methods with other countries for generic production.
(satire) *Lies All Police Officers Are Legally Allowed To Tell You.*
Gas stoves leak methane all the time, even when turned off. The total leakage is enough to be worth shutting off.
What the cancellation of Nina Paley, brilliant animator, teaches about cancellation.
Knowing the rules that often-dishonest sources follow in their lies can enable you to determine that certain specific statements from them are probably true.
US citizens: call on Biden to make this year the year of Executive Actions — with several suggestions.
A study found that people in the US are more likely to die early if they live near frack wells. Downwind of them is even worse.
The study controlled for socioeconomic, environmental and demographic factors, so it's not that these wells are built where poor people live, or that the wells drive down housing prices and poor people have to move near them.
Other medical problems are also more likely near frack wells.
Basically, frack is a dangerous drug.
Republican gerrymandering split the Democrats of Nashville among three congressional districts, each of which has a majority of Republicans from outside the city.
Nashville's current representative, a Democrat, has no chance of winning any of those three districts.
There is a mathematical system which finds the fairest possible division of districts, which can be implemented by computer. Some states use that method to produce an unbiased electoral system. But Republicans aim to rig elections, not to make them fair.
Skyhorse Publishing publishes books whose authors have been cancelled (and which are likely to sell many copies).
The principal target of Nazi hatred was the Jews, but they had hate left over for several other groups.
2400 families in New York City have been investigated for "neglecting" their children by keeping them away from school and the risk of Covid-19.
The heat in Phoenix, Arizona, is becoming more deadly. The city is considering long-term changes to reduce its heat-island effect.
Many antiracists stretch the concept of "harming people" to include disagreeing with their views, or showing an action that they condemn.
Republicans are stretching it even further when they stretch "critical race theory" to include blanket condemnation of whites, and then ban them both. And when they ban books such as Maus on the basis of minor details.
*Taliban must respect rights of women and children, says UN head.*
He also called for powers to unblock humanitarian aid.
*Dems Demand Biden Stop Maintaining Saudi Jets Causing 'Untold Suffering' in Yemen.*
I wonder which countries the US plans to get extra gas for Europe from, whether they include the UAE or Salafi Arabia.
*Serbia extradites Bahraini dissident in cooperation with Interpol.*
This was in despite of an order from the European Court of Human Rights.
Israeli soldiers arrested an old Palestinian man, tied him up and gagged him, and blindfolded him so tightly that it injured his eyes. Soldiers saw him "fall asleep", so they cut the zip ties, then left him lying on the ground.
He was dying, or perhaps dead already, but the soldiers didn't check.
*The US is only the 27th least corrupt country in the world.* Tied with Chile.
(satire) *Mitch McConnell Blocks Justice Stephen Breyer From Retiring.*
Don't believe the fossil fools when they claim that US needs the employment they provide. They employ much fewer than what they claim, and the number decreasing pretty fast.
Investment in renewable energy would support far more jobs, and help civilization keep going.
Parents can now buy their children a child's version of the AR-15 rifle.
It shoots real bullets that can really kill.
Several major oil companies have pulled out of Burma.
I the past, this would be a blow to the military rulers. Now I suspect that China will gladly replace them in supporting the Burmese rulers.
I'm afraid that Western leverage to discourage atrocious behavior through economic sanctions is gone: China is always there to compete.
China may not always win this competition, but human rights are sure to lose.
A Polish woman carrying two fetuses needed an abortion to save her life, because one of them had died. The other fetus still lived, and doctors feared prosecution if they aborted the dead one, so they waited. The other fetus died, and they did the abortion, but during that time her condition had deteriorated, leading to her death.
Now her death has become a cause to mobilize Polish women for abortion rights.
I've read that the Catholic Church initially decided to oppose abortion, in the 19th century, on the grounds that the fetus might be male, and males (even mere fetuses) were of higher value than any female.
*New report from Human Rights Law Centre says fossil fuel, gambling and tobacco industries are distorting Australia's democracy.*
*A dozen ways a smaller, older population might be awesome.*
*Large investors drive up house prices in Europe’s cities, study finds.*
*Governments around the world used Covid to erode human rights.*
*Dutch university gives up Chinese funding due to impartiality concerns.*
The funding was, effectively, a bribe to deny Chinese repression,
*Reparations to the Caribbean could break the cycle of corruption – and China’s grip.*
Arguing that NATO can afford to commit not to bring Ukraine into NATO.
I think committing to Ukraine's neutrality could be a good path if it does includes an end to Putin's military destabilization of Eastern Ukraine. A commitment by Ukraine to respect the rights of Russian-speaking Ukrainians would make it even better.
Xi declared short-term convenience for Chinese higher priority than the survival of civilization.
Meanwhile, in the US, the plutocrats have a veto, and they consider their profit higher priority than the survival of civilization.
The UK, by telling people not to bother with masks, has condemned medically vulnerable people to prison in their homes -- in isolation. This could last for years. It could last for their whole lives.
A man in India is trying to teach people not to swear at people using misogynist words.
I agree with the man's goal. I don't like attacking people based on their race or sex, and I never do that, because I don't associate rage or frustration with demographic groups. I fortunately escaped being taught that bad habit.
However, the law that prohibits all swear words (misogynist or not) is unjust -- fucking evil censorship.
George Monbiot: *Carbon offsetting is not warding off environmental collapse –- it's accelerating it.*
I've expected this for years.
A survey of patients found that two doses of vaccine greatly reduces the chances a person will have symptoms 12 weeks after infection with Covid-19.
More studies are needed to track the development of long Covid more carefully, and control better for variables such as which variant the patients had.
A UK court ruled it was illegal to take away someone's citizenship without informing her, and on those grounds ruled her citizenship was restored.
The UK government is already working to change the law to give itself permission to toy with people in that way. But, even with notification, exile is an unjust punishment -- even if it is the result of a fair trial.
Without a trial, no punishment is legitimate.
Discussion about various smaller attacks that Putin could launch against Ukraine.
There is evidence that Bogus Johnson directly authorized saving dogs instead of Afghan human beings.
*US prosecutors investigate Republicans who sent fake Trump electors to Congress.*
Justice Breyer has agreed to retire, rather than hang on and probably be replaced by Republicans with a right-wing extremist.
Los Angeles has decided, in principle, to put an end to fossil fuel extraction inside the city.
San Jose, California, passed a law to require gun owners to carry liability insurance.
The big question is whether the Supreme Court will rule that this conflicts with the Second Amendment.
*US to hold surprise plant inspections targeting [air] pollution in Louisiana's Cancer Alley.*
*Nearly 75% of water-resistant products contain toxic PFAS, study finds.*
Special drugs enable frogs to regrow an amputated leg.
Pfizer is cooperating on generic manufacturing of its Covid-19 treatment, Paxlovid — but dragging its feet. It should do everything it can to get production up to the level the world needs.
Jesse Jackson: there are things Biden can do to defend voting right against some attacks, but what we need most is to mobilize large numbers of people in the street.
US thugs killed 1,134 people (or more) in 2021.
In 2020, they killed 1,021. Reportedly a disproportionate share of the increase was due to more killing of blacks.
A new Covid-19 variant, named BA.2, is spreading fast in several countries.
In its basic behavior, it resembles Omicron: it spreads fast and its symptoms tend to be mild.
A call for athletes to boycott the Olympics in China in solidarity with the Uyghurs that China is imprisoning and brainwashing.
It is not easy to convince thousands of athletes to stay away from the most important contest of their lives. The best chance of success is if groups of athletes make the decision together.
*Virginia Schools Sue Youngkin Mandate Making Masks Optional.*
Some parents might want to tell their children not to wear masks in school. That would be foolish of them, but they might.
Other parents might want to tell their children to stay safe in school, by not hanging out with dangerous unmasked and unvaccinated people.
It is impossible to give both kinds of parents their way. So which is more important? The ones who want to keep their children safe.
The Department of Homeland Security has an ingrained blindness to the danger of right-wing extremists, partly because it contains ingrained right-wing extremists, and it has little to restrain it from obeying orders to go after dissidents that the president labels as dangerous.
I've called it various things, including the Department of Homeland Suppression and the Department of Harm and Sickness.
(satire) *Tom Brady Rips Into His Nutritional Supplements For Letting Him Down In Big Game.*
A study of 1000 children whose parents were poor gave substantial funds to half the parents, and found that the children showed improved brain function.
This was, presumably, the result of using the additional income to correct problems in the families' lives.
The "Covax" campaign, which was supposed to provide Covid vaccines to non-rich countries, has achieved only half its 2021 target, and has run out of funds.
The people of those countries, and indirectly the rest of us, will remain vulnerable until we vaccinate everyone with an up-to-date vaccine.
We have to hope that the virus has not started developing new variants to frequently to ever catch up.
US citizens: call on Biden to end all U.S. involvement in [the war in] Yemen.
Backlash against right-wing extremist Christians seems to have encouraged many Americans to drop religion.
A counter-backlash is making "evangelical" more equivalent to "right-wing extremist" and eliminating internal resistance against ever-more-extreme behavior.
The "metaverse" is *another place to spend money on things, except in this place the empty promise that buying stuff will make you happy is left even more exposed by the fact that the things in question do not physically exist.*
The article informs us that Facebook is thinking about ways to track and profile people in its metaverse even more than they are tracked in the physical world.
Many large store chains alter their internet prices in surprising ways based on tracking the customer.
Today's pervasive surveillance systems would quickly expose the secret identities of superheroes, if they really existed.
They can expose your secrets, too, and make you vulnerable to repression.
*UN data reveals "nearly insurmountable" scale of lost schooling due to Covid.*
I hazard a guess that the amount of schooling lost over the past few decades due to IMF "structural reform" policies that made countries charge money for elementary school greatly exceeded was was lost due to Covid.
*FCC chair plans to block exclusive deals that limit ISP choice in apartments.*
(satire) *Man Hoping His Death Fucked Up Enough That He Gets Law Named After Him.*
*How Americans fearing higher water bills are fighting takeovers* of their public water systems.
Belarus hackers cracked Belarusian railroad computers to interfere with Russian troop trains. They say they can crash the signaling and emergency control systems and may do that later.
The specific activity they are doing, breaking security on systems, is called "cracking", but I refer to them as "hackers" because they seem to have the hacker spirit.
They say they are using ransomware, but not demanding money — instead, they demand freeing political prisoners.
Government-sponsored Guatamalan paramilitaries have been convicted of raping Maya women as an act of political violence during the civil war.
One of the victims demands return of the remains of her parents — the paramilitaries took them away and they were never seen again.
The civil war in Guatamala was organized by the US government.
The UK plans to change the asylum rules so that refugees granted asylum can no longer bring their families.
"Stakeholder capitalism", like trickledown economics, tries to convince us that truly wise capitalists would naturally make life better for the non-rich. There is no sign that this really happens.
(satire) *Leaked Documents Confirm ExxonMobil Has Known Exactly Which Day Earth Ends Since The 1970s.*
(satire) *Biden Vows That If Russia Invades Ukraine, U.S. Will Invade One Country Of Equivalent Value.*
(satire) *Pragmatic Extremist Stresses Importance Of Assassinating Local Politicians.*
The new mayor of New York City has a plan to reduce gun crime. I can imagine that "targeted, precision policing" of 30 precincts is (1) not very different from "predictive policing" and (2) not a big change from what's already done.
I can also imagine that "spot checks" and bus and train stations will not be very different from "stop and search", and that most of the arrests they make will be for drug possession. Though they may succeed in dissuading non-car-owners from New Jersey to come into New York City with weapons.
What other things will the reported "new technology" do, besides identify people with illegal guns?'
Unidentified individuals attacked the statue of Juan Ponce de León in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Ponce de León became successful by enslaving Tainos in Hispaniola, and his main achievement was to extend such slavery to Puerto Rico. I think his statue is a good candidate for official removal.
Florida Republicans seek to ban teachers from talking about the topics of queer sexual orientation or gender identity in class.
This is premised on the supposition that parents have a right to dictate their children's sexual orientation and gender identity — but they can't do that.
The head of WHO says that it is weakened by depending on voluntary funding from donor countries — that gives them too much control over what WHO tries to do.
It also lets them specifically control what WHO does not do — for instance, allow Taiwan to participate.
He also warns us not to assume that Omicron is the last big wave of Covid-19. There are plenty of people catching the disease and giving it a chance to mutate.
*Third Mexican journalist killed this year as press corps faces murder crisis.*
Google is being sued for "deceptive" suggestions that users can disconnect themselves from old location data simply by making a new account and changing settings.
A museum exhibit teaches people about slow inundation, what has happened and what's coming.
Antimuslimism is pervasive in the Tory Party: when instances pop up, there is a brief furor, but no one is punished.
This makes an interesting contrast with how Corbyn was drummed out of the Labour Party, not for being antisemitic (he never showed any sign of that), but merely for not stretching that term to punish critics of Israel's occupation of Palestine.
I don't think either one is mainly about disapproval of bigotry. I think plutocratism is at work in both cases.
Three more US states are considering "free-range kids" laws, intended to free parents of the burden of supervising their children nonstop, 24/7.
An analyst believes Putin is coming to realize he can't grab anything from Ukraine by bombastic threats. He thinks Putin will turn to war. That would be undesirable.
It suggests to me that the US should try to help Putin save face if he does not attack.
Julian Assange may get a chance to appeal the extradition decision to the UK Supreme Court.
This means there is a chance to reverse the disastrous general decision to extradite journalists for "espionage" changes, as well as the cruel decision to subject Assange to brainwashing prison conditions for at least a few more years.
Newt Gingrich warned us that if Republicans take over Congress next fall, they will invent excuses to jail the people who are now investigating the Jan 6 attack on the Capitol.
In other words, they will institute arbitrary rule, as we see in Russia and China, where the rulers invent crimes to accuse opponents of.
*Prisoner’s secret filming appears to show torture in Cairo police station.*
The only surprise is that we get something like proof of this. The prisoners accused specific thugs by name.
Almost 1% of the population of Britain has had long Covid disabilities for at least a year. Around 2% have them now.
People who oppose practicing and requiring precautions against spread are imposing on everyone a fate worse than death.
Training on how to deal with hostage-takers and murderers was very effective in thwarting the attack on the synagogue in Texas.
Biden is planning economic warfare that will really hurt Russia: to stimulate world gas extraction so Europe won't buy from Russia any more.
Its other short-term effect will be to push the world closer to global heating disaster. And it may not be easy to shut off the increased flow of gas after a few years.
If the threat dissuades Putin from attacking, perhaps the increase will not have to occur.
US citizens: call on the Senate to protect election workers from Republican threats.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word
Presidential debates were reformed in 1987 so as to exclude parties other than Republican and Democratic.
I knew this, of course, when I suggested that the Democratic candidate debate the candidates of the secondary parties. This would be better for the Democratic Party than to ignominiously allow the Republicans to cancel the debates. It would make the Republican Party suffer the brunt of its refusal.
(satire) *New NFL-Military Partnership Sends First 1,000 Fans To Stand For National Anthem Off To War.*
*Half of first-wave Covid cases may have lasting harm to sense of smell.* This can make food taste bad. It terrifies me.
I don't think it is known yet how Omicron today compares to those results.
Real Republican officials supported the wrecker's plan to send phony teams of electors to present themselves as the winners of their state' presidential elections.
Why does the US have such a bizarre system for determining the result of the presidential election? Why have so many elected officials play a role?
I have a hypothesis. I think the people who designed that system wanted all the officials to play a part so that they would feel a loyalty to the eventual results. They thought this would increase respect for the process and its result. It must never have occurred to them that some of those officials would make a conscious plan to cheat. They expected dispute, not sedition.
*Faster internet speeds linked to lower civic engagement in UK.*
It seems that increasing speed of web access reduces involvement in political parties, trade unions and volunteering.
Very Rich People Can Now Make Millions More By Reselling luxury assets to each other.
It is true that this money tends to come from other very rich people. It may not have the effect of increasing the squeezing of the poor.
People want to be happy, but will accept pain for goals they want. Interestingly, one of the goals many accept to suffer for is to have a meaningful life.
Most of my life has been sad, but the Free Software Movement has made it meaningful.
Florida is the latest target of the electric companies' campaign to slow the installation of home solar panels by cutting the incentives.
Survival of civilization is something we all need. If the rapid increase of solar power systems requires improvements in the electric grid, the state should pay for that as it pays for other necessary forms of defense.
The UK contributed to the propaganda for the 1965-66 massacre in Indonesia.
The UK has exiled at least 464 Britons by cutting off their citizenship, since it gave itself the power to do this easily.
Whatever a person has done, exile is an unacceptable punishment. Furthermore, any punishment is unjust if it is imposed without a proper, fair trial.
(satire) *Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Under Pressure To Return Looted Ancient Mesopotamian Stratocaster.*
Biden is giving plutocratist Judge Rearden a second chance to be confirmed permanently as a federal judge.
Rearden has carried out Chevron's persecution of Steven Donziger, as Biden surely knows.
I hope there is a campaign to defeat Rearden.
The US bombed a big dam in Syria and caused its equipment to fail. Only an emergency truce between all the sides fighting in Syria, including Turkey, made it possible to repair the dam.
The rogue targeting unit, Task Force 9, ordered the bomb run, disregarding standing orders not to bomb that dam.
Biden gave help to a substantial fraction of poor people in the US by raising the minimum wage for federal workers.
We need to raise it generally, but that would require help from Manchin and Sinema.
*Turkey: prominent journalist detained for [indirectly] insulting president Erdoğan.*
The journalist was talking about an ox. It was Erdoğan who asserted that he was the ox.
*Tennessee Jewish couple sues state after Christian adoption agency denies them services.*
Republican officials who are willing to condemn the wrecker are nonetheless supporting the campaign to rig future elections.
A large project aims to restore the ecosystems of Finland's rivers and forests. Finland converted its forests into tree plantations and its rivers into conveyors for logs.
7% of the population of England consists of people who for medical reasons are especially vulnerable to Covid-19. The elimination of anti-contagion precautions makes them choose between grave danger and the equivalent of prison.
More.
*About a dozen Tory MPs said to have accused party whips of blackmail.* The aim of the blackmail was to make them vote to keep Bogus Johnson as prime minister.
Rich people overestimate the income of most Americans, and underestimate what they need to pay for housing.
Daniel Ellsberg argues that it would make no strategic sense to retaliate for a large nuclear attack.
Norway demonstrated the way to make electric cars catch on fast: with lots of financial incentives.
Watch out for the efforts to eliminate one financial incentive to reduce fossil fuel consumption — by replacing the fuel tax with "road pricing".
The brilliant new idea for our plutocratist medical system is an Uber for nurses.
Imagine getting treated by a nurse that has no sick pay and therefore desperately needs to work even when sick. In principle, it is not much different from eating a sandwich made by a cook that has no sick pay and therefore desperately needs to work even when sick. Both are plutocracy at work and we should not allow them to occur. But we need to make it safe to go to a clinic.
At least the nurse will wear a mask.
*[The wrecker] recognized the wholesale annexation of one country by another. If Biden lets that stand, the global implications are deeply troubling.*
*Chevron and Total withdraw from Myanmar gas project* and say it is because of the junta's oppressive rule.
*Oil industry board members to testify to Congress on climate disinformation.*
*Oligarchs from authoritarian countries use London law firms to intimidate journalists, MPs say.*
The UAE bombed a prison in Yemen, killing 100 people and wounding hundreds more.
Prisoners are not combatants.
*Unvaccinated seniors 49 times more likely to be hospitalized than those with boosters – CDC.*
The corrupter's inner circle wrote an executive order in December 2020 directing the US military to seize the voting machines that had been used in swing states.
This appears to have been intended to give the impression that the election had been stolen, using the "We made smoke, so you know there was fire" principle.
US citizens: call on Congress to fund a continuing program of distributing N95 masks to Americans that want to use them.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on your senators to confirm Lisa Cook and Sarah Bloom Raskin to the Federal Reserve.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Biden not to recruit fossil fuel executives for White House activities.
*Staff blow whistle on [UK] Environment Agency that "no longer deters polluters."*
This does not surprise me. The Tory Party is the all-out plutocracy party. Its policy on pollution by businesses is, "Full speed ahead." We've seen the EPA in the US quietly yield to business pressure under past administrations, Republican and Democrat, and then the corrupter converted it into the Environmental Poisoning Agency.
Justices Sotomayor, Gorsuch and Roberts say that the reports of a conflict over whether to wear masks in court sessions are untrue.
With Governor DeSantis's new special election thugs, it will require a hero to locally oversee an honest election.
A Republican-dominated county in Georgia is considering closing all but one of the voting places. The result would be to stop poor people from voting, because it would be too far to go.
In principle, they could vote by mail, but Republicans are also imposing new rules on that.
Republicans claim this won't stop poor people from voting, but given how Republicans endorse lying, I don't believe a word of it. There is no other reason for them to do these things except voter suppression, so they will surely get around to that.
Many people are calling the cops to report that they are being tracked using Apple airtags.
The systems to inform people that they are being tracked with airtags are available only to people that carry an iMonster or an Android phone. However, to use those devices as protection from tracking is perverse, because they are tracking devices themselves. The phone network records its locations and stores that data for months.
IMSI-catcher devices (used by thugs at protests to identify protesters) track them locally, too.
*It is easy to say that we [in the UK] must learn to live with Covid. But to do so ethically and responsibly means focusing on the welfare of all — not the political survival of the prime minister.*
Congress is considering a possible law to have the FTC write official summaries of terms and conditions of web sites.
This could be a step in the right direction, but not enough to make them acceptable. For any kind of service that is widely used, the state should regulate the allowable conditions, not merely summarize the conditions that the business chooses.
This is not to mention the many nasty aspects to what the dis-services actually do.
The CIA concluded that the "Havana syndrome" is mainly a mirage constructed out of various unrelated illnesses that people happened to develop. However, a few of the cases call for further investigation.
UK schools teach about the effects of drinking alcohol using texts sponsored by the alcoholic beverage companies.
The UK will allow experiments with planting gene-edited crops.
I see no reason why this should be totally forbidden, but each case needs to be checked with care. Almost any wild plant or animal species has the potential to become a dangerous invasive species if it gets to the wrong place, and a gene-edited variety has this no less than a wild variety. Varieties designed to kill "pests" could become threats to wild species, even very plentiful ones. (Pesticides have driven monarch butterflies close to extinction.)
In addition, gene-edited varieties could carry patent pollution that endangers poor farmers and the independence of family farms.
Massachusetts is considering proposed changes for its "right to repair" law for cars.
I think H400 is a step forward — the additional requirements are worth the delay — but more is needed. The law should also require that each new car offer a physical switch to turn off all radio transmission from the car (except when the user asks for an emergency call) and a physical switch to turn off all recording of location data (no matter how it is obtained or computed) and of any data from which locations could be inferred (such as by recording directions of motion or turns made).
I'm going to talk with my state lawmakers about this.
Despite the increased fighting spirit of US unions, the fraction of workers that belong to unions fell substantially in 2021.
The US is not doing as much for climate defense as most European countries, and it's too little, too late — but at least it's a start.
Robert Reich theorizes that Manchin and Sinema are drunk with the feeling of importance that they get from being able to block whatever Biden tries to do.
Millions of American retail and restaurant workers are in such a squeeze that they can't call in sick, even if they have Covid-19.
(satire) *Nancy Pelosi Introduces Landmark Legislation To Provide Aid For Struggling Personal Stock Portfolio.*
The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, intended to curb the power of big tech platforms.
*[450 scientists] called on public relations and advertising agencies to no longer work with fossil fuel clients.*
(satire) *Oxygen Masks Drop From Nation's Ceilings After Earth Hits Rough Patch In Orbit.*
Right-wing Covid-spreaders are boycotting the work clothes company Carhartt for maintaining a vaccination requirement for its workers.
Covid-19 is their biological weapon, and any organization that tries to resist it, they will try to make it give up. They have a grip on our government such that it is powerless to help us resist.
A plan to cancel most of Puerto Rico's debt will leave enough debt to crush it.
*360+ Climate Groups to Biden: Phase Out Fossil Fuels on Public Lands.*
I wish I knew what reasons for this he has in his head. Maybe he can't face the challenge of trying to lead the US into making the sacrifice necessary for the survival of the US (and the rest of the world too) -- but that's the job, and if he won't do it, no one else can.
Senator Cruz has invented a new form of campaign corruption in order to undermine campaign finance laws.
(satire) *Apple Acquires Apple In Historic $3 Trillion Deal.*
Biden announced a plan to provide N95 masks to everyone in the US.
He should have done this a year ago, but now is much better than never.
Papua New Guinea has abolished the death penalty.
Smoking makes your descendants (for three generations at least) likely to be fatter. What is amazing is that the effect depends in a complex way on details.
Ola Bini has been stuck in Ecuador for two years, awaiting trial on apparently bogus charges under a process including illegal actions by the state. How he will go on trial.
One must suspect that Ecuador is doing this to serve the US, just as it expelled Assange from the embassy to serve the US.
*America must take steps now to avoid a slide into authoritarianism.*
Lyft has donated 14 million dollars to buy a ballot initiative to deny Lyft's drivers the rights of employees.
*Medicare and ACA Call Center Workers Demand Basic COVID Protections.*
The talks to restore the non-nuclear deal with Iran have reached no agreement, and soon they will end.
Google Analytics declared illegal in the EU.
Bravo! But what we really need is to stop Google (and other companies) from collecting the sort of data that makes people vulnerable.
Kate Clanchy, Richard Dawkins and Priyamvada Gopal write about their experiences with cancellation.
In ASCII form, the page doesn't say whose writing starts where, but I think that Kate Clanchy's part starts with "I have no doubt that the critic," Richard Dawkins's part starts with "A university is a Socratic haven of free thought," and Priyamvada Gopal's part starts with "Let me be upfront."
I read the first part of Clanchy's book to see what the offense was about. She described physical and cultural traits of the various demographic groups of children she taught, mentioning differences that made an impression on her — but her only wish was to teach them all, not to judge them, and they appreciated that.
Maybe I understand how some people could look at that writing with a particular squint and see bigotry. What Clanchy wrote is not bigotry, but it has some superficial resemblance to certain expressions of bigotry. A racist might mention some of those same group characteristics as a build-up for a racist sneer at those children, and at their adult relatives. That would be real bigotry.
The error those cancellers made was to hype themselves into a hairtrigger state in which they look at something that superficially resembles bigotry, declare it to be real bigotry, and explode into hatred.
Clanchy warns that cancellation will someday drive someone to suicide. Sad to say, this has already happened. David Chappelle tells how his friend, trans comedienne Daphne Dwarman, was cancelled for supporting him, and killed herself from the pain. I would expect there are dozens more such instances.
I love Dawkins's point about the extreme contrast between progressive acceptance of transgenderism and condemnation of transracialism. The physical difference between the sexes is fundamental to reproduction; the physical difference between human racial groups is a matter of minor details that only occasionally have a substantial direct effect on living. In both cases we surround those physical differences with socially constructed roles. So why not let people identify as whatever racial groups they choose? Or invent new ones?
What about the right-wing cancellationism that Priyamvada Gopal reports? It operates using state power and financial influence. Left-wing cancellationism does not have state power or financial influence to work with, so it operates using hate mobs. They are both harmful to freedom of thought, but they look very different.
*Amid 'Slow-Motion Coup,' Manchin and Sinema Help GOP Sink Voting Rights.*
(satire) *Frustrated Hospital Worker Rounds Up Gurneys Patients Failed To Put in Parking Lot Corrals.*
Florida Republicans suspended the Orlando area director of public health for encouraging the staff to show their support for public health.
Public health goes against the Disease Spreader Party's politics.
A new form of malicious hardware: CPUs with circuits that won't allow it to work if moved to some other brand of computer.
Does this have an effect on software freedom? I don't see that it does, but it is nasty in any case.
* More than a thousand crows roost in Sunnyvale every night, ruffling locals’ feathers with caws and droppings.* At least they do it with good caws.
Can Buffy slay crows?
Some deep-water coral reefs seem to be safe from world-wide coral damage.
What I wonder is, can all the coral species that live in shallow reefs also live in deep reefs?
* Keynes argued that aiding our allies is more effective than sanctioning our foes.*
Sanctions are not very effective, so I suppose this is true.
The difficulty about aiding allies is that it costs money. Governments that are prostrate from having lowered taxes on the rich are not in a position to do this very much — and likewise the other good things they ought to do.
*New York attorney general alleges Trump firm misled banks and tax officials.*
Questioning the wrecker himself for a civil suit might be a mistake, since it would require giving him immunity from prosecution, and that would be most unfortunate.
The Tories have given in to right-wing pressure by saying that they will soon eliminate all the rules to reduce spread of Covid-19. Teachers and medical personnel say this is absurd.
This will allow people to "live normally", if they can ignore the danger from all the unmasked Covid-infected people they pass by. They will all catch and spread Covid-19 from time to time. Each time, it might kill them, or give them long Covid disabilities.
For the people who are "vulnerable", which is a large fraction of the US population, it will be extremely dangerous to come near other people, since many will be doing little or nothing to avoid transmitting the virus. Using public transit will be dangerous, so those who don't have cars will be stuck at home.
UK censorship: jail sentence for possessing a copy of The Anarchist's Cookbook.
Nazism is despicable, and the Anarchist's Cookbook explains how to make some explosives — but merely possessing a copy of a book must never be criminalized. That is just one small step away from thoughtcrime.
*Florida health official put on leave after encouraging staff to get Covid vaccine.*
*Woman sentenced to death in Pakistan over "blasphemous" WhatsApp activity.*
Unusually, the target this time is a Muslim who claims to be religious. But morally that makes no difference. It is vicious to punish anyone for "blasphemy" against any religion, and it demonstrates the danger of giving religion any more power than any other opinion.
*[Antibiotic-resistant bacteria] now a leading cause of death worldwide, study finds.*
Scientists have warned us for years that we need to put an end to overuse of antibiotics, or they will cease to work and that will kill lots of people. The reason we did not do so is that it would have reduced the profits of Big Ag. It's not the farmer workers that get more pay, nor the owners of small farms that sell their crops to Big Ag. It's the giant distributor/processors that get the money.
*Supreme Court rejects [the bullshitter's] bid to shield [official government] documents from January 6 panel.*
A prescribed burn in Texas got out of control and now needs to be treated as a wildfire.
The US does not do enough prescribed burns, and that insufficiency makes fires more dangerous when they eventually happen. But part of the reason for the insufficiency is that they are risky. Global heating makes them more risky.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Postal Service Reform Act.
* More than 100 members of the global super-rich called on Wednesday for governments around the world to "tax us now" to help pay for the pandemic response and tackle the gulf between rich and poor.*
Teenagers in Kutztown, Pennsylvania, have responded to Republican book-banners by starting a book club for reading banned books.
A study from the MIT business school found that America's "toxic corporate culture" is one of the main factors that motivated many workers to quit their jobs last year.
Exxon (and other oil companies) are trying to distract us by committing to to eliminate the greenhouse emissions from their own operations.
Those emissions are nothing compared with the emissions generated when their customers burn the oil or gas that Exxon sells them. That is the real problem.
Students in many US cities have demanded proper Covid protection or they will refuse to go to school.
A bill in the US Congress would try to prohibit targeted advertising based on certain personal characteristics, such as Google does. For instance, it would be forbidden to target an ad to "gay men".
Would the bill also forbid targeting an ad to a complicated criterion, which Google chose to correlate well with being a gay man? I think that's what Google actually does.
*An annual wealth tax targeting the world's millionaires and billionaires would raise enough revenue to lift 2.3 billion people out of poverty, provide universal healthcare to the people of low- and middle-income nations, and produce enough coronavirus vaccines to meet global demand.*
Exxon is suing the California officials who brought suit against Exxon for deceitfully denying its part in global heating.
The argument based on the First Amendment is absurd. Indeed, the First Amendment covers claiming that burning oil does not cause global heating. It is not a crime to make that claim. But that is not an excuse, if making that claim was part of a scheme to damage other people and they sue.
It worries me greatly that judges are reportedly giving credence to that argument.
*Dumped fishing gear is killing marine life. Yet no governments seem to care.*
I don't recall seeing a proposal to pass US laws to curb this practice. It is easy to think of ways to do it. Which way would be best, I wouldn't propose to say with my lack of experience.
* Expanding national parks not enough to protect nature, say scientists. "Urgent": coordinated action to tackle overconsumption, farming subsidies and the climate crisis also needed to halt biodiversity loss.*
Israel evicted one more Palestinian family from Sheikh Jarrah. There is always some good project as an excuse, but the net result if to kick out Arab residents, because the plan is to convert the neighborhood.
Israel annexed Sheikh Jarrah to Jerusalem. It was not part of Jerusalem at all before 1967.
*How a Powerful Company Convinced Georgia to Let It Bury Toxic Waste in Groundwater.*
In the UK, computer systems track parking in stores' parking lots.
Even if the store decides not to act like an ass, it is still wrong to track people. But London is planning to make it even more complete, by charging owners of fossil fuel cars a fee for each trip made.
I am in favor of charging fossil fuel cars a bigger fee to operate, but if the purpose is reducing emissions, there is no reason to care where the car travelled, not even whether it was in London or not.
UN Secretary General Guterres pointed out that, to cope with global heating, global pandemic, global debt, and global inequality, we need global solidarity. "If we leave anyone behind, in the end, we leave everyone behind."
The UK's House of Lords rejected the repressive anti-protest measures in the Tories' latest repression bill.
That does not mean they are dead. If the Tories are stubborn enough and have no defectors, they can eventually push this through.
China and Russia are increasing their military and economic power while that of the US is crumbling.
Many of us have hoped to see the weaker parts of the world overcome US imperialism and violence, for the sake of justice and human rights. Now it seems that the US may lose its power, but not in a way that benefits human rights for anyone weak.
China and Russia have become vicious mad dictatorships. Different, of course — the Chinese Communist Party cares to some extent about the well-being of Chinese and China, whereas Putin and his barons are more short-term greedy — but they both vaunt their contempt for human rights to discourage anyone who might thing of trying to defend them. Each has rehabilitated the mass-murderers that ruled them in the past (Mao and Stalin).
Against them, the only bastion in the world is the United States, whose evil aspects are quite familiar to us, and which teeters on the edge of falling into a dictatorship as mad and vicious as China and Russia already are.
The next mass extinction, the first to be caused by humans, is slowly accelerating, but most people hardly pay attention. The IUCN Red List of threatened species covers only 5% of the species we have identified, and many more species are extinct already than it mentions.
*America has taken its eyes off the ball on Iran.* The US has not tried offered enough to get a return to the non-nuclear deal with Iran. The unfortunate consequences could be unending.
To avoid being infected by anti-mask Justice Gorsuch, Justice Sotomayor never attends Supreme Court sessions in person.
This has been denied by the justices involved
US citizens: phone your Democratic senators at 833-346-1256 and call on them to hold a prolonged debate on the voting rights bill, as pressure on senators Manchin and Sinema.
The Houthis launched an air strike at an oil installation in the UAE. This has inspired peculiar outrage.
Salafi Arabia and the UAE have attacked the Houthis in Yemen for years, on the ground and from the air, attacking all sorts of targets including homes. Why in the world would people feel outrage when the Houthis retaliate in kind?
Both Salafi Arabia and UAE are ruled by murderous despots. The acting king of Salafia Arabia, Crown Prince Bone Saw, arranged the murder of Jamal Khashoggi. One of the nobles of the UAE has just been formally accused of torture.
The Houthis are probably not much better, but I see no reason to judge it by a stricter standard than the other two.
China arrested a long-time annoying dissident on charges of pleading to be allowed to join his dying wife in the US. He was charged with suspicion of intending to annoy the state.
*Torture complaint filed against new president of Interpol.* It has been filed with a French court on the occasion of his visit to Interpol headquarters in France, on behalf of two people who were tortured in the UAE.
*I study crowds — that’s why I know the [UK's] police and crime bill will make us less safe.*
* The irony is that the repressive power of the police, supposedly the means of stopping violence, is actually the source of most violence in crowd events — either directly (the police inflict far more violence than is inflicted upon them) or indirectly (the repression of protesters' rights inflames previously peaceable crowds).*
Some scientists assert that the global level of chemical pollution threatens to destabilize global ecosystems.
This threat would be on top of that of climate mayhem, which is already destabilizing global ecosystems.
China has got its hands on 2500 dissidents who were living overseas.
In some cases this was done by kidnapping. In some cases, China used Interpol. Some returned "voluntarily" after China used their relatives as hostages.
Sometimes ordinary extradition sufficed, since China does not hesitate to fabricate accusations of nonpolitical "crimes".
The US has used relatives as hostages to try to make people spy for the US.
*Another 'Big Lie' Corporatists Like to Tell: Bipartisanship Will Lead to Progress.*
I prefer the term "plutocracy" to "corporatocracy", because the crucial thing about that bad system is that the rich wield the power. Their use of corporations to do so is a detail of methods.
Bipartisanship existed in the US when both the major parties in the US were working for the rich. To the extent that Democrats worked for working people, or disprivileged racial groups, that broke the bipartisanship.
We are seeing a dangerous outbreak of bipartisanship right now: various congresscritters claim that the Biden administration has implemented the No Surprises Act — which is meant to prevent shocking, unexpectedly high medical bills — in an excessively effective fashion. They say the law was not supposed to work so effectively.
One of them, Richard Neale, was reelected in 2020 by means of dirty tricks against his opponent.
New York's new mayor, an ex-thug himself, has seized on a small increase in street crime as an excuse to hire a lot more thugs.
The article proposes better ways to spend that money on reducing low-level crime, without increasing repression.
The most destructive crimes in the US are committed by powerful companies, and can't be stopped at the level of city governments.
Most "negative reactions" to some Covid-19 vaccines are not caused by the vaccine itself; they result are caused by the negative form of the placebo effect.
*Investigation alleges Israeli police carried out phone intercepts [using Pegasus spyware] without court supervision or monitoring of how data was used.*
Pegasus was used to snoop on dozens of journalists and human rights activists in Bahrain and Jordan.
Australia's immigration agency takes travelers' phones and copies their contents, much as the US does.
People who are concerned about this danger don't bring phones when they travel. They get a phone in the destination country and leave it there when they depart it.
(satire) *Smart Home Security Camera Conspires With Burglars In Exchange For Half The Loot.*
Sanders: *As We Honor Dr. King, We Must Remember What He Truly Stood For.*
Some people cite King to attack the Liberals of the day, but none of these ideas was outside the range of what American Liberals supported.
*In an era of right-wing populism, we cannot destroy democracy in order to save it.*
The UK government is campaigning against end-to-end encryption, presenting this as a way to prevent "child sexual abuse".
My understanding is that real sexual abuse of real children is usually carried out by relatives and friends of the family. The abusers don't use the internet either to carry out that abuse or to meet the children.
Some points in the article suggest that the word "child" is being misapplied to adolescents. What adolescents need is help navigating the area of sex, showing them how to avoid bad trysts and relationships and find good ones.
An anthropologist says many Americans have become accustomed to walling themselves off from their surroundings — that could be why they wanted a wall against Mexico.
The UK took away a man's citizenship, claiming that was OK because in theory he could apply Bangladeshi citizenship. But in fact he couldn't, so the UK had to restore his citizenship.
Meanwhile, his youngest daughter, born while he was exiled, is still denied British citizenship, perhaps forever.
He was never told any reason for his five-year exile, and never accused of a crime.
North Korean defectors in South Korea face a life of poverty (despite government aid) and loneliness.
A review of the military situation in Ukraine suggests that Russia could probably conquer Ukraine, but could not occupy it for long.
Russia might attack through Belarus. Or it might try to capture only parts of Eastern Ukraine.
I am skeptical of the idea of deterring that attack by threatening economic sanctions, because that approach has almost never succeeded in changing a country's policies.
This suggests to me that the US and NATO should announce a commitment to defend Ukraine from an overt invasion by Russia, and move divisions into Poland (if Poland agrees) near the frontiers with Ukraine and Belarus.
If Russia attacks Ukraine through Belarus, it would be legitimate and easy to send NATO troops into Belarus to fight the Russian troops there. This would probably spark an uprising, as it would offer an opportunity to overthrow Lukashenko. The Belarusian army would be unable to suppress an uprising while facing invading forces. Its units might even accept the invitation to change sides, or remain in their bases doing nothing.
That won't happen, because in that situation, Lukashenko would tell Putin he doesn't want Belarus to be involved. Without Belarus, Putin would hesitate to launch a full-scale invasion. He might engage in destabilization, but Ukraine does not need NATO troops to deal with that.
Biden has chosen a weak posture by ruling out military deterrence. That makes war more attractive to Putin and thus more likely.
20 women protested in Kabul, standing on a street and chanting "equality and justice" with signs. Taliban thugs came and shot them with pepper spray.
Even racist American thugs probably wouldn't attack 20 Black Lives Matter supporters with pepper spray.
The Taliban thugs stole the phone from a bystander who was making a video. American thugs often do that sort of thing. It is despicable in either country: if you know your action will look like cruelty, don't do it!
The strife that killed over 200 people in Kazakhstan seems to have been a power struggle between Nazarbayev, the retired ruler, and the new president Tokayev, who was supposed to preserve the power of Nazarbayev's family.
Maybe the truck drivers' protests were organized by Tokayev's supporters. Or maybe they were real popular protests, and Tokayev hijacked them for his own ends. I don't know how we can find out.
The Biden administration has done a lousy job of protecting the US from Covid-19. It relied on vaccines alone, without enough effort to use other methods, such as masks that effectively protect the wearer (as well as others), distancing, and testing.
Much of the problem was due to intentional obstruction by the disease-spreader party, and some of it was surely a matter of bowing to powerful plutocratic forces. But if Biden had pushed visibly for a better response, he would be able to blame those enemies for the failure.
*Corporate Polluters Want Us to Stay Distracted.*
*10 Reasons the OAS Secretary-General Must Go.*
Ralph Nader: *Time for Attorney General Garland to Create Corporate Crime Database.*
Ralph Nader: Eight New Year's Resolutions for NPR to Consider Now.
I would add: stop running commercials! I stopped donating to my local NPR when I heard commercials on it — not messages of thanks for a donation, but messages that companies paid it to read — and I also greatly reduced my listening to it.
A spoof interview with a spoof member of the UK parliament fooled people — it seemed normal for members of parliament to make absurd excuses.
There is no way to clean up the oil that spilled on Huntington Beach last year, and it may continue harming seabirds and marine animals for a long time.
As global heating melts icecaps, the added weight of the ocean will cause more volcanic eruptions and tsunamis.
Israel is trying to force Palestinians out of Sheikh Jarrah, where many families have lived since before 1967. One man says he will set himself on fire rather than leave.
More about Sheikh Jarrah and how this relates to things.
Why it is very important to protect yourself from catching Omicron.
*This is what "cutting red tape" gets you: rivers polluted without consequence.*
Our safety depends on enforcement of safety regulations; that's one of the many missions for which we need the state.
The UK's NHS doctors are working such long hours that they are losing track of their actions while treating patients.
*As long as party donations can be obscured, British politics will not be clean.*
India has shut down Kashmir's independent press club.
China is firmly suppressing all languages other than Mandarin. Not only the languages of non-Chinese peoples, such as Tibetan and Uyghur, are under attack: even the other Chinese languages, such as Shanghainese and Cantonese, are being eliminated in China.
This reminds me of what the US and Canada did to indigenous languages — and, with the Uyghur, China is using even more cruelty than the US and Canada used.
The other Chinese languages are traditionally called "Chinese dialects" in English, but that is a misnomer. They are not dialects of Mandarin; they are far too different for that.
Cantonese will survive among people of Chinese origin in countries to the south, such as Vietnam and Singapore.
Some of India's Hindu extremists are calling for genocide of Muslims, with tacit support from the ruling Hindu-extremist party.
Some of them call for genocide against Christians. Hindu extremists are persecuting Christians already. Surely they won't spare Buddhists.
Just 0.01% of bitcoin holders control 27% of the existing bitcoin. Thus, bitcoin is basically a system for concentrating wealth.
Students in some US cities are going on strike, demanding either protective masks and testing, or remote education.
I understand their wish for remote education, for safety. Unfortunately, the way US schools normally do remote education is a threat to their freedom. Schools should not ask students to run a nonfree program or give data to an online dis-service.
Manchin and Sinema say they will block the voting rights bills, by refusing to vote an exception to the filibuster for them.
I heard that Schumer plans to have a floor vote on this question on Wednesday, to put them on the spot.
The IMF should reallocate its "special drawing rights" to help poor countries make up for the harm done by slavery and colonialism.
I see one flaw in the article: it talks about "solutions" for the climate crisis in a way that seems shifty. Does this refer to efforts to reduce and stop global heating, which is treating the disease, or does it refer to assuaging some of the immediate symptoms for the short term? The former will help save civilization and nature; the latter will only help delay some of the damage for a few decades.
We must insist on this distinction so we can focus on the long term.
Russia is apparently making cyber-attacks against Ukrainian government web sites.
*What more could Novak Djokovic have done? Get vaccinated, isolate and get the facts right.*
The Australian government should get its policies straight, and avoid confusion in its decisions, but there's no reason to give anyone permission to enter who is unvaccinated by choice.
The Philippines will require vaccination as a condition for using public transit.
The article does not state whether poor people can easily get vaccinated gratis. If they cannot, that puts them in danger; furthermore, this requirement amounts to discrimination.
However, if everyone can get vaccinated, that is their solution: to get vaccinated.
The policy properly offers exemptions for those who, for medical reasons, cannot be vaccinated.
The Jan 6 attack investigation committee will investigate how various antisocial media companies handled postings leading up to the attack, and how they interpreted and enforced their rules.
*Timeline of Filibuster Helps Explain Why So Many Say It Now Needs to Go.*
For decades, the filibuster has been extremely convenient for right-wing forces to block legislation to reduce racism.
If Republicans succeed in imposing minority rule, the remaining Senate Democrats might find it useful — but the Republicans would surely eliminate it immediately if it got in their way. Most Republicans believe victory overrides any and all principles; the few who do not, don't have any principles against imposed minority rule.
*The [possible] Overthrow of American Democracy: A Scorecard for [the corrupter]'s Next Coup.*
The triumphal march of cultural bigotry advances ever onward: there is a movement to allow only Jews to play parts that are Jewish.
There are many intersecting subsets of Americans (for instance) who have a certain aspect of their culture in common. New Yorkers tend to have much in common, and so do Texans. But not all New Yorkers are similar, nor all Texans, nor are all Jews. With equal validity, casting directors could be compelled to classify parts and actors into lots of small pigeonholes.
Here's a part for a white Midwestern Evangelical Christian. There's one for an Irish Protestant. And that one, for a Texan Evangelical from Austin. Another role is someone from Dallas. Yet another, from a rural area near the Mexican border. These cultures are not the same.
Here's a part for Hasidic Jew of Polish background, from Brooklyn. That part likewise, calls for a Jew of Polish extraction, but Orthodox. There's a part for a mostly assimilated not-very-religious Jew from a New Jersey suburb, who went to a prestigious university, like per parents. And another for one who went to a community college. These cultures are not the same either. Which of those differences are the most important?
Who should be allowed to play a transsexual Nazi Eskimo (as suggested in "Can't Watch This", by Weird Al Yankovic)? Or a neo-Nazi playwright (as in The Producers)? Should those roles be limited to actors who are real American Nazis?
Productions won't carry this to the point where it makes casting impossible. But those are not morally significant questions — only variations among groups of people. If it is ok to ignore most of these divisions, then it is ok to consider only the ones that are important for good performance of any particular role. Along with everything else that is important for a good performance.
If gentiles are forbidden to play Jewish parts, gentile actors will demand, for fairness, that Jews be forbidden to play gentile parts. Here are some Jewish actors who have been very successful playing non-Jewish parts, and might have been barred by cultural bigotry.
Jamie Lee Curtis, Tony Curtis, Kirk Douglas, Robert Downey Jr, Douglas Fairbanks Jr,
Mira Furlan, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, Kate Hudson, Harvey Keitel, Hedy Lamarr,
Peter Lorre, Leonard Nimoy, Sean Penn, Rhea Jo Perlman, William Shatner, Eli Wallach,
all three stooges.
200 prisoners in New York City's Riker's Island jail are on hunger strike to condemn the dangerous conditions that they are subjected to.
US citizens: call on the SEC to require large corporations to publish the amount of their greenhouse gas emissions.
Citizens of Massachusetts: call on your state legislators to pass H.3453/S.2304, to stop jailing people and suspending their driving licenses over debt.
(satire) *[New York City mayor] Eric Adams Appoints Deputy Patsy For All Future Corruption Probes.*
(satire) *The Onion's 1-Second Workout.*
Last year Canada set up a national childcare system for all parents that need it. It is a big success.
Senator Sinema pretends to support voting rights, but she doesn't really support them much if she would drop them to protect the filibuster.
Two of the main officials of the Council for Environmental Quality have recently quit.
One can guess that they feel it is impossible to achieved what they hoped to do, a year ago. They may be disappointed with Biden. Or they may be disappointed with Sinema and Manchin's defeat of Biden's climate defense legislation.
Many doctors protested Spotify for letting Joe Rogan distribute vaccine disinformation.
Germany's contact tracing organization rebuked German thugs for using contact tracing data to investigate a crime.
The contact tracer said that the system is designed to deny the thugs access to the data, and speculated the thugs fabricated a fake Covid contact to get access.
It is extremely short-sighted for thugs to do this. The benefit of finding one criminal is not worth the cost of undermining trust in the state.
(satire) *Newly Uncovered Manuscript Reveals China Invented English Language 700 Years Before Western World.*
*Guns, ammo … even a boat: how Oath Keepers plotted an armed coup.*
*US claims Russia planning ‘false-flag’ operation to justify Ukraine invasion.*
Putin's seizure of Crimea was a kind of false-flag operation, carried out by Russian soldiers disguised as something other than Russian soldiers.
* Pandemics, the climate crisis and the algorithms used by tech giants feel too amorphous to squeeze into the dramatic form [of tragedy].*
*Global heating linked to [premature] birth and damage to babies' health, scientists find.* Also to obesity.
*The US supreme court to Americans: tough luck if you get Covid at work.*
*Extinction Rebellion activists cleared over London rush hour disruption.*
It looks like the British public understand what is really at stake when the same authorities that disregard the climate danger prosecute those who try to wake people up.
Powell, the Republican that Biden continued as head of the Federal Reserve, is willing to let climate disaster build up for fear of the pain of making changes to prevent it.
That's like an idiot who won't get dental treatment for a cavity or won't get tested for cancer. The longer you let these things go, the worse they get.
Tigray is running out of insulin, as no supplies have reached that region in months.
Tigray's government says that Ethiopia is blockading Tigray. Ethiopia's government says that Tigrayan forces are attacking aid trucks. The latter is a priori implausible, so I think that a blockade is the real cause.
It is easy for the Ethiopian government to block supply from Ethiopia. Why can't supplies be brought in from Sudan? Is it possible to air-drop medicine?
In 2009, a giant oil spill poisoned seaweed farms of East Timor and Indonesia. The company that let it happen has resisted in court, and the people's whose farms are still poisoned have received no compensation.
The EU objects to holding a meeting of the WTO to consider allowing generic vaccines while the pandemic is going on.
I'm surprised they aren't ashamed of making such a transparently bogus excuse.
(satire) *Breakthrough Procedure Allows Surgeons To Transplant Pig Rib Directly Into Human Mouth.*
The US is losing the social cohesion that is needed for any country to thrive. What could possibly get it back?
It is cute to describe political camps as "tribes", but when one of the camps aims to abolish democracy, spread disease and surrender the climate battle, letting that camp "win" for a while would allow them to create even bigger and broader deadly strife.
US citizens: support the Disinfo Defense League platform.
(satire) *LAPD Cautions Residents To Look Out For Dozens Of Bullets Officers Sent Ricocheting Around City.*
Senators Ossoff and Kelly have proposed a bill to prohibit members of Congress (and their families) from buying and selling stocks.
A Republican proposed something similar.
*Big Bank, Corporate Destruction of Forests Worsening Climate Crisis.*
Human rights defenders warn that a new treaty to combat "cybercrime" could become a tool for repression of dissent.
Frito-Lay employees ended a strike when the company agreed to give each worker at least one day off in each week.
How is it that any business operating in the US is allowed to deny that to any worker? I thought that US law required a lot more than that. But apparently not. What's the origin of this problem?
A Wisconsin court reinterpreted state law to prohibit ballot drop-off boxes. Those who could overrule this decision are Republicans, and won't do so.
Electricity consumption grew 7% last year, and renewable generation grew only 6%. Thus, fossil fuel consumption for generating electricity increased too. This is going in the wrong direction.
New bureaucratic requirements in Texas are causing rejection of many applications for mail-in ballots.
In some counties, the rejection rate is 50%. In other places, it is less but it is substantial.
Biden allows continued sale of coal leases. This caused a 14% increase in coal consumption in 2021 alone.
Increasing numbers of young men are having vasectomies because they recognize that it's not good to have children in a world headed into climate disaster.
It's not good for the children, and it's not good for the rest of the world.
The UK government is telling Afghan and Yemeni refugees that their home countries are safe to return to.
In the case of the specific Afghan refugee, it could well be true that the Taliban have no specific interest in bothering him. But Afghanistan is a violent, dangerous place, and is facing hunger because of sanctions. As for Yemen, that is still a war zone, facing hunger because of sanctions and combat.
8000 workers in Kroger supermarkets near Denver are on strike.
The big supermarket conglomerates nowadays use many different brands. Wikipedia lists the names Kroger stores use. These stores are labeled "King Sooper".
Negotiation between the US and Russia has failed. Putin demands that NATO make major concessions or he will attack.
Putin would be more likely to forego war if Ukraine were more strongly defended. The US should have made sure to strengthen Ukraine enough to deter war; there was no danger in doing that.
Threatening sanctions never had much chance of success. Indeed, sanctions have usually failed to change other countries' foreign policy. They often hurt the people of the targeted country, but its dictator generally doesn't care about them.
The sanction that would worry Putin is to refuse to buy Russia's gas, but Europe hasn't got the courage to do it. Indeed, Russia is cutting its gas sales to Europe to provoke distress there and make European leaders timid. The courageous response for Europe would be to boost construction of renewable generation facilities, while meanwhile using temporary measures to help people get along with less gas.
It would have been wiser all along for the US not to try to extend NATO to Ukraine and Georgia. But the way Putin has shaped this confrontation, to agree to the demand now would be an abject surrender.
The bloodthirsty cruelty of Islamic law was on public display in Aceh. Nearly all the Islamic states deny religious freedom to their inhabitants by punishing blasphemy and by prohibiting Muslims from converting to any other belief.
US citizens: Phone your senators at 1-833-497-4273 to urge them to fix the filibuster and pass the Freedom to Vote: John R. Lewis Act. It is the combination of the two voting rights laws that progressives have campaigned for for several years.
US citizens: call on Red Lobster to offer paid sick leave to its employees, and thus protect customers' health.
US citizens: tell NYC Mayor Adams: No slumlords on your transition team!
US citizens: call on senators to confirm Lael Brainard to the Federal Reserve.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
The UN says it can't get enough food into Tigray to keep people alive, nor the fuel to transport that food. The supplies of food have been insufficient since July.
Can anyone find reports that explain what is really going on in that war?
One of Assad's torturer commanders has been convicted in Germany of overseeing the torture of 4,000 prisoners. Some of them testified in his trial.
Someone used Pegasus spyware to spy on 35 journalists in El Salvador. Based on the fact that they were investigating accusations against the tyrannical president, we can suspect this was done behalf of the government or the president.
The UK general repression bill plans intense repression of Gypsies. Their vehicles could be confiscated on suspicion and their children taken away. The UK already has laws to punish homeless people for sleeping on the street, or in an unoccupied home.
All this just as Britain is facing a critical shortage of housing.
As the animals that disperse seeds shift habitats in response to global heating, the plants they used to disperse tend to be left without a way to shift. That reduces their range, so that all sorts of random local accidents can wipe them out.
The leader of the Oath Keepers has been charged with seditious conspiracy for the Jan 6 attack on the Capitol, along with other members.
Some Australians call for public works to repair beaches and protect them. This would be worth doing if not for global heating. Two or more meters of sea level rise in this century will overwhelm these local efforts.
If they want to preserve today's beaches, they have to start by preserving today's sea level, and that calls for climate defense. Strange that this article doesn't say a word about this.
Sinema seems to have killed all hope to rescue US elections from Republican rigging.
(satire) *CDC Announces Plan To Send Every U.S. Household Pamphlet On Probabilistic Thinking.*
When it comes to preventing Covid-19, the CDC should give people clear and simple recommendations. But these pamphlets could be useful to help people recognize and reject disinformation.
*Ohio Supreme Court Strikes Down GOP Partisan Gerrymandering.*
*Report Debunks Manchin's Inflation Argument Against Build Back Better.*
When plutocratist Democrats defeat progressive programs, the next thing they do is pretend that the programs failed because they went "too far left." This is supposed to be a reason to vote for plutocratist Democrats. Polls show that large majorities of Americans support the main progressive policy programs.
Now they are pushing for Clinton to run again for president.
I will back Sanders if he runs.
*Biden Under Fire for Resisting Calls to Distribute N95 Masks to All.*
The Burmese army is fighting heavily with rebels in the city of Loikaw. Most of the inhabitants (perhaps over 100,000) have fled.
Since the start of the pandemic, *while wealthiest got richer, 140m people fell into poverty as jobs were lost, wiping out years of gains for poorest.*
Here's an article that tries to convince us that what's really bad about global heating is that it treats disprivileged groups worse than privileged groups.
Sure, unfairness is wrong. But if most people in every group are going to be killed -- plus over half the other living species -- isn't that much worse?
If, in that killing of billions, an equal fraction were going to be killed in every ethnic or racial group, that would not make it ok.
NYC's new mayor, in regard to the recent fire, downplays the owner's failure to maintain and operate the building safely, and focuses on the tenants' dangerous methods for coping with those flaws.
It's generally better to fix the system than to try to teach many individuals to work perfectly within the existing flawed system. At one level, that's the reason to require central heating. At another, that's the reason for building codes. At another, that's the reason for progressive politics.
Blood donations in the US are down, due to the spread of Covid-19, and supplies of some blood types are running dangerously low.
Soon, injured people may start dying because there is no blood available to give them transfusions.
*Trump loyalists form alliance in bid to take over election process in key states.*
Republican fanatics are now leading a blacklisting campaign against teachers that explain racism in American history.
The right-wing justices on the US Supreme Court rejected OSHA's vaccination mandate for medium and large businesses. With this ruling they began to support the Republican Party's strategy to incapacitate the US with disease, and blame the consequences on Democrats.
Calling for the elimination of ICBMs, to eliminate the hurry to launch a nuclear attack because one seems possibly to be on its way.
*What would the Supreme Court's "originalists" think of the filibuster?
If they were honest, they'd find it unconstitutional.*
An Israeli writes about his long friendship with his Palestinian Aseel friend, who worked for peace, and was shot dead for no reason by Israeli thugs while standing unarmed in the middle of a nonviolent rally.
Covid-19 has transformed commercial sea cruises into real adventures! (I'd rather stay home.)
As the rich show off their wealth, they show we need to impose a wealth tax.
The Republican Party will refuse to debate Democrats for the presidency.
Democrats should invite the Green Party and the "Libertarian" Party to the debate, so that the Republicans will miss out on the chance rather than cancel it.
*Mississippi: felon disenfranchisement is a racist labyrinth worthy of Kafka.*
The people who set up that system chose a set of felonies to trigger disenfranchisement, not because they were the worst of felonies, but because they were likely to disenfranchise blacks.
If the wrecker captures the presidency through a coup, the US could fall apart in chaos.
US citizens: push the EPA to regulate methane emissions.
The department of HHS is pushing back on a cost increase for Medicare that would be needed to pay for an exorbitantly expensive drug that might prevent Alzheimer's disease.
The approval of that drug may have been a mistake, and some corrupt influence is suspected.
The complaint against Rep. Cawthorn requires him to demonstrate he is eligible to run for the House of Representatives — specifically, that he was not involved in the Jan 6 insurrection.
Several prestigious US universities are being sued for illegally rejecting applicants specifically for being poor.
A special law allows universities to collaborate (rather than compete) on how much financial aid they offer, but only with the condition that they don't consider need for financial aid as a criterion for admissions.
All in all, other countries do a much better job of keeping the cost of higher education down.
People who refuse the basic precautions against the spread of Covid-19 endanger people who get badly sick or injured in any way.
The lockdowns in Britain whose purpose was to reduce cases of Covid-19 were effective for that. They also prevented nearly all of the expected hospitalizations of children for flu, meningitis, tonsillitis, and bronchiolitis: over 70,000 cases in all.
*EPA begins enforcement on clean up of toxic coal-ash ponds.*
Argentina's new center-left government is doing surprisingly well at climbing out of the economic hole that the previous right-wing government and the IMF contrived to put it into.
(satire) *Man Horrified After Genealogy Test Confirms He Has No Past.*
Texas schools are blocking internet access to sites that help queer students avoid suicide, and cope with hatred.
Arguing that the corruptor really is an antichrist. That statement doesn't make any supernatural claims.
(satire) *Gates Foundation Sues Thousands Of Charities For Infringing On Trademark Concept Of Philanthropy.*
The Gates Foundation's announcement fell into a common confusion by equating trademarks with patents. This sort of confusion turns almost any statement into conceptual garbage.
See https://gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html and https://gnu.org/philosophy/komongistan.html.
Workers at an Amazon warehouse will get a new vote on unionization.
*UK government sued over "pie-in-the-sky" net-zero climate strategy.*
93% of the children in West Virginia were supported last year by the Child Tax Credit. Senator Manchin of West Virginia says he couldn't possibly justify continuing that support to the people of his state.
One of Assad's interrogation officials fled from Syria and described the system which tortured people to get information, which he participated in as a supervisor. Now he is on trial for his role in the system.
Covid-19 is again filling US hospitals in many states. In addition, with so many medical workers sick with Covid-19, it is hard for the hospitals to treat so many the patients.
A Tory minister has promised that the UK government will pay for rebuilding the flammable construction of residences in Britain. But this is no legal commitment, just a personal promise. He could be replaced as minister with the promise unkept.
The UK is going to push millions into penury with rising prices for fossil fuel. Labour has joined the push for a windfall profits tax, such as the US adopted in the oil shortage of the 1970s.
The Tories have adopted plans to reduce use of fossil fuels, but they have cancelled them before it was time to spend money. That's because "more for the rich" is its priority.
Labour's plan is not particularly bold. It is an adequate plan, and much better than none at all. However, we won't see any bold plans from Labour now that it has kicked out Corbyn and his supporters. It has decided against boldness.
*German climate minister says speed of carbon cuts needs to be trebled* to achieve the country's targets.
Quebec plans to tax those who refuse Covid-19 vaccination, on the grounds that they are choosing to impose costs on the NHS.
Vaccination is so important that this is justified. However, it would be wrong to extend that to much actions that don't put others in danger; that would lead to a pervasively repressive society.
Bogus Johnson's decision to invite officials and friends to a party at his office, disregarding the strict rules that said no one else in Britain could have such a party, have focused anger at him.
Planet-roaster Tories want to seize the opportunity to replace him with someone who will officially cancel Britain's climate commitments.
WHO Europe forecasts that half the population of Europe will be infected with Omicron soon.
The article presents recommendations, including mandating high-quality masks, priorities for vaccination, and others.
*Ugandan writer charged over tweets critical of President Museveni.*
So many countries are repressive to those who criticize the rulers.
*Covid has undermined fight against global heating, says WEF.*
*Cuba Shows How to Take Action [to cope with climate mayhem].
The more important climate action is to reduce the amount of global heating. As we do more of that, we spare every region lots of work coping with climate mayhem, because there will be less climate mayhem to cope with.
*Voters move to block [the corrupter's] ally Madison Cawthorn from re-election,* citing the constitutional amendment barring candidates that have taken the oath to defend the constitution and violated it.
The last seven years were the seven hottest since records began.
The last three years set records for the heat of the oceans.
Prejudice against Dalits is so powerful in India that those Dalits who make it into middle-class society work desperately to conceal their background. They could be shunned, fired, even murdered.
Small killer robots are feasible now — especially if they find their target by the IMSI and IMEI codes in the transmissions from a portable phone.
It is possible to prevent their use in war, with a treaty. But I think that criminal gangs will use them for assassination.
From Free Press: US citizens, please phone Senator Maria Cantwell at (202) 224-3441 and call on her to hold the vote to confirm Gigi Sohn in the FCC before the end of January. If no one answers, please leave a message.
Climate-based disasters in 2021 cost the US $145 billion last year.
This is going to get a lot worse over the next few decades, until we stabilize the greenhouse gas levels.
Ahmaud Arbery's murderers were sentenced to life in prison.
I think this is justice. However, for the goal of eliminating white supremacism, it is just a small step.
*Sanders Says Democrats Need 'Major Course Correction' to Prevent GOP Takeover. "In too many ways the Democratic Party has turned its back on the working class," argues the Vermont senator.*
Climate mayhem is wiping out the terns and puffins that lived on the islands of Maine. The water there is now too hot for the fish that used to live there.
*How the speed of [global heating] is unbalancing the insect world.*
(satire) *Man Tries To Regain Sense Of Control In Chaotic Universe By Learning To Juggle.*
Governors from the Democratic Party have vetoed bills in California and Maine that would have permitted farm workers to unionize.
The FTC has investigated what personal data ISPs collect from their customers. However it is thinking in terms of regulating how ISPs can use that data, rather than whether they can collect it. In general, that choice is the ineffective choice.
If you can find a way to tell the FTC, "Limit the data ISPs can collect!", that would be useful to do — and I would be glad to post here the way to reach that agency, if it does not require running nonfree Javascript code.
Proposing to unite the racial groups in a society by defining them as not exclusive of each other. The article proposes this specifically for the case of New Zealand, but it could be applicable elsewhere.
The Taliban have jailed a professor for criticizing their policies.
An opposition candidate defeated one of Maduro's lieutenants in an election for Congress.
The article doesn't say which opposition position the winner supports — was it the "surrender to the US" golpista opposition of Guaidó, or was it the honest-government opposition? I wish I could find out.
*Defusing the climate emergency requires defusing threats to American democracy.*
This is because the Republican support for plutocracy goes so far you would expect it only in satirical exaggeration. Surely real plutocrats would not be so absurdly greedy!
*Bolsonaro Gave Brazil's Army New [Political] Powers. The Generals Won't Give Them Up Easily.*
*The EU’s police agency, Europol, will be forced to delete much of a vast store of personal data that it has been found to have amassed unlawfully by the bloc’s data protection watchdog.*
To defend democracy requires anonymity. So the next challenge is to limit what data that agency, and other "security" agencies, can collect in the first place. Also what data businesses can collect.
Republicans are passing state laws to give themselves excuses to arbitrarily overturn elections for partisan motives.
Their planned elimination of democracy, followed by repression, could be lawful in a superficial sense. However, it would result in a blatantly undemocratic, thus blatantly illegitimate government.
No one knows how to make an institution that can adapt to all possible future situations without falling into a trap that perverts it into something worthless. But I did not expect to see that during my lifetime.
The United States had never implemented democracy and human rights fully and properly; there have been struggles over this through its whole history. But at least it provided a framework for that struggle, within which progress and victory were possible. If that is lost, where will it be possible to imagine victory? We may have a world in which all the pressing struggles are between one disgusting illegitimate regime and another. Will it be worth fighting for the US to prevent China's world domination if the US has become almost as repressive as China?
In that, in which the demand for democracy and human rights is seen as a distraction, one that people are permitted to talk about with some nostalgia only because that talk can have no consequences. In a few decades, what is now the United States may be split into dozens of little absolutist regimes that fight over whatever fragments of technology can still be used, and people will hardly remember what human rights once meant.
Now even in CNN: arguing that people should save the planet by having fewer children.
It's good to reproduce bugs, to fix them. It's good to reproduce works of art, to share them. But we need to have a lot less reproducing of human beings, in every part of the world, to greatly reduce the load we put on nature.
Ralph Nader calls for a ten-year plan to reverse the takeover of the US by business, including the idea that businesses deserve rights as much as human beings.
That takeover is why working people can't live like Homer Simpson.
The UK has ordered a Syrian refugee to return to Syria. He fears he will be jailed for leaving rather than be conscripted to fight in Assad's army.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and ask per to fund a pilot program for postal banking in the 2022 appropriations bill.
Palestinian-Egyptian activist Ramy Shaath has been released from prison and sent into exile in France.
There are multiple injustices here. Imprisoning someone for political organizing is one. Arbitrarily labeling a person as "terrorist" with no proof is another. Arbitrarily labeling an organization as "terrorist" is another. Taking away someone's citizenship is another.
Alas, some of these injustices are often carried out by the US as well.
The Muslim Brotherhood's political position is also unjust, because it advocates denying equal rights to non-Muslims. Most "Muslim" countries commit this injustice; indeed, Egypt already does so.
Republican-ruled US states are putting up arbitrary obstacles to interfere with obtaining and using abortion pills.
The US must allow people to get these pills without a prescription, by mail, so that women in Republican-ruled states can get them. To fail to do this is to put their health in danger three times — first from pregnancy, then from childbirth, and ultimately from the responsibility for raising a child, which drives many destitute Americans to dangerous measures.
The editors of the New York Times support unionization; the business side is trying to oppose unionization.
The article errs in presenting this as hypocrisy, because it can also be understood as respect for editorial independence. It is a good thing that the business management does not order the editors to desist from supporting unions to avoid putting the business's own practices in a bad light. We can criticize the business for opposing union organizing, but to do so presuming that the business and the editorial office are supposed to agree is to work against editorial independence.
Old joke: how do you tell the difference between a labor organizer and a chemist? By their pronunciations of "unionized."
The UK has yielded to evident moral obligation and will pay to replace the flammable cladding in all the buildings that have it. Previously the Tories planned to do this only for the taller buildings. I never saw a justification for making that distinction, and I can't see one.
This is the right way to handle that issue.
However, there are buildings that were built with other dangerous features, and they raise the same issue.
If the builders skimped on satisfying building codes, the builders should pay.
US citizens: call on Congress to reform the Electoral Count Act in order to close a loophole the wrecker tried to use for the coup.
But Congress should watch out for this pitfall.
Which fruits are the most talkative?
*Only a culture change can end this state of climate inaction.* But it's hard to achieve such change.
Talks this week could reveal whether Putin wants a pretext for a war with Ukraine, or is only trying to bluff his way to another conquest.
In general, buffer zones between empires make for peace. I think NATO should be willing to agree with Russia not to admit Ukraine, if Russia makes a comparable concession, which should include pulling the plug on the rebellion it has supported inside Ukraine. However, Russia should have to pay heavy reparations for taking Crimea. Russia should move its Black Sea fleet to a base further east, not close to Ukraine, and at least demilitarize Crimea.
A zone on both sides of Ukraine's border with Russia (and its ally, Belarus) in which no armored vehicles or missile launchers can be deployed could also be a good idea for preventing future violence.
* One-third of former prisoners [of Guantanamo] sent to third countries lack legal status — unable to work or travel, at risk of human rights abuses.*
Some outspoken citizens of the breakaway Turkish portion of Cyprus want some sort of reunion with the main, Greek part of Cyprus. Some of them have been blocked arbitrarily from flying to Istanbul, which is the only way to fly out of the Turkish portion.
People with these views are planning to boycott the next election. I wonder why. It could be that Turkey rigs the elections. Or it could be that the majority support the current alliance with Turkey.
US citizens: call on Biden and Congress to pass the Judiciary Act of 2021, to expand the Supreme Court.
In both poor countries and rich countries, the wealthier people must do the most to reduce their carbon emissions. This has implications for policies.
A speculation: Omicron may have evolved in someone who has an HIV infection and was not given the drugs to control the infection.
If we treated everyone that has an HIV infection, that disease would no longer be transmitted. It would eventually disappear. And perhaps, in the mean time, we would avoid new, dangerous variants of Covid-19.
An ex-smoker argues against New Zealand's plan to make it illegal to buy tobacco.
I never intentionally smoked tobacco, because I saw from my grandfather when I was 9 years old that tobacco means death. I wish that tobacco would cease to exist. But making it a crime is a foolish reaction to the problem.
I apply this principle to nonfree software also. It is unjust and nasty, and should not exist. But we should not make nonfree software as such illegal.
I do think we should make malicious functionalities illegal.
The initially peaceful protests in Kazakhstan may have been seized as an opportunity for political factions to fight.
It won't be easy to get to the bottom of this.
Florida proposes to authorize public schools to record all class sessions, video and audio.
The stated purpose is to investigate accusations that a teacher either abused or neglected a child. This could perhaps be acceptable, if we could trust that the cameras won't be used for other purposes, either with or without the school's authorization. But I expect that Florida will use them for other purposes — for instance, to punish teachers that teach about racism and sexism as factual matters, and the history of unjust systems.
Meanwhile, companies may wangle permission to "make education better" by feeding the videos to AI programs.
Climate defense activists say the reality of their fight is worse than the satire, Don't Look Up.
A UK military official warns that Russia might start damaging or tapping undersea cables.
The US did this for years during the cold war — see Blind Man's Bluff, by Sontag and Drew. Maybe it still does.
US citizens: call on the Senate to make an exception to the filibuster for voting rights and fair elections.
California is considering a universal medical care system. This could be a great step forward.
Of the three funding methods proposed, a payroll tax is a bad choice, because it creates an incentive to have fewer employees in the jurisdiction. We would be better off if we replaced all payroll taxes with other taxes.
A gross receipts tax with a fixed tax rate has drawbacks too: businesses could easily pass that along to customers, as they do with sales tax. That's why I've proposed a gross receipts tax with a tax rate that is higher for large companies.
Covid's spread is causing food shortages in two Australian states: * "Critical" or "essential" workers who are asymptomatic no longer required to self-isolate if job is essential for growing, manufacturing or transporting food.*
US citizens: call on Congress to reform the Electoral Count Act in order to close a loophole the wrecker tried to use for the coup.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Congress to investigate the members that supported the Jan 6 insurrection.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
Australia put a tennis star in quarantine for arriving unvaccinated. They put him in a former hotel which is also an immigration prison; some refugees have been in that prison for up to 9 years.
Why Americans today can't hope to match Homer Simpson's working-class lifestyle.
When that satirical family was conceived of, in the mid 1980s, the plutocratist campaign was already running, but the changes were only partial and the results were only beginning to sink in.
Putin has used Interpol to get Italy to arrest a Ukrainian who condemned Russia's seizure of Crimea.
An accusation of "financial crimes" by Russia is like an accusation of "espionage" by the US. There are real tax cheaters, and there are real spies, but when the charges are aimed at a political target, you should not let them manipulate you.
Nonviolent Indian dissident (and software developer) Sharjeel Imam is imprisoned on falsified charges of encouraging violence.
The activists of the BJP and RSS do daily what he was falsely accused of, and get no pushback from the state.
I regret to say that the article talks on various occasions of developing nonfree software, as if that were perfectly legitimate. However, that is also no justification for imprisoning Sharjeel, or others. We need to put an end to development of nonfree software, but imprisoning the people who do it would be going too far.
In another Gostak and Doshes case, a police department worker in the UK has been sent to prison for downloading private photos of murder victims.
It may be that his having copies undermined security by increasing the chance that some cracker would get them and release them. That could justify firing him for laxity in security (and fixing the security hole he used). But that's not what the judge rebuked him for. The court said his conduct was "insulting" — and that makes no sense to me.
I can't see how a private act, which communicates nothing to anyone, can insult anyone. And even if it did, freedom of speech includes the right to insult people.
Punishing privately expressed insults is one small step away from thoughtcrime.
An emergency declaration gives sick children in the US coverage from medicare. If Biden does not extend it, it will expire in a week.
Arsonists destroyed a Planned Parenthood clinic in Tennessee.
*Prosecutor Sought Funding From Oil Giant Enbridge to Jail Line 3 Water Protectors.*
In effect, the "justice" system of Minnesota is acting like a contractor for big business.
The UK thugs set up a "counterterrorism" project to investigate and persecute protesters. A review panel said it was "increasingly being used as an intimidatory and oppressive national policing tactic." Then some secretive officials decided to "withdraw" the report.
Greg Palast reports on how Exxon bribed Nursultan Nazarbayev, and an individual pleaded guilty, but was then let go by the judge.
Manchin has rejected a "compromise" shrunken version of the Build Back Better relief bill, which he had previously proposed.
I think he has been toying with the progressives all along.
The most important bills are the voting rights bills. If he supports those, at least the suffering will be temporary.
*The Bill for My Homelessness Was $54,000.*
*Uber CEO Admits Company Can Afford Labor Protections for Drivers.*
*I'm a [British] police officer, and I fear increased powers of stop and search will undermine public trust.*
*More than 400 weather stations around the world beat their all-time highest temperature records in 2021.*
A new collection of lessons about the history of blacks in Britain is designed to be sprinkled into the rest of the curriculum, like an added ingredient.
*First female judge nominated for Pakistan’s supreme court.*
A demand for reform of US federal flood insurance is a model of wisdom in that it considers the well-being of society as well as that of people whose homes have been flooded. It calls for measures that will do good in the long term -- to warn about housing in flood plains, and move housing to safer, higher ground.
*US sanctioned China's top facial recognition firm over Uyghur concerns.*
Punishing companies that participate in repression in China is the right thing to do -- but even more important is to restrict face recognition in the US. And restrict systematic capture of face images, which is the basis of face tracking surveillance.
*Assault on American democracy has gained pace since US Capitol attack* (a year ago).
Monsanto developed some proprietary software to collect and analyze farmers' data about their own farms. I expect this would be used as part of a system which, by its design, would subject farmers to Monsanto's power.
A researcher who is a Chinese citizen and worked with Monsanto took a copy of this program with the intention to send it to some organization in China, that would very likely use it in a way that subjects farmers in China, and maybe elsewhere, to that organization's power.
We should not get distracted by focusing on Monsanto's interests. Nonfree software is the wrong solution for any computing need.
Lightning, and thunderstorms, are increasing substantially in the high Arctic, a reflection of global heating.
Lightning is also increasing in parts of North America, and that tends to increase the amount of wildfire in the areas that are also becoming increasingly arid.
Google is trying to intimidate the newly appointed head of the FTC's antitrust division.
Fighting has broken out in Almaty, Kazakhstan, between opposition and government suppression forces supported by Russian troops. Both sides have become quite violent.
Some Tories demand to impose much higher penalties for pulling down a statue, or even a wreath, on the ground that the act offends the sensibilities of some people.
If the main significance of an act is how it offends someone's sensibilities, that means it should be treated as an expression of an idea, rather than anything else.
Archival documents show that Belgium arranged the murder of Burundi's first prime minister, in 1961.
A Belgian state investigation confirmed this in 1962, but the state concealed it.
*One in five ads served on search results for 78 climate-related terms placed by firms with interests in fossil fuels.*
*More than 1,000 Americans in positions of public trust acted as accomplices in Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 election result, participating in the violent insurrection at the US Capitol on 6 January or spreading the “big lie” that the vote count had been rigged.*
Rebecca Solnit: *Republicans are laying a path back to power – and paving it with lies.*
The War on Drugs comes from a lie that Nixon's campaign used to demonize leftist political movements: anti-war Liberals and the Black Power movement. Ehrlichman, one of his officials, later admitted this.
Those who campaign for this drug-addicted war fight tooth and nail against measures such as pill-testing and safe injection spaces, that would prevent most of the war's civilian casualties, because those measures would supposedly "legitimize" the drugs. Then they cite the casualties, that continue because they prevent these measures, as the reason to prohibit them.
*The UK government is facing legal action over its decision to keep using a Malaysian company accused of using forced labour as a supplier of [disposable medical gloves].*
Antibiotic-resistant staphylococcus aureus evolved on hedgehogs, which are host to a fungus that makes the antibiotic.
If cows got the resistant bacteria from hedgehogs, it is still possible that these bacteria spread in cows because the cows were fed that antibiotic.
The protests in Kazakhstan were triggered by an increase in tax on fossil fuels.
Keeping fossil fuel as cheap as it now is will destroy civilization. Nazarbayev may be corrupt power, but on this one issue, what his opponents demand is destruction for everyone.
The recommended way to tax fossil fuels more is to return the tax money to the poor people, so that they won't be worse off overall. I would guess that Nazarbayev didn't do that. Perhaps that is worth a try.
Meanwhile, the government has obtained Russian military aid for repressing the opposition.
After repressing a protest in 2011, Nazarbayev paid Tony B'liar 13 million dollars for advice about hypocritical ways to talk about it.
Many of the island states in the Pacific Ocean repress journalists whose writing rocks the boat for the wealthy.
*Behind the insurrection of January 6 was a coup plot that was months in the making, and which involved a dastardly cast of characters.*
*‘Urban fire storm’: suburban sprawl raising risk of destructive wildfires.*
*Volunteer Quits Moderna Vaccine Trial Over "Ruthless Corporate Profit-Making."*
*Fort Lauderdale sued Food Not Bombs for feeding homeless people -- and Food Not Bombs has won!*
US citizens: call for restoration of the roadless rule for the Tongass National Forest.
US citizens: call on the Senate to include the billionaire income tax in the Build Back Better bill.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
If you call, please spread the word!
Australia's medical system is collapsing under the assault of Covid-19. The government did not prepare for what would happen.
How leading the public to reduce greenhouse-generating practices is related to changing the social systems that pressure or compel people to do those things.
A secret US bomb targeting unit, "Talon Anvil," systematically twisted or disregarded the official targeting rules that were designed to protect civilians in the war against PISSI. The result was to kill a lot of civilians.
The personnel in the unit went so far as to discourage taking reconnaissance photos after a bombing, as a cover-up.
There is no military reason today to keep any of this secret; however, the general resistance to releasing any military secrets is an excellent shield against prosecuting anyone or learning anything.
Bangladesh's campaign of hatred against Rohingya has extended to smashing 7,000 stores set up where they have settled.
Considering this in human terms, it is reprehensible hatred.
Considering this in a longer term, the vice made of global heating and population growth is squeezing Bangladesh. Unless we shut them off, their pressure will, I expect, crush tens of millions to death. Some of them will die having given up, but some will die in fights over who will, and who won't, survive till the next day.
Not that I see anything unusual about Bangladeshis and Rohingya. On the contrary, this is what I expect to see everywhere, sooner or later.
(satire) *City Announces Construction Of 20 New Miles Of Secret Underground Tunnels For Vloggers To Explore.*
*The Other Drone Casualties: The Whistleblowers Who Tried to Stop It.*
After a decade of killing civilians by drone, and covering up the facts and the causes, the only person in prison for this is whistleblower Daniel Hale, who exposed it.
The reporting on the death of Senator Harry Reid should not fail to note that he pushed hard for the conquest and occupation of Iraq.
Mayor Adams of NYC implored banks to make their staff work in their offices, and risk infection, so that they will pay for services like transport, food, and more.
The wise thing to do is what the UK did a year ago: give companies money to pay the salaries of workers whose work was temporarily not necessary. This saves the workers and the employers from financial disaster without making anyone take unnecessary medical risks.
*From Sore-Losers to Violent Terrorists?* Republicans now place Americans in physical danger by threatening to kill rather than accept they lost.
Biden is moving to provide federal subsidies to independent meat-processing companies. This is to reduce the power of the big four companies.
I agree with that goal, but this method is the expensive way, because it is based on exerting the influence of added government spending. It would be more efficient to break up the big four companies, or pressure them with taxes.
Meanwhile, reducing the retail price of meat would have a harmful effect: encouraging more production of meat — bad for people who eat too much meat, and bad for the climate. It would be better to add a tax, so that the reduction in big four income goes into things that are better for society.
Chevron, ExxonMobil, Merck, Pfizer, FedEx and UPS are donating to coup-supporting Republicans in Congress. Other companies and trade organizations, too.
Long Covid may be caused by microclots. Medicine to dissolve them may help some patients.
The protesters who toppled the statue of Edward Colston have been acquitted of criminal charges for doing so.
I support the removal of Colston's statue. Slave trading was the most impactful thing he did in his life; his local philanthropy, using part of the profit he got from slave trading, cannot compensate for the wrong of the slave trading itself.
Many other famous people are similar cases and we could well reach the same conclusions about them. They include Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, whose main "contribution" to the world was software that subjugates users.
But there are also cases where the balance goes the other way: people who did important good that is worth commemorating, but also participated in some widespread practice or widespread view that we condemn today. How should we judge them? I think we should weigh the importance of the good and the bad they did, and commemorate them on that basis. For instance, Thomas Jefferson gave crucial impetus to separation of church and state — a vital liberty now under threat in the US. He also owned slaves, but he was not a champion of slavery. We must commemorate his signal contribution to freedom without forgetting what he did against freedom.
What about when the bad and the good are of the same order, as in the case of Woodrow Wilson? I suggested a statue which shows him with two sides, the good side and the evil side.
The Tories want to punish the toppling of a statue with 10 years in prison. This is draconian when compared with the small physical damage that usually results.
California's system of emissions trading is having much less than the predicted effect.
This example illustrates why the emissions-trading approach is inadequate, which is also why fossil fuel businesses prefer it to other, more effective approaches. If they can't deny the danger, and they can't delay countermeasures, their next effort is to arrange countermeasures into less effective approaches.
*AFL-CIO, Nurses Unions Demand Permanent OSHA Covid-19 Safety Standard.*
*Section 3 of the 14th amendment disqualifies from public office any individual who has taken an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution and then engages in insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or gives aid or comfort to those who have,*
Thus, state election officials have the duty to exclude candidates who have done that.
We can't expect Republican officials to do their duty — so what is plan B?
US airlines dismissed thousands of employees this fall. When they had to cancel a lot of flights in the past couple of weeks, that's part of the cause.
*Congress Could Help Prevent Another Jan. 6 With Data Privacy Law, Say Campaigners.*
It could stop Facebook from magnifying disinformation.
*McConnell Openly Admits His Very Real Fear Is American Democracy Actually Working.*
*Palestinian Prisoner Hisham Abu Hawash Ends Hunger Strike After Deal With Israel* to end his imprisonment without trial.
Imprisonment without trial is vicious and vile, whether it is done by Israel, China, the US, or any other country.
*The government is finally taking the threat of far-right militia groups seriously. But the larger threat are the Republican legislators who continue to recklessly undermine democracy.*
*Joe Biden needs to stand up and fight Manchin like our lives depend on it.*
Craig Murray explains the peculiar physical and social characteristics of the prison he is in, and the causes of them.
Saudi Arabia has deported thousands of Tigrayans to Ethiopia, where the government imprisons them incommunicado.
*Vaccination as the price for taking part in society.*
I think the word "price" is not quite right here, because it implies that society could arbitrarily decide what "price" to charge. I think that the role of vaccination in the situation is that of a self-evident prerequisite.
*Humanitarian Exemptions to Crushing U.S. Sanctions Do Little to Prevent Collapse of Afghanistan’s Economy.*
Dating apps have created a sick world in which people are mortified by the idea of going out with anyone they have friends in common with.
When asking for a date with someone you barely know, and have no social relationships in common with, whatever you say will inevitably be strained. You'll be publicly shamed for that -- but it's unreasonable to demand anything else under those circumstances,
Besides which, you're probably dealing with a user of Facebook, who has learned to think of life as an image to be "curated" rather than a reality.
Big Pharma raised the price of 440 drugs at the start of the year.
The companies were making big profits already, but they saw the opportunity to make even more, because of the lack of competition. Partly (for the generic drugs) that is caused by failure to block mergers.
Partly it's because of too much patent power. The power of patent holders has been increased in many ways, when companies argue, "If we don't make even more profits than now, we won't have enough incentive to bother."
I advocate abolishing patents entirely.
A Canadian academic who studies violent conflict warns that Canada may soon have to deal with a large and powerful fascist neighbor.
Comparing two proposed systems to subsidize local newspapers.
The decommissioning of the damaged Fukushima reactors was planned for 30 years, but it is running into problems.
By 2040, global heating disasters may undermine the ability to continue the cleanup. The site may be abandoned in whatever state it is in, and containment of wastes on the site may crumble.
Sudan's premier has resigned in order to avoid legitimizing military rule.
*Capitol attack panel in race against time as Trump allies seek to run out clock.*
Biden's proposed limit on the price of insulin doesn't help everyone that needs to take insulin.
In the UK, female patients have worse outcomes from surgery when the surgeon is male.
*Detained, missing, close to death: the toll of reporting on Covid in China.*
Protesters are compelled to cause some sort of disruption because the mainstream media have learned to ignore other forms of protest.
China and Tonga are covering up the cause of death of a "fisheries observer" whose job was to verify that a Chinese fishing boat did not catch more than its allowed limit of fish.
*Destruction of trees, grasses and other plants in world's largest savanna is a major source of Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions.* This adds to the emissions of destroying the Amazon forest.
Brazil under Bolsonaro has hardly tried to enforce its laws against deforestation. He has stated contempt for the goal.
*US, Russia, China, the UK and France who are permanent members of the UN security council agree "nuclear war cannot be won".*
Schumer will lead an attempt to set aside the filibuster and pass voting rights reform.
This is a wave of public pressure aimed at Manchin and Sinema. I hope it succeeds.
The right-wing majority on the Supreme Court is likely to override anything that interferes with Republican efforts to rig the next election. I believe that replacing that majority needs to go with voting rights laws.
US prosecutors go easier on violent fascists than on relatives of violent Islamist.
Some indigenous groups in the US accept gifts of land to protect for wildlife.
Houthis seized a UAE freighter in the Red Sea off Yemen.
I don't see any reason to be shocked at this. Salafi Arabia and the UAE are allies of the US, but hardly deserve our moral support -- and they started the war by invading Yemen.
*The UK is in danger of becoming a police state cosplaying as a democracy.*
The new mayor of New York City plans to hold more defendants in jail before trial, and start keeping them in inhumane solitary confinement.
Some fear he is going to support real estate developers rather than try to house the many homeless people of the city. I worry about this too. However, I think it is acceptable to house people in hotel rooms even if that isn't entirely in accord with residential rules. That is better than being on the street.
*Fury as EU moves ahead with plans to label gas and nuclear as "green."*
I am surprised the planet roasters dare to be so blatant as to continue pushing the "bridge fuel" excuse.
Nuclear power is a somewhat different idea. Nuclear power does not release greenhouse gases. But it is so expensive that whatever we spend on that will hold back decarbonization.
The FDA approved the drug aducanumab despite having no solid evidence that it does what it claims to do. Now Medicade is considering whether to cover the drug at an exorbitant price. If it does, every person with Medicare drug coverage would face considerable additional cost.
If Medicare could negotiate a price to buy this drug in bulk, it might get a reasonable price. It can't do so because of a law passed by plutocratistic officials.
However, giving millions of people a drug on the grounds that it might prevent a disease for some of them seems like getting ahead of the game.
*Sudan's prime minister resigns as pro-democracy protests violently repressed.*
UK thugs tried to intimidate a person for expressing opinions that some might find offensive.
It is proper to record any expression of racist ideas by cops, because cops have a privileged legal status and a duty to protect all people regardless of their race. A racist cop is doing the job wrong.
But this practice must not be extended to people with no special state-granted authority.
Since the judge Sergio Moro was caught in collusion, Lula is now free and untainted, and polls suggest he will return as president in the election this year.
Hooray for Lula!
India has cut off foreign donations to Oxfam India.
Reviewing Tyler Stovall's work on the history of the concepts of freedom and race.
Nowadays, the conflict between "property above all" and "liberty above all" still exists, but I doubt anyone who advocates racism can manage to think seriously about the meaning of liberty. Spewing foolish slogans would be their choice today.
The legacy company that made Blackberry phones is about to kill them off by shutting down the server they are tethered to.
Since few of those phones remain in use, I think it is legitimate to want to save money by not running a server for them. However, it is not right to stop people from modifying the phones' software so they can talk to some other server -- or modifying the Blackberry server code to give them something else to talk to.
A flash fire started in a town near Denver and wind quickly drove it through 580 houses, so fast that firefighters could do nothing to stop it.
This was partly due to a severe drought. In 20 years, the area will probably have an even worse drought.
The UAE runs secret Guantanamos in Yemen. It has disappeared and tortured hundreds of people.
A campaign seeks to demonize the idea of taking a photo of a woman on a public street without asking for her permission first. As is common, the campaign operates by insisting that its position is already generally accepted, and only "creeps" would disagree.
The campaign demands this right only for women and says nothing about whether men should have it too. If it stands for gender bias, it is clearly wrong.
But what if this right applies equally to everyone, regardless of gender? Then it would not be prima facie unjust. Would it be a change for the better?
If this right applies to use of machines that systematically take photos of everyone, we could insist that people stop their Amazon "ring" surveillance cameras from taking our pictures as we walk down the street. Likewise for other surveillance cameras.
It would also prohibit "dashcams" mounted on vehicles that continuously record the scene in front. These cameras can be a form of surveillance, and perhaps their use should be regulated, but prohibiting them entirely seems to be going too far.
If the thug that murdered George Floyd had had this right, he could have ordered the witnesses to stop making video recordings of what he was doing to Floyd. Thugs would just love to have that power. Indeed, they often threaten, attack or frame people that record what they are doing. In Spain they got the right-wing government to criminalize it.
However, it would be legitimate to exclude thugs from this right -- to declare that, because of their special legal powers, they are not entitled to the same rights of privacy that most people deserve.
However, I cannot willingly give up the right of everyone to take photos of scenes in public. Every scene in a city or park is likely to have people in it, even if they are not the reason you take the photo. Probably some are so far that you couldn't possibly ask them for permission, or recognize them with the naked eye, though may you could recognize them by scene enhancement on a photo. There may also be dozens who are much closer, You could hardly take a photo of a monument, a building, a sculpture or a cityscape if you had to get permission from everyone in the scene.
The resignation of the wrecker's head of the FDIC will enable the organization to limit mergers between big banks.
(satire) *Gwyneth Paltrow Touts New Diamond-Encrusted Trepanation Drill, Drainage Bucket On Website.*
(satire) *Artist Crafting Music Box Hopes It Delights At Least One Child In Post-Apocalypse.*
Germany will shut down three nuclear power plants and replace them with renewable generation.
This is good, but it should also replace a substantial amount of fossil fuel consumption with renewable generation at the same time, so it can tell Putin "buzz off".
*Why Is the UK's National Health Service Being Run by Former Bankers?*
There's no one like a banker for screwing non-rich people and redirecting funds to the rich.
The Tories have been bleeding the NHS for a decade, and it's almost ready to fall down dead.
*India bans Mother Teresa charity from receiving funds from abroad.* This is probably a part of the increasing repression of Christians.
Let's not presume that Mother Teresa set a standard of goodness. I read that her organization didn't bother to offer medical treatment to dying poor people — it gave them only "spiritual" aid.
However, any government that lays charges of "hurting religious sentiments of believers in XYZ religion" is viciously repressive, regardless of which religion XYZ is, or what else may be good or bad about those who are accused.
All coast protection measures are temporary. Eventually the sea overwhelms them — and projected sea-level rise keeps rising.
With the US having more than half a new million cases of Covid-19 each day, US officials are starting to think it doesn't matter how many new cases there are.
What I would like to know is, what fraction of people in my city or my neighborhood are contagious now. You can roughly estimate that from the rate of new cases.
US citizens: call on the Small Business Administration: force private equity big businesses to pay back Covid-19 bailout money now.
The CDC, to encourage vaccination, warns that a stay in a US hospital for Covid-19 treatment could cost thousands of dollars. This to motivate people to get vaccinated and avoid the need for hospital treatment.
Some progressives condemned this ad campaign. One said that the government is "boasting" about the crushing expense of the US medical system — but that is false. To cite painful facts does not excuse them.
Progressives should not object when the CDC acknowledges that medical treatment in the US can have crushing costs. Instead, progressives should take advantage of the CDC's help (reminding Americans about how bad the current system is) for the campaign for a national medical system, also known as "Medicare for all".
*Arrests, Beatings and Secret Prayers: Inside the Persecution of India's Christians.*
Muslims remain the main target of Hindu-supremacists, with fanatics calling for murdering Muslims, and the government saying nothing to discourage them — perhaps encouraged by the example of the wrecker in the US.
A few years ago the Hindu-supremacist government of India adopted a pair of laws that make it easy to declare Muslims non-citizens and exile them.
Nowadays, all religions other than Hindu are now targets. Buddhists have faced persecution, especially when Dalits want to convert to Buddhism as a rejection of Hinduism's oppression of them — following Dr Ambedkar's lead.
Guantanamo prison is building a new court room designed for real time censorship of testimony.
A UN meeting failed to agree on banning autonomous weapon systems, and meanwhile it's possible they are already being used.
The number of recorded threatened species has jumped from 17,000 in 2010 to 42,000 today. By 2040 it may be hundreds of thousands.
Protesters camping out near Biden's home call on him to declare a climate emergency.
He definitely must do something more. What, concretely, would a "climate emergency" do? Would it have legal consequences (as it did in British courts), or would it be a no-op?
Robert Reich relates the movie It's A Wonderful Life to US politics, which seems to have been its purpose.
(satire) *New Initiative Decreases Stigma Against Homeless By Making Majority Of People Homeless.*
It would decrease inequality, too.
Global heating will enable hurricanes to form, and strike the coast, farther north than they could ever do during the past few centuries.
Fines against businesses fail to deter destruction or poisoning of natural systems. We should prosecute and imprison the individual culprits.
*Colorado trucker’s 110-year sentence reduced to 10 years after outcry.*
It is not clear to me that his losing control of the truck deserves to be punished at all. He didn't decide to lose control; he tried to regain control, and failed.
Is it just to punish people for being the instrument of misfortune? Does it make society safer? I don't think so.
Anti-vaxxers in the UK are launching harassment and violent threats against scientists who advise the government about public health, and their relatives and associates.
France has banned selling many fruits and vegetables in a plastic containers.
The western obituaries for Desmond Tutu generally don't mention that he compared the Israeli occupation of Palestine to the apartheid that he knew from South Africa.
*Warm winter could prove fatal for UK’s endangered species.* The warmth causes species to miss out on the relationships that they need to other species, and thus discoordinates ecosystems.
If they make it through this year, I doubt they will make it through winter in 2050.
Many Uber drivers who work in San Francisco can't afford to live there, so they live in another city and stay in San Francisco for a few days, sleeping in their cars between work shifts. One of them was murdered. What responsibility does Uber have in the matter?
Uber does wrong to all its drivers by paying them so little and by stopping them from organizing a union that can demand better working conditions. Uber is totally responsible for that.
They also suffer from the political pressure of many well-off citizens who demand to keep housing density low, even though the result is to drive millions into poverty. Uber is not responsible for that, but it is responsible for the low pay and bad working conditions.
(Don't forget that Uber mistreats its customers too, by making them identify themselves and run nonfree software. This is why I refuse ever to be a customer of Uber — I won't even get into an Uber car.)
But is Uber responsible for the murder of one of its drivers? I don't see the connection.
Many US citizens need to renounce their citizenship — often to avoid paying US taxes as well as the taxes of the country they live in, sometimes in order to become a citizen of that country. But the US is not cooperating with the process, and that blocks them all.
The new German government plans to eliminate retention of telecommunications metadata, in the absence of a specific reason.
Delta has jumped on the CDC's truncation of the recommended isolation time, and gone even further.
Some workers will be sick enough that they shouldn't or can't work after 5 days. Indeed, some of them may stay sick for weeks.
* Now that they can no longer pretend the climate crisis isn’t real, big emitters and their enablers are making all of the right noises –- and taking none of the right actions.* This includes Australia's government.
It also includes United Airlines. It proposes to use "100% green fuel" for its planes, and plans to burn a lot more fuel than today; but it has no plausible plan to get enough of this green fuel to run more than a fraction of its flights.
A lawsuit challenges the intentionally inadequate US system for labeling genetically engineered foods.
Each kind of genetic modification raises different issues, so it is a
mistake to generalize about them. There is no reason to suppose by
default that they do practical harm, but some specific modified
varieties can do harm for specific reasons. Aside from that, they
are likely to carry patents which would do practical harm to society
if it depends on them for something important.
* Australia’s independent expert group OzSage has savaged the “let it rip” Covid-19 strategy in New South Wales and elsewhere, saying it will
condemn some people to death, particularly the more vulnerable.*
Australia has apparently flipped completely from the approach it used
until a few months ago.
*Indonesia relents on plan to push back boat carrying 100 Rohingya
refugees after outcry.*
Some Indian states are making it a crime to offer any sort of
inducement to convert to a religion.
Even beyond that, a local official will have the power to decide
what constitutes an inducement. That opens the door to repressive
selective enforcement — in favor of Hinduism and against anything
else.
What if the law were enforced honestly and narrowly? That's not going
to happen under a ruling party that encourages religious-based hate
crimes, but let's suppose.
I think that would still unacceptably restrictive. People should not
be required to get government approval for what they believe.
Public benefactors have developed an unpatented Covid-19 vaccine
and taught various companies around the world how to make it.
If it works against Omicron, it would be a great step forward.
Giving away a baby is not a simple and painless substitute for abortion.
It isn't painless for the mother, nor for the baby's subsequent life.
I wonder to what extent the pain, nowadays, of an adopted child's
subsequent life is socially constructed. Was it painful in general
200 years ago to be adopted, if your adoptive parents were not poor
and treated you as well as their other children? I don't know.
Perhaps in most cases you would know all along who your biological
parents were and the reason for the adoption — for instance, because
your parents had more children than they could support, or because
they had died, or to give a childless relative an heir. But there
would have been shame imposed on you if your parents were unmarried.
In my view, making one more human being is not inherently a plus —
and even less so nowadays, considering the disaster that any newborn
today would be heading for.
The Taliban have forbidden women to drive, or ride in a car, over 45 miles
from home, except with a male relative.
This will make it harder for women who are trapped by other forms of
repression to get out of Afghanistan. Perhaps that is its purpose.
Salafi Arabia continues to be even worse.
Global heating is on track to more or less put an end to winter.
A network of experts that generally underestimate the risk of certain
methods of tying or grabbing people systematically help thugs get away
with putting them in danger of death.
*The Right[-Wing] Wants to Make Disabled Veterans Into the New
"Welfare Queens."*
As usual, plutocratist politicians say they will "reform" the Veterans
Health Administration to make it more efficient. As usual, the real
result is to make the actual work more costly, while saving money by
creating opportunities to refuse to help people.
I wonder what sort of jobs wounded veterans who still have all their
limbs have a chance today of getting and doing successfully. If you
have no special skill that's in demand, you probably have to work 10
hours a day for a pittance and have your wages stolen.
Right-wing politicians generally advocate giving rich people "more
incentives" while giving poor people "tough love". This fits the
pattern.
*Arizona spends a majority of its welfare budget on the Department of
Child Safety. The agency then investigates many poor parents,
sometimes removing their children for reasons stemming from their
poverty.*
Right-wing politicians generally advocate giving rich people "more
incentives" while giving poor people "tough love". This fits the
pattern.
Robert Reich: *What is the real meaning of January 6?*
Places where global heating is eating away at people's homes.
Oklahoma Republicans are considering a bill to allow parents to
order the school library to remove specific books.
*Jamal Khashoggi's killers living in luxury villas in Riyadh, say witnesses.*
*There is nothing more unpatriotic than someone who calls [perself] a
"patriot." The flag-waving hypocrites who proudly proclaim their
loyalty to their country are determined to kill America.*
There is nothing new in seeing those who wish to spread cruelty and
repression wrapping themselves in the flag. But I have struggled to think
of a word that fits the enormity of the wrong those people are doing.
The anti-Covid drug molnupiravir has the potential to encourage the
development of new variants.
Only testing it in practice would show whether this happens or not;
but if does, the result could be a disaster.
Since the Pfizer treatment is more effective and does not have this
risk, we should not use molnupiravir.
Just as Covid-19 has evolved to spread more easily than ever,
Australia has adopted a criterion for "possible exposure" which is
narrower than ever.
It looks like a plan to avoid finding out about most cases of Covid-19.
New Orleans is planning a municipal wifi system that would operate
privately and enable surveillance of its users.
Air filters reduce the spread of Covid-19 indoors. Putting them in
all classrooms and other school spaces would help keep schools open
safely, and at a low cost too.
Yanis Varoufakis: why the Multiverse is fundamentally designed for zuckers.
Covid-19 provided an opportunity for billionaires to enrich themselves,
in the process pushing around 100 million people into poverty.
Governments should have prevented this, but didn't try hard.
Satellites launched by SpaceX threatened collision with China's space station twice this year. The US should not permit SpaceX to do that.
China aside, Starlink's planned 12,000 satellites would increase the
danger of collisions that would produce more space junk.
Despite the best of care in choosing their orbits — which SpaceX
appears not to have taken — it will be dangerous. So it should never
have been approved. No activity should get approval for thousands of
satellites.
To say "China does wrong too" does not constitute an excuse.
In space, and on Earth, we must work together to avoid disaster,
not argue about who is worse.
Over recent decades, US truck drivers' wages have gone down, their
working conditions have got much worse, and they are made to work long
hours, including many hours of unpaid waiting.
Drivers' unions have been mostly broken, and most of them are treated
as gig workers.
No wonder there is a shortage of truck drivers.
Dr Fauci proposes requiring vaccination for domestic US flights.
I am in favor of this. Anything that gets more Americans vaccinated
will save American lives and help beat Covid-19. Of course, there
will be an exception for people who for medical reasons must not be
vaccinated.
*Russian court orders closure of country’s oldest human rights group,* Memorial.
*At least 18 peaceful environmental protesters jailed in UK this year.*
Some have been sentenced to months in prison.
The magnitude of the disaster they are trying to prevent clearly justifies
disruption — but if their action makes the general public angry instead
of winning support, it would seem to be backfiring.
The injustice of the oil companies can motivate people to fight against
global heating.
However, in order to know what the threat is, and what to fight for, they
still need to understand at least what science says is going to happen.
Poland's right-wing government used Pegasus to spy on opposition
politicians.
This is one among many antidemocratic measures it has used.
Google, Facebook and Instagram are restricting accurate information
about abortion while permitting misinformation.
*Why the Very Worst People Really Don't Want Us to Look Up.*
If you want to watch the movie Don't Look Up, please don't watch it
on Netflix. That company uses malicious software and malicious
hardware in people's computers to restrict what they can do with the
video data.
It also records data about who watches what — data that should not
exist anywhere.
It also demands that its customers agree to an antisocial contract
promising not to share copies. If you have agreed to that antisocial
promise, you did wrong — so don't compound the wrong by keeping the
promise! But really you shouldn't agree to it in the first place.
There many reasons to flick off Netflix.
*Cori Bush: Congress Should Mark Jan 6. by Expelling Members Who
Helped Incite Attack.*
They violated their oath to defend the constitution.
She knows, as we know, that other Republicans in Congress will block that.
She aims to highlight how thoroughly the main stream of the Republican
Party has become disloyal to their country.
* Court instructs [Shell] to stop [seismic] tests along Wild Coast [of
South Africa] after concerns raised about wildlife and lack of
consultation.*
What this suggests to me is that government regulators failed to do
their job, failed to enforce regulations. Perhaps Shell's money
played a role in bringing that about.
California's record-breaking December snowfall is not enough to end
the years-long drought. Without more snow in the rest of the winter,
the water shortage will continue to get worse.
The response to Covid-19 has awakened pan-EU solidarity in pan-EU
public opinion.
However, Slovenia joined Poland and Hungary in undermining democracy
and civil liberties.
*Plastic beads could make nets more visible to cetaceans, scientists say.*
Putin is crushing the freedom to investigate and report on Stalin's
crimes of 70 years ago and more.
The European Court of Human Rights, to which Russia is a party, ruled in favor
of allowing Memorial to operate.
In Hong Kong, journalism that criticizes the government in any way is
now forbidden. Even people who stopped months ago face prison for
doing it before.
Everyone in Hong Kong who once criticized the state must be terrified
now, but freezing and keeping mum will not prevent their being jailed,
tortured and crushed. I hope that they have a chance to get out of
Hong Kong and apply for asylum, but the state may already have blocked
that. Otherwise, the only way I can see they can escape a fate worse
than death is choose to die taking an enemy with you.
I hope that I will have the courage to die fighting if I am ever in a
situation like that.
A regional project for Massachusetts to import Canadian hydropower
through Maine has run into difficulties because people living near the
planned cable were unhappy with it. Planet roasters aggravated the
dispute in order to kill the plan.
It wouldn't surprise me if the cable contractor chose an annoying route
in order to increase its profits. Maybe its path should be changed.
Maybe Massachusetts should pay Mainers and Anishnabeg more for the
electricity so as to win their approval. Why not? They are not well
off.
But I criticize the article for calling them "the most affected
communities", assuming that people who live near the power cable —
who are concerned about aesthetics and tourism — have more at stake
than the hundreds of millions whose lives will be upended, or simply
ended, by global heating disaster.
This deal is very important because it is a step towards saving them.
Changing details to salvage the deal is fine. Killing it is not.
Franco's dictatorship in Spain censored books and movies politically.
Censored versions are still being published, lent, and broadcast.
The uncensored works should be brought out, but I don't think the
censored versions should be destroyed or hidden from the public.
People should be able to see what right-wing censorship did.
Russia has allied itself with global heating disaster.
*Which philosophy helps us confront the crises that
beset us... "we first" or
"me first"?*
I agree with the basic point. We can't expect capitalism to naturally produce a system that will give society the best of capitalism and share the benefits with all of us. Capitalism tends to empower the greedy, who will seek to leave us in poverty. Preventing that requires institutions that are powerful enough to keep the rich down.
Ironically, we see that functioning only in China. But China's political repression makes it hell to be shunned.
*Sanders Says Congress Must
Ensure Mass Distribution of N95 Masks.*
I predict Republicans will oppose this. Although Republicans say they are only against requirements to wear masks, in general they oppose all wearing of masks to slow the spread of Covid-19.
More than that, they oppose all efforts to slow the spread of Covid-19. They will oppose making better masks available because that would result in making fewer people sick. Some oppose vaccines, saying they want people to develop immunity the dangerous "natural" way, rather than the safe way by vaccines.
There is no reason to take that extra risk.
Parents and caregivers that smoke have a
powerful influence on children to smoke.
In Britain, teenage children of those parents are four times as likely to
smoke like other teenagers.
(satire) *Oakley Introduces
Line Of Sunglasses For Front Of Head.*
US citizens: call on Interior Secretary Haaland to overturn the recent sale
of fossil fuel leases. Phone 1-866-834-8040.
I also said that the Interior Department should block all drilling
that it can block, because there is no room for it in the carbon
budget.
US citizens: call on Biden to reinstate the ban on landmines.
Manchin's blind trust, meant to reduce his conflicts of interest,
does not contain all his income from the fossil fuel stock he owns.
That means it fails to eliminate his conflict of interest.
Texas has a new effort to remove voter registrations from people
who fail to prove their citizenship when challenged.
While it is true that non-citizens have no right to vote in the US
(except in certain local elections in places that have granted them
the right to vote), it is easy to abuse a program like this to prevent some citizens
from lawfully voting. They may have moved and not get the letter.
Poor people often have to move frequently. They may get scared of any
sort of "trouble", especially if they belong to dis-privileged racial
or ethnic groups.
In addition, the agency carrying out the purge has opportunities to do
racial profiling when choosing whom to challenge.
Biden has put an end to the Republican plan to attach work
requirements to Medicaid, state by state.
Black and Asian-American job applicants face discrimination in simply
getting a job interview. The proof is in a study that found they were
twice as likely to get an interview if their resumes avoided disclosing
their race.
The plastic pellets called "nurdles", used as the base for molding
plastic products, may be toxic to animals when they spill in the sea.
There is a push to upgrade the standards for shipping them to make
it less likely they will get loose if a container falls in the water.
Ariel Dorfman describes his hopes for Chile's new president Boric, as
well as the obstacles and opportunities he faces.
DeSantis wants to authorize parents to sue schools that teach "critical race theory".
Critical race theory is historical study of the development of racism
and its role in the history of the US. That is a legitimate and
important part of US history. But when right-wingers use that term,
it means all sorts of different things. We can't tell what sorts of
teaching that law will actually try to do away with.
Global protests have been rising for 10 years. Most of them support
progressive causes; a minority are far-right-wing.
The EPA has delayed 20 years in developing regulations for DINP, an
endocrine disruptor and carcinogen.
*Revealed: US Public Pension Funds Are "Quiet Culprits of Climate Chaos".*
Labour has attacked the UK government for opposing the approval
of generic manufacture of Covid-19 vaccines.
At least it has done one good thing.
The public is encouraged to feel it is safe to open the economy and
spread Covid-19 because only "people with underlying conditions" die.
Then that is equated to people who are unproductive and on their last
legs anyway. But actually it's a large fraction of everyone.
That article cites statistics for Australia, but I expect the situation
is similar elsewhere.
However, there are situations in which we really need to keep part of
the economy going. The US medical system is being undermined by the
number of staff who are getting Covid-19. There is a move to let sick
workers return to work sooner, which medical personnel say is
dangerous.
Which is worse — for some people to get treatment from staff that
have a slightly larger chance of giving them Covid-19, or for some people
not to get treatment at all? I think it depends on the details.
An argument against the prevailing belief that more education
naturally leads to a general reduction in poverty.
A lack of education can keep people's wages down, but providing more
education doesn't necessarily enable poor people to earn more. There
are other things that can keep wages down, including business owners'
greed, racism, and sexism.
*Democracy under attack: how Republicans led the effort to make it
harder to vote.*
A cloth mask does some good in reducing the spread of Covid-19,
if it's over your nose and mouth, and a surgical mask is better.
But you can get a lot more protection from an N95 or FFP2 mask.
Real KN95 masks are equivalent, but there are lots of counterfeit
KN95s. The CDC has a web page that lists many counterfeit KN95
brands, but I'd rather get an FFP2.
Mudassar Kadir, a former BBC journalist in Afghanistan, got out of Afghanistan
but is stuck in Dubai. The UK scheme to aid refugees who worked for the UK
government doesn't cover people who worked for the BBC.
15 years in prison in today's Russia, for writing about the Soviet
Union's crimes.
PEN America, founded by writers to defend the freedom to write, has
been taken over by plutocratists. This shows when the organization smears
Julian Assange in the process of nominally defending him.
Various proposed approaches to regulating Facebook.
*Feeling Hopeless About the Climate? Try Our 30-Day Action Plan.*
*Gabriel Boric vows to "fight privileges of the few" as Chile’s premier.*
Republicans' coup preparations are pushing the US towards a risk of
civil war.
New Zealand has extended its quarantine requirements to stop Omicron
from spreading at large.
Scotland is moving to pass a law to formally pardon the people
executed as "witches" until 1736.
There is a campaign for all of Europe to do this.
Amir Assadollahzadeh, Iranian athlete competing at a championship in
Norway, was threatened with punishment by his national team unless he
publicly showed support for General Soleimani. He fled and has sought
asylum.
In the end-Permian mass extinction, 7-10° C of global heating caused
microbes to grow faster and turn most of the ocean into a deoxygenated
dead zone. Then other microbes, those which could metabolize sulfur,
did so and filled the ocean with hydrogen sulfide, which killed most
other sea life.
We could be on target to make 7°C of global heating — especially with the help
of methane leaking from permafrost.
Maybe equally drastic (though different) results will follow.
How many humans could survive that?
Explaining the distortions in a widely circulated article which
alleges many kinds of sloppiness in a 2020 clinical trial of the
Pfizer vaccine, and exaggerates their significance.
If the facts in the article are accurate, most of them have no effect
on the validity of the trial's conclusions. As explained here, they
had a small chance of affecting some 1000 — out of 44000 total
subjects — in the trial.
That 2020 trial is irrelevant for evaluating the Pfizer vaccine
nowadays, because we now have records of hundreds of millions of
people who have been vaccinated with it. That is far more evidence
than the trial gathered, and shows conclusively that the vaccine does
considerable good and hardly any harm.
*How China Uses Contractors to Spread Propaganda on Facebook and Twitter.*
It includes spreading false reports to undermine those who criticize
or resist China.
(satire) *Nation's Next Of Kin Exhausted From Constantly Identifying Bodies.*
The article exaggerates — this sort of burden is limited to states
ruled by Republicans.
Reporting that bus service in Chile was shut down on election day
as a voter-suppression tactic.
It was not successful in preventing Baric's victory.
*Tigrayan forces to pull out of nearby Ethiopian regions in ceasefire offer.*
We are getting little scraps of information, and I don't think we can make
any sense of them.
*Right-Wing Groups Opposed to Government Aid Cashed In While Collecting PPP
Loans.*
*The European Commission is facing a backlash from Greta Thunberg
and fellow climate activists over plans to include gas and nuclear
energy in a "green" investment guidebook.*
The plan to include subterranean gas is so absurd that it amounts to
telling the world to drop dead.
*My family Christmas has got a lot better since we stopped giving presents.*
I am not at all inclined to celebrate Christmas, but if I did participate in a
family holiday, I would consider following that family's decision.
Proposing a plan for confronting this pandemic and future pandemics.
Paxlovid saves most people who catch Covid-19, and reduces transmission, too.
We need to make enough for everyone. You can be sure Big Pharma will block the way we could produce enough to
save everyone.
*By ditching landmark climate legislation, America makes the world
unsafe.*
Other countries should threaten the US with economic sanctions
unless it helps save the world from global heating.
*"Foreign criminals" are just an excuse: the Tories are trying to take away
rights from all of us.*
The enemies of liberty always find a scapegoat to serve as an excuse.
*US labor organizing rises in 2021 after decades of decline.*
*Joe Manchin Is Faking His Fears of Inflation.*
Activists who protested for democracy in Egypt have now been sentenced
to prison.
The charges of "spread false news" remind us that a truth-hating government
will apply these charges to truth-telling. If the Republicans take control,
they will prohibit refuting their lies.
The New York Times obtained confidential communications between
Project Veritas and its lawyer. Project Veritas got an injunction
ordering the Times not to publish the memos.
This violates the First Amendment's protection of freedom of the
press, as it has generally been interpreted. I wish we could count on
the Supreme Court to stand by that protection.
Vietnamese workers accept debts as much as $30,000 to get smuggled
into Europe and forced to work doing construction, manufacturing,
agriculture, restaurants and nail bars.
They pass through a Chinese factory set up as part of a special deal
between China and Serbia.
Each trip to another country is a gamble on a false dream.
In effect, they are addicted to gambling.
*Hindu nationalists mimic Nazi Germany with a vow to "fight, die, and kill".*
One trafficking ring made $200 million trafficking workers from Mexico
to work as slaves on farms in Georgia.
*Global health experts and activists have been warning for more than a
year that aggressive variants of the virus are essentially guaranteed
as long as much of the world’s population remains unvaccinated.*
George Monbiot registered his deceased goldfish as a waste disposal
business to show how utterly sloppy the UK government is about
protecting the environment.
Stella McCartney (to name just one rich person that you may have
heard of) increased her own salary even as her company was getting
government money to help it last through Covid-19.
A legal requirement to offset new greenhouse gas emissions has the effect
of a tax on emissions, because the required offsets will cost money
whether or not they actually absorb any CO2.
*The Pentagon's 20-Year Killing Spree Has Always Treated Civilians as
Expendable.*
Vaccinating everyone against Covid-19 will cost far less than allowing
it to continue to cause havoc. Here are recommendations.
The US military installed pipelines to transport jet fuel around
Okinawa, but it has covered up the fact that the sensors to check for
leaks are broken.
Explaining fintech startups as ideas for systems to move money around
and make it look like something special and brilliant, so people won't
count how much they're paying for it.
Google and Apple divide up the market for spyphones; this duopoly does
part of the harm that a monopoly would do.
*[Although] the amount of [US] land burned
this year didn’t reach 2020 levels, a troubling new trend emerged:
fires are getting harder to fight.*
Kim Potter was convicted of killing Daunte Wright, apparently based on
concluding that her taking the pistol by mistake constituted such
great negligence as to be criminal.
Manchin's excuse of "inflation", for blocking the climate-and-relief
bill, is refuted by Sanders and by many economists.
The NAACP, represented by the ACLU, has sued South Carolina in federal
court for its newly designed system of racist gerrymandering.
They deserve to prevail, but I am concerned about one possible obstacle.
I seem to recall that, two or three years ago, the US Supreme Court's
right-wing majority ruled that federal courts had no jurisdiction over
state-level gerrymandering.
Is that correct? If so, does it imply that this lawsuit is doomed to
defeat? If there is a crucial legal difference in this case, can
anyone tell me what it is?
A list of many ways climate mayhem affects, and will increasingly affect,
human health.
*Local officials call on Idaho sheriff to resign after he allegedly
made disparaging comments about Native Americans.*
Officials must serve all the public -- those who accept bigotry are
not qualified for the job. This goes double for cops, because bigoted
cops are likely to be thugs.
*Amazon Settlement With NLRB Could Ease Worker Unionization Efforts.*
The settlement binds Amazon to avoid certain forms of union-busting,
for all its US warehouses, and will enable the NLRB to act quickly if
Amazon violates the deal.
*21 Million+ Going Hungry in US as Manchin Tanks Expanded Child Tax Credit.*
*Conservationists say a plan to search for oil and gas near Rowley
Shoals in north-west Australia is "reckless" and will put one of the
world’s healthiest reefs at risk.*
That is a powerful secondary reason for not considering extraction
there. It may persuade some of those that don't give a damn about the
primary reason: there is no room in the carbon budget for any new
fossil fuel extraction.
Continued emission of CO2 makes the ocean acidic and will eventually
kill essentialy all coral, and many other kinds of marine animals too.
A new US law presumes that goods produced in Xinjiang were made with
forced labor unless there is proof to the contrary.
Explaining the distortions in a widely circulated article which
alleges many kinds of sloppiness in a 2020 clinical trial of the
Pfizer vaccine, and exaggerates their significance.
If the facts in the article are accurate, most of them have no effect
on the validity of the trial's conclusions. As explained here, they
had a small chance of affecting some 1000 -- out of 44000 total
subjects -- in the trial.
That 2020 trial is irrelevent for evaluating the Pfizer vaccine
nowadays, because we now have records of hundreds of millions of
people who have been vaccinated with it. That is far more evidence
than the trial gathered, and shows conclusively that the vaccine does
considerable good and hardly any harm.
US citizens: call on the House to remove racist Rep. Boebert's committee
assignments.
This needs to be done, but it is an inadequate punishment because they
don't care about their punishment. They are making veiled but obvious
calls to overthrow US democracy and impose forced permanent minority
rule, and it is building up a movement to do exactly that.
Next rally for Assange: 2pm to 3:30pm on Dec 31 in Copley Sq, Boston.
US citizens: call on Attorney General Merrick Garland to fire the
wrecker's appointees in the DOJ.
US citizens: call on Biden to cut the Pentagon budget.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Martha Wright-Reed Prison
Phone Justice Act.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121. If you call, please spread the word!
Some songbirds in Europe are threatened by traditional hunting carried
out at a massive level.
There is no possible valid justification for unsustainable hunting of
threatened species. People who advocate the right to hunt, if that is
not a euphemism for the right to trash the world, must support
regulation that will ensure that the species continues thrive.
A plan has been announced to change the UK's handling of transgender
recognition, to better respect the rights of trans people and the need
for protection of biological females.
Since I'm neither a trans person nor a female, I don't have opinions
on the details of how to handle these things. But I do intensely hope
that those two groups find a modus vivendi they can live with, so that
they cease to see each other as enemies.
Intel apologized to China for the offense of informing its suppliers
that US law requires them to avoid products from and manufacturing in Xinjiang
(because of China's repression of the Uyghurs with forced labor and brainwashing).
As American cities remove statues of people that fought to continue
slavery, Hong Kong's universities are removing statues that
commemorated the Tien An Men Square protests for democracy, and the
massacre of the protesting students.
Many of the prisoners in Rikers Island prison have caught
Covid-19 in the past week.
The city offered a bonus to persuade prisoners to get vaccinated.
One can't ask more than that.
Boston City Council members are investigating how the thug department is
spending money taken from people without a trial to buy surveillance data.
This should extend to all forms of acquisition of surveillance
equipment — and arms — and to arranging to use them without buying
them.
*AOC Leads Demand for Biden to Work on Ending Saudi Blockade of Crucial Yemen
Airport.*
*The Fed Must Act on the Climate Crisis to Protect Our Planet and Economy.*
Amazon warehouse workers say that the company works them so hard that some die
from it.
Biden has come around to accepting the idea of curbing the filibuster,
if necessary, to pass voting rights laws.
To get this passed, he needs to do more than accept this. He has to
lead a push for it, to have chance to get Manchin to go along with it.
And we are running out of time, as regards gerrymandering.
*US intel and satellite images show Saudi Arabia is now
building its own ballistic missiles with help of China.*
Fortunately Salafi Arabia isn't building these to launch nuclear
weapons.
New York City is divesting all its pension funds from fossil fuels.
Several funds have already completed the operation.
* Researchers have advocated moving away from "just-in-time" model to
more resilient structures.*
"Just-in-time" is designed to maximize efficiency at the expense of
robustness. I've called it foolhardy.
In coming decades, climate mayhem will cause disruptions of supply due
to floods, fires, mass starvation, and wars.
The books that right-wingers ban in school libraries are gaining new
popularity.
Do you believe that there were only two books about heterosexual
relationships in the high school library? Nonsense! Considering
Shakespeare only, they must have had Romeo and Juliet, Antony and
Cleopatra, Macbeth, King Lear, and Henry V. But those books did not
show up in the search, perhaps because nobody thought of labeling them
with "heterosexual."
There are several ways Biden can use executive authority to accomplish
the goals that Manchin opposes.
*[The wrecker] could face charges for trying to obstruct certification
of election, legal experts say.*
I wonder if this law can be used to thwart Republican efforts to
override local election results in future elections.
*Research identifies at least 262 bills were introduced in 41 states
this year with the intent to hijack the election process.*
*"My grandmother hid Jewish children": Poland’s underground refugee network.*
*It’s Christmas in the Metaverse.*
Strictly for zuckers.
*US to lift Omicron travel ban on eight African countries.*
The attempt to keep Omicron out of the US was worth a try, but there
is clearly no need to continue it. I'm glad that the US has
demonstrated rationality, first by trying the travel ban quickly, and
then by ending it.
Senate Democrats have failed to
fight hard to pass voting rights
The US has relaxed its sanctions on
Afghanistan to allow some
humanitarian aid to arrive there.
It is disappointing that it took the US months to do do what is obviously
morally required.
*WHO boss: western countries’ Covid booster
WHO boss: Covid booster drives likely to prolong pandemic*
That is true, unless we expand production quickly to the practical limits.
The way to do that is to allow generic production.
Furthermore, vaccination in poor countries is further limited because someone
has to pay the high market price. Allowing generic production would make
vaccines available at prices donors could afford to fund for everyone.
An undercover agent in the
Klu Klux Klan reported two murder plots
to the FBI.
He also reported on uniformed "law enforcement" officers who were
traitors, working for the KKK. The agencies they worked for were
ineffectual at controlling this. Look at the Florida agency which
asks us to suppose that this problem is entirely a thing of the past.
The FBI has history of catching fantasy terrorists that could never
have committed violence in the real world without FBI informants'
holding their hands.
They were caught with fake explosives that they
believed were real.
In this instance, the FBI investigated people who could have really
carried out violence, or helped do so. The FBI was really doing its
job.
The fantasy terrorists were Islamists. It does not appear there is
a real Islamist terror network in the US,
but there is a real
white-supremacist terror network
Omicron is indeed milder,
and fewer patients will need to be admitted
to a hospital.
However, because it spreads so fast, it can still overwhelm
medical systems.
How the Koch Network built
up the movement against resisting Covid-19.
*Boston police bought spy tech with a
pot of money hidden from the
public.*
The thug department got the money via "civil forfeiture", which is a
legal excuse to take people's money --
That's not their only source of funds for thumbing their noses at
the law: many thug departments have foundations set up to give them
money they can use in unaccountable ways.
In Cambridge, the thug department cannot evade the surveillance tech
ordinance by using outside funds. Boston should do likewise. More
generally, laws should forbid thug departments from buying arms or spy
devices without city authorization, regardless of what money they use,
and from accepting them as gifts.
As for civil forfeiture, that must be
abolished.
Punishment without trial is tyranny.
*Biden's New Fuel Economy Standards Still
Allow Cars to Pollute More
If They're Not Called Cars.*
The different categories once had a rationale, but changes in vehicle
production have erased that, leaving nothing but an excuse to pollute
more.
One simple solution is to put a big tax on the categories that are allowed
to pollute more.
British families living in public housing will be hit with many
increases in expenses including a rent increase, a tax increase,
plus
gas and electric increases, along with inflation.
*200,000 UK children
could be made homeless this winter.*
I'd expect that an even larger number of adults are in danger of
homelessness.
Hindu nationalists publicly support Indians accused of
harassment of
Muslims and Christians.
The Hindu-nationalists in India are raving about supposed forced
conversions to Islam the same way Republicans rave about supposed voter fraud.
An official that seached for such cases in Karnataka and
couldn't find any
was punished just like Republicans who couldn't find any voter fraud.
*Some Prisoners Released During Pandemic
Can Stay on Home Confinement,
Says DOJ.*
"Buy now, pay later" is a form of borrowing with no
safeguard to assure
a user doesn't go heavily into debt.
The sudanese opposition accuses the
military of raping protesters.
*'Major Win for 45 Million Student Debtors':
Biden Extends Loan Payment Freeze.*
"Next, President Biden should cancel student debt," said Sen. Elizabeth
Warren.
(satire) *More Fridge Magnets Forced To
Take On Extra Holiday Work Holding Up Christmas Cards.*
Biden should invoke the Defense Production Act to compel
vaccine companies
to cooperate with generic production.
Sanders calls on the Democratic Party to
show courage and fight for the Build Back Better relief bill.
To make Manchin and Sinema visibly take a side for it or against it.
*Corporate Donations Poured Into Manchin's
PAC Ahead of Final 'No' on Build
Back Better.*
Striking workers at Kellogg's accepted a
contract somewhat better than
the one they previously rejected.
They did not abolish the two-tier system, but they established a way
for some newer workers to get into the higher tier.
Kellogg's responded to the rejection of its
unsatisfactory
contract by firing all the striking workers.
People started a boycott in response. When I was ready to post about
it, I held off because of a report that a new contract was being
discussed.
I read that Kellogg's was unable to find any replacement workers to
hire.
I have never forgiven Kellogg's lawsuit against the erotic satire
comic Cherry Poptart. I enjoyed the joke, so resent the company for
censoring it. The trademark claim may have been invalid, since no one
was ever going to think that the comic had anything to do with
Pop-tarts or Kellogg's.
Call on Congress to reform the Supreme Court to
take it away from the
right-wing extremists.
Staff sick with Omicron is reducing the capacity of some US hospitals
just as
they were reaching the point of overload.
*How electric vehicles
have helped labor and climate groups team up.*
Even asymptomatic Covid-19 infections can result in lasting
disability, also known as "long Covid". Will the disabilities
from previous
Covid infections act as commodities to cause
massive deaths from Omicron?
Robert Reich: more important than whether you go to a holiday party is
whether
the US will get its act together so we can protect each other
from Covid-19.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Tax Excessive CEO Pay Act.
I think the specific rules described in the petition
are not ideal, but I signed anyway because the overall idea is good.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121. If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on the Senate to remove Senator Joe Manchin as
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
US citizens: call on Biden to reduce the sanctions on Afghanistan
enough to ensure they do not cause anyone to starve.
(satire) *Police Finally Throw Out Old, Embarrassing Evidence From '80s.*
Omicron will test whether the US can now defend itself from pandemics.
Our individual actions will add up to the nation's response.
Naturally, Republicans urge people to be selfish about it. When they
say, "It is a personal decision," they mean, "Don't care about anyone
else." By reducing solidarity, they aim to weaken the nation by
causing more sickness and more economic damage, which they will use to
stimulate support for imposing minority rule.
I will go further than Robert Reich, and suggest that you pull out of
any gatherings unless they are just a handful of people, all
vaccinated, and all limiting their other contacts.
*After Mocking Idea, Biden Administration to Distribute 500 Million
Free Covid Tests.*
You can look at the positive side: in just two weeks, they changed their
mind and adopted the policy. That's pretty good flexibility.
But the first 500 million won't last long if people use them as often
as they should.
These tests give a significant fraction of false negatives, so don't
assume you're safe for others because you got a negative result. The
real benefit of these tests is for employees who can't work from home
to use them frequently, and therefore avoid going to work after a
positive result.
People in Linlithgow are campaigning to preserve the name of a
centuries-old pub, the Black Bitch, which refers to a female dog from
a 13th-century legend.
I agree with Nidhin Chand, the resident who said, "If people want to
address [racism in Linlithgow] they need to tackle real racism, not a
female dog.” Her name suggest she is of Indian origin, so I would
expect she has been a target of racism.
If there are people who think the pub's name is racist, whether
residents or visitors, that results from ignorance — and ignorance
can be corrected. For instance, the city could put up an a very
visible point-of-interest placard about the legend, near the pub
itself.
Robert Reich: the cause of today's inflation in the US is a lack of
competition. Businesses raise prices even though they are making
great profits already, because there is nothing to stop them.
The Federal Reserve's chair, a Republican that Biden
reappointed in the teeth of progressive demands not to do so,
is using that inflation as an opportunity to cool down the economy.
That will hamper unionization — surely a Republican's goal.
However, the Omicron variant is likely to cool the economy quite a bit
in January. Even if few get badly sick from Omicron, many will have
to stay home. Many businesses will have to reduce service. So will
hospitals; people will die from that, including people with diseases
other than Covid.
The United Mine Workers has called on Manchin to support the Build
Back Better bill. This might change his mind.
OSHA's vaccine-or-test mandate for employees is now, at least temporarily,
back in effect. This ought to get a lot more Americans vaccinated,
and enable many others to stay home when sick.
Many retail stores have fewer than 100 employees, and they are exempt
from the requirement. They should follow the policy anyway, or else
OSHA should include them — for the customers' safety.
It appears that Neanderthals in Europe, 125,000 years ago, kept
forests open by starting fires occasionally.
The indigenous Australians are known to have started brush fires
frequently enough that the fires burned only the brush, and spared the
trees. This kept the terrain open. It seems they did this by policy.
Perhaps biologically modern humans used this method everywhere that
it was applicable.
The article's information is that Neanderthals did basically the same
thing. They too may have done it by policy, thought we don't know
yet.
Reclaim Finance studied the drawdown plans of 47 coal companies
and found that only 3 have basically adequate plans.
The rest are planning to sell their mines, or punt the ball into the future.
The UK has achieved a world first by eradicating subterranean termites.
A UK court quashed the convictions of four migrants who were forced to
drive the boats that they had paid to travel in.
Tories plan to ask retired British teachers to fill in when the
regular teachers are out sick with Covid-19. Here's what the request
would look like.
*New York Times Reporting on Airstrikes Should Give Daniel Hale More
Credit. And call for Biden to immediately pardon him.*
Peng Shuai made a recorded announcement that she never accused a high
official of some sexual crime. We know this is false — people saw her statement. She did accuse
him.
For a ruling organization that has contempt for truth, such as the
Chinese Communist Party or the Republican Party, it is perfectly
acceptable to flat-out deny what people know. In China, hardly anyone
dares contradict an official lie. Republicans have convinced tens of
millions of cultists to believe lies willingly when they come from the
cult's leaders. Partly because they expect to be drummed out of the
cult if they ever disagree.
I don't see any description of what Peng said the official did, other
than "sexual assault", which is not specific. It covers a wide range,
so we don't know what kind of act she is talking about. However, in
this case I expect it had to be rather grave, to motivate her to take
such a risk.
The US military has prohibited active participation in extremist groups.
*Defending Julian Assange Is Defending Anyone Who Dares to Speak the Truth.*
The core of Putin's bullshit is to pretend that, for NATO not to make
concessions constitutes an attack. "Russia has no place to retreat
to" pretends that for Russia not to attack would constitute retreat.
Humoring this pretense only gives Putin additional clout. NATO by
doing so hobbles itself.
*More than 167,000 US children have lost a caregiver to Covid.*
The wrecker and the Republican Party are to blame for making it so
many.
Right-wing extremist groups are probing in towns and counties around
the US for where they can get away with violence and intimidation.
Research suggests a relationship between microplastics and
inflammatory bowel disease.
US citizens: support the
EPA's proposal to regulate methane.
*As of December 16, there have been only nine confirmed deaths
directly related to, or caused by, Covid vaccines (specifically the
Johnson & Johnson vaccine), despite over 490 million vaccine doses
being administered in the US, while over 800,000 people have died
from Covid, out of over 50 million confirmed Covid cases in the US.
Yet many believe they are better off taking their
chances with getting
Covid instead of getting vaccinated, when in reality, Covid infection
is hundreds of thousands of times more dangerous than vaccination.*
Get your immunity the safe, easy and reliable way -- through vaccine!
Kanye West's campaign for president was funded and
run by the
Republican machine
West and the Kardashians have something in common with the bullshitter:
the audacious pursuit of attention regardless of how.
*Who is Gabriel Boric? The radical student leader
who will be Chile's
next president.*
He defeated a supporter of Pinochet's military dictatorship, which took
power in a US-backed military coup and then murdered thousands of
people that opposed it.
What right wing extremists seek to censor: *sex education, race,
LGBTQ+ lives and -– perhaps most troubling of all –
those that teach
young people about their human rights.*
Manchin admits he is determined to make
Americans poorer.
*The enemies of American democracy?
Big lie, big anger and big money.*
Tory ideas of freedom: people should be free to go to the theater
unvaccinated and spread disease,
but those who catch it as a result
are not free to get treatment.
Also, free to extract and burn oil, but not free to inconvenience
anyone protesting against that.
By the way, Bagehot's words, quoted in the article, would seem to
justify almost any conceivable means to cut down the use of fossil
fuels. Our society cannot survive continuing this way.
*The science is clear: climate, biodiversity and
human health are fully interdependent.*
Florida Power and Light is lobbying Republican state legislators
to
reduce incentives for homeowners to install solar power systems.
Its money helped put some of those legislators in power.
I don't know whether its lobbying broke any laws, but in a broader
sense it constitutes corruption.
*The prison radio station
giving Texas men on death row a voice.*
The UK is engineering legal rulings to give Venezuela's
gold reserves of almost 2 billion dollars to golpista Juan Guaidó.
This reminds of of the string of bizarre legal proceedings
that engineered the decision to extradite Julian Assange to the US.
In both cases, the UK has twisted its own legal system to do the US
bidding.
*An 82-year-old Jewish woman, who is being investigated by Labour
for alleged antisemitism for the third time in less than three years,
is threatening legal action against the party, claiming it has
unlawfully
discriminated against her based on her belief in
anti-Zionism.*
If she wins her suit, will Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters be readmitted
to the Labour Party?
One will was put through probate twice.
*Republicans are shamelessly working to subvert democracy. Are Democrats
paying attention?*
A pilot program in Liverpool a year ago, in which essential workers
took a home Covid test every day, cut the number of people in
hospitals for Covid by 1/3.
Mark Meadows was the coordinator of most of the bullshitter's
coup attempt on Jan 6.
*The reality of soil carbon is that it is highly variable, hard to
measure, hard to shift and easy to lose.* It is important, but basing
a plan on it is risky.
*[The bullshitter]’s Next Coup Has Already Begun.*
12% of Americans are leaning towards violence in support of the delusions
that the bullshitter's machine has propagated.
*Amid Deadly Tornado, Texts Show Amazon Threatened to Fire Driver If Packages Not Delivered.*
The Socialist Kshama Sawant, on the Seattle city council, won a
recall election pushed by big business money.
*Tennessee recently passed anti–Critical Race Theory legislation,
banning educators from teaching students that any individuals are
"inherently privileged, sexist, or oppressive" based on their race
or sex.*
Clearly no person is "inherently" sexist, because that is an attitude.
Likewise, no person is "inherently" oppressive, because oppression is
a matter of conduct. Schools should never teach things like that, and
I can't criticize those two points in Tennessee's law.
It is clearly true in our society that some people are given more
baseline privilege regardless of what they say or do. Is it right to
say that they are "inherently" privileged? I think not: the privilege
is inherent in the system, not in the person.
However, that is a subtle distinction, and I can easily imagine that
white supremacist Tennessee officials might disregard it and punish a
teacher for teaching the facts about racism.
Amazon collaborated actively with Chinese propaganda to get authorization
to sell in China.
The December tornadoes were unprecedented -- very different from usual
tornadoes.
Global heating is at work.
(satire) *Things No One Tells You Happen When You Fly First Class.*
*PFAS "forever chemicals" constantly cycle through ground, air and water,
study finds.*
US citizens: call on Congress to expand the Supreme Court.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121. If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on the House of Representatives to hold Mark Meadows
in contempt.
US citizens: call on Biden to cancel student loan debt.
Sanders: *We need leadership at the FDA that is finally willing to stand up to
the greed and power of the pharmaceutical industry. In this critical
moment, Dr. Califf is not the leader Americans need at the agency.*
Biden's energy secretary reassured the organized Big Oil that the US
government won't fight with them. "We're not a bogeyman...We heard
you loud and clear."
That seems to explain why Biden is not listening to us.
I should explain that I am not convinced that banning oil export from
the US is. itself, crucial. That ban would not reduce fossil fuel
usage, nor fossil fuel demand. If there is a way it would help us
prevent climate disaster, I don't see it.
On the other hand, reducing oil extraction in the US is crucial
progress. The US has to push for this, not just make distant
pledges to push later.
(satire) Leaked January 6 Texts To White House (The Onion's version).
*The Plan to Tax Stock Buybacks From Corporations With Record Breaking
Profits.*
* A coalition of public health advocates is urging the Biden
administration to retain public ownership over "any new domestic
manufacturing capacity that is established" as a result of the White
House's plan to increase the global supply of Covid-19
vaccines.*
Senator Warren has endorsed expanding the Supreme Court.
Supreme Court rulings allowed donations to separate election advocacy
organizations on the supposition that they are independent of the candidate's
campaign.
If politics were known for the highest level of moral probity, perhaps
we could trust them to do that. Some people stated their belief in
this, perhaps as willful self-delusion. The rest of us suspected it
was bullshit.
Now we have evidence it is often false. In many cases the official
campaign and the "independent" advocacy organization hire the same
consultant.
Starbucks workers at more stores are pushing for votes to unionize.
Meanwhile, the company is retaliating against workers and managers.
If you live near any of the stores where workers are pushing to
unionize, you might have fun standing outside with a sign saying
"Hooray for the union!" If you occasionally patronize one of them,
you could also make a small sign saying "Union Yes!", put it on your
bag, and go in and buy something.
The US settlement with Purdue Pharma has been blocked by a judge
who objected to protecting the Sacklers from lawsuits.
Tories propose to require banks to lend to fossil fuel companies.
Somalia is being hit badly by global heating — three successive seasons
have brought no rain.
The Arctic is heating much faster than the rest of the Earth.
The record temperature recorded in the Arctic is now 38C — above
human body temperature.
All countries in the Middle East (including Iran) voted repeatedly for
a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East, except Israel.
The last time it was proposed, the only other country opposing it was
the US.
This is an almost certain way to assure Iran does not develop nuclear
weapons.
Decades ago, when Israel was surrounded by countries that called for
attacking and destroying an outnumbered Israel, Israel needed a
nuclear deterrent against that possible attack. Even though Israel
won its wars against all the much bigger Arab armies, there was no
guarantee that it always would. But now many of those countries
have made peace with Israel. Israel may want nuclear weapons
but it doesn't need them. And the US doesn't need to insist that
Israel keep them.
As Republicans prepare their next coup, no powerful force in the US
is organizing to resist it.
Senator Sinema has stated the intention to maintain the filibuster at all costs
rather than pass a voting rights law that could block the Republican coup.
Her argument is that the Republicans could benefit from the absence of
the filibuster, if they take the Senate. That's true — if they hold
the House and the presidency.
But if that happens, they would abolish the filibuster the first day.
They abolished the filibuster for nominations years ago, which is how
they put three right-wing extremists onto the Supreme Court.
Sinema's heroic "sacrifice" is a bogus excuse not to resist the next coup.
Indigenous pipeline-resisters in Canada point out that the courts
almost always side with the pipeline and against them.
This author has no doubt that the pattern is racism at work.
Is that pattern due to racism? It could be so. Or it could be due to
plutocracy. Or it could be due to a combination of both causes.
It isn't valid to presume a priori that the cause is mostly racism,
when we know how far the Canadian government will go to support
pipeline construction
and tar sands oil.
We could tell how significant racism is as a factor if we could
contrast these statistics with comparable statistics about
non-indigenous Canadians. The article doesn't give any.
Perhaps there are no comparable statistics. Perhaps non-indigenous
landowners don't oppose pipelines. Perhaps the government routs
pipelines through indigenous land to spare the white Canadians' land.
If so, that choice could be directly because of racism, or because the
whites have more political clout to resist with, or both.
It could be the case that the indigenous pipeline resisters in Canada
have special opportunities to sue, based on the rights of their
tribes, which no one else has. If so, I appreciate their exercising
those opportunities to defend the climate. They are fighting for all
of us.
Alas, that would mean this gives no opportunity to measure to what
extent the Canadian courts are racist in enforcing Canadian law.
(satire) *"We're Still Gonna Go To Vegas, Buddy," Says U.S. Soldier
Holding Dying Drone In His Arms.
*US Once Planned To Kill Assange But Gives "Assurances" It Won't Again.*
Cruel US prison conditions are a national shame, but in addition to
threatening Julian Assange, the US demand to prosecute Assange also
threatens freedom of the press.
That is the biggest issue here.
(satire) *Critics Warn Biden’s Plan To Remove Lead Pipes Would Put
Millions Of Potential Murder Weapons In Circulation.*
Omicron's rapid spread is convincing many Britons to wisely stop
visiting restaurants and theaters. To prevent them from closing
permanently, the UK should bring back its plan to support the workers
while there is no work for them.
I expect the US to need a similar policy for the same reason.
Here's an idea: furlough payments for workers should be limited to
those who get vaccinated.
Thomas Piketty's recommendations for equality.
Above all, we need to replace current property taxes with wealth taxes.
Other measures are required to reduce male-female economic inequality.
One interesting point is that the non-wealthy people in Europe are using
sustainable levels of resources. It is the wealthy 10% that use too much.
Ideas for the federal government to undo the segregation (and poverty
for blacks) that its policies intentionally created during the 1930s.
*Catastrophic Global Disorder Beckons Unless We Act Swiftly on Climate.*
Manchin says he refuses to allow extension of the child tax credit.
He has been playing a dishonest political game for months.
When it expires, which is very soon, millions of poor Americans will
be desperate. If they camp around Manchin's house, it might make
him change his mind.
Millions will also be required to start paying towards their unpayable
student loans, unless Biden cancels them.
(satire) *Amazon Fires Employees Who Didn’t Clock Out After Getting
Buried In Rubble.
(satire) *Texas School's Unbanned Books Down To 3 Copies Of Tom
Clancy's "Threat Vector".*
*Top US Banks and Investors Responsible for Nearly as Much Emissions as
Russia, Report Finds.*
*Deforestation has made outdoor work unsafe for millions of people in
the tropics over the past 15 years, a study has found.*
*Wood burners cause nearly half of urban air pollution cancer risk.*
That is despite the fact that only a small fraction of houses are
burning wood.
The study reports that the pollution from burning wood is especially
dangerous. Just because it's natural, that doesn't make it safe.
*Warmer winters are happening across the globe, and can be drivers of
catastrophic weather events and profound changes.*
Despite a few spectacular theft raids on stores, theft in California
is still significantly less than in 2019.
Biden appointed a loyal friend of fossil fuel business to hand out
infrastructure contracts.
Bolsonaro and his remaining followers try to cause havoc -- and
spreading Covid-19 is one of the ways. Brazil has approved
vaccination for children age 5-11, so Bolsonaro wants to expose
officials who made the decision to danger of murder.
The Sami (formerly known as Lapps) have words for many different kinds
of snow. However, due to climate mayhem, they are getting a kind of
snow that they never used to see. It generates a layer of ice that
blocks reindeer's access to plants they need to eat, so they go hungry.
Credulous believers think that 5G radio bands emit dangerous
radiation. Some wear "protective" necklaces which really do emit
dangerous radiation.
Why believe the claim that something is better for your health, just
because someone claims unsubstantuated knowledge of the matter?
Without a proper double-blind experiment, they can't really know. The
usual explanation for such claims is that they are hoping fools will
pay them money.
*Republicans are plotting to destroy democracy from within.*
Putin's idea of how to lower tension in Europe is to demand a list of
military concessions that would give Russia dominating military power.
He must think that Europan leaders are cowards that can be terrified
into surrender.
It might be good for NATO to limit troop deployments to its eastern
regions, perhaps 200 or 300 miles width extending in from their
borders with non-NATO coutries, if in return Russia agrees to limit
troop deployments to its western regions, 200 or 300 miles width
extending from its border with other coutries including the Baltic
countries, Poland, Belarus and Ukraine. This symmetrical agreement
would give neither side a military advantage but would discourage an
attack by either side.
After the tornadoes, Kentucky is hit by heavy rains.
A house that remains open to the elements during rain can be ruined by
mold in a few days. Many of these houses will be good for no use
except demolition.
It is not clear to what extent climate catastrophe is responsible for the
tornadoes, but it certainly has already caused bigger rains. Will anyone
teach the people of Kentucky that the small initial wave of global heating
has ruined people's lives? Their Republican officials will not.
The UK and Australia are planning to sign a business-supremacy treaty.
Does it include an ISDS clause (I Sue Democratic States)?
The article does not say, but if it was developed
out of the TPP then it probably does.
*Capitol attack panel subpoenas author of PowerPoint plan for coup.*
*Serbia blocks Rio Tinto’s plan to mine lithium after protests.*
The general worldwide practice in operating mines is to do only the
required minimum to protect the environment from damage caused by
the mine or the wastes it generates. Eventually the mine is
exhausted and the company makes legal arrangements to leave the mess
for others to pay for. It makes sense not to allow companies to run
mines that way.
But we do need the minerals that we can get only by mining. So what
is the right way to run a mine?
Does anyone know a way to operate a mine and protect the environment
properly? Or of research to determine how?
A non-polluting mine might be much more expensive. Properly run mines
may be uncompetitive in today's business environment. Wise countries
will respond, "In 20 years, when other countries have allowed mining
to poison their water, our minerals will be even more valuable,
valuable enough to make a non-polluting mine profitable. In the mean
time, we can wait."
*[Some European] supermarkets drop Brazilian beef products linked to deforestation.*
The plague of mice in part of New South Wales destroyed flood protection
and made the disaster of the big rain much worse in some places.
*"Really abnormal" storms and tornadoes tear through Great Plains and midwest.*
Rep. Jim Jordan sent Mark Meadows on Jan 5 a proposed plan for Pence to
override the election results.
The UK proposes strict criteria for giving their former Afghan
employees asylum: a "high and imminent risk” of threat to their life.
The city of Chicago will pay 5 million dollars compensation to
Anjanette Young for handcuffing her nude after breaking into her
apartment with guns drawn.
They raided her apartment by mistake, but even when they have a valid
reason to search someone's apartment, they should not treat per like
dirt. Not everyone suspected is guilty, and even culpable criminals
shouldn't be treated like that.
*Lawyers say their conversations with incarcerated people are being
recorded and analyzed by private companies in at least nine US
states.*
A mega-rainstorm may have cured California's drought, but it has done
great damage too.
*Freelancer Soe Naing was arrested in Yangon [a week ago] while taking photos of a
‘silent strike’ protest against military rule.* He has died in jail.
Chances are he was tortured.
*The NHS will soon be overwhelmed unless coherent and strict rules are
applied to social distancing.*
The same goes for US hospitals. Hundreds of thousands of Americans
could die in the next few months, avoidably, due to the failure to follow
safety precautions and the failure to enforce them.
Justice and public health require supporting people who get sick from
working or commuting, or who must not take the risk of catching Covid-19 by
going to work.
The governments that sustain the vaccine monopoly could have avoided
this by permitting more vaccine production. We could have vaccinated
most of the world by now and perhaos prevented the Omicron variant
from evolving.
New Zealand plans to override zoning so as to allow apartment
buildings basically anywhere.
Pelosi defended the practice of investments by legislators in shares
in corporations.
It may not be a harmful conflict of interest each and every time --
but often enough, it is that.
*Freakish wind storm brings "dust bowl" conditions to
tornado-devastated US states.*
Robert Reich explains his idea of how the mainstream media get their bias.
*Debunking Pharma Lies, Experts Identify 100+ Firms Ready to Make mRNA
Vaccines.*
The article falls into the error of talking about "intellectual property"
as if it meant some concrete things that could be useful in making drugs.
(satire) *Lakers Fans Frustrated With
Volatile Hot Dog Prices In Crypto.Com Arena.*
*Democrat introduces [federal] legislation requiring gun owners safely
store firearms, in wake of Oxford school shooting.*
Dollar General stores are often fined for being unsafe for working in.
The fines are evidently insufficient to achieve the desired effect of
making the store improve safety.
Global heating has become tied up with extinction of many species.
A former high official of the Indian police describes how thugs in India
are taught to practice torture and to think of it as a form of group
solidarity.
More about Dr Asthana.
Explaining his office, Director General of Police.
The UK is planning to relax regulations on toxic chemicals. I think that
the real purpose of leaving the EU was to allow businesses to mistreat people
in ways the EU does not permit.
The US continues slowly moving away from capital punishment, but
right-wing politicians promote it so as to stick their tongues out
at the idea of being humane.
Australia has rejected a gas drilling project!
This is an amazing change in the position of a government that has
been resolutely planet-roaster for years, and climate defense activism
made it happen.
France has restricted travel from the UK because of the spread of
Omicron there.
It's not a punishment, it's self-protection.
Meanwhile, by next week at the latest the UK may as well end its ban
on travelers from some African countries. Travel from those places
will not be a significant cause of more cases of Omicron in the UK,
not compared with transmission within the UK.
Mississippi's Republicans blocked federal funds to expand Medicaid on principle. The principle being that poor people and blacks should suffer. If "god" had wanted them not to suffer, he would have made them not get sick.
*Iran and the UN inspector have reached an agreement on the imminent
reinstallation of cameras at the Karaj nuclear facility, a move that
is seen as indispensable to keeping alive the broader nuclear talks
and the lifting of US sanctions on Tehran.*
I think Iran has decided to get serious about making an agreement
rather than trying to make the US desperate for an agreement.
Of the patients who were hospitalized with Covid-19 and still had problems
when they got out, at least half still have problems a year later.
10% still have brain fog.
*Kentucky candle factory bosses threatened to fire those who fled tornado, say
workers.*
*Would a union have saved them?*
*California ex-sheriff's deputy charged with pouring scalding water on
mentally ill inmate.*
*Nobel laureates call for 2% cut to military spending
worldwide.*
In London, if you have the symptoms of a cold, it's most likely to be
Covid-19 Omicron.
That may be true in many countries in a few weeks from now.
There are too many cattle in the Netherlands, and the pollution they
generate is damaging waterways. The government has a plan to
drastically decrease the number of cattle.
The cattle also produce methane,
which is a bigger problem than manure because it is a global
problem.
The world is considering using ammonia
as fuel, instead of petroleum. The efficient way to transport
hydrogen fuel is to convert it to ammonia.
Instead of reducing cattle to avoid ammonia pollution, perhaps
new systems for collecting cows' manure and urine can turn that
waste into a resource.
If it is necessary to reduce the amount of cattle farming in
the Netherlands, the state should not bow down to businesses by
begging and paying them to comply with laws. At least, not for
farms that are corporations. That would be putting businesses
above the public -- plutocracy, in other words.
Instead, the state should tax farms based on how much pollution
they generate.
Amazon supports anti-vax organizations.
*The Class War —” Waged and Being Won by the Rich —” Is Destroying US
Democracy.*
Over 8% of Britons will be in danger of being stripped of their
British citizenship at any time, without a trial, without even telling them,
under the Tory plans.
They would find out what had been done to them only if they visited
some other country and were stopped from returning, stateless and
trapped in whatever country they had tried to visit.
*Louisiana Policy Intended to Reform Solitary Confinement Still Leaves People
in Indefinite Lockdown.*
The EPA has failed for 4 years to regulate neonicotinoid pesticides in
accord with their tendency to kill many insect species, not just
pests. Now a lawsuit calls on the EPA to regulate them.
*Documents link Huawei to Uyghur surveillance projects, report claims.*
The US states that try to force women to have babies do little to help those babies grow up to be capable and have good lives.
(satire) *GOP Warns Loophole In New Bill Could Still Allow Teachers To
Sing About Critical Race Theory.*
White supremacists have constructed a false picture of what "critical
race theory" is, and are using manipulative language to lump it
together with some bigoted ideas as an excuse to prohibit both.
(satire) *Political Analysts Say GOP Could Take House If A Few Key
Assassinations Break Their Way.*
In some parts of India, the high-caste Hindu fanatics condemn eating
any meat, or even eggs. They try to impose that rule on everyone through
violent bullying.
Mark Meadows' log of texts shows that the wrecker's son had informed
the White House that rioters were attacking the Capitol and implored
the wrecker to "lead now" with an "Oval Office address."
The suspicion is that this was, for him, notice that things were
already satisfactory.
An Antarctic ice shelf is on the verge of shattering. When it does,
it will allow the Thwaites glacier to flow much vaster into the ocean
and raise sea level faster.
The Fish and Wildlife Service is planning to reduce protection on several
endangered species based on no scientific grounds.
It seems to be continuing with destructive orders that the wrecker
gave. I would suspect this is because of the saboteurs that he appointed
to the department.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Women's Health Protection Act. Among many other things, this will legislate to protect abortion rights even if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v Wade.
A US Navy sailor is accused of setting a small fire that totaled the
amphibious assault ship, Bonhomme Richard.
It seems to me that a more important question than who or what started
the fire is, why was the ship vulnerable to being destroyed by the
setting of a small fire? That is a lousy characteristic for a
warship. In battle, even small hits can start a fire. A ship that
can be destroyed so easily is not a very good ship for a navy.
*Protesting voting rights activists arrested as Biden meets with Manchin.*
I tend to think that it would be more effective to protest Manchin in
West Virginia than in DC.
US citizens: call on Senate Democrats to tax the rich and pay child
care workers a living wage now.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
*The network of election lawyers who are making it harder for
Americans to vote.*
Proposal: to prosecute the countries that are blocking generic production
of Covid-19 vaccines in the International Criminal Court.
The article makes an interesting suggestion, but its analysis calls for
clarification. It is not correct to say that the countries such as
Canada, Germany, the UK, Japan, and South Korea are "hoarding vaccines".
The real vaccine hoarders are the companies that make the vaccines.
They block the independent production of vaccines so that everyone has to
buy from them; this increases the price they can charge, and thus
increases their profits.
Countries such as Canada, Germany, and so on are culpable for helping
the companies do that. But they are not exactly "hoarding" the
vaccine themselves. In criminological terms, they are accessories.
What is the motivation of the leaders of those countries for
supporting that deadly profiteering? One obvious possibility is that
the leaders are corrupt -- that they get personal advantages from
serving powerful businesses. This is how plutocracy works.
But I hesitate to suppose that their motives are naked, simple
corruption. I wonder if those leaders believe their countries have a
real national interest in supporting artificial scarcity. That
would enable them to believe they are somehow serving their countries,
not merely helping to kill for profit.
It's possible that they really believe the propaganda built around the
term "intellectual property". Please join me in refusing to use that
term, not solely because of the propaganda but also because it
generalizes about laws that are too different for generalizing.
Lukashenko has sentenced a would-be opposition candidate to 18 years
in prison for opposition.
US citizens: call on Congress to regulate Facebook.
I could sign this petition because it does not call for censorship of the substantive opinions people can advocate on Facebook. The sort of regulation I think is called for would be in the algorithm that picks things to show each user, that come from people the user did not ask to follow.
*Barbados can be a beacon for the region -– if it avoids some of its
neighbours’ mistakes.*
Children can learn the value of money at age 7, and this can lead them
to better skills for planning ahead.
(satire) *TV Network Refuses To Air "Miracle On 34th Street" For
Outdated Depictions Of Hope, Joy.*
The US Constitution arguably requires states to run free and fair
elections.
Alas, right-wing justices on the Supreme Court have ruled that the court
cannot enforce this in substance.
(satire) *New Proposed Wealth Tax Would Target Americans With Circular
Driveways.*
American generals that lose in war are rewarded with riches once the
"revolving door" brings them to serve on the board of a military
contractor.
The old Reaganite order is dying, but the new progressive order is unable
to be born.
Biden's officials held a large auction of oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico,
and said that they had no choice because of a court order.
However, government lawyers had concluded that the court order did not
require holding any specific auction.
Republican state election officials elected in 2020 are trying to cast
doubt on the presidential election, while insisting that there is no doubt
about the validity of the elections they won.
But … they were the same election!
US citizens: call on Secretary Buttigeig to release a full economic justice and racial equity plan for Public Transit spending.
Cities need trees -- each tree does a lot more good than a lawn.
The Pentagon concluded that no one was individually negligent in
ordering a drone attack against a vehicle that in fact contained
friendly noncombatants -- rather, it was a system failure.
I do not see anything implausible about that. System failures are
quite common.
As for whether it is true that no one individual was culpable, I don't
know, but someone studying the report might be able to see if it
appears to be covering up anything.
The Pentagon said that it has adopted recommendations to fix the
system's flaws. The article doesn't give the details.
In order to determine, years from now, whether the recommendations
have achieved their goal, we need the US military to be ready to admit
deadly mistakes in the future. In the past it has had a pattern of
denying them and covering them up.
Has the US paid reparations to the relatives of the deceased?
Vaccination requirements for for group events, and restaurants, substantially increased vaccination in many countries.
How the US is gradually murdering Julian Assange.
I must rebuke the author for lumping together the corrupt dictator Ngo
Dinh Diem, who served the US badly because of his corruption and
repressive leanings, with people who opposed the US or its economic
empire.
I rebuke him even more for equating Biden with the wrecker. Biden is
no Sanders, but he is trying to save the US from the out-and-out fascism
and supports changes for the better, blocked by Manchin and Sinema as
well as the Republicans.
But then, Hedges says there is no difference between Sanders and the
wrecker. Hedges takes an extreme view of politics: either you're
rebelling against the US government or a toady. I don't agree.
Customers of Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Citibank: call on
them to stop investing in climate destruction.
You could
also move your money
to
a smaller
bank that invests in local businesses and housing. Those banks
do lots of bad things, including helping
to provoke
the economic crisis of 2008,
and defrauding customers.
The Department of Justice has promised not to be quite as lenient with
crimes committed by corporations. This article reports and gives
advice.
Most news publishers, universities, businesses, and government
agencies avoid the term "corporate crime" -- it is impolite to suggest
that laws be applied to corporations. They replace the term with
euphemisms.
*Afghan health system "close to collapse due to sanctions on Taliban."*
The US fumbled badly in the "Democracy Summit" when Taiwan's minister
Audrey Tang displayed a map showing the democratic countries and
tyrannical countries in the far east.
It's evidently pertinent and important, so if you invite various people to
speak about democracy and the far east, someone's likely to bring it up.
The US in effect set a trap for itself and fell in.
Audrey Tang also advocates free software within the government of
Taiwan. I hope she does not get punished for being the occasion for
embarrassment.
Global heating is expected to make Australia's soil release carbon --
a positive feedback loop that will spoil Australia's optimistic plans.
Craig Murray explains how the appeals about Julian Assange's extradition
will take years, and all the while he will be in a prison that subjects him
to inadequate medical care -- he has already had a stroke.
The UK may hope he dies before the process ends.
Rebecca Solnit: *America witnessed a coup attempt. Now it’s
sleep-walking into another disaster.*
The Republican Party has become all coup, all the time.
Malta is the first European country to legalize possessing marijuana
for personal use.
*Group of women asks US supreme court to overturn topless sunbathing ban.*
Whatever your sex, sunbathing is bad for your skin --
you can even get skin cancer. It's wiser to be nude in the shade.
A report about mergers of giant US media companies and how they have
affected the public.
*D.C. council renames the street in front of the Saudi embassy after Jamal
Khashoggi.*
This is following the rub-the-tyrant's-nose-in-it policy.
Elon Musk's company SpaceX is buying up houses near its headquarters
in Texas. Some homeowners say it is offering far too little.
Governor Newsom plans to turn the Republicans' everybody-sue-'em approach
to gun control.
The everybody-sue-'em approach is inherently dangerous, regardless of
what it is used for. It should not be used to regulate abortions, or
guns, or anything else. No constitutional rights are safe if that
everybody-sue-'em approach is permitted.
Anyone worthy to sit on the Supreme Court would have realized that
this approach must be rejected regardless of what the issue is. We
have to hope that seeing it used against a favorite right-wing
recruiting stand will convince the extremists on the court to change
their minds about that approach.
But I expect they will instead fabricate inconsistent excuses to
permit the approach when used for right-wing purposes and reject it
when used for progressive purposes.
Jay Rosen: *The first thing news organizations have to do is announce
they are pro-democracy, pro-truth, pro-science, pro-evidence and
pro-voting.*
(satire) *Army Receives 15-Yard Penalty For Drone-Striking The Kicker.*
40 years after the El Mozote massacre, El Salvador is prosecuting the
surviving perpetrators -- US-trained soldiers of the military government.
The right-wing current president is trying to protect them.
In response to atrocities such as this, dissidents in the US demanded
closure of the School of the Americas. The government responded by
changing its name
and hoping people would forget about it.
Experience in the UK says that Omicron often spreads to everyone in
a get-together, and comes on very fast.
They are asking people to take a home Covid test right before going to
any get-together. The UK is making those tests readily available.
The US seems not to want to pay for them.
Also, they are asking even vaccinated people who had contact with an
infected person to take an at-home Covid test every day for the next week.
This is to slow the spread of Omicron.
Of all the Britons who say they love freedom, few are opposing the bill
to sentence protesters to a year in prison.
I support the right to protest to demand the freedom to go
unvaccinated -- though I think it is wrong actually go unvaccinated
and risk spreading disease. I hope that everyone who supports the
right to protest will join in the campaign to preserve that right.
Dr Rebecca Gompertz and her colleagues provide abortions where that is
forbidden, on ships and by telemedicine.
When asylum seekers try to go to Britain in a boat, one of them has to
steer. The UK prosecutes whoever does that.
*Beijing is aiming for global ascendancy – but its leader’s vision of
world dominion is centralised, oppressive and totalitarian.*
*Reporters Without Borders calls increasing media oppression in China a
"great leap backwards" and says Hong Kong journalism is "in freefall."*
*In a society driven by "gotchas" and self-righteousness, let’s be more
ready to recognise our own failings and less hasty to judge others’.*
*New rules on UK arms trade makes it "easier" to sideline human rights.*
*How elite [expensive] hobbies let billionaires pay no tax.*
The don't even limit themselves to the deductions that the law allows.
Bogus Johnson has built hatred for the Tory Party to the point where
Labour might win. But that won't do anything great: Starmer has
made sure of that.
Freezing sperm and tissue from endangered animals is an effective way
of increasing the preserved genetic diversity of a species -- provided there is
still a living population to mate with sperm, or host clone embryos.
*UK universities took £89m [in "gifts"] from oil firms in last four years.*
*Climate Critics Warn of "Big Gaps" in Biden Plan to Eliminate Overseas Fossil
Fuel Funding.*
A whistleblower has reported that the UK officials responsible for
giving asylum to Afghans were shockingly negligent about their job.
They put off reading thousands of urgent messages about people who
would be in danger.
One senior official stayed on vacation during the period.
The UK government seems to have been poisoned by the attitude that
no job deserves to be attended with urgency.
Nowadays the government seems to be stopping the whole project
by depriving it of funds.
South Korea is pushing to make daily life possible without any
presencial interactions with other people.
Is it possible to purchase from an "untact" store, cafe or take-out
store without identifying yourself and paying cash? If you live in
South Korea, please tell me what you experience?
Everyone: call on big delivery companies to
switch fast
to electric vehicles.
Many of these companies deliver for stores that require purchasers to
run nonfree software, require them to identify themselves, and don't
allow paying cash. I urge you to refuse to buy things that way,
electric vehicles or no.
US citizens: insist that the new USPS chair must fire Postmaster DeJoy.
(satire) *Kim Jong-Un Eagerly Waiting For Inner Circle To Get Big
Enough So He Can Start Executing People Again.*
Jesse Jackson: *Should Parents Be Held Responsible for Their
Children’s Unspeakable Gun Violence?*
Here's one thing that is clear to me: if we are going to punish
parents their children's violence, we must insist on objective
standards for what parents should not do. Otherwise, we risk that
punishing the parents become an automatic consequence of a killing
by the child, regardless of how the parents acted, because of
the desire to punish.
*The extra $25 billion that the U.S. Congress is moving to pour into
the Pentagon's overflowing coffers is the exact sum researchers say is
needed to produce enough coronavirus vaccines to achieve widespread
global inoculation.*
Whether this would actually end the Covid-19 pandemic is not clear, but it
would certainly reduce the harm.
*How a terrorism law in India is being used to silence Modi’s critics.*
UK banks are closing bank accounts of charities that work with Kenya
in ways that either indicate bizarre incompetence, or something worse.
It seems to me like another form of "hostile environment".
The natural resources needed for food for the human population are
under strain -- depleted or damaged.
In Wisconsin, fanatical Republicans determined discredit the 2020
election and undermine future elections, are conducting a secret
"audit" of ballots from 2020.
(satire) *Executives Urge Boycott Of Kellogg's After CEO Receives
Insulting Salary Offer Of $11 Million A Year.*
Nearly all the Republicans in the House of Representatives voted against
a bill to limit federal officials' power to abuse the government system.
The only explanation I can think of is that they want future
Republicans to engage in abuses.
Vaping nicotine tends to cause erectile dysfunction.
When former prisoners find a job, the complex requirements of probation often
make it impossible to keep the job. The US should change that.
Human Rights Watch reports that Tigrayan fighters murdered civilian
prisoners
and said this was retaliation because an Amhara militia was fighting
them on the battlefield.
You can't equate militias with civilians who are prisoners.
Women often face criticism if they speak as loud as men do.
If the Supreme court overturns Roe v Wade, that could damage the legal
idea of a right to privacy in the US, and that could in turn threaten
gay rights, contraceptives and fertility treatments.
Rep. Jayapal is pushing to end Medicare's privatization experiment.
The fossil fuel industry's subtle tactics for blocking decarbonization.
(satire) *Smithsonian Acquires Coat Hanger Neil Armstrong And Buzz
Aldrin Used To Get Back Inside Lunar Module After Locking Selves Out.*
Extinction Rebellion activists faced charges for blocking a train line
in London. The jury acquitted them.
(satire) *New Zillow Feature Lets Users Track Happy Lives Of People
Who Outbid Them For Dream House.*
*Arizona students stage hunger strike to urge Sinema to support voting reform.*
They give our country hope, but others will need to build on their beginning.
The Supreme Court's decision effectively upheld the Texas law
prohibiting almost all abortions, and permitting vigilantees to sue
anyone that assists a pregnant woman in getting an abortion.
The little sliver of the decision that went against the Texas law is
a minor detail that won't in practice change much.
The authors are certain that the court will overturn Roe v Wade next
spring. But in the mean time, they have allowed staten laws to
undermine the constitutional structure of US law, just to attack
abortion rights six months sooner.
The prohibition of abortion will motivate millions of women, and
millions of men, to organize politically. But they will not be
organizing in a democracy that would give them a chance to change the
government. Republicans are putting an end to that.
Mark Meadows had a copy of a presentation offering the wrecker various
options to overturn the presidential election, one being a coup.
*Biden administration drug czar says it's time to treat drug addiction like a
chronic disease.*
For a "drug czar" to advocate harm reduction is a big advance,
even though it doesn't directly change anything.
To continue US fossil fuel extraction using fracking would cost 25
trillion dollars, and enormous resources.
Renewable energy would be far more efficient.
(satire) *Senators Explain What Gun Control Means To Them.*
The Committee to Protect Journalists reports a record number of journalists
in prison around the world, for the sixth year in a row.
Why federally-funded universal child care services would be a wise
investment for the US.
Alternatively, the US should provide adequate welfare benefits for
single parents so that they don't live in poverty.
The European Union is considering a directive to give many sorts of gig workers
the legal rights of employees.
This could be a big step forward against the companies' mistreatment
of their workers, but won't change the way they mistreat customers:
requiring them to run nonfree software and identify themselves.
I absolutely refuse to be a mistreated in that way, so I have never
used any of those companies.
The food delivery companies additionally parasitize the restaurants
whose food they deliver.
Coastal animals are colonizing floating plastic garbage.
This enables them to move to other coastlines, where they did not
previously live, and mess up the ecosystems there.
US citizens: phone your senators at +1
(202) 224-3121 and say not to leave Washington until the Senate
passes the Freedom to Vote Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights
Advancement Act.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass
the Freedom
to Vote Act.
US citizens: call on Congress
to weatherize
low-income homes now.
US citizens: call on Biden to fill the rest of the Federal Reserve
Board with progressive leaders who will take on the big banks to fight the
climate crisis.
Rally for Julian Assange at 3pm on December 18
in Fresh Pond Mall, 186 Alewife Brook Parkway, Cambridge, Mass.
Sea-level rise (caused by global heating) is making sea-side towns in Ghana
uninhabitable.
*Staff employed [in Afghanistan] to teach British values and the
English language refused the right to come to the UK.*
This decision teaches an ironic lesson about Tory values.
Committee to Protect Journalists: *Number of journalists in jail
around the world at new high, says survey.*
Biden will start another effort to eliminate incandescent light bulbs.
The wrecker blocked the previous attempt.
The planned gradual phase-out — details are not given — could be
worse than merely slow. It could give a Republican the opportunity to
cancel the change in 2025.
* It's up to you and me to decide what it means to be a socialist in 21st
century America.*
A survey of preparedness against future pandemics found that countries
scored 39 out of 100, on the average.
Efforts to prevent the emergence of pandemics score even lower.
Plutocratists have found another excuse for a subsidy to big business:
to produce more IC chips in the US.
The traditional way to encourage domestic production is with an import
tariff. That gives the same preference to domestic production, but
instead of giving money to big businesses, it collects money from
big businesses. Since big businesses have too much money anyway,
the latter is better.
Governments in the US have been subsidizing businesses more and more,
justifying it by supposed trickle-down benefits that often fail to
happen. Americans are starting to recognize that the net result is to
transfer public money to businesses.
If the US government insists on "investing in" US chip manufacturing,
it should invest by buying stock in those businesses. At least that way
the public treasury will benefit if they do well.
In addition, it would be useful to prohibit encryption systems which
don't let the owner of a computer read and write the keys -- such as
TPMs and the Management Engine.
China is trying to pass as a democracy by muddling the concept of
democracy.
In the US, the Republican Party (following the bullshitter) is doing
likewise, with its voter suppression,
gerrymandering,
and plans to arbitrarily reverse elections when it dislikes the outcome.
China proposed a policy of compelling Communist Party members to have
more babies, again resembling the Republican Party.
Of the two, the Communist Party was less nasty, because it withdrew the
suggestion in response to lots of criticism.
A judge appointed by the wrecker has put a stay on Biden's vaccine mandates
for employees of federal contractors.
Republicans believe that the most important cause in the world, what they
should be willing to die for, is keeping Covid-19 going strong in the US.
*Filibuster Reform for Debt Ceiling Fight But Not Voting Rights or
Reproductive Freedom?*
*Senate Dems Help Torpedo Resolution That Would Have Blocked $650 Million Arms
Sale to [Salafi Arabia].*
A guard at a UK deportation prison says that the culture of the guards is racist and it "radicalizes" the staff into racism.
*Amazon Employee Describes "Sheer Brutality" of Work [in an Amazon warehouse] to Senators.*
Loujain al-Hathloul, imprisoned women's rights activist, is suing
three US intelligence officers who she alleges helped the UAE crack her phone, which enabled the UAR to arrest her and send her to Salafi
Arabia to be imprisoned.
*California residents will be required to use green waste bins to
dispose of food [waste] which municipalities will turn into compost or
biogas.*
I wish I could give food waste to someone that would compost it.
It's too complex for me to do, because I'm non compost mentis ;-}.
*New York City’s noncitizens will soon be allowed to vote in local elections.*
The Senate is blocking confirmation of Biden's nominee for combating
antisemitism, because she criticizes a Republican senator for a racist
remark. Many strong supporters of the Republican Party are antisemitic, and
the wrecker said that American Nazis include "fine people",
so perhaps his followers prefer to deactivate efforts against antisemitism.
Verizon is collecting browsing records from customers even if they already said they wanted to "opt out" from such collection.
My understanding is that every ISP in the US keeps records of what
network sites are contacted from each connection (mobile or fixed),
for government surveillance. The only thing a subscriber can "opt
out" of is Verizon's use of that same data for its own profit.
The thing to do is not let Verizon see what site you talk to.
* Ancient shrines, oral folklore and hip-hop cyphers are all part of a
rich artistic heritage being ‘hollowed out’ in Xinjiang say Uyghur
exiles and scholars.*
China has done similar things to Tibetan culture for decades.
As agricultural runoff kills Florida's seagrass, the manatees are starving.
Florida is hand-feeding the remaining manatees, but that solution won't work
for wild manatees over the long term.
The UK agreed to extradite Julian Assange,
accepting the US's substantively vacuous assurances not to subject Assange
to certain specific kinds of brainwashing and mind-killing conditions.
More information here and here
The worst damage comes from the general decision to extradite journalists for publishing whistleblower reports.
That will harm journalism and thus also democracy, world wide, for
as long as democracy and journalism exist.
*Britain can't complain about global corruption — it's helping to fund it.*
*The streets of many towns and cities across Myanmar were deserted on
Friday as the public held a "silent strike" to protest against the
military government,*
An incomplete list of gross political misconduct against Bogus Johnson.
An incomplete list of accusations of dishonesty against Bogus Johnson.
Will Tories exile British citizens for protesting?
Columbia University has threatened to fire graduate students who are
on strike.
40 million Americans have college debt. Millions of them with low incomes
keep paying and paying, but the interest they are charged is bigger than
the payments. They will spend the rest of their lives crushed by debt.
Britons revile the "We can have parties and spread disease" Tories.
It seems they had parties in various official quarters, last year.
Mining companies want to mine the metals from undersea vents. The
total area of these vents is small, and many species live only there.
Mining could wipe them out in decades.
A study finds that (some) tropical forests that have been mostly
destroyed regrow quickly, and after 20 years are going strong again.
Leaving them alone is better than planting new trees.
I expect that these results vary depending on the location and on what sort
of destruction occured. It would be interesting to get more details.
The Patriotic Millionaires rebuked Senator Sinema for defending the
carried interest loopole, which cuts taxes for private equity funds.
I think those are the same funds that have destroyed many US companies
by selling off their valuable assets and leaving them with debts that
will force them to shut down.
Greenpeace activists blocked doors of the Royal Bank of Canada,
demanding that it stop funding climate disaster.
Activists also offer the bank's executives charred wood from houses
burned by wildfires in Canada.
Right-wing Democrats joined with Republicans to reject Biden's nominee for head of the Comptroller of the Currency.
Perhaps she was inclined to do the part of her job which includes
investigating misconduct by banks.
Kellogg's workers voted to reject a "two-tier" contract
that would pay all new workers less than the old ones.
In Australia, Labor (much like US Democrats, mostly plutocratist)
is appealing to Christianity to mobilize people for climate defense.
I wonder if that would work in the US.
*Styrofoam trash adds to antibiotic resistance crisis.*
An analysis of lab experiments found that microplastics, in realistic
concentrations, can harm human cells.
An astroturf campaign to block a wind farm -- in the name of protecting the environment -- is funded by oil company.
Kim Potter is on trial for killing Daunte Wright at a traffic stop.
She says that she thought she was firing her taser.
Either Potter grabbed the pistol intentionally and pretended it was
her taser, or she grabbed the pistol unthinkingly by mistake. I have
no particular insight into which one it was.
I am sure it is possible to make such mistakes, and I don't think it
serves any moral or practical purpose to punish them. This wasn't the
usual bullshit lie that thugs tell after killing someone for no valid
reason. However, I am sure there are some thugs who are so
habituated to lying that they would be capable of intentionally
drawing a pistol while shouting "Taser, taser!"
Whistleblower Daniel Hale, who told us how the US covers up killing
thousands of civilians with drone attacks, has received the
International Whistleblower Award.
The US accuses El Salvador of negotiating a deal with gang leaders to reduce
the violence of their combat for control of drug trade.
I expect that this was the best option available to El Salvador. I
wonder if it includes being less violent to the populace as well as to
each other. Gang violence and threats are often the cause that drives
Salvadoreans to flee to the US for seeking asylum.
Reality Winner explains her motives for informing the public about how
Russia had penetrated some US election systems.
The article also explains why each side of US politics was unhappy
with the facts she revealed.
Rep. Pascrell talks about an investigation into policies that make
the US an attractive spot for some kinds of tax-dodging.
*Biden signs order for government to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.*
This is totally insufficient, but it is something Biden can do
without getting the Senate to agree. It is disappointing to fall
into the fashionable "net zero" pitfall, though.
The UK estimates that it probably has 10,000 cases of the
fast-spreading Omicron variant.
At this point, I think that there is no benefit in blocking travel
from the African countries where Omicron was initially discovered.
The number of additional cases likely to arrive from there is surely
insignificant compared with the number of people catching Omicron in
the UK.
New Zealand proposes to ban tobacco.
Tobacco is a deadly, addictive drug, and eliminating it would be a
substantial improvement. But prohibition of an addictive drug tends
to backfire.
US citizens: call on the FDIC to limit banks' investments in fossil fuels
and in industries that bet on heavy use of fossil fuels.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the Protecting Our Democracy
Act.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121. If you call, please spread the word!
* A wave of shoplifting crimes are attracting
front-page news, while the $15bn stolen by corporations from
workers receives no coverage at all.*
Of course, what drives the headlines is notoriety. A video of someone
shoplifting is surprising, since we expect those thieves to try to
avoid notice. Theft of workers' wages happens quietly. It is a very
important problem, but it is not news.
People get arrested for stealing products from stores, but stealing
wages requires a lawsuit. The lawsuit requires private funds, and no
one will be arrested for the theft.
If bosses were arrested for stealing wages, they might stop. That is
the kind of crime that punishment ought to deter effectively.
So why don't we do that?
I suppose it is partly because business owners have more political
power than workers. But also because businesses do this by making
unfair rules and then enforcing them. To stop that requires a trial
to judge the rules.
If some of these rules were standardized by law, it would be easier
to arrest bosses for trying to impose illegal rules on workers.
Subcontracting work is popular partly because it allows the company or
agency that pays for the work to avoid responsibility for the work.
Cutting pay and speeding up the work are one common result; another is
that the work is done badly and people have no recourse for it. I
advocate laws to restrict subcontracting to a much lower level.
Egypt has released Patrick Zaki on bail. He still faces years in
prison for publishing his experience confronting the prejudice against
Egyptian Christians.
Someone commented "Thank God" about his release. I find that
particularly ironic, given that religion is the cause of his problems.
*Abstinence-based recovery nearly killed me — the Tories’ ‘war on
drugs’ won’t work.*
The Tories have proposed a bill to privatize the NHS in substance.
They have made the horrible and inadequate US medical system (horrible
and inadequate if you're not wealthy) as their model. But in one
respect, they have chosen to go further, by removing the requirement
that the NHS provide emergency care to everyone.
Given the Tory attitude towards refugees, I suppose that soon
they won't get treatment even for broken bones, as part of the
"hostile environment".
Biden promised he would reverse the wrecker's attack on the
immigration judge union, but has not made any change.
The UK is considering an "emergency" approval for use of a
neonicotinoid pesticide.
There is a real emergency, but use of neonicotinoids creates its own
future emergency for which we have no remedy.
The UK was going to raise the capital gains tax, but quietly dropped the plan.
The ties that now bind nations together are becoming methods for
fighting each other.
In the 1970s, the short-sighted western countries responded to OPEC's
power with a campaign to boost their own extraction of fossil fuels.
That campaign is still advancing, even though we now know it is
suicidal.
The best way to respond to Putin's threats is to speed up renewable electric
generation.
*Wildfires broke carbon emission records from Siberia to the American west.*
China is offering vaccines instead of loans to win diplomatic
support from African countries.
The new approach is much better for those African countries. I wish
the US were inclined to compete with China at it. If it were not for
the oppressiveness of China, and its plan to conquer and subjugate
Taiwan, I would wish China success in this competition.
Record high temperatures devastated the Christmas tree crop planted in
Oregon this year.
A meticulous approximation says that Ethereum uses around 2 to 3
gigawatts. That is equivalent to 2 to 3 coal-fired power plants, or
1/3 of what Americans use for watching TV.
Republicans attack the basic idea of having the law apply equally to
everyone — and thereby the basic idea of public health rules that people
are requires to obey to keep the public safe.
It is now possible to predict a person's physical appearance fairly reliably from per DNA sequence.
Since our current knowledge of the significance of genes is imperfect,
some people will not actually resemble the prediction. This may cause
the wrong people to be questioned. At least it will be possible to
prove, with their DNA, that they are not the suspect.
Other possible problems are not caused by inaccuracy of prediction.
However, I don't think we should call it "racial profiling" when the
state suspects people in racial group R because it is known that the
culprit was in group R. If a witness says, "He was black" or "He was
white", we would not call it "racial profiling" if that led to
questioning blacks, or to questioning whites.
Real racial profiling is when cops jump to the conclusion that they
should search for a certain group, not based on knowledge, but rather
based on assuming that people in group R are likely to be criminals.
The world can produce enough food for the current human population.
but it might take big social changes as well as changes in diets.
Resistance to those changes will be strong.
The smaller the human population, the smaller the necessary changes
will be.
The UK denied asylum to Ethiopian Seyfu Jamaal, saying he would be
safe in Ethiopia where civil war is spreading.
Congress must not trust the US military to take civilian casualties
seriously and investigate them properly. Congress should do the
investigating.
California has canceled the approval of the pesticide sulfoxaflor,
because of its danger to bees.
It is probably dangerous to other non-pest insects, too.
* Since 1995, members of the global 1% have
captured 38% of all new wealth while the poorest half of humanity has
benefited from just 2%.*
*Global inequality "as marked as it was at peak of western imperialism."*
The British government formally apologized for failing to enforce fire
regulations, with the result that 72 people died in a fire spread by
flammable building materials.
Now will it take responsibility for fixing firetrap apartments that
people bought, who now can't afford to pay to make them safe? The
government agreed to pay for this for tall buildings, but arbitrarily
decided to leave the people in shorter buildings trapped there.
*White House Dismisses Idea of Mailing Out [Gratis] Covid Tests Like
Other Nations.*
It looks like Bogus Johnson ordered an evacuation plane to take rescue
dogs and cats out of Afghanistan and leave some human beings behind.
This shows why I agree only to a limited extent with idea of animal
rights: because strong support tends to lead people to save dogs they
love rather than human beings they don't know.
I doubt that Bogus Johnson really cared about those pets, any more
than he cares about Afghans or Britons in general. But I think that
Farthing must have cared about the pets, and that motivated him to use
some sort of personal connection to get this favor from Johnson.
*The International Tennis Federation says it has not suspended
tournaments in China because it
"does not want to punish a billion people."*
If that excuse were valid, it would be wrong to deny China anything it
wants, because (after China publicizes the denial) most Chinese would
feel you had denied them something, so you would have "punished" them.
A sports tournament is never so important that cancelling it constitutes
an unfair punishment to the would-be spectators.
(satire) *Federal Witness Protection Program Criticized
For Failing To Create Believable Female Identities.*
Rich right-wing fanatics have funded campaigns to elect right-wing fanatics
to school boards. Where they succeed,
they enact policies to facilitate
spread of Covid-19 and try to sabotage education about racism
*ALEC Is
Enabling Anti-LGBTQ Hate.*
With all the
injustices that ALEC promotes
One more injustice may seem to change little. But this may make
ALEC more vulnerable. Many companies have taken strong stands in
favor of gay rights, and they may find it hard to support ALEC given
this.
An anti-coal activist in Australia has been living in her car.
She can't go home, as she has
been ordered not to see her SO for a year.
Now the thugs have seized the car and plan to sell it.
Another variant, similar to Omicron, usually passes unnoticed with the
quick tests usually used.
Scientists have no idea how much it has
already spread.
Outlining a national strategy
to protect people from Covid-19.
Agriculture uses lots of plastic,
generally single-use, and disposed of by burning or burying in the soil.
Tourists in Antarctica bring
invasive species that grow in places where the ice has melted.
Whether this new ecosystem is a bad thing, I'm not sure.
If there are no native species for them to drive out,
maybe no harm is done.
US counties that voted more for
the wrecker have higher death rates
from Covid.
The wrecker's supporters tend not to get vaccinated, and thus are more
likely to die.
A list of possible
sanctions against Russia if it attacks Ukraine.
It is somewhat misguided to list canceling the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline
as a possible punishment, since that pipeline must
never be used in any case. It would burst the carbon budget.
Many in Afghanistan that the UK offered asylum to did not make it out, and
are now trapped there.
Under those circumstances of chaos and hurry, almost anyone will make
mistakes. Perhaps we should not blame the UK and the US for slipping up.
However, the UK government seems in recent years to have become
systematically incompetent for all tasks that involve doing things for
specific people. Especially those that involve passports and visas.
I don't know whether this is a matter of hiring corrupt or incompetent people,
or a workplace culture that makes it better to do nothing than to help
anyone who wasn't supposed to be helped, or something else.
Timnit Gebru: *
For truly ethical AI, its research must be independent
from big tech.*
The billionaire "philanthropists" of Big Tech dominate nonprofit
fundraising, too, and they use this to shape society according to
their ideas. Bill Gates set up much-criticized changes in education
in the US, and made almost all leaders and experts in the field
reluctant to criticize them because they hoped for funding from the
Gates Foundation.
Gebru's point makes sense to me, but that alone won't make AI in the
service of companies safe. Letting servers run by others dominate
your computing activities is giving those others tyrannical power over
you. That moral issue is separate from the one that Gebru raises.
If part of what attracts people to use the servers is AI that "works
well", that AI will contribute to dominating people, even if there is
nothing wrong about how that AI itself functions.
Sweden has adopted a multipurpose RFID person identification chip. This is very dangerous,
because it tends to lead people to use one
chip to identify themselves for many activities.
Even if different servers run by different operators control different
activities, their databases are all pre-indexed.
Getting the chip inserted into one's hand makes this more shocking,
but it is just the icing on the poisonous cake.
A black defendant won a new trial
because the jury deliberated in a room
with a Confederate flag and other symbols.
This illustrates part of how systemic racism operates. The racism of
the Confederacy, and the slavery system it fought for, propagates
through the actions of its present-day adorers into racist influence
on other people.
The retrial will not exactly tell us whether that influence was
crucial in the first trial. Partly because the appeal found another
error in his first trial: some evidence will not be admitted next
time. Partly because it will have a different jury and maybe a
different judge. But also because influences like this are not
overwhelming. They do not compel a given outcome independent of what
the facts justify. Rather, they change tendencies. They may or may
not hurt a particular individual on a particular occasion, but overall
they make the system more unfair.
The article linked to above displays symbolic bigotry by
capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry,
capitalize both words or neither one.) I object to bigotry, and
normally I decline to link to articles which promote it. But I make
exceptions for some articles which give important information about
racism or the fight to eliminate racism. That article is one of the
exceptions.
With China defending the Burmese military rule,
the US has no effective
way to oppose it.
Sanctions would have little effect because China would not adopt them.
I wonder if there is some sort of communications technology that the US
could provide to the resistance, that might aid its efforts.
(satire) *Centrist NFL Fan
Spends Sunday Rooting For Line Of Scrimmage.*
Victoria's border closure (with another part of Australia) blocked
thousands of residents of Victoria from returning home.
They tried to apply for an exemption, but the automated bureaucracy made impossible demands.
Ralph Nader: crimes by corporations are ever more documented,
but the US
government hardly ever really prosecutes it.
Former prisoners of Australia's offshore immigration prisons,
and former staff, rebuke the UK for planning to do likewise.
*US, UK and EU will help fund South Africa's coal phaseout,
offering a
model for the developing world.*
*Rohingya sue Facebook for £150bn over Myanmar genocide.*
*All coral reefs in western Indian Ocean "at high risk of collapse in next 50
years."*
It doesn't mention the other danger of ocean acidification.
*New York City sets Covid vaccine mandate for all private employers.*
When gambling addiction lures people into unpayable debt, some of them
commit suicide.
There are around 400 such suicides a year in the UK.
I was unable to find any comparable info about the US.
China points to the grave flaws in US democracy to make itself appear
not so bad.
Aung San Suu Kyi has been sentenced to four years in prison, for various invented crimes.
Basically,
for acting as if Burma were a free country.
Resistance to the coup is going strong, a year later.
The Tories plan to put Humpty Dumpty in charge of laws: they will mean
whatever ministers say they mean.
The UK is planning its own version of a "war on drugs".
I expect this to do increased harm, just as the US "war on drugs" has done.
*US seeks Russian and Chinese support to salvage Iran nuclear deal.*
California's voters are leaning towards repeal of the death penalty.
Students in various US high schools are organzing to protest the
prejudice and hatred shown by others in their school.
Why is smuggling of fentanyl increasing as heroin decreases? It's the
"iron law of prohibition": "As you crack down on the original
substances, you end up with a substitute that is usually more compact,
more potent, easier to smuggle and more problematic, more dangerous."
Biden wants stricter punishment for possessing or selling fentanyl.
The hyperpunitive approach never stops people from using an addictive drug.
Because fentanyl is dangerous, we need policies that reduce the danger.
Decriminalization together with treatment can at least reduce the deaths
from overdoses and contamination, and often helps reduce use.
Honolulu shut down its main source of water because of contamination
with jet fuel.
When the Navy stopped pumping water from that area, because its water
was contaminated, the result was to direct the flow towards
Honolulu's well and contaminate that well's water.
*'Global Empire of the US Christian Right': Dark Money Fuels Attacks on
Abortion Rights Worldwide*
Brazil passed a law to create a compulsory license to patents that
obstruct protection from Covid-19, but Bolsonaro vetoed it; the Senate
can override, but it has failed to do so.
It is not clear to me how this law would enable vaccine manufacturers
in Brazil to get access to the trade secrets of making the vaccines.
One of the supposed reasons for the patent system is to procure the
publication of details in patent applications -- but that no longer
has the intended results. Patentholders publish the minimum they can
get away with, while keeping the rest of the details secret.
Every shooting in a school encourages pressure for more complete surveillance
of students, which supposedly would make it possible to identify those
who will be murderers.
This approach doesn't seem to be practical, because even with lots of
personal surveillance data, it's hard to identify the few who will
actually commit violence. The system gives warnings about many and
nearly all are false alarms. The followups harass many and rarely do
any good.
*Nine pro-corrupter lawyers ordered to pay $175,000 for sham election lawsuit.*
One of them faces federal charges of falsifying incorporation papers.
*Poland plans to set up [a centralized digital] register of
pregnancies to report miscarriages.*
When women have miscarriages, the state might suspect them of having
had an abortion. Some US states have prosecuted women based on
discovering that they had miscarriages,
and some Latin American countries as well.
*Winter heatwave breaks records in four US states.*
Hotter winters has harmful effects. It can mean less snow or ice
remains to fill rivers in the spring. It can enable pests to survive
and multiply, which used to live somewhere warmer.
The Pegasus spyware was used to crack the phones of some US officials.
This is in addition to officials of France and some other countries.
I can't imagine what justification a state could offer for such a
boycott. "Those rich little companies are getting less investment —
that is a horrible injustice! We must support them!"? It would be a
blatant act of partisanship, a law with no pretense of a public
interest purpose.
*GOP Reject Vaccine Mandates for Men, But Demand Pregnancy Mandates for Women.*
Shell has got final permission to set off explosions off the East Coast
of South Africa.
Even if Shell knows how to reduce the harm to whales' hearing from the
seismic tests, it makes no sense to permit exploring for oil under the
ocean bottom, or anywhere, because there is no room in the carbon budget
to extract that oil.
(satire) *Bounty Scientists Scream As Experimental Paper Towel Absorbs
Entire Lab.*
Michael Reinoehl, anti-fascist, admitted shooting an armed right-wing
counterprotester and said it was self-defense. The thugs went after
him and killed him; some said he tried to shoot them, but others said
he was running away, unarmed.
Contrast this with how they treated Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot and killed
unarmed antiracist protesters and said it was self-defense.
The article makes claims about what "the Democrats" will do, and that
may apply to plutocratist Democrats. I think some progressive Democrats
are different.
Pfizer's patents and secrets give it power which it uses to bully
governments to agree to one-sided agreements (with unjust arbitration
instead of trials), and keep the whole thing secret from the public.
This shows that patents in the medical field are worse than just
instruments to gouge the non-rich and let the poor die. They are a
system where peoples are ruled by corporations.
This system needs to be destroyed.
Oceanic windfarms act as artificial reefs that provide a much better home
for sea life than a flat bottom. They can reinvigorate fishing.
In addition, they block the kinds of fishing that wipe out everything.
*Principles v money: from tennis to F1, this is the real contest taking over
global sport.*
I never care about sports except on the rare occasions when I come
across an example of real heroism, something more important than
sports. The Women's Tennis Association's defense of Peng Shuai was
such an example. Since I never watch sports, I won't actually see
it, but I will read the news about it.
Plankton that proliferated 2 billion years ago died and became graphite,
which lubricated rocks, which facilitated the growth of mountains.
French people's incomes increased in the late 1700s because they became
less religious and practiced contraception more.
US citizens: call on the EPA to regulate methane emissions.
US citizens: call on Biden to stop oil drilling on federal lands.
We need to stop new oil drilling on private lands too, but the president cannot
do that by himself.
US citizens: call on Congress to fix the Supreme Court and save
abortion rights.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121. If you call, please spread the word
US citizens: call on the Senate to carefully examine the nominees for
the USPS Board of Governors, and demand commitments to repair and
improve the USPS.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121. If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on the EPA to protect frontline communities.
*"Enemy combatant" [Abu Zubaydah] held at Guantánamo petitions for
release because war is over.*
* When environmentalists on a Seychelles atoll decided to race boats made
from ocean litter, they had 500 tonnes to pick from.*
Philippine journalist Maria Ressa, targeted with lawfare by President
Do-dirty, will be allowed to go to Norway to receive her Nobel Prize.
Microgig platforms such as Mechanical Turk are designed to keep the
labor force atomized and poor.
The wrecker's "Remain in Mexico" is now operative again: making asylum
seekers that cross the US-Mexico border stay in Mexico while their
cases are considered. The Mexican border cities are very dangerous.
Whatever we think of the "Remain in Mexico" policy, we can't blame
Biden for obeying a court order. The last thing we need now is for
the president to promote the idea that the president can disregard
court orders at will. That would help future Republican presidents do
the same.
However, there must be a procedure that the wrecker used to put the
"Remain in Mexico" policy into effect. I expect that procedure could
revoke it, too, in a way that the court would accept. So I wonder: is
Biden doing that?
Polar bears in Churchill, Canada, on Hudson Bay, face eventual extinction when there is no longer any sea ice.
Nevada's Supreme Court ruled that a gun company cannot be liable if a person
uses its product for murder.
I think the judge's ruling is the only proper decision. For any
product that can be used as a weapon, society has basically two
choices: permit people to make, sell, buy and own that product, or
forbid it.
If society decides to permit the product, it must not hold the maker
liable for crimes committed using it. To do that would make
production so dangerous that no one would dare produce it; in
practice, production would be indirectly prohibited. This applies not
only to products that are weapons, but also to other products which
are not intended as weapons, but are dangerous -- for instance, table
knives.
It is wrong for society to prohibit anything indirectly via
unpredictable third-party liability. (Can you name something else
that is now being prohibited indirectly in parts of the US?) If
society decides to prohibit making, selling, buying and owning a
certain kind of product, it should do so explicitly and directly, not
by letting others sue the makers into bankruptcy.
I support prohibiting AR-15 rifles, and other guns that can be
converted in effect into machine guns with a convenient add-on. Those
guns make more danger; as far I can see, there is nothing good about
them that could outweigh that reason to prohibit them.
Climate defenders have sued the UK government for establishing a plan for billions in subsidies for fossil fuel extraction.
Fossil fuel companies such as Exxon are running big ad campaigns on
podcasts, claiming that they will cure global heating with carbon capture —
which is unlikely ever to work well enough to make a difference.
British parents asked the thug department to help them get their daughters
back from PISSI. All the thugs cared about was interrogating the parents
then they exiled the daughters without talking with them.
The Unite labor union will cut its donation to the new, "centrist"
Labour Party.
I am sad to say I don't think this will change Starmer's politics. He
must have a powerful reason to have chosen the mission to ensure that
no one like Corbyn ever leads the Labour Party again.
The Pentagon said it expects China to be ready to defeat the US and conquer
Taiwan by 2027.
The Pentagon may be saying this as a bluff to get more money. It has
said such things before — compare the 1960 "missile gap". It could
also be a valid prediction; if so, is there a way to avoid the two
alternate disasters?
In a previous period of "refugee crisis", heroic people risked all to help people reach Britain or the US from a country where they were sure to be
oppressed and likely to be killed.
Israeli bombers destroyed Gaza's bookstores and libraries last May.
One has been rebuilt, thanks to foreign donations.
Iran has reportedly blown off negotiations on the non-nuclear deal.
The other parties have not rejected further talks.
The 2019 drought in New South Wales killed many of the native trees,
in some places around 2/3 of them.
This is in places which weren't burnt by the wildfires.
Workers are on strike at 58 British universities, due to the low wages
and absence of job security of decades of making universities act like
businesses.
Justice Sotomayor warned that the right-wing justices are treating the
Supreme Court as a political instrument, and that this will destroy
respect for the court.
Republicans don't care about maintaining respect, because they aim to
impose nondemocratic minority rule. As long as their supporters
control all political power, they don't care what the rest of us
think. Their motto is, "Let them despise us, as long as they obey
us."
Arguing that Cop26 produced a weak declaration because of the unfairness
of singling out coal over oil and gas.
There is some truth in that, but I think it is a matter of details.
There are many powerful specific interests in one kind of fossil fuel
or another. Whatever set of priorities among fossil fuel activities
an international campaign might choose — including the set, "all
fossil fuels are equally bad" — will arouse strong opposition
somewhere. That opposition will create arguments about "fairness",
all aimed at "reduce that other fossil fuel in that other region first".
There will be no fairness in the climate disaster we are heading for.
Wealthy countries such as the US will be able to keep things going for
longer than India.
Biden has proposed to have health insurance companies pay for Covid-19
tests, with a limited number of tests available gratis through
community clinics.
By international standards, this is an inadequate plan.
Senator Markey calls for laws to make the Federal Reserve start
pressuring banks to stop lending to fossil fuel investments.
We also need to give the Fed a chair who will lead this:
not the Republican appointee Powell.
*Poor countries mustn’t open up [their] economies [to international
competition] until they are strong.*
Missouri's Republican governor asked on Nov 1 for a report on how
effective mask mandates have been at preventing Covid-19. The results
showed that Missouri cities with mask mandates reduced 25% fewer cases
than other areas. So he buried the report.
A few Republican senators threatened to shut down the US government if
they didn't get their demand: undermining enforcement of federal
vaccine mandates.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter at (202) 224-3121 and
ask per to ask the House leaders to bring the MORE Act (H.R. 3617)
to a vote.
This bill would end federal prohibition of marijuana.
Everyone: reproach Disney for its DRM on December 10, the Day Against DRM.
Also, please spread the word.
*Ecuador's Highest Court Enforces Constitutional "Rights of Nature" to
Safeguard Los Cedros Protected Forest.*
This demonstrates that countries can establish and defend broad
protections for natural ecosystems, including broad prohibitions of
actions that tend to damage them, without endorsing an appearance of
animism by saying that forests, rivers, etc. are "persons".
The push for animism can be seen in that article, however, where it
claims tat monkeys, bears, frogs and birds won this legal battle.
I am proud to say that human beings like you and me won this case.
Monkeys, bears, frogs and birds can be harmed by mining, but are not
capable of understanding what mining is, nor trying to regulate it.
Only humans can do that.
A large statistical study found that some pollutants affect the
sex ratio of human babies.
It is inconceivable that that people who will have male babies would
tend to move to places with certain pollutants, while those who will
have female babies would tend to move to places with other pollutants.
The pollutants must be causing the change in sex ratio, somehow. Most
likely each of these pollutants is more likely to cause an abortion of
one sex than the other.
We don't have any evidence about how far into the pregnancy these
abortions tend to occur. If it is more than six weeks, some southern
US states may someday try women for "feticide" if they live in
places where such pollution is present.
The coup in Sudan is not over: the military brought back
the civilian prime minister, but only as a front man.
Military personnel at Pearl Harbor believe that jet fuel has leaked
from tanks into their water supply, because the water looks, tastes
and smells of oil.
They suspect that it is related to various symptoms that many have
developed.
The Navy has been warned about the danger from these tanks but didn't
pay attention until now.
The US rejected the idea of a treaty to ban autonomous robots with
lethal arms.
I can imagine US officials thinking about the current US advantage in
AI and concluding that unrestricted deployment of autonomous weapons
would give the US an advantage in this decade, so (they might conclude)
it is better to reject the treaty.
On the other hand, if 15 years from now China is in the lead in AI,
having this treaty in place already would benefit the US against China.
Those short-term considerations are the wrong way to look at this
question, because it is bigger than the narrow questions of short-term
advantage. In the long term, this treaty will prevent a danger to all
humans.
The British military has eliminated command influence in the response to
accusations of rape.
This means that your commander won't be able to protect the accused.
Command influence is the poison in the military justice system, and
people have campaigned for decades to eliminate it from the US
military.
Several states governed by the Covid Party now offer unemployment support
to workers that are fired for refusal to get vaccinated.
In effect, this amounts to paying people to undermine public health.
The Republican Party program is to keep Covid-19 circulating in the US
as much as possible. This causes instability and harms the economy,
both of which make Americans unhappy, and they perversely blame Biden
rather the the Republicans who are doing it.
Some Americans foolishly accused China of releasing Covid-19
in order to hurt the US. That accusation is implausible and there
is no evidence for it. But that's basically what the Republican
Party is doing now.
One Democrat in Congress accused them without mincing words.
The causes of Democrats' political weakness don't include fringe wokeness.
(satire) *Starbucks Dangles Tied-Up Union Organizers Over Vat Of Steamed Milk.*
What a lawyer learned by volunteering to help poor people in eviction
court.
Luke Holland interviewed old, surviving Nazis about their crimes under
Hitler. Some of the interviews are now a film.
I wonder what will happen when modern Nazis see this film. Will the horror
of Nazism break through their curtain of lies, or will they lie to themselves
about what they see?
(satire) *Rob Manfred Confirms Pete Rose Remains Ineligible From
DraftKings Official MLB Hall Of Fame At Cooperstown.*
China ran an organized disinformation campaign to cover up the
imprisonment and brainwashing of a million Uyghurs. Twitter just closed it.
Air pollution kills over 170,000 people per year in Europe.
I'd guess it's a comparable amount in the US. It's population is around 3/4
of the EU's, but I think it treats poor people worse.
Part of Australia regularly jails minors under inhumane conditions,
giving them only an hour per day outside the cell.
Even children are jailed.
The atmospheric river that flooded British Columbia killed over half a million
farm animals, as well as destroying buildings, roads and bridges.
All kinds of infrastructure were inadequate for such a flood, but
improving them will be a never-ending game of catch-up unless we stop
making the climate worse.
A mob of religious fanatics in Pakistan lynched a foreign factory
manager who was accused of "blasphemy".
*The Republican party is abandoning democracy and embracing political
violence.*
There are so many Indian students in US universities that caste
prejudice has come with them. Some US universities are taking measures
to resist it.
We don't know how long the phenomenon of Dalits has existed in India.
Some say that in the period 600-1000, when Hindus took control in India
and crushed Buddhism, they oppressed the Buddhists and that oppression
made them Dalits.
How prosecutors convinced
Alice Sebold that Anthony Broadwater was the man who raped her.
I've read that Sebold's memoir, Lucky, has been from withdrawn from sale.
The article did not say whose decision that was.
It would be wrong to continue selling it as it was written. However,
an idea occurs to me. Sebold could invite Anthony Broadwater to add
an epilogue to it, and publish that version with the income going to
Broadwater and/or pertinent organizations for justice.
If a place has "historical and cultural significance" to some group,
does that imply there must not be a lithium mine there?
I am not convinced.
Lithium is important for defending the climate. We must not block
lithium mining based on sentimentality alone.
There are things whose physical presence can justify blocking any sort
of mine. If a site holds historical or scientific information, or
important art that can't be moved, those call for protection.
However, it may be sufficient to keep the mine away from those
important things rather than outside the entire area.
Other scarce resources, such as water, and endangered species and
ecosystems, are also important to protect. Mines tend to leak
pollution, and mining companies often try to weasel out of their
responsibility for the pollution they cause. There should be no mine
unless reliable clean practices are enforced by a disciplinarian that
the mine cannot fire or disobey. Those precautions would make the
lithium more expensive, but the lithium may be worth that cost.
However, we need not forego lithium because of anyone's sentimentality.
In this regard, I do not discriminate between indigenous people and
anyone else.
I'd be in favor of moving part of Arlington National Cemetery to make
way for a lithium mine, if necessary. The cemetery's importance to
people is not due to its location, but to their sentiments about the
veterans buried there. We can respect those sentiments by moving the
graves to a different location to enable mining the lithium.
*Fair Elections and
U.S. Constitution Come Under Attack at ALEC Meeting.*
In Papua New Guinea, as in the US,
Christian faith spreads Covid-19.
When people catch Covid-19 shortly after vaccination -- before the
vaccine has time to become effective -- the faithful make an illogical
leap and claim the vaccine killed them. They want to believe the
vaccine is harmful, so they find excuses to be fooled by. Often it is
fatal.
Don't let this happen to you -- get vaccinated!
*Biden Invites Venezuelan Coup Leader
Juan Guaidó to US "Summit for
Democracy".*
President Maduro doesn't always respect democracy,
but he does so more than Guaidó.
And much more than US Republicans.
The bullshitter held an event at the White House with relatives of deceased
US soldiers, then accused them of
infecting him with Covid-19. He had had a positive test the day before.
In other words, he risked infecting them, then knowingly made a false
accusation. That gives a good overall picture of what he is.
(satire) *NASA Delays Space Walk After It Starts
Snowing In Outer Space.*
The FERPA law was passed to stop schools from handing out students' personal data to companies.
The US government changed and reinterpreted the law so as as to facilitate and even require such snooping.
Amazingly, someone has accused the
Yes Men of inventing disinformation
A new process can reportedly reduce methane emissions from
cow dung while improving its nitrogen content as fertilizer.
It remains to be seen how well this actually works in practice when scaled up
to higher quantities.
This method won't eliminate all the methane emissions from cows.
They also emit methane through farting.
Twitter's new policy of deleting images posted without the consent of
the people shown in the image seem well-meant,
but could prohibit posting any street photography.
I've proposed the criterion that occasionally snapping people on the street
should be legal,
but systematically collecting photos of everyone should be illegal.
*Last-minute attempt to stop Shell’s
[seismic] exploration of whale breeding grounds [off South Africa].*
Seismic exploration can injure whales' (including dolphins') hearing, which may kill them.
Large PR companies have worked for decades inculcating a
conceptual framework to guide people to reject climate defense action
while trying to remain unidentified.
The culpable companies include Cerrell, Edelman, Glover Park, and Ogilvy.
56% of workers in the gas and oil industry, world wide,
would rather work in renewable energy.
Those companies fired many workers last year, and some refuse to come
back. But there will be room for all of them in renewable energy
if we invest funds to make it grow.
Democrats in Congress called on the Attorney General to end
Chevron's use of a US court to persecute Steven Donziger.
Senator Durbin has proposed to legislate to give each prisoner in
Guantanamo a real, civilian trial, or release him.
I support this, but there are a few details that need attention.
First, what about prisoners that were tortured into confessions?
I think those confessions will be inadmissible in real US trials,
which could mean that they can't be convicted of anything.
Charges against them ought to be dropped, but will the proposed
amendment do this?
Second, what will the US do about prisoners that face no charges but
have no country they can safely go to? That is not a justification to
keep them in prison.
I think it is ok to let them live in the US if they wish. A handful
of non-citizens in the US, even if they wish revenge, will not make
any significant difference to the security of Americans. They will be
insignificant compared with all the unidentified people who do or will
feel that way.
Third, what about those who find a home abroad and wish revenge?
There are so many people that wish for revenge against US
military violence that these would make no significant difference.
The cause of US price inflation is that corporations
which were making big profits saw an opportunity to make even more profits.
(satire) *Nation’s Embattled CEOs
Announce We Just Gotta Do Better,
Simple As That.*
*Labor group says
Amazon massively under reported Covid cases contracted at work.*
Acton Business Fairs give children (and younger teenagers)
an easy chance to start a real business on a small scale.
Sometimes they make substantial money. I expect that most do not
succeed to that point, but they can learn a lot even so.
Mega-activities that put some sort of waste into
the ocean will eventually cause mega-damage.
It is feasible to put an end to
transmission of HIV, with money and attention.
Spotify flaunts how it tracks what each user listens to, and invites users
to boast about Spotify's knowledge of them.
This devious scheme is all the more vicious because it operates at an
emotional level which most the manipulated victims can't even recognize
as manipulation.
Out, out damned Spotify! If you can't stop yourself from using it yet,
at least stop yourself from promoting it.
If you have the strength to reject streaming, you can proudly say this
How about this slogan:
If someone chides you by saying that sharing is illegal,
you can respond with, "The music companies bought the law,
but they can't make sharing wrong."
What sharing slogans can you think of?
George Monbiot: *Jailed for 51 weeks for protesting? Britain is
becoming a police state by stealth.*
The article spells out the details. Being near the expected site of a
protest would be grounds for searching people to check for suspicious
equipment, such as signs or handouts. Almost any sort of support for
a protest would be grounds for imprisonment.
It reminds me of what I've read about Hong Kong.
Salafi Arabia bribed and threatened other countries to get them to vote
to terminate the UN investigation of its war crimes in Yemen.
Xiomara Castro has won the election in Honduras.
Calling for removal of computers from elementary school, on the
grounds that their use (beyond occasionally) is bad for education.
I am not an expert on pedagogy, but I know that those computers are running
nonfree (unjust) software, and much of it has malicious functionalities --
snooping on the children, and addicting them to systems that
manipulate them. So I concur with the recommendation.
Doctors warn that Medicare's new "direct contracting" amounts to a plan to
privatize and ruin it.
The wrecker started the plan, but Biden has not stopped it.
Michael Mann's book, The New Climate War, describes how planet
roasters have abandoned denial of the climate crisis and turned to
distraction, and blaming millions of individuals for succumbing to the
social pressures that the roasters have set up.
He disagrees partly with Thunberg, saying that we should not despise
the compromise policies recently adopted by governments. They are
inadequate, but they are motion in the right direction.
When a powerful organization leads and pressures weaker and
disorganized people to do something harmful, both the organization and
the individuals are morally culpable -- but if we want to make an
effective change, we must above all attack the organization.
(satire) *Dr. Scholl’s Introduces New Amputation Kit For Dry, Cracked Feet.*
*The Federal Trade Commission Has the Power to Break Up Big Tech.*
Dozens of former Afghan government soldiers and officials have been
killed or disappeared since the Taliban took over.
The Taliban's leaders say this is not the Taliban's policy, and
perhaps that is true, but it seems that they are not in control of what
the Taliban actually do.
Republicans are trying all possible avenues in parallel to prevent
future free and fair elections in the US, and their threat is real.
What I don't know is, how can we stop them from succeeding?
New Zealand will legalize the practice of testing the illegal drugs
that people plan to take, to assure them that the drugs have the
expected contents and dose.
New York City will open supervised injection sites,
but no testing as yet.
*What should we make of the US assurances regarding how Assange would
be treated if extradited?* They are worthless, because they rule out
only a few special kinds of torture. Torture and brainwashing are
standard practice in US prisons.
An appeals court upheld California's law that prohibits large magazines.
I worry that the Supreme Court will reject it.
Fungi in the soil that connect plants sequester lots of carbon in soil,
but modern agriculture and global heating are destroying them.
When the FBI tries to recruit a non-US-citizen as an informant, it
first offers positive inducements; but if those don't persuade per,
they may start harassment of per, even per friends too. They put Aswad
Khan on the no-fly list, then put his friends on it too; this terrorized
everyone who knew him, so they broke off contact and left him isolated.
This behavior is what I would have expected from the KGB. It hurts
that my country is guilty of it. The secrecy and arbitrariness of the
no-fly list must be eliminated.
I foresee that Khan will be compelled to turn, for friendship and
business, to Pakistanis that are hostile to the US. The FBI has left him
no other way to go. His friends must feel resentment to the US also.
Putin is making bellicose demands, threatening to start a war
if the west does not obey.
Specifically, he threatened to attack if western countries send troops
to Ukraine, or even sell Ukraine antiaircraft missiles that could help
resist the threatened Russian attack. This while Russian troops and
proxies remain in Ukraine.
Rather than be intimidated, the west should do exactly what was right
to do last week: give Ukraine weapons to help it mount a better
defense but don't threaten Russia, point out that this is no threat,
and expect Putin to do the sensible thing.
Meanwhile, European allies must recognize that approving the Nord
Stream 2 gas pipeline would be surrendering to Putin and to global
heating at the same time.
The US doesn't try its best to investigate civilian casualties from
its air raids, nor to avoid them.
Omicron was infecting people in Europe before it was reported from
South Africa.
Does this mean that blocking travel from southern Africa is useless?
It can't possibly keep Omicron out of Europe or the US, but it may
delay the growth of Omicron cases for some period of time. Since we
may be a race against the time to develop a new vaccine, that delay
is important.
However, once the number of daily new cases in some non-African
country far exceeds the rate at which travelers from Africa might
bring more cases, continuing the ban on travel from Africa to that
country will do negligible good, so it will be time to end the ban.
Rain will be more common than snow in the Arctic, a few decades from now.
This will rapidly destroy the permafrost, and perhaps release
enormous quantities of methane stored in it. That could cause a chain
reaction of global heating.
*Pfizer Is Lobbying to Thwart Whistleblowers From Exposing Corporate Fraud.*
Business-dominated globalization of trade was supposed to give poor countries
massive trickle-down, but it didn't.
Maybe they should reject the WTO.
Criticizing "presenteeism", the demand that workers be present when
scheduled even if that is making them too ill to do actual work.
Why Extinction Rebellion protested by blocking Amazon distribution centers.
It cites reasons that are only indirectly related to global heating.
I agree with those reasons, and they are among the reasons I urge
people to boycott Amazon. But I tend to think that Extinction
Rebellion should keep a sharp focus on climate defense, and avoid
blurring the focus by bringing in tangential issues of any kind.
Union workers are energizde to fight "two-tier" contracts, which say
that new workers will be treated worse than the old workers.
This practice not only locks in future cuts in pay and working conditions,
it also breaks the solidarity of the union. I doubt that employers will shed
even two tears about that.
US citizens: call on Congress to support diplomacy with Iran.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121. If you call, please spread the word.
US citizens: call on Congress to legislate to offer college at no charge.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121. If you call, please spread the word.
US citizens: call on your Senators to act now to confirm Jessica Rosenworcel and Gigi Sohn to the FCC.
Also to act to reinstate net neutrality, even the limited form that existed in the US before the wrecker got rid of it.
US citizens: call on the Senate to remove Senator Joe Manchin as
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121. If you call, please spread the word.
The defense lawyers in the Guantanamo kangaroo court accuse the prosecutors of bending over backwards to conceal information about how the accused were
tortured. They say it conceals more from them than it concealed from
journalists making FOIA requests.
This information is pertinent to the legal question of whether the
court should consider confessions that they gave a few months after
the end of their four years of torture. The fact that this question
needs to be asked demonstrates the injustice of these courts.
A scientific summary of the possible effects of the Omicron variant,
depending on three parameters that scientists are working on measuring.
New Zealand is considering adopting a law to give an artist a share
of the sales price when per work is resold.
This raises a number of moral issues.
New Zealand's proposed law it applies only to works that sell for more
than a thousand dollars. I would not begrudge 50 out of that for the
artist. As a practical matter, I'd be content with this law.
However, it is being presented as "intellectual property" and used
to boost the public's respect for that confused over generalization.
The bullshitter challenges Democrats to debate with him.
There can't be a real debate with the bullshitter unless there is a
referee that can penalize him. Otherwise, with each utterance, the
bullshitter will make up a new lie, and at the end, he will say, "I
won!"
Botswana's appeals court has ruled that laws prohibiting homosexual acts
are unconstitutional.
Barbados has proudly broken its last connection with the British monarchy.
Barbados first removed a statue of Admiral Nelson, for allegedly supporting
slavery.
According to Wikipedia, there is a debate about he whether did so.
A slaveholder published a letter from Nelson, after Nelson's death,
which contained an extremely harsh defense of slavery. Some argue
that this was inconsistent with the rest of his actions and claim
that the words were not written by Nelson.
A mob of religious fanatics attacked a police station in Pakistan
with the aim of kidnapping and lynching someone accused of blasphemy.
With all the surveillance technology in place in the US, and all the
laws passed for the war that's on drugs, finding and prosecuting
everyone that assists friends or strangers in getting an abortion
could be as easy as pie.
Some students at Arizona State University demand that the university
expel Kyle Rittenhouse from a class, and ban him from campus, to cater
to their feelings.
The university must not grant any group of students the authority to
order the expulsion or banning of other students. To do so would grant
the first group arbitrary power.
Secret Chinese government papers show that the repression of Uyghurs was
ordered by President Xi himself.
The UK plans a policy to publish summaries of the "algorithms" used for
making government decisions.
The article seems to equate "algorithm" to applications of machine
learning. Properly speaking, those are not specific algorithms.
Will the policy apply to algorithms in the proper sense, which don't
involve any machine learning, and can be precisely described by their
source code?
Either way, this is a small step forward. The state really ought to
use free software for all its computing, for the sake of national
security and accountability, and release the source code when there is no specific reason not to.
For software that makes decisions about people, it should always
release the source code -- which, when machine learning is used, also
includes the trained neural net.
Nonetheless, it is an advance.
A court in Spain is investigating a company that snooped on Julian
Assange while he was in the Equadorian embassy, and has asked the US
for pertinent information about the company, but the US has made
excuses for not answering.
The defense tried to raise the issue of this surveillance in Assange's
extradition hearing, but hampered in various ways. The inability to
determine what the US had to do with the snooping may have harmed his
case.
The outcome of this investigation is directly relevant to whether
Assange will be extradited, so it is understandable that the US
tries to thwart the investigation. Understandable, but dishonest.
Calling on big global retail companies to commit to cutting the greenhouse
emissions of their shipping.
I think countries should tax the arrival of a ship based on the amount of
emissions it made in the voyage, increasing the tax rate each year.
The WHO calls for a treaty to oblige countries to share information
pertinent to future pandemics.
The information to be shared would include observed observations
and technology (including how to make medicines).
Why the stamp-out-every-outbreak approach is still advantageous for China.
When mainstream media warn that a country "risks being left behind",
that generally is pressure to yield to the plutocrats' orders.
Michael Cohen says that prosecutors know about the wrecker's crimes
and could "indict [him] tomorrow."
US citizens: call on Congress and the DOJ to swiftly charge, arrest
and prosecute the wrecker's allies that refuse to testify.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
US citizens: call on your senators to vote against confirming Powell
as head of the Federal Reserve.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
Everyone: call on Call on AIG to stop insuring and investing in
fossil fuels.
In Honduras, the corrupt president Hernández cannot run again. His
chosen successor is running against Xiomara Castro, the wife of former
President Zelaya
who was ousted by the US-approved coup.
People infected with the Omicron variant are showing up in various countries.
The cases we hear about were detected on entry and have been
quarantined, which means they don't imply that Omicron is being
transmitted in those countries.
It may in fact be spreading in them, but we don't have evidence about
it.
Here's an article whose premise is that the most important thing about
the world's response to the Omicron variant is how it treats the people
living in southern Africa where that variant emerged.
Of course, they should not be punished for Omicron. They did not do
anything to cause or help its appearance there; in particular, it
isn't their fault that they were not vaccinated. Unlike right-wing
anti-vaxxers in the US, the Africans did not choose by preference to
spread disease. It was the vaccine companies that caused Africans to
remain unvaccinated, by chosing to limit the vaccine supply.
But neither is there any reason to applaud the people of southern
Africa. They didn't do anything heroic. Not that that's a criticism
of them. As far as I know, there was nothing that they should or
could have done about Omicron.
So, how should we judge some countries' quick suspension of travel out
of southern Africa? It was the right thing to do. It was absolutely
necessary for protecting the rest of the world from the danger which
Omicron may represent.
Not knowing yet whether Omicron is dangerous enough to require cutting
off travel, nor whether Omicron was already spreading in their own
countries, leaders were compelled to try this protective measure in
case it could succeeded -- because delay would surely lose the
opportunity.
Whatever disappointment or expense it may be for people in southern
Africa to be blocked from travelling -- including citizens and
visitors both -- that is a small thing compared with the danger that
this measure may succeed in avoiding.
If it turns out that Omicron is not particularly harmful, these travel
measures will not last long. If it spreads globally anyway, obstacles
to international travel will be the least of the world's worries.
The important lesson to learn is that we must accelerate vaccination.
When we know what vaccine will stop Omicron, we must vaccinate everyone
before a worse variant has a chance to evolve.
The US Department of the Interior recommended addressing the future of
extracting oil and gas by charging companies a little more for it.
That would enable the US to get a bigger share of the profits from
destroying the world's future.
The people who wrote that report disregarded the matter at stake. I
would speculate that their loyalty is to the fossil fuel industry.
We have to question Biden and Haaland's judgment, and loyalties, for
leaving the report in the hands of those people -- and for continuing
to authorize more drilling.
One university has started the Uyghur genocide divestment movement.
*Police Aerial Surveillance Threatens Freedom to Protest.*
The Republican Party as a whole now supports threats of violence against
officials that don't bow down.
*"A core threat to our democracy": threat of political violence growing across
US.*
The German Green Party will get the ministry of Economy and Energy.
This should put the party in a good position to influence decarbonization.
*Alabama Miners Are Still on Strike After 8 Months.*
Exploiting workers is always bad, but if a coal mine treats its
workers well, it is nonetheless a danger to the ecosphere. What we
need is not the establishment of good working conditions in that coal
mine, it is to shut the mine and replace it with other employment with
good conditions.
Louisiana thugs appear to falsify records on the racial identities of
drivers they stop, so as to disguise their bias in deciding who to stop.
The UK has reevaluated the tax implications of certain complex banking
schemes that some people have used for many years, and sent them
unexpected tax bills, some as much as hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Many cannot possibly pay. Some responded by suicide.
The UK has required masks in stores and public transport, as a precaution
against the spread of the Omicron variant of Covid-19, which has already
been found in the UK.
This will slow the spread of Omicron, but since people are still
allowed to eat together inside restaurants, the variant will surely
spread anyway. Basically, this is not enough.
Omicron has also been found in other European countries.
(satire) *Amazon To Let Warehouse Employees' Families Work
Thanksgiving Shifts Too.*
(satire) *Al Roker Reminds Macy's Parade Viewers All The Balloons They
See Today Are Up For Adoption.*
Polls show that Biden's popularity has decreased, but the progressive
parts of his agenda remain popular.
The obvious way to stop most migrants from travelling to Britain
on small boats is to set up a workable system to let them apply
for asylum from elsewhere.
Given that 2/3 of them who reach Britain on boats do receive asylum,
the goal of keeping them away is misguided.
* [Indian] farmers will continue protesting until the government meets
several other demands, including raising the minimum price of their
produce, withdrawing legal action against some farmers, and paying
compensation to the families of hundreds of farmers who have died
as a result of the civil action.*
Bravo! People who are not rich can't trust Modi to keep a promise.
What Modi tried to do is Modi make individuals negotiate deals with
giant companies that face only small amounts of competition. That
puts the companies at a big advantage and leads the individuals to
ruin.
May countries have restricted entry from southern Africa where the
Omicron variant is believed to be spreading.
The other African countries need to restrict travel, too.
That is, if it isn't too late already.
A credit card called "Aspiration" markets itself as a way to protect the
climate, but its claims are full of cloud.
Affirmative action for university admissions could be thought of as
partially counteracting the system that preferentially admits certain
privileged students -- mostly white.
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by
capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry,
capitalize both words or neither one.) I object to bigotry, and
normally I decline to link to articles which promote it. But I make
exceptions for some articles which give important information about
racism or the fight to eliminate racism. That article is one of the
exceptions.
The world might have avoided the emergence of the new Covid-19 variant,
that seems to be more infectious than Delta, by removing the
artificial obstacles to faster manufacture of vaccines.
There are threats of legal action against several countries which are
blocking this: Canada, the U.K., Norway, and Germany.
The term "intellectual property" is a bogus concept which conflates
several disparate kinds of imposed monopoly, of which patent law is
just one. These laws are so different from each other that a
statement which generalizes about all of them, as that term leads
people to do, always spreads confusion.
Please join me in absolutely refusing to use the term.
California plans to ban new oil wells within 3200 feet of homes,
schools and hospitals, to protect people from toxic chemicals that
escape into the air.
It would be more thorough to close the existing wells in those areas too.
But it might be politically and legally more difficult.
Oil companies plan to use Carbon Capture and Storage to get separate
CO2 and pump that into oil wells to force out more oil. That cycle
presumes that they keep pumping out lots of oil -- it doesn't end
overemission, just reduces it a fraction.
(satire) *Worst Ways Amazon Exploits Workers During Black Friday.*
(satire) *Conservationist Breaks Down Sobbing While Going Through Old
Box Of Extinct Species' Things.*
The US is slow to aid owners of rental housing to rebuild after a
disaster, so private lenders use this as an opportunity for
profiteering.
The National Lawyers Guild in the US sent observers to monitor the
election in Venezuela. They, as well as European observers, found
that the system was basically legitimate.
The Europeans criticized the disqualification of some candidates
before the election.
The conviction of Ahmaud Arbery's murderers shows that the US justice
system can in fact work properly.
What is needed is to make that outcome reliable.
The defense lawyers did everything possible to appeal to the jury's
presumed bigotry, but the jury rejected the idea.
The organizers of the 2017 Charlottesville rally, which was embued by
them with the spirit of right-wing violence and inspired one supporter
to commit murder, have been found liable for 26 million dollars.
Squatters in Glasgow took over an old, vacant homeless shelter and put it into
use as a homeless shelter. (The city does not have enough of them.) Now they
are fighting eviction.
The US government's Public Service Loan Forgiveness program is expected to
forgive the college loans of half a million Americans.
That is a significant step, but what needs to be done is much more.
I estimate that there are tens of millions of Americans who have
college debt that they can't hope to pay.
(satire) *Janet Yellen Announces Americans Can Use Promo Code "THANKS"
For 10% Off All U.S. Goods And Services.*
*Biden Urged to Fight Big Pharma's Vaccine Greed at Key
WTO Meeting.*
*The jailing of a young climate protester is a prime example of Australia's authoritarian drift.*
* There is an ongoing effort to restrict what is considered “legitimate”
protest to that which is least effective.*
Ahmaud Arbery fell victim to the systematic propensity to persecute
black men, with methods that extend as far as murder. The conviction
of his killers had to cross hurdles of systemic racism.
The US has a shortage of nitrogen fertilizer, partly caused by global
heating effects.
As long as people interact, society as a system continues to exist;
but the social fabric can become more or less protective, and more or
less constraining. Various movements have made claims about the
causes of society's problems.
It seems to me that the success of Nordic democratic socialism, with
societies that still cohere, demonstrates that neither liberal
democracy nor socialism is inimical to the social fabric. My
hypothesis is that what tears apart the social fabric is oppressive
power, but the entity that exercises the power varies from situation
to situation.
A new UK law to increase the punishment for anyone that commits violence
against emergency service workers which unpredictably proves fatal,
is unlikely to have any deterrent effect.
The writer suggests it is only an occasion for value signaling.
California has legalized building houses closer together, but various
exclusive areas are taking action to negate its effect.
This law is a good step, but it won't do enough to correct
California's housing shortage. That requires building apartment
buildings — lots of them.
Attorney General Merrick Garland says he will rapidly prosecute passengers
that interfere with flights.
Most of these incidents start when someone refuses to wear a mask.
I wonder if Rep. Gosar or Rep. Green ever refuses to wear a mask on a
plane. Probably they don't dare refuse, because they would really go
to jail if they did. Photos of them wearing masks, like decent people,
might show that they are not as heroic as they pretend to be.
People who are vaccinated against Covid-19 erroneously believe
that they are completely safe, and that they can't ever transmit the virus.
Both beliefs are incorrect.
Vaccinated people are less likely to catch Covid-19 when exposed, and
less likely to transmit the virus if they are infected, but the
probability is not zero. You still need to wear a mask to reduce
those probabilities. You still need to keep distance from others.
These precautions can potentially drive R below 1 and make Covid-19
dwindle, if we keep doing all of them.
The US must bet on deterring Russian threats against Ukraine, or
decide to back down to them.
I think Putin is bluffing and will not attack if the US takes purely
defensive actions. He is an opportunist and grabs whatever is easy to
grab. Furthermore, all his threats are only hints; if he does not
attack, he will not have lost face. Thus, I think the US should take
the defensive actions, then negotiate.
A commitment not to invite Ukraine into NATO would not deny Ukraine
sovereignty, so I think it is ok to include in a peace deal, provided
this is matched with Russian concessions. The US could demand Russia
respect Ukraine's sovereignty by withdrawing support from the Donbas
separatists.
However, demanding return of the Crimea would be too much.
It is too late to undo that act of aggression.
*Justice prevailed in the trial of Ahmaud Arbery’s killers. In
America, that’s a shock.*
I will not excoriate the defense attorneys for "playing the race
card", since it is their responsibility to try to obtain an acquittal.
What is significant is that they believed that appealing to racism was
the way to win. We all know that it sometimes does win, and that
reflects the fact that racism continues to be powerful and harmful in
the US.
The article linked to just above displays symbolic bigotry by
capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry,
capitalize both words or neither one.) I object to bigotry, and
normally I decline to link to articles which promote it. But I make
exceptions for some articles which give important information about
racism or the fight to eliminate racism. That article is one of the
exceptions.
The vaccine mandate for federal workers has been very effective.
It is weakened a little by the policy of granting religious
exemptions. A religious belief is no grounds to give permission to
risk spreading disease. However, it appears that the magniture of this
weakness is fairly small, in the case of federal workers, so perhaps it
is not an important problem.
*US libraries report spike in organized attempts to ban books in schools.*
On the issue of whether MPs that are taking care of their babies
should be allowed to bring them into Parliament.
I'm in favor of allowing MPs to bring infants into Parliament if this
is necessary in order to take care of them, provided the infants are
not disruptive. That way, Ms Creasy's baby would be allowed, but
Bogus Johnson would be kept out. ;-}.
Good news: India's population has roughly stabilized, and the
traditional prejudice against daughters has decreased somewhat.
However, let's fight the anti-abortion propaganda that talks about
"killing" people "before being born"! "Foeticide" is a word that
right-wing fanatics use when they imprison women for having an
abortion,
or for having a miscarriage which they allege to have been an abortion.
The general practitioners of the NHS voted to reduce their working activities
as a protest (since an actual strike would be unethical and perhaps illegal too).
The UK government's practice of outsourcing government work and
services to private companies allows the work to escape the scope of
the freedom of information act.
* A joint report by human rights bodies and environment groups has found
activists are increasingly facing repression by Australian governments.*
The UK has canceled flights from southern Africa until it has set up
hotel quarantine for passengers coming from there.
But it is too late — the new Covid-19 variant is already in Belgium
and seems to be spreading there.
The Teamsters union elected new officers who know how to make it strong and effective.
Warning that the Ethiopian government may be planning to massacre the people
of Tigrayan ethnic origin in places under its control.
At the same time, Tigrayan forces are 120 miles from the Addis
Abeba.
It sounds like the Ethiopian government is on the verge of military
defeat, while the president asks everyone to rush to "the front" and
form a militia. Do they have military training? Fighting experience?
It sounds like bullshit broadcast for foreign consumption, except I
can't see how it is going to be effective for that purpose.
* The prime minister has always been unfit to lead, but now the media —
and even his own party — are pointing it out.*
Poor neighborhoods in Britain have up to 10 years less life expectancy
than rich neighborhoods.
This seems to be due to the funding cuts for the NHS starting in 2010.
A foundation in the Netherlands accepts donated saplings removed from
paths, and gives them to landowners that want to plant a tree.
*Rich countries could have prevented new Covid variant, say experts.*
They could have done this by liberating vaccine production so as to
vaccinate the whole world quickly.
While I agree with the article's stance, I have to criticize it for
falling for the propaganda trap of "intellectual property". It is a
mistake to say that "intellectual property is bad," or to say that
"intellectual property is good," because the term is an incoherent
over generalization about laws that have very little in common.
The vaccine production issue is partly about patents. Waiving patent
rights would totally eliminate that problem. The vaccine production
issue also concerns trade secrets — but in a totally different way.
What's needed is to order companies to divulge their secrets.
The WTO can't do that, but maybe national governments can do it.
*Myanmar junta accused of forcing people to brink of starvation.*
* Climate activists have blockaded Amazon distribution centres across
the UK to highlight the company’s treatment of its workforce and what
they say are its "environmentally destructive and wasteful business
practices."*
Spain's socialist government plans to repeal the law that prohibited
publishing photos of thugs caught in criminal acts.
More info about this law.
70% of Democrats, 70% of Republicans and 70% of independents want the
US government to do more to prosecute crime by corporations.
(Yes, it's 70% in each group.)
(satire) *Serta Recalls
200,000 Mercy Killing Pillows.*
Door-to-door outreach for progressive
Democrats in rural North Carolina, where Republicans often run unopposed.
The CEO of JP Morgan bank retracted a joke he made that was gently at
the
expense of the Chinese Communist Party.
Is it good for the US that its biggest banks quiver at the thought of
offending China?
High school students did a class project about V for Vendetta.
The thugs that patrol the school tore down the project's posters.
It appears they believe their job includes censorship as well as
launching students into the
school-to-prison pipeline.
I hope the students convert their protest into a campaign to make
the school safer help by sending those thugs out of the school.
Amazingly, Republicans are attacking Democrats for the tax cut they
are proposing to give to rich people.
Republicans officials care nothing for consistency -- they passed
bigger tax cuts for the rich, but that does not inhibit them from
criticizing one when Democrats are responsible. They don't believe
their supporters are coherent enough to criticize the Republican
officials for their own tax cuts for the rich.
Since this tax cut for the rich is indeed a bad thing, the Democrats
should wise up and take it out of the bill.
In addition, Republicans are blaming Biden for the
increase of Covid-19 in the US, which Republicans caused by opposing masks and vaccination.
What it comes down to is, the America's saboteurs are blaming
America's (far from perfect) defenders for being thwarted by their
sabotage.
The company that proposed the Keystone XL planet-roaster pipeline is
using NAFTA (the original version) to
sue the US for 15 billion dollars for cancelling the pipeline.
This exemplifies the danger of business-supremacy treaties such as
NAFTA to efforts to save the world's ecosphere from fossil fuel.
Too much power in the US is in the
hands of entities unaccountable to the people.
Republicans are working hard to assure that Congress and the presidency
become unaccountable too.
Netflix dodges taxes using
tax havens, much like Amazon and other big companies.
China is fuming after the
US invited Taiwan to participate in a democracy summit.
Taiwan's government is the only democracy in the whole territory that
China claims, so if this summit was to have any participation from
that territory, it could only be from Taiwan.
Residents of Massachusetts: support the bill to stop suspending
driver's licenses over debt.
Apple has sued the company NSO that made the notorious crack-and-spy program, Pegasus.
If this were the start of a general campaign by Apple to sue all
companies that make spyware for the iMonsters, it would be admirable
(though it would not excuse making the iMonster software nonfree).
But I don't expect that. I expect it will be limited to the snooping
done by programs that are not authorized to be on the machine at all
— which means, disregarding the bulk of snooping.
Shall we expect Apple to sue Google, Amazon, Zoom and Uber for
snooping on Apple users?
Shall we expect Apple to sue Apple for snooping on Apple users?
Cop Julia Crews shot Ashley Fountain Hall and wounded her severely,
through confusion (she thought she was pulling a taser). Afterward,
Ms Hall chose restorative justice mediation instead of a criminal trial
for Ms Crews.
Five Georgia thugs are charged with murder for pushing a handcuffed man
into the pavement.
The left alliance won the Venezuelan election, while Guaido's
golpista alliance is generally despised and won almost nothing.
The democratic opposition, more popular than the golpistas, did win
some offices.
The child-care funding in the Build Back Better (relief) bill requires
state approval in each state.
Republicans may use their power in many states to block approval,
because they expect that suffering in the US will be blamed on Biden
and Democrats.
Starbucks workers in some stores are holding union elections. The
company has closed some stores, and is calling workers in for pressure
harassment sessions in others.
I have hardly ever done business with Starbucks, simply because their
products don't appeal to my tastes. (I don't like coffee, for
instance.) So I can't boycott Starbucks in any nontrivial way. But
maybe you can. If you go to a Starbucks store where you have often
bought something, ask for the manager, and say that you're going to
boycott Starbucks because of its anti-union harassment.
* DoorDash to pay $5.3 million to S.F. couriers over alleged violations of past
benefits*
(satire) *NFL Study Finds Concussion Symptoms Completely Disappear If
You've Had An Even Number Of Concussions.*
(satire) *Fish Way Too High On OxyContin Runoff To Give A Shit About
Species' Inevitable Extinction.*
* Lush has announced it is closing its accounts on Facebook,
[81]Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok until the social media sites do a
better job of protecting users from harmful [postings].*
Lush will not "ask customers to 'meet us down a dark and dangerous
alleyway'."
Biden raised the minimum wage for federal contract workers to $15 per hour.
The world's wealthy must now pay for providing the vaccine that can
more or less put an end to malaria.
Norwegian journalists in Qatar, reporting on how foreign workers are
treated, were arrested and held for 3 days while they tried to go home
to Norway.
Michael Moore explains that the US plans a memorial for the dead of
the "Global War on Terrorism" — to commemorate only the Americans
that were killed, not the others that Americans killed.
I disagree with the article's final point. Moore asserts that
imposing poverty and suffering on many people, Americans and others,
constitutes "terrorism." I disagree. The proper word for that is
"oppression."
"Terrorism" is something much more specific — making war on
civilians. For all sorts of other systematic cruelty, the word
"oppression" is strong enough condemnation.
*El Salvador rights groups fear repression after raids on seven offices.*
*Atlantic fishing nations agree to ban catches of mako, world’s
fastest sharks.*
The killers of Ahmaud Arbery have been convicted of murder.
Norway's parliament is fractious, but its prime minister demonstrates
respect for democracy.
India's apple orchards are mainly in Kashmir, and an apparent change
in the climate is wiping out the apples year after the year.
Most US officials are quite reluctant to reconsider old criminal
convictions based on science that we now know to be false.
In the name of justice, there ought to be a systematic effort to find
these cases and reconsider them.
*Seven doctors
contract Covid after attending Florida anti-vaccine summit.*
Opposition to vaccines is indicative of an irrational approach towards
medicine, which in a doctor says you shouldn't choose that one.
Keeping Jerome Powell as head of the Federal Reserve will
interfere with climate defense and can interfere with helping the non-rich.
Keeping inflation down will harm Americans who are in debt, and that is a large fraction.
As for diversity, appointing women or blacks could in principle inject
a little more awareness of what it's like to face individual and
systemic discrimination. That would be the case with a
randomly-chosen woman or black. But these nominees would hardly be
randomly chosen; they would be bankers, and likely to hold
plutocratist views regardless of other personal details.
Kay Raworth's "doughnut model" of
economics is briefly described near the end of this article.
As presented here, it seems to make a valid point, but I think the
article makes a conceptual error in calling it an "economic model" and
presenting it as an alternative to profit-based behavior economics, as if
the two were different answers to one question. I think they answer
two different questions.
Profit-motivated economics invites people to ask, "How can I get ahead?"
Raworth's economics invites people to ask, "What do we all need?"
The president of Cop26 presents
the "half full" appraisal of the results of that event.
Teachers can't be neutral in the classroom about politics when
one political party has declared war on the idea of truth.
The Missouri bill cited in the article is interesting, because it
juxtaposes a valid point with an invalid point, in such a way as to
partly hide the latter.
It is wrong to teach that certain groups of people are inherently or
immutably racist, or inherently or immutably hold any views
whatsoever, because such is prejudice. People vary, and people can learn.
However, teaching that certain groups of people are systemically
oppressed, or that certain institutions are systemically racist, is
legitimate because that is a verifiable fact about existing systems.
Here's one example of verification.
This truth doesn't conflict with the truth that people vary and that
people can learn. Systems can change, too, but that doesn't deny that
they are now what they are now.
The bill groups people with institutions, and groups "inherently" with
"systemically", so as to confuse.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and senators to support the law to restart postal banking.
US citizens: call on
call on the Senate to pass the For the People Act.
For voting rights reform.
US citizens: call on
Wall Street to stop funding insurrectionist Republicans.
US citizens: phone your senators and call on them to insist on
substantial cuts in the military budget, and suggest adding the funds
to the Build Back Better (relief and climate) bill.
I got a campaign you could use to send a message to your senators,
but since it requires nonfree Javascript code, I could not use
it and I will not refer others to it.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121. If you call, please spread the word!
The missiles that Biden wants to sell to Salafi Arabia this time are
air-to-air missiles.
Since the Houthis have no air force, these missiles would not be
very useful for actual fighting against them. But they could be used
for blockading Yemen's airport.
A wild bee that lives two years suffers reduced reproduction in its
second year after a single exposure to imidacloprid (a neonicotinoid
pesticide) in its first year.
The UK has put a maximum amount any person must pay for medically
needed home care. Beyond that amount, it will be gratis
until they change the law.
However, the limit is so high that it leaves the poorer old people in a
bad situation where they will need to sell their homes.
Australian climate activist Eric Serge Herbert has been sentenced to a year in prison for stopping a coal train.
Cuba's independently developed Covid-19 vaccines have proved effective
protection.
Radio host Joe Madison is on hunger strike, demanding the passage of
effective federal voting rights legislation.
The mass poverty caused by the freezing of Afghanistan's assets
is causing the country's banks to start to collapse too.
* Environmentalists on Monday hailed the shutdown of Portugal's last
coal-fired power plant—a move that came nearly nine years ahead of the
government's 2030 target—while warning against converting the facility
to run on unsustainable biofuel.*
Biofuel made from microbes or from otherwise-worthless agricultural
waste would be a very efficient fuel, but government incentives (in
the US and the EU) promote growing crops such as corn with
fertilizer made from oil only to convert them into fuel
-- a practice we could call "biowashing the oil."
(satire) *Tucker Carlson Late To Work After Being Murdered By Hordes
Of Violent Minorities Again.*
*Raids, Arrests, and Death Threats: Israel's Strategy of Silencing
Human Rights Defenders.*
These attacks against Palestinian human rights organizations began
over a decade ago. Arbitrarily labeling them "terrorist" was just
the latest step.
Medea Benjamin claims that the US is arming Ukraine offensively
against Russia and looking to start a war.
Her arguments are logical based on the one-sided understanding of the
situation that the article presents -- in which Putin's actions cannot
be judged, and the US is automatically to blame if Putin starts a war.
That approach grants legitimacy to any aggression he might try.
It is Russia that has launched armed warfare against Ukraine, first by
seizing Crimea, then by organizing a rebellion near the Russian border —
accompanied in both cases by duplicity. There was also the attempt to
seize power in Odessa.
Putin is an audacious,
opportunistic, power-grabbing bully that despises truth, much like the wrecker.
Taking an attitude of "make sure
never to cross his red lines" toward Putin is equivalent to "give him
whatever he grabs, and always back down."
The natural way to resist that is to arm Ukraine for defense, but not
start a fight. To confront Putin's red lines with other red lines, so
that both sides will let the situation stabilize and quiet down.
What the US is doing looks like that to me.
*India’s farmers have won — but this doesn’t mean Modi is softening.*
China's leaders ask, "Why do you make such a fuss about our
disappearing Peng Shuai, when the other things we are doing are
millions of times worse?" ;-{.
Right-wing extremists are pressuring the city councils of small cities
to ban abortion.
*Want to fight for climate action but feel daunted or powerless? Try this.*
*XTRA GUAC: Here’s Everything Enbridge Is Buying Cops to Fight Protesters.*
US citizens: call on the Senate to pass the Build Back Better (climate
and relief) bill.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
US citizens: call on the Fish and Wildlife Service to fully protect
Mexican gray wolves.
US citizens: call on senators to pass the PRO
Act, to help workers unionize.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121.
The US has been recognized as a "backsliding" democracy.
*How the chemicals industry's [greenhouse gas] pollution slipped under
the radar.*
*I’m a therapist to the super-rich: they are as miserable as Succession
makes out.*
Their children can be totally messed up.
However, as a billionaire, you can always spend the rest of your life
developing a line of space ships.
Canadian national thugs arrested anti-pipeline protesters
and two journalists who were with them.
High-pressure schooling, pushing children into tutoring, tends to hurt
the children while giving additional advantage to those with the
richest parents.
If the tutoring is a temporary attempt to make up for time lost while
schools were closed or remote, it may disappear of its own accord.
But if it continues, I think it may be a reflection of too much
competitiveness in society -- a consequence of the large fraction
of people that nowadays are poor.
In the UK, sentences for crimes are getting longer, but this has not
had any effect on the likelihood of committing another crime.
Yet another one of the few instances of attempted voter fraud in 2020
was traced to a Republican.
Alas, proving that Republican propaganda was false is ineffective at
thwarting their lie campaign. The campaign had drilled the belief
into millions of Americans' heads, by organizing so many sources to
spread the disinformation,
and now they reinforce each others'
beliefs, regardless of evidence.
*Justin Bieber called on by fiancée of Jamal Khashoggi to cancel Saudi
Arabia concert.*
Most independent US retailers will shut their web sites on Friday
to protest "black friday" and Amazon.
People demand that the UK government publish the algorithm by which it
decides whom to accuse of welfare fraud.
*Covid Killed More Americans in 2021 Than 2020, and the GOP Death Cult
Is Mostly to Blame.*
That's some 390,000 in 2021 and some 385,000 in 2020.
Ralph Nader: the right to sue big companies for injuries they cause,
and get damages enough to make them avoid injuring people, is getting
chipped away step by step by courts and legislatures.
The EU is considering funding a new gas pipeline to fuel a power plant
in Malta. This should be an outrage -- how dare the EU consider doing
something so dangerous?
This power plant may be linked to the assassination of journalist
Daphne Caruana Galizia.
I hope her murderers, including those who plotted the murder, are
caught and convicted, and they should not be allowed to profit from
their crime. But when it comes to whether to subsidize a fossil-fuel
pipeline, we need to focus on the main issue: building fossil fuel
infrastructure endangers everyone. This pipeline can kill thousands
of people, and help kill millions.
Suppose that there had been no assassination and Ms Caruana Galizia
were still alive. Would that make it acceptable to subsidize fossil
fuel infrastructure? Surely not.
Sudan's military government agreed to release political prisoners
and share power with the civilian government again.
The article explains how this doesn't mean that all's well in Sudan,
but it's at least a step in the right direction.
Several kinds of medical devices were designed based on whites or
based on white males, and can give bad results for other patients.
The UAE has used Interpol for revenge against political "crimes".
This is additional reason to be concerned about the possibility that
a UAE official might become president of Interpol.
The problem with Interpol is systemic: other countries have used
Interpol for repression of dissidents, because it is effective for
that purpose.
It seems to me that avoiding
the election of one potentially bad president is not enough to address
the problem. Its system for handling red notices needs modification
so that other countries will think twice about a suspect named in one,
rather than reflexively arresting per.
Papua New Guinea is on track to vaccinate 1/3 of its population
against Covid-19 in five years.
The rest of the world must provide more vaccine.
Australia's government is right-wing in general, not only planet-roaster.
It allowed hunger to spread in Australia since a decade ago.
The University of Austin's roster of personnel is full of right-wing
thinkers, and has no progressives. Nadine Strossen says that that's
not by choice.
The author suggests that the progressive propensity to cancellation
has made academics with leftist views scared to get involved. It
would be a shame if the founders really want to welcome all views, and
a self-fulfilling prophecy dooms the University of Austin to be the
right-wing advocacy group that its current roster suggests.
Rio Tinto wants to open a large lithium and boron mine in Serbia.
That would be very useful for renewable electricity, but the mine
can be toxic.
We can divide the mine's pollution risks into two kinds: local and
regional. Rio Tinto can avoid harming local residents and farmers by
buying them out at a price sufficiently above the market value that
they will be able to move elsewhere easily.
The regional risks, such as polluting rivers, are more difficult. The
world can't afford to risk the long-term ruination of fresh water
supplies. As one of the farmers said in the article, you can't trust
Rio Tinto's word that the mine will be safe. Serbia must consult
independent experts about what precautions could make sure that the
mine does not pollute them, and then insist on those precautions.
Congresscritters should be entirely forbidden to trade in stocks.
Two former prisoners of the UAE, jailed and tortured for supporting
the wrong football team, campaign to stop a UAE official from becoming
the head of Interpol, because he was the inspector general in charge
of preventing and stopping torture.
Protesters blocked three bridges in London in solidarity with the
climate protesters of Insulate Britain,
who were jailed for blocking a
highway as a protest to demand specific climate defense actions.
Insulate Britain's demands are valid, and the inconvenience their
protest caused was trivial compared with the inconvenience they are
trying to avert. However, their method of protest backfired, so they
need to find a more effective method.
Boston has decided to divest the city's funds from fossil fuel
companies.
Arguing that resource limits and degradation of the natural world
will put a limit on economic growth soon.
The US temporarily transferred some FBI agents to the CIA, and they
tortured prisoners along with the other CIA agents.
Medicare Advantage companies overcharge Medicare, and the burden of that
contributes to making Medicare more expensive.
I don't see evidence that there is a plan to abolish basic Medicare,
but even without that, it is still a significant problem.
To reduce greenhouse emissions from transport, electric cars are just
the first step.
Amazon's lobbying, and funds to buy legislators, has killed many US state
bills to increase privacy requirements.
Amazon collects so much data about individuals that it can't keep track
of whether all of it is secure against third parties.
None of it is secure against Amazon itself.
The next world climate conference will have no unofficial protests,
because it will be in Egypt.
Holding summits in inaccessible places was one of the ways plutocratist
leaders prevented mass protests after the meetings in Seattle.
Studies of Hitler's holocaust show:
the cumbersome machinery of the state is the last protector of the vulnerable.
Hitler, and likewise other totalitarian rulers, established parallel
structures to work their will, bypassing rule-bound state structures
that were less ready to follow shocking orders. These included the SS
and the Red Guards, and perhaps now the Oath Keepers.
Another similar case: the US destroyed the Iraqi state structure, and this led to a bloody civil war, followed by PISSI.
Proposing a simple rule-based system for
funding support for poor countries to deal with global heating.
I think that all the major emitters should be taxed the same on new emissions.
*Nearly two-thirds of people who migrate to the UK in small boats are
deemed to be
genuine refugees and allowed to remain.*
Florida, dominated by the Covid-19 party, has passed a law banning
vaccine mandates unless they permit religious exemptions.
before global heating damage causes it to collapse.
The idea of a religious exemption for vaccination is absurd. Whatever
your religion says, it cannot excuse you from public health
requirements.
A future history for this century: if a new Chinese illiberal world order
replaces the liberal but imperialist US world order, it won't last long
before global heating damage causes it to collapse.
US citizens:
call on Twitter to expel Paul Gosar.
US citizens:
call on the Senate to end gerrymandering.
US citizens: call on
Senator Manchin to pass the Build Back Better Act now.
US citizens: call on the Biden administration to
stop the sale of oil leases in Cook Inlet in Alaska.
Biden supports negotiating a treaty to reduce plastic pollution in the ocean.
I've read that the main source of plastic waste in the ocean
is from abandoned fishing lines and nets.
Some of them go on entangling and killing wildlife until they break down.
A treaty could require all fishing boats to return all unusable lines and nets
for safe disposal.
*Markey Amendment Would Redirect 1% of Funds From 'Bloated' Pentagon
to Address Climate Crisis.*
This bill would cut the military budget by 8 billion dollars and spend
the money on improving US national security by helping poor countries
cope with global heating effects.
(satire) *Texas Bans Access To Tall Staircases In Case Women With
Unwanted Pregnancies Get Any Ideas.*
(satire) *Fannie Mae Issues Billions Of Mortgage-Backed NFTs.*
The BBC has the same problem as mainstream US media in trying to be
impartial when covering a party that attacks the idea of truth.
Northern Sweden is making large factories for batteries and steel, to
run on copious hydroelectiric power, and seeks 100,000 people to move
there for jobs.
*Pollutionwatch: the double benefit of cutting methane emissions.*
Recognizing an error in the date of the supposed first reported case
of Covid-19 makes it clear that the outbreak started at the Wuhan wet
market.
*White-supremacist prison guards work with impunity in Florida.*
It's not much better in the rest of the US. Many prisons (and thug
departments) make no effort to check whether a job candidate is an
overt racist.
The article linked to above displays symbolic bigotry by
capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing bigotry,
capitalize both words or neither one.) I object to bigotry, and
normally I decline to link to articles which promote it. But I make
exceptions for some articles which give important information about
racism or the fight to eliminate racism. That article is one of the
exceptions.
Private kidnapers now add to Afghanistan's suffering.
US citizens: call on your Senators to oppose S.A. 4653 and any other
increases in military budget.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121. If you call, please spread the word!
*US legislation banning [PFAs] far from certain as Senate fight looms.*
Some states have passed laws to ban them in paper products.
*Amazon Will Face Black Friday Strikes and Protests in 20 Countries.*
Kashmiris accuse Indian thugs of using a few Kashmiris as human
shields in a gun-fight with supposed militant separatists, who may
not even have existed.
They buried the victims' bodies secretly, perhaps to prevent an autopsy
from learning the truth of how they were killed.
*US wildfires have killed nearly 20% of world's giant sequoias in two years.*
West coast US fishermen are suing fossil fuel companies because the
heating and acidification of the ocean are interfering with species to
be fished, and with the safety of catching and eating them.
Encouraging the murder of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has made Rep. Gosar
a star among right-wing fanatics, and won him an endorsement from the wrecker.
Compared with this, being censured and losing committee assignments
was insignificant, a price he considers worth paying. Indeed, he said
as much by tweeting that veiled call to murder a second time. Gosar
is boasting, "You can't stop me."
Democrats need to find a way to punish Gosar and others who stir up a
right-wing coup, one that will make them conclude that it isn't worth
the price.
* Copenhagen was a failure that demotivated activists, while Paris merely
placated them. But Glasgow has radicalized a generation.*
Boston has decided to move its municipal funds permanently out of
fossil fuels.
The city has no choice about investment of its pension funds, sad to say.
John Deere workers accepted a new contract, considerably better than what they were offered before the strike.
Economist Friedrich Hayek is revered by conservatives, who would be
shocked to find that he endorsed many aspects of Sanders's democratic
socialism.
Disposable diapers add up to a large fraction of plastic waste.
Kyle Rittenhouse was acquitted of all charges. It seems that
Rittenhouse made arguable claims of self-defense; which were helped to
dominate the outcome by the possible right-wing prejudice of the
judge, plus the all-white jury.
*Now it’s open season on protesters.*
After all, lots of white jurors might be eager to acquit right-wingers that
kill protesters. This is a right-wing radicalization point.
That article projects the possible consequences of a willingness to let
right-wing vigilantes get away with killing protesters.
*As Kyle Rittenhouse Walks Free,
Republican Lawmakers Fight Over Who Loves Him the Most.*
*Austria plans compulsory Covid vaccination for all.*
However, it will properly allow medical exceptions
for those who have a medical condition that precludes vaccination.
19 years imprisonment and torture, in Guantanamo and elsewhere, seem
to have driven Abdulqadir al Madhfari mad. When he was returned to
Yemen, he said his relatives were impersonators plotting against him,
and ran away.
Australia's planet roasters plan to reduce emissions using the
nonexistent technology of burning biomass and capturing the CO2.
It might not be a bad thing to do, provided it uses waste plant
material which requires no cultivation, but should civilization bet
its survival on an untried extension of a technology that so far has
failed?
*No country has met welfare goals in past 30 years "without putting
planet at risk."*
* Looking at a sample of 148 nations, research by the University of Leeds
found wealthy countries were putting the future of the planet at risk
to make minimal gains in human welfare, while poor countries were
living within ecological boundaries but underachieving in areas such as
life expectancy and access to energy.*
This does not imply that it is impossible to provide everyone with a
good life while operating sustainably, only that the path countries
have taken does not lead there. Reducing luxuries for the rich, and
meat production (though meat is not limited to the rich), would help.
A smaller population would help a lot.
*Sudan pro-democracy activists call for escalation after lethal crackdown.*
The US and China have major political influence in Africa. I wonder
what the US is doing to influence developments in Sudan, and what
outcome it is pushing for, and likewise China.
Indian politicians have decided that it is easier to ban criticism of
the nation's problems than to do something about them.
In effect, they prefer to make people admire India rather than make
India admirable.
Every country has such exploiters. What is so bad for India is that
the ruling party and its supporters take that stance. Supporters of
the BJP are saying, "Don't make things better, lie to us instead."
That request will surely be granted.
How Republicans are using gerrymandering this year to guarantee
they get a majority in legislatures with a minority of votes.
The whole Republican Party has signed on to this "by hook or by crook"
system of seizing illegitimate power. It's not as violent as a military coup,
but in the long term it will kill more people.
Qatar's fancy hotels, recommended by the football association FIFA,
pay their workers about a dollar per hour.
Since the government forbids them to leave Qatar, they are effectively
slaves of their employer. To the extent that there are laws to protect
workers, the hotels violate them with impunity.
*The moral case for destroying fossil fuel infrastructure.*
(And for canceling fossil fuel contracts by fiat.)
I previously suggested that Pacific island nations whose territory is
being inundated by global heating could declare war on Australia and
counterattack by sinking some of Australia's coal-export ships.
It should be possible to do that in ways that allow the ships' crew
to get away in lifeboats.
They are starting to organize pressure on Australia and such.
About the Congressional panel that investigated the insurrection of 1860.
About Portugal's law forbidding employers to contact employees outside
work hours.
This is tremendously important for those for whom work is just a job,
for whom there is something else more important. And that's most
people, I think. But this rule can be devastating for people like me,
we who do work that is the center of our life, we for whom "family
time" usually means forced-to-wait time, and perhaps alone-and-bored
time too.
We need a way we can get out of this rule.
It can't be easy and arbitrary. If it's sufficient for a worker (or
contractor) to say, "Please let my employer contact me 24/7,"
employers will effectively coerce workers into saying that against
their preferences.
Perhaps everyone will have to have a free software volunteer project
to occupy perself with while cut off from the work project.
A country which has a law requiring small companies to respond somehow
within 24 hours — as some real or proposed internet censorship laws
do — had better not require them to hire several people for this,
just to have someone available at every hour of every day.
*SF received $1.5 million to explore online voting. Critics think it’s
a horrible idea.
Using computers to receive and record votes is already foolish and dangerous.
Letting those computers communicate with anyone else is totally asking to lose.
*US mountain states battle wildfires despite impending winter.*
Biden's nominee for comptroller of the currency moved to the US from
the Soviet Union just after it collapsed. Republican senators tried
to call her a communist simply because she was born there.
The Build Back Better relief bill includes a new tax on profits of large
corporations, which will reduce their tax dodging.
Not as much we ought to reduce it, but it is a step forward.
(satire) *Disney Acquires All Of America's Children For $52 Billion.
"Ship Them To Us And We Will Do As We Wish," Says CEO Bob Chapek.*
Experts criticize Bill Gates's plan for "small" fission reactors
cooled by liquid sodium. The most obvious flaw is that the sodium burns if it gets in contact
with air.
Various approaches to providing electricity at all times using renewable
sources.
New South Wales reopened activities with most people vaccinated, but kept
test-and-trace and mask requirements. Case rates have remained very low.
China is flipping out because Lithuania allowed Taiwan to open a trade
office using the name "Taiwan".
Indian farmers made Modi announce he will repeal the laws they have
been protesting for a year.
But they don't trust his word on that, and they demand more.
See
for a description of these laws.
Testimony in Salvini's trial for trying to stop a rescue ship carrying
147 refugees (rescued from small boats) from landing in Italy for a
long time.
The Woman's Tennis Association has shown courage in standing up for
its disappeared Chinese member Peng Shuai.
Usually western companies and organizations are so desperate for
profits from China that they bow down to whatever China demands.
About several prominent Chinese who have been disappeared, partly or
totally.
The list does not mention the Panchen Lama and his family.
*Climate campaigners take South Africa to court over coal policy.*
A large part of the "great resignation" which has caused the US labor
shortage involves working mothers who were forced to quit because they
couldn't rely on schools as a place to put their children while working.
Perhaps economic considerations will convince states to allow mothers
to leave more children alone at home.
*US faces nurse shortage from burnout.*
US citizens: call on
colleges and universities to stop charging students for credits they accrued through unpaid internships.
A company tries to prejudge who is a criminal, or an extremist, or
whatever,
or will become one of those things, based on people's Facebook social links.
The people that you communicate with on line tend to influence your
actions. Therefore, trying to predict what you will do (for instance,
commit crimes or not) based on such links ought to be more accurate
than chance.
Nonetheless, it is wrong to prejudge people that way. We have to judge
people based on what they actually do, not based on what they seemed
likely to do.
The EU is considering a directive to require companies sending various
agricultural products to the EU to prove
their products were not related to deforestation.
The products proposed are beef, wood, palm oil, soy, coffee and cocoa.
If other big importers sign on to this, it could make a big difference.
The Tories want to give the British state the power to
cancel someone's citizenship without even informing the person.
The victim would learn of this arbitrary act when trying to enter the UK.
*Report Finds Gruesome Medical Malpractice and Death in Arizona Prisons.*
*South Korea has probably the best Covid response in the world. What
can the UK [or US] learn?*
*Brazil’s Amazon beef plan will "legalize deforestation," say critics.*
The US and China made a reciprocal deal about journalists' visas.
I think it is wrong for the US to require journalists to get special visas.
If you are allowed to be in the US, you should be allowed to publish
about what you see here.
At least, that should be the case for countries that have the same rules
for Americans.
*AI surveillance takes U.S. prisons by storm.*
Bernie Sanders opposes the Senate's plan for a ten-billion-dollar
consolation prize to Bezos.
A large music venue in Colorado asks concertgoers to speed up the line
by allowing palm scans.
Amazon says this is safe because the scans are sent over the
internet to an Amazon server. What happens to the data once there is
cloudy.
Many states are passing laws allowing just about anyone to carry a gun
in public. This adds more danger to any confrontation.
The right to openly carry guns theoretically applies to everyone, but
in practice a black can't dare do it, since the first passing thug is
likely to kill per.
(satire) *NFT Investor Reminds Skeptics Everything Else In World
Stupid And Meaningless Too.*
New Zealand's antivax fanatics may be less than 1% of the population,
but they have given over to raving hatred, and threaten others with
violent death as well as death by Covid-19.
It is everyone's duty to help protect the rest from Covid-19, and
letting this violent hatred stew will encourage them to get more
violent. I suggest that the government adopt a policy that whenever
they arrest someone, they use that opportunity to vaccinate per as well
(in the absence of medical reasons not to). Once anti-vaxxers see that
vaccination is not bad for them, they will find it hard to keep the
hate going.
I reworded the above paragraph on Nov 30 make comprehension easier.
It used to read, "I suggest that the government adopt a policy of
vaccinating everyone that is arrested."
*Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rises by more than a fifth in a year.*
We now need to protect the northern forests in Canada, Russia and the
US. They store a lot of carbon, and if they burn up, we can't
possibly replace them between now and 2050.
*Sanders Says Deficit Concerns "Seem to Melt Away" When It's Time to
Fill Pentagon Coffers.*
Sanders voted against the military appropriations bill
to protest the Senate's prioritizing that over the spending that the
US really needs.
Belarus has pulled the migrants out of the border area with Poland and
into Belarus, and given them food. Apparently Lukashenko has given up
on trying to use them to attack Poland.
*Hydrogen produced by fossil fuels is more expensive, will release
more greenhouse gas emissions and comes with a greater risk of
creating stranded assets,
according to new research from the Australian National University.*
However, the former method of producing hydrogen would offer more
profits to the planet roasters.
The US plans to produce a billion doses of
Covid-19 (or other) vaccine per year.
This is good, but it doesn't make up for the developed world's insistence
on maintaining a monopoly that stops India and Brazil from doing this.
*Fossil fuel companies
owe reparations to countries they are destroying.*
In principle, they do -- but there is a conflict between the goal of
extracting money from them for some other cause (worthy as it may be)
and the goal of ramping down their operations.
The "QAnon Shaman" has been sentenced to 3.5 years in prison
for attacking the Capitol.
Two of the people convicted of helping to assassinate Malcolm X
were exonerated after it became clear that
prosecutors concealed evidence in their trials.
We often find that this has happened in US trials. Correcting the
dishonesty decades later is better than not correcting it, but a
"justice system" that often lies in court is rotten. How can we
make prosecutors stop lying?
Mexican marines, trained by the US, are
disappearing people for the US war on drugs.
British Columbia and Washington State have suffered a compound climate
disaster: massive fires,
followed by rains on the denuded slopes which washed away the soil.
I fear that trees won't be able to grow back on those slopes, for want
of soil. Over the next decade, the mountains may become permanently
denuded in this way. To regenerate soil would require thousands of
years.
Both the fires and the rains were caused by global heating.
"Atmospheric rivers" are more frequent now than they were in the past.
Apple said it would allow purchasers of
iMonsters to repair them.
This would eliminate ijustices out of the many injustices of the iMonster.
Extreme rain, due to global heating, has caused disaster in a large
part of British Columbia.
Landslides have blocked roads.
All land routes into Vancouver are blocked, and railroads will take a long time to repair.
Much of the nearby city of Abbotsford has been flooded.
The flooded houses will probably have to be torn down and rebuilt.
Sudanese soldiers shot pro-democracy protesters in
Khartoum, killing 14 of them.
The House took away Rep. Gosar's committee assignments to punish him
for posting
a death threat.
What punishment could change their minds?
I've read that conservatives make moral judgments about people based
on how they obey authority and how much they follow cleanliness rules.
This suggests that an effective form of punishment would be
something that makes him appear disobedient and disgusting.
For instance, requiring him to wear a dirt-smeared rag instead of clothing.
Masks cut the number of Covid-19 cases by half --
even among vaccinated people.
The Palestinian human rights groups that Israel labeled "terrorist"
still
receiving support from foreign human rights groups.
Which reject the false labeling of them.
Australian climate activists have blocked a
coal export terminal and used emergency switches to shut down its operations.
The state has threatened them with 25-year prison sentences. "It’s not
as scary as the future we are heading to" said a protester.
I think that all imprisoned nonviolent climate protesters will be
pardoned in at most 15 years. By then, no government will be able to
deny that they were heroes.
Metaverse schemes seen as new ways of reshaping the
internet into a system to dominate and shape human beings.
*Patrick Leahy Announces He Won’t Seek
Reelection To Make Room For Next Generation Of 70-Year-Olds.*
*New Report on "Grocery Cartels"
Details Exploitive Retailer Monopolies.*
The US has only four major supermarket chains -- although there are
a lot of different brands, many supermarket brands are subsidiaries of
the big four.
Many specific kinds of foods also have too few competitors.
(satire) *Higher Prices May
Force Americans To Eat Reasonable Portions On Thanksgiving.*
A 14-year-old black Londoner accuses the thugs of racial profiling
after
they stopped him on the street and searched him, 30 times.
There is evidence that using marijuana in
pregnancy may cause aggression and anxiety for the resulting children.
However, this
result is tentative as the sample was small.
Marijuana use during pregnancy seems to cause many other problems for
the resulting children.
(satire) *Americans Assure Pentagon
They Don't Care Enough To Make Cover Up Drone Strikes Worthwhile.*
The planet roasters' new alternative to cutting fossil fuels is to
promote use of
natural gas and call it "low carbon" fossil fuel.
It doesn't actually result in less greenhouse emissions, though.
The article compares this to "low tar" cigarettes, which putatively
reduced the danger of smoking but actually didn't.
Pfizer has licensed its new Covid-19 treatment for generic production
--
for countries containg half the world's population.
The other half, around 90 countries, it will probably gouge to get
the most possible money from each. The way to do that is by setting,
for each country, a price that many of its citizens can't afford.
Global heating effects are destroying the
ancient rock art of ancient Austrailia
Some TikTok influencers are spreading functional neurological syndrome
(a disorder including unconcious tics) by showing videos of them.
I believe showing these videos should be prohibited. People must be
free to express any ideas or points of view, but a tic is not a point
of view. People who see the tic videos and start imitating them are not
making a decision based on the video, they are falling prey to it.
The famous US court decision that it is a crime to shout "fire" in a
crowded theater was based on the argument that in such circumstances
people cannot take time to judge rationally how to respond.
This also reminds me of Triolet in "How to talk to girls at parties."
Europe's bird population has
declined by 16% since 1980.
Germany has delayed certification of the new Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline
from
Russia to Germany, on grounds of financial details.
This may not have any bigger significance, but I hope that it does.
Europe must limit its fossil fuel use, not expand it, and it needs to
limit Putin's power, not expand it.
Governments did not agree to a deal to save the ecosphere from global
heeting,
but there are deals working on some big parts of the problem.
The UK Science Museum is
being rejected by some scientists for its deals with fossil fuel companies.
US meat companies made workers so powerless, and the regulatory
agencies too, that neither
could do anything to make the companies protect them from spreading disease to each other.
The four big meat companies crush unions and bully local governments,
even state governments. It would be a very good thing to break them
up into 40 competing companies.
Acceptable
imitation meat seems to be on the horizon now.
From the article, it seems some tuning is still needed, but I expect that
a few years of work will get it right.
Meanwhile, where is there a restaurant that will cook wheat gluten
that actually tastes exactly like wheat gluten, instead of pretending
to be meat and failing laughably?
A campaign to lead the staff of the
NHS to get vaccinated describes
methods that are effective.
I support outreach and communication methods like these. I also
support vaccine mandates with no exceptions other than medical ones.
Both are effective and they are not mutually exclusive.
Several Walgreens stores supported poor people in San Francisco
through massive shoplifting. Now they plan to close the stores,
because they are losing money.
I can't blame the company for closing these stores, but I also agree
that the poor people of those neighborhoods deserve food to eat. I
think it is the city's responsibility to provide food by setting up
food banks in these areas, and pay for them out of taxes.
Due to increased temperatures, children who stay outdoors in Freetown,
Sierra Leone, now risk heat rashes.
Another global heating effect is diminishing crop yields.
Meanwhile, the rising ocean is causing floods.
The city is trying to cope with the various problems, but treating the
symptoms will work only so far. The only real solution is to stop the
cause of the problem, and that is mainly in the big emitters: China,
US, India, Europe, Australia.
*Palm oil land grabs ‘trashing’ environment and displacing people.*
Humans may be able to reduce the world land demand for meat, as we
learn to eat less meat and as its price discourages purchase. But it
will be very hard to do this with palm oil. My recommendation is,
make fewer humans — since that tends to reduce so many other world
problems.
The UK suffers from a revolving door for ministers,
much like the US.
When Ugandan thugs jailed opposition leaders before the election,
they jailed the leaders' children too.
They have all been tortured and held in horrible conditions — for instance,
so crowded that they couldn't find a spot of floor to sleep on.
Global heating has enabled armadillos to spread from their former home
in Texas all he way to Nebraska and Virginia.
China has disappeared tennis pro Peng Shuai after she said that the
former vice-premier Zhang Gaoli coerced her into having sex with him.
*Rising humidity could be linked to increase in suicides, report finds.*
*How workers unknowingly fund [fossil fuel companies] with their
pensions,*
which is risky for the workers as well as the world.
* The Organization of American States is no longer credible. We need a
new body [to scrutinize democratic procedures] if we are to protect
democracy [in the Americas].*
The article presents examples of how the OAS has acted duplicitously
to favor US foreign policy.
Four Kenyan thugs have been convicted of killing a British visitor in
jail.
It took 9 years to do this, even helped by the aristocratic connections
of the man they killed.
The UK is running its medical personnel into the ground.
*Alex Jones liable for damages over Sandy Hook shooting claims, judge rules.*
It's past time to impose a penalty on lying about people.
The EPA found that the pesticide Atrazine harms 1013 protected species,
while glyphosate harms 1676 of them.
Everyone: call on
Walmart to raise its minimum wage to $15/hr.
US citizens: call on the EPA to
take action against polluters that harm frontline communities.
Everyone: reject Amazon --
buy your gifts (and whatever else you buy) from local stores.
I follow that policy for all my purchases, all year round.
US citizens: call on Congress
to provide more food to food banks.
US citizens: call on Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Intel, Target, Dell, Cisco, and Boston Scientific
to stop donating to Anti-Voting Rights
Members of Congress.
US citizens: call on senators to sponsor the Fossil-Free Finance Act.
Tax dodging reportedly amounted to almost $500 billion last year,
and Britain is responsible for 200 billion of that.
*Cuba democracy protests thwarted after rallies banned and leaders arrested.*
The Cuban government claims this is a proxy for a campaign for
destabilization and regime change. That could be true, or not.
What do these leaders advocate doing about other issues if they
win the political rights that Cubans are entitled to?
*Drug Decriminalization in Oregon, One Year Later: Thousands of Lives Not
Ruined by Possession Arrests, $300 Million+ in Funding for Services.*
The Tory way to help a depressed area's economy is to give privileges
to businesses in that area — for instance, tax exemptions.
There are many ways to use public funds to help rebuild the economy of
a region. I suspect that politicians' enthusiasm for local "enterprise
zones" as a method comes from the desire to reduce taxes on business
and thus shift more wealth to the wealthy. The more parts of a country
enjoy the lower tax rate, the more of a disadvantage other parts will
claim to suffer, until finally they all get the same tax reduction for
business.
Unauthorized immigrants in the UK are afraid that they will be deported if
they go to get vaccinated.
US citizens: call on Biden to cancel the memo with which the wrecker tried
to block approval of the Equal Rights Amendment.
Through the Human Library you can arrange a conversation with someone who
represents a point of view or way of life that you feel uncomfortable with.
The Capitol thug department's jail housed mainly people of little
influence until this year, and treated them like dirt. Now people are
being jailed for attacking the Capitol on Jan 6, and complaining
about the same mistreatment — and being heard.
*Rights Group [B'Tselem] Says Israel Uses Settler Violence Against
Palestinians to Take Over West Bank Land.*
The US deportation thugs have privatized inspections of their
deportation prisons. The inspection company bends over backwards
to give every prison a passing grade, no matter how bad it is.
That's what privatization is for — as a way to shrug off accountability.
Global heating takes Aswan in southern Egypt from dry to drier,
except when it causes a sudden downpour.
A rain of deadly scorpions happened also, but though 500 people were stung,
they were all saved with antivenin.
US citizens: call on the House of Representatives to pass
the Build Back Better act (relief and climate bill) now.
Employers are increasingly turning their workers' computers and homes
into a digital panopticon.
This article describes a museum's projection of the British home of 2050,
recognizes it as dystopian, and displays displeasure only rather mildly.
Some of these automated features could respect your freedom if they
are implemented in libre software and run on your own libre platforms.
If we want that, we had better start rejecting the user-subjugating
platforms now.
One suggestion: when you enter a house, ask whether there are
listening devices such as Alexa, or video insecurity cameras, and as
to unplug them. Even if you don't insist, at least people will learn
that what they are doing is problematical and some people don't like
it.
Russia used an antisatellite weapon against an old Russian satellite.
Such tests create space debris, which we don't have a way to clean up.
That is a grave, persistent, accumulating problem.
The ultimate danger of space debris is that a chain reaction of
collisions could make so much debris that it would destroy all
satellites, and we could never put up satellites (or spacecraft)
again. An accelerated version of this was shown in the movie Gravity.
I think that was unrealistically fast, but no one would dare build and
launch a spaceship if its collisional half life were as little as ten
years. Everything human would be excluded from space, except for the
hypersonic nuclear missiles that China and the US are testing. (They
don't need to stay in space for very long.)
The US tested an ASAT missile
and was rebuked for wantonly creating space debris.
Every so often I see a proposed system for cleaning up space debris, I
don't think any of them would scale to the amount of debris present in
Earth orbit in recent years.
(satire) *Park Ranger Slips Fat Fish To Bear
Before Gesturing Towards Littering Family.*
*Lukashenko is a
handy villain to mask the cruelty of Fortress Europe.*
I disagree with one subtle point: the EU's actions and Lukashenko's
actions are not parallel. Lukashenko actively lures migrants,
so he can use them as weapons; the EU simply wants to keep them out.
*On trial for saving lives:
the young refugee activist facing a Greek court.*
Americans who provided water and other humanitarian assistance to
migrants in the desert a few years ago were likewise charged with
aiding their entry.
*From Nicaragua to China,
reckless autocrats betray the promises of revolution.*
*There has been progress at Cop26,
but the planet’s fate is still in the balance.*
Many Afghans fear reprisals from Taliban or unofficial murderous
Islamist fanatics, and are hiding --
they don't know for how long.
Civil servants in the UK are going to court to insist on applying the
ministerial code seriously when ministers violate it and mistreat staff.
Cop26 may have made the climate for
coal mining too hot in Australia.
Tory undermining of the NHS has reached the point where patients wait in
ambulances outside emergency rooms because there is no space for them.
*India and China will “have to explain themselves to poor nations”
after watering down the Glasgow climate pact, warned the Cop26 president.*
In 2019, a US aircraft bombed a mixed group of PISSI soldiers and
their families (perhaps held captive by them).
Some officers tried to have this investigated, but the investigation
was quashed and the military never disclosed what had happened.
Based on the article, it seems that the ethical issues were
complicated, but covering this up was certainly wrong.
US citizens: call on Biden to cancel a substantial part of student
debt.
* Weak EU vehicle emissions targets could allow Europe’s biggest
carmakers to produce millions more petrol and diesel cars than
necessary up to 2030.*
*Al Jazeera bureau chief arrested in Sudan amid deadly anti-coup protests.*
*Māori tribe tells anti-Covid vaccine protesters to stop using its
haka.*
To rebuke them for being jerks would be entirely justified.
(As well as disease-spreading lunatics, which they always are.)
However, it is intolerable for anyone to have power over who can use
traditional music and dance. We should not allow that form of power
to advance.
Two million Americans have no running water, and the US water infrastructure
is decaying because the federal government has cut most of its support
since around 1980.
Water supply is contaminated in many areas; fracking is making more of them.
1980 is when President Reagan started redirecting America's income to
rich people and businesses, instead of what most Americans needed.
*Senate Urged to Reject Biden's "Poor Choice" for FDA Chief Over Ties to Big
Pharma.*
*Five Rich Nations Jeopardizing Future With Plans for Fossil Fuel Expansion:
Report.*
The list includes the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia,
Canada, and Norway. It should include China too, as China is now
rich and powerful.
*Ilhan Omar Unveils Resolution to Block 'Unconscionable' Saudi Arms Sale.*
The US should not participate in Salafi Arabia's war in Yemen, and
that includes providing materiel or support for it.
There are two kinds of resolution that can be used for this: one which
allows the president to veto it and one which does not.
The former kind is ineffective for this purpose.
Which kind of resolution has been filed?
US citizens: call on Congress to make the corrupter testify about his
involvement in the Jan 6 attack on the Capitol.
This is presuming there is no hope of prosecuting him for this based
on the testimony of others. Questioning him in Congress would require
giving him immunity for prosecution, and that would be unfortunate
if we could otherwise send him to prison.
Studies show: safety precautions and regulations are often very effective.
In a wide range of areas, they protect people from harm.
There are denialists who argue that every safety precaution is ultimately
worthless, because it will encourage so much reckless behavior as to
negate the benefit. The figures show they are wrong, wrong, wrong.
Their mistake is not to recognize that the precautions may encourage
some people to be somewhat more reckless, but that isn't a big enough
problem to outweigh the direct benefit of the precaution.
What does encourage recklessness is believing disinformation that
attacks safety measures.
So get vaccinated, and use your seat belt, your helmet, your condom,
and your mask!
* Documents released Friday reveal how in early 2020 the Trump
administration downplayed the deadly danger posed by the nascent
Covid-19 pandemic, silencing and sidelining top health officials who
tried to warn the public and destroying evidence of political
interference while issuing rosy declarations that the outbreak was
"totally under control" and would soon be over.*
This included gagging the CDC and altering its data reports.
Joseph Stiglitz: *Why the Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell must go.*
*Texas schools resist Republican request for records on classroom books.*
Extinction Rebellion protesters blocked an event of the City of London.
The City of London is a small neighborhood of the city called London,
or would be if the word "neighborhood" fit an area with very few
residents but lots of offices of big banks and finance companies.
It has been given special legal status which enables those companies can
fully dominate it,
and one of the things those companies use their
local domain for is to keep investing in fossil fuels.
A US appeals court decided tentatively to suspend the vaccine mandate
for medium and large businesses until it decides the question.
This is unfortunate, but what is really unfortunate is that the US
government does not have the power to ensure that Americans protect
each other from a disease that can cause death, and can also cause
lasting medical problems and disabilities for those that don't die of
it.
(satire) *Distracted God Accidentally Puts Baby’s Soul In Envelope To
Utility Company.*
(satire) *Teen's Eyes Begin Glowing Red While Reciting Forbidden
Knowledge From Book On Critical Race Theory.*
Several countries have started Beyond Oil and Gas, a campaign to put an end
to fossil fuels.
Grandiose plans to plant millions of trees to cite as "carbon offsets"
will have trouble finding enough land to put them on.
Not just any land will support a forest.
It supports my conclusion that we must reject "offsets"
and instead really reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
*Flint water crisis costs Michigan $600 million — preventing it would have cost $80/day.*
The people who chose the plan that inflicted lead poisoning
in Flint will not have to pay the damages.
*Latvia bans unvaccinated lawmakers from voting [and discussions].*
*Outrage as AstraZeneca Ditches Pledge Not to Profit From Publicly
Funded Vaccine.*
Oxford should have published everything and invited companies to make
its vaccine. It probably has an excuse for not doing that, but we should
call in question the validity of that excuse.
Perhaps we should ask every company that makes a pledge
to sign a contract so that it will have to pay enormous damages
if it violates the pledge.
Hong Kong seems to be kicking out many selected foreign journalists,
I suppose to make them all start censoring themselves.
* Where now? Governments have agreed to a weak climate deal which gets us a smidgen closer to holding temperatures to a rise of 1.5C. But as
regards all the most important pledges to phase out coal, reduce
subsidies and protect forests, Glasgow failed.*
I think the progress in this agreement is more than what those words
suggest. But it is still lacking the concrete, clear and firm
commitments to immediate action that we really need.
Here is a less emotional resume of the agreement and its good and bad
points.
To protect right whales, Maine lobster fishers need to switch to
self-lifting lobster pots that don't need a rope and a buoy. But they
are expensive.
The government should fund this equipment.
LA teenagers are charged with making false accusations that sent thugs
to raid one of the leaders of Black Lives Matter.
Fanatical hate often leads people to become dishonest
and cruel in a more direct sense.
(satire) *Climate Summit Sets Ambitious Goal To Phase Out Fossil Fuels
By Time Earth Runs Out Of Them.*
Glasgow University published a paper which criticized Israeli
policies, then published criticism calling it "antisemitic." A
petition signed by hundreds of scholars convinced the university to
retract that criticism.
US citizens: call on your senators to pass the Build Back Better (relief) bill.
Australia's planet-roaster government chose a company that advises
fossil fuel interests to develop a "plan" for how to reduce
Australia's greenhouse emissions. The plan it came up with was,
"Don't bother trying until 2040, then buy so-called 'offsets' so we
won't really have to do any of the work."
Morrisson has been working for fossil fuel interests all along, and
lying to protect them.
I speculate he will get a reward based on how long he can delay any
effort to avoid disaster.
*Steve Bannon indicted for refusal to comply with Capitol attack subpoena.*
I think that Bannon could spin this out for months before being
convicted. But this may loosen some other tongues.
The ironic relationship between the violent dispossession of Māori in
New Zealand in the 1880s and the violent dispossession of Irish in
Ireland in 1649.
* Birds in the Amazon are becoming smaller but growing longer wings, a
study has found, with scientists saying global heating is the most
likely explanation.*
I am disappointed in the scientist who legitimized unscientific
thinking about evolution by referring to it as "nature's genius."
Such language panders to people who want to misunderstand evolution in
religious terms.
Evolution does not operate via creativity, planning, or consciousness.
It is the result of randomness systematically skewed by actual conditions.
*Transform approach to Amazon [forest] or it will not survive, warns major
report.*
The problem is that the loggers, miners and soy farmers are eager to
eliminate the forest. Eventually their farms will die because they
depended on the rain historically caused by the forest,
but by then it will be too late.
*The US-China climate agreement is imperfect — but reason to hope.*
*Trump defended rioters who threatened to ‘hang Mike Pence’, audio
reveals.*
He did this as an embellishment to hammering on the lie
that the 2020 election was rigged. Republicans tried, of course,
as they do every year,
but they did not succeed.
A campaign calls for a postumous pardon for civil rights activist
Homer Plessy, who was convicted of riding in a whites-only railroad
car.
His loss in the Supreme Court legitimized the Jim Crow segregation laws.
Flying desperate Syrians to Belarus so they can try to get into
Poland is a very profitable business for Belarus.
Belarus charges each Syrian 3500 dollars for this service.
Evidently those who accept the deal are not broke.
Is there any sort of business you can start with $3500 in Syria?
Imprisoned Turkish party leader Selahattin Demirtaş's wife has been sentenced
to 30 months in prison for a clerical error on a medical form.
This demonstrates the full extent of dictator Erdoğan's contempt for
human rights. When he wants to put you in prison, no excuse is too
absurd.
Shipping companies are starting to respond to pressure to cut their greenhouse
gas emissions, but actual changes beyond minor efficiency improvements have
not yet started.
Representatives of environmentalist groups walked out of the Cop26 conference
to protest its failure to adopt policies that can achieve its mission.
The drought in southern Madagascar has made it impossible to grow food.
People eat things with no food value just to fill their stomachs.
If this is indeed the result of global heating, it will get worse and
worse — just as it will in many other parts of the world, if we
don't stop the heating.
*Chinese agents operating abroad to get Uyghur [exiles] deported [to
China], ICC told.*
* Organizers of Glasgow [climate defense] march claim [thugs] risked
"chaos" by failing to adhere to pre-agreed arrangements.*
*Oceanographer Sylvia Earle calls for industrial fishing ban on high
seas.* The article explains that this refers to international waters, which
would be 200 miles away from any land. So this would not put an end
to most fishing.
*Walmart Delivery Workers Say New Pay Model Steals Their Tips.*
A substantial fraction of nitrogenous fertilizer is converted into
NO2, a powerful greenhouse gas. Making it releases methane. We need
to use much less fertilizer.
Another fraction of the fertilizer runs off into lakes and seas, where
it creates toxic blooms and dead zones.
Biden is about to hold an auction of oil leases for sea bottom in the Gulf of Mexico. Climate defenders urge him to cancel the auction.
We used to condemn Hitler and Nazis, but now that's considered
insufficient. Imitating Hitler as mockery is now treated as a
violation of taboo, reason for someone to be shunned.
This reminds me of the 1942 US propaganda movie, To Be Or Not To Be,
which features a fictional Polish Hitler-impersonator. He is such a
capable impersonator that he can fool even Germans, which proves
useful for fighting them — in a comedy, at least.
Director Ernst Lubitsch was a Jew born in Germany, and he must have
thought of Hitler as the worst of enemies. But he saw no wrong in
presenting a Hitler-impersonator, if that would help to defeat Hitler.
Putin is planning to shut down the organization Memorial, which documents
repression of dissidents in the Soviet Union.
A carbon capture and storage project was supposed to capture and store
80% of the CO2 output of a large industrial facility, but only handled 40%. It was a failure.
The article criticizes the project for not capturing the CO2 produced
elsewhere by burning the gas prepared by this facility. That is true,
but it's not a failure. Obviously, the power plants that burn it
would need their own capture and storage systems. We could build
those — but maybe electric power storage would be cheaper.
Jens Galschiot made a sculpture to represent the massacre at Tien An
Men, and lent it to the University of Hong Kong. That university is
now compelled to try to get rid of it. Galschiot wants to go and
bring it home, but he is afraid he will be jailed if he does.
Australia's planet-roaster prime minister, Morrison, is now getting
blasted for all the lies. He denies telling the lies, but that fails
to convince his critics.
The climate in Greece has changed drastically; old weather patterns are
gone. The big fires destroyed the entire ecosystem of northern Evia
(formerly Euboia).
Balochistan is a part of Pakistan inhabited largely by a minority
ethnic/linguistic group. It has a separatist movement, and faces
repression from the Pakistani government. The repression forces
disappear people, who show up many years later — perhaps alive, perhaps dead.
Forest rangers in southern California want to remove bushes and some
smaller trees to reduce future wildfires.
Some local people demand to save every tree, but that can't be done
except by reversing global heating.
Free Assange Rally on Monday, November 22 at 4pm in Boston.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass the billionaires' tax
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121. If you call, please spread the word!.
The International Commission of Jurists concludes that two UN treaties
require countries to cooperate with removing the patent obstacles
to making vaccines.
These treaties have been ratified by around 170 countries. The US is
not one of them, but that's not a problem since the US is already in
favor of doing this.
The NIH is disputing with Moderna the rights to the patents that
Moderna has applied for. If it wins the inclusion of its scientists among the inventors,
it will get the power to license manufacture of vaccines.
The death rate from Covid-19 is 3 times as much in US counties that
voted 60% for the wrecker as in counties that voted 60% for Biden.
*More Than Halfway Through COP26, World Leaders Accused of Delivering
Empty Promises on a Sinking Ship.*
The US wants to require all new cars to have a system to determine whether
the driver is drunk.
This threatens to collect more data about all drivers.
I will not object to that system if the only information it reports,
ever, is either "Driver is drunk" or "driver may not be drunk."
That data should not be stored anywhere, only used immediately to decide
whether the car can start.
*"This Must Not Happen": If Unhalted, Permian Basin Fracking Will Unleash 40 Billion Tons of CO2 by 2050.*
This would be "game over for the climate."
HSBC, working with other big banks, has been lobbying secretly to
reduce the greenhouse reduction commitment that banks are negotiating.
They all have pledged to reach net-zero by 2050, but that is only lip service.
*If all the announced net-zero commitments are implemented, the global
temperature would rise 1.8°C by 2100, but this is only IF these targets are fully implemented, and it's a big IF.*
(satire) *Bounty CEO Rebrands Business As Metaverse Of Napkins.*
*Flint water crisis victims to receive $626m settlement.*
For Democrats to win next year, they need to win back voters that were hit
by increasing poverty.
This is one reason why passing the infrastructure bill was important.
However, passing the aid bill (Build Back Better) is also important.
The progressives who insisted on the deal to pass both bills
were trying to do a larger part of what the Democratic Party needs.
A bill in Congress would require web sites to give users an alternative
to letting opaque algorithms choose what they see.
Specifically, the sites would have to warn users about basing feeds
or search results on any personal data other than what they submitted
specifically to state preferences.
I agree that this would be a step forward — but, when it comes to
searching, I want to make sure the site does not know who I am.
Paleontoligical study of previous mass extinctions suggests that our
rapid CO2 production could rush past a global tipping point, and
unleash catastrophic global climate oscillations in this century.
Activists outside of Cop26 projected serious slogans such as "leave
methane in the ground" and "end fracking now" on the side of the
building where discussions are happening.
A company hired by the event to project on the sides of buildings
decided to drown that out by covering the protest with other slogans.
The result was to amplify the protest.
Thai protesters called for reducing the power of the monarch. Now the
constitutional court ruled that such protesters count as a rebellion.
Here's an example where indigenous people in modern British Columbia
carefully made their salmon fishing sustainable over a period of 1,000
years.
*San Francisco’s progressive district attorney faces recall election.*
Inflation tends to be good for poor people, especially those with
debts and those who have to work for a living.
It reduces the value of the debts, and it goes with shortage of
labor, which means you can get a raise.
Thus, the media alarm about inflation may be calculated to serve the
interests of the creditor class.
The Congressional Budget Office proposes three ways to cut $100
billion per year from the military budget.
Instead of replacing fossil-fuel automobiles with electric
automobiles, it might be better to aim to put an end to use of
automobiles.
I don't think other transport will entirely replace automobiles.
I wish I could use a bicycle, but (1) I don't know how to ride one and
(2) I'd be scared to ride one in a place where cars go. Can we come up
with a way to make bicycles safer, and avoid the need for honed skill
to use one?
A building in LA, with a supermarket in it, demands customers load a
particular app to pay for parking in the parking lot, and accept
pervasive surveillance.
They also have the option of entering their license plate numbers in a kiosk.
That is an injustice, too.
*Frontline workers cannot expect to remain unvaccinated in a pandemic
and to keep working with vulnerable people.*
The first-level federal court overturned the Texas rule that school districts
cannot require masks.
Republican officials will appeal this ruling, so I expect it will be months
before there is a final result.
(satire) *Climate Scientists Warn That Fish Will Be Under Even More
Water By 2065.*
*Campaigners Rip New COP26 Draft as a "Polite Request" for Climate
Action Amid Existential Crisis.*
Iran's conditions for resuming the non-nuclear deal:
The US must commit to remaining in the deal, and it must ease sanctions
in a way that has significant effect. Also, European countries must not
allow US sanctions laws to block them from trading with Iran.
These demands seem acceptable to me. It seems absurd for the US to have
the power to tell other countries whether they can trade with Iran or not.
*Cop26 targets too weak to stop disaster, say Paris agreement architects.*
* Monitoring of workers and setting performance targets through
algorithms is damaging [UK]
employees' mental health and needs to
be controlled by new legislation.*
I suppose it harms workers in the US, too, but the report is about the UK.
How America Got (And Lost)
Universal Child Care.
SARS-CoV-2 has spread to
deer in Iowa and is causing an epidemic
among them.
In principle, humans could catch it from deer. This could make it
hard to eradicate the disease, but humans will not have many
opportunities to catch it from deer. However, we don't know what other
kinds of animals may harbor it.
Tuvalu is looking for a way to retain its status as a country,
and its maritime zones of exclusive commerce, if its land
is inundated.
*During Brazil's Dictatorship,
Companies Helped Suppress Democracy.*
Famous US and European companies conspired to crush union organizers
by asking the national thugs to arrest them and torture them.
There is a danger that they will prop up Bolsonaro so they can do it
again.
Canada agreed to pay rent to indigenous groups for mining and logging
on land that they ceded, but only paid them a pittance.
Now it will
have to pay them billions.
This is fair, and I hope the indigenous peoples manage it so as to
make a lasting improvement in their lives.
However, it might have the ironic effect of convincing them to lobby
for mining and logging. ;-{.
Home renters in Catalonia are
organizing to fight evictions.
Democrats in Congress propose to compensate the black soldiers in
World War II (actually their descendents) for
dening them the education benenfits offered to white soldiers.
One cause of inflation in the US today is that there is
too little competition to hold prices down.
We need to break up the enormous companies that four decades of
unrestrained merger have produced.
I suggest a way to do this via
taxes.
Ethiopia is arresting thousands of people of Tigrayan origin, even
foreign visitors, on suspicion that they will
support advancing Tigrayan armies.
*Belarus threatens to cut gas deliveries to EU if sanctioned over
border crisis.*
As long as the EU is dependent on gas from Russia and Belarus, they have the
advantage all the time. This is an important secondary reason for the EU
to build renewable generation capacity at double time. Fortunately
that's exactly what the EU needs to do anyway.
Obama hardly tried to curb global heating
when he was president, yet now he is publicly pressing for more climate defense.
What should we say about this incongruous situation?
If our goal is to encourage climate defense, we should criticize his
past failure as president, while endorsing his valid points (those
which are valid) of today.
To treat his past failure as more important than the future, as the
article does, is not constructive.
Campaigning to close the oil wells that in
Los Angeles county that are making local residents badly sick.
Yanis Varoufakis: *
Cop26 is doomed, and the hollow promise of "net zero" is to blame.*
US citizens: call on the Senate not to vote on the NDAA until we have
passed Build Back Better.
US citizens: call on Congress to Pass the Polluters Pay Climate Fund
Act.
US citizens: call on the Canadian government stop subsidizing the
forest biomass industry —
in other words, paying to cut down forests and burn them.
US citizens: call on Congress to remove insurrectionists, as the
constitution requires.
*The cow in the room: why is no one talking about farming at Cop26?*
It is hard for me to comment on issues relating to sustainable
farming, because I don't have a basis to judge whether proposed
methods have a plausible chance of being more sustainable. I know
about many of the worst problems — pesticides, fertilizer, water
demand, and farming crops to feed animals — but when people propose
solutions, I can't tell the rational solutions ones from the newage.
One piece of foolishness can be seen in the article when people
criticize the menus because "60% of dishes include meat or dairy." I
am not impressed by people who equate buttered toast with a steak.
A Kenyan woman was murdered in 2012. Now there is an indication
that the murderer was a British soldier sent there for training.
I am disappointed that the article raises the question of whether
she was a part-time prostitute — as if that were pertinent.
Condemnation of prostitutes is an example of the conservative
idea of moral values,
which are based on obedience to superiors, loyalty to the group,
and cleanness, and allow those to override fairness and justice.
*Youngkin played the race card in Virginia, no Trump card needed.*
A discussion of politics in Hungary and an interview with Peter Márki-Zay,
the candidate of the united opposition.
I do not admire anyone for being conservative, nor for being Catholic
(though that's ok if perse is not also conservative). I disapprove
strongly of having seven children, which is harmful to civilization's
future;
people should use birth control to avoid overpopulating.
However, if Márki-Zay brings Hungary back to democracy, that will outweigh
my disapproval of the specifics.
Daniel Ellsberg and Norman Solomon: ICBMs are especially likely to
cause an accidental nuclear war — the US would be safer after
eliminating its land-based ICBMs
even if Russia does not eliminate its own.
The US would still have bombers and submarine-launched missiles.
In the 1970s, the region of Sacramento, California, had an average of
7 days of "fire weather" per year. Last year it was 22; this year it
was 25.
Distributed Denial of Secrets posted a large collection of photos that
two US surveillance departments leaked through total carelessness.
They show us how invasive state surveillance has become in "free"
countries.
Trying to restrict the use of this surveillance data will tend to be
ineffective. After all, there is already a law against lying in court
testimony, but that doesn't make thugs stop doing it.
The US has a history of persecuting people by calling them "terrorists",
so limiting the use of the surveillance to "fighting terrorism"
won't protect us.
That is why I advocate prohibiting the installation or operation of
dangerous surveillance systems that surveil people in general.
*Cop26 sets course for disastrous heating of more than 2.4C, says key report.*
*There’s a nearly 1C difference between
countries’ 2030 commitments and their 2050 targets.*
Is it horrifying for a dead body to be dissected publicly?
It must be gruesome, but if that happens to the corpse of someone
you knew, is it a reason to take offense?
I don't see that it is. The dissection can't harm the person who died,
or per memory.
If my corpse is someday publicly dissected, I think that will not
be a reason for to take offense on my behalf. Instead, please support
what I have done with my life — the Free Software Movement.
China has suffered big damage from extreme rainfall.
Will this convince China's
rulers to stop making it worse by building coal-burning generators?
President Piñera of Chile has been
impeached over using his power to benefit his family financiailly.
The facts were disclosed by
The Pandora Papers.
I am not surprised he would do this. He generally does what's good for the rich, and that includes his family.
*[Bogus Johnson] tests the limits of shamelessness,
using the dignity of his cabinet as a probe.*
Mexico has accused an unidentified "businessman"
for using the Pegasus spyware to snoop on a journalist.
A man that punched Capitol policemen
during the Jan 6 insurrection has fled to Belarus for safety
If we can only convince Republican leaders to go to Belarus, the US might
be safer.
*If Build Back Better Fails, AOC Warns,
"We May Have Just Locked in US Emissions."*
Proposing a way that
capitialism could end nonviolently.
To eliminate capitalism entirely would mean that excellent specialty
products and services would disappear — including good restaurants
and delicious food products. I love them, and I want them to be there
to buy! What's harmful is when busineses are big enough to shape
society for their ends. Can we get rid of big-time capitalism and
keep the capitalism for things that are not necessitities of life?
Calling on the Edelman advertising agency to
drop fossil fuel companies as clients.
Major progressive groups warn that Republicans threaten to
overthrow US democracy in 2022 or 2024
Climate defense rallies of
last weekend, in photos.
*Progressives to Biden:
If You Want to Be Popular, Take On Corporate Greed.*
*Survivors of 1965 Indonesia massacres urge UK to apologize.*
And the US, of course.
NFT-boosters perversely acknowledge that the buyers are buying only the
opportunity to boast how much they spent. It is conspicuous consumption
publicly stripped of any possible other good.
Therapists and consultants say that they help their clients by
charging them a lot of money, because that influences them to respect
the service more. By saying this, they are not being irrational
themselves, but they are showing disrespect for their clients by
presuming they judge foolishly.
The NFT boosters that sneer at "right-clicker mentality" take a further
step into absurdity: they claim that the people they manipulate are
right to think in that perverse way.
The FTC has power to restrict some of the bad things Facebook does to
zuckers.
I don't think that forbidding Facebook to collect "data on a user's
race, sexual orientation, gender, or national origin" would make
Facebook safe for its useds. Facebook can deduce those things from
what a person likes, or chooses to look at — not with 100% accuracy,
but accurately enough to target people profitably.
PEN reports on Republicans' laws (and bills) to impose censorship on
education.
Governments' estimates of their greenhouse gas emissions omit 8 to 13
billions of tons per year. That is a substantial fraction of the total
anthropic emissions.
Extreme pessimism about our future is as harmful as blind optimism.
The article errs in equating Roger Hallam's warning with fatalistic
pessimism. Extinction Rebellion is the opposite of fatalism. His
warning of what the future will be like if you don't try to change it
is a call to action, and it has inspired thousands — or perhaps
millions — into the struggle.
* Citizens are alarmed by the climate crisis, but most believe they are
already doing more to preserve the planet than anyone else, including
their government, and few are willing to make significant lifestyle
changes, an international survey has found.*
The comparatively painless way for millions of people to change a harmful habit
is to get together and do it at the level of society as a whole. To achieve
the same results by individual sacrifices is a big pain.
28 of the 100 US senators (and their families) own substantial holdings
of fossil fuel stocks.
(satire) *Virginians Who Watched Schools Taken Over By Sharia Law
Refuse To Make Same Mistake With Critical Race Theory.*
A few rich "philanthropists" pledged to spend a around $25 million
a year to help Kalamazoo (however they see fit), in exchange for
cancellation of a planned tax increase.
Now the city is addicted to their continuing "donations"
and has sold control of its future.
Although Democrats have kept the paid birth leave benefit alive,
the lowest-paid workers will now be specially excluded.
Taiwan shows that a free country can stamp out Covid-19 completely.
If the world maintained this discipline, it could get rid of Covid-19 forever,
and reopen in safety.
The Los Angeles Thug Department is accused of outsourcing racial
profiling to algorithms
— for the second time.
I wish I knew to what extent the thug department controls the
algorithms in use, but I can't tell that from the article.
Can anyone find out?
*I have lived under corrupt regimes — the cynicism stalking Britain
is all too familiar.*
*Tuvalu minister to address Cop26 knee deep in seawater to highlight
climate crisis.*
Sergei Savelyev fled to France and revealed copies of torture videos
made in the Saratov prison hospital.
These videos were not from always-on "security" cameras. They
specifically recorded acts of torture of prisoners for the delectation
of prison officers.
Russia is trying to imprison Savelyev for this leak. That response is
disgusting and shameful. What's even more shameful for me as an
American is that the US government is doing the same thing to Julian
Assange for a similar "crime".
Manchin and Sinema have
agreed to let Medicare negotiate bulk purchases of some drugs.
This will be a signal victory if it gets passed into law, even though
it is limited to only some drugs and some patients (those covered by
Medicare), because it will break through the barrier that has held for
50 years. Extending the exception policy should be easier than
creating it.
In more civilized countries, the national medical system provides all
prescription drugs to patients. Italy's system, for example,
distributes insulin gratis to all diabetics that need it.
How China imposes
total repression on everything that Uyghurs do.
*1bn people will suffer
extreme heat at just 2C heating, say scientists.*
In New Zealand, a few thousand anti-vaxxers mounted a protest outside
Parliament,
advocating a twisted mishmash of various right-wing lunacies.
People have a right to rally nonviolently for any views, including
these. But if they violate (or threaten to violate) measures to stop
the spread of Covid-19, they should be subject to immediate
vaccination as a public safety measure.
Singapore will charge for treatment for Covid-19 infection of people
who are
unvaccinated by choice.
This is fair, and will convince many to get vaccinated and thus be safer.
Paternity leave
helps couples stay together.
Portugal's new law gives new rights to remote workers, including the
penaties to the employer for
contacting workers outside of their
working day.
*Fossil Fuel Lobbyists Have Larger Presence at COP26 Than Any Single
Country.*
It totals over 500 people.
Each of them was authorized by some country or other entity. Thus,
Brazil's contingent of 479 people includes some of those 500 fossil
fuel lobbyists.
The demand for copper is increasing and this means more mining.
The mines
often pollute water supplies, and they don't take responsibility for cleaning
up mining or pollution.
US mining law is not effective at making those who profited from the
mine pay for cleaning up its pollution later. The corporation is
likely to go bankrupt as soon as the mine stops producing. I think it
would be more effective put an environmental tax on operating a mine,
which will cover what the government is likely to have to pay to clean
it up later.
US citizens: call on the Senate to end the filibuster.
US citizens: call on the Senate to end the filibuster.
It is important to keep up the pressure on this point.
*Cop26 leaders blame individuals,
while supporting a far more destructive system.*
*hellip; we can return to the question of individual consumption and
ask if there are ways of making our personal choices as a way of
developing =– rather than distracting from -– systemic change.*
(satire) *Amazon Assures Customers That Alexas
Far Too Busy Devising Their Own Plans To Listen In On Private Conversations.*
*When Are We Going to Talk About the Outrageous Cost of
NOT Passing the Build Back Better Act?*
Analyzing how US troops
mistook a family for a PIS bomber and then treated it as unquestioable truth.
It would not be just, or useful, to criminalize this mistake, but it
is important to change the system to prevent future similar mistakes.
*If Democrats return to [so-called] centrism,
they are doomed to lose against Trump.*
"Centrists" is the propaganda word that plutocratists use to pretend
that the political center of the US is where they are, just as the
communists called themselves "Bolshevik" ("on the big side") to
pretend that they represented the majority of socialists. Let's
not spread that falsehood. According to an opinion polls, an overwhelming
majority of Americans support the main political positions of
progressives Democrats. The proper term for the "centrists" is
"plutocratist."
Rssearch is trying to use snoop phone sensors to measure a person's mental state.
If this ever works, it will enable manipulation/marketing companies
to determine which ads work for each person specific who sees them,
and to brainwash people ad lib.
In the "counter climate summit", activists will present climate defense proposals that COP26 is not seriously considering.
*Australia's Largest University Stole $8.6 Million From Workers' Wages.*
Cities use traffic stops to brutally squeeze money out of people that
can barely afford it.
Ultimately, plutocracy is to blame. The rich have escaped most taxation,
so cities have to gouge the poor.
*US citizens v FBI: Will the government
face charges for illegal surveillance?*
Specifically, snooping on people for being Muslims rather that based on
any evidence of criminal activity.
Psychiatry is opening to the idea of psychedelics as treatments.
Sometimes a single dose is enough to treat PTSD.
US citizens: call on AT&T to stop funding the right-wing OAN network.
*Revealed: how LAPD targeted Nipsey Hussle’s street corner and store,*
apparently because he was black and didn't "know his place."
If the thugs really wanted to reduce crime, they would have encouraged
his efforts to build up honest small business in a depressed area.
The main reason to give workers paid sick-leave is so they don't get
worn down by a hard life. But if that's not enough to convince you,
keep in mind that sick leave for contagious diseases helps protect
everyone from catching a disease.
*Married lesbian couple launch discrimination action against [UK
National Health System].*
It is wrong to discriminate in offering fertility assistance of any
kind. Everyone who applies should get the same answer: "Fertility
services suspended until Earth's human population falls below one
billion. In the mean time, adopt a child instead."
Climate mayhem has already killed more Americans than terrorism.
And it's going to keep killing increasing numbers of Americans.
The US should shift to a war on greenhouse gas emissions.
The first step is to stop using an emotionally neutral term such as
"climate change" to describe the threat.
*'I get scared': the young activists sounding the alarm from climate
tipping points.*
What they are warning about is not specific tipping points. We
usually don't know exactly where those are located. Rather, it is
the fact that systems are starting to tip.
*Julian Assange and fiancee claim they are being blocked from marrying.*
Robert Reich: The US rich have got much richer because their political
clout enabled them to cut their taxes. They have mostly neutralized the
wealth taxes that the US adopted around 1900.
We can make them function again, if we are determined.
New York City should deal with anti-vaxx thugs by getting stricter.
I suggest asking the public to send in photos of thugs who are
unmasked in public — and fine the thugs $100 for each occasion they
are proved to have been maskless. Half of that could be a reward for
whoever took the photo.
Pfizer and Moderna claim that non-rich countries have no ability to
manufacture mRNA vaccines — but that is false.
Of course, it would be easy to put this to the test. Tell them what
they need to know, and we will soon see whether they succeed in making
the vaccine.
The article's authors have fallen into the fundamental confusion
spread by the term "intellectual property". If you use that
pseudo-concept, what you say about patents will be false because lots
of things that describe various other laws will be mixed into the
mishmash.
Dave Eggers warns that there will be a campaign to put cameras in
every home. The stated purpose will be to stamp out domestic violence.
When Americans get out of jail, many of them owe more than $10,000 to
the court, an amount than a poor person in America can't pay.
Then there is the debt for probation, owed to the private company that
runs probation and charges the not-quite-ex-con a lot of money.
It should be forbidden to privatize any aspect of prisons, courts, or
the justice system.
I was disappointed that this campaign uses an app. It is almost
surely nonfree. Can someone find out if it is possible to deal with
the campaign by phone call?
It is not unusual for a thug to shoot and kill a black man who is
driving a car, then claim, falsely, that the
car was a deadly weapon
and the victim had threatened the thug's life with it.
Sometimes the thug jumps in front of the car, notices that the car is
heading straight at him, and then shoots and kills the driver. How
easy it is to turn any driver into a deadly threat that you simply
must shoot.
This explains why it is very helpful to
adopt a policy that thugs
should not stop a car for a minor traffic violation.
The article linked to at the start of this note displays symbolic
bigotry by capitalizing "black" but not "white". (To avoid endorsing
bigotry, capitalize both words or neither one.) I object to bigotry,
and normally I decline to link to articles which promote it. But I
make exceptions for some articles which give important information
about racism or the fight to eliminate racism. That article is one of
the exceptions.
Proposing the legal right to decide
who is allowed to monitor your brain.
Australia spends
$500 million per year holding refugees prisoner on Nauru.
Millions for cruelty, but not one cent for kindness.
There were large rallies for
climate defense on Saturday in many
cities around the world,
Progressives made a mistake, then suffered a defeat, regarding
the
Build Back Better (relief and climate) bill.
The mistake was to allow a vote on the infrastructure bill before the
relief and climate bill had been signed into law. I can't understand
why they did this, since they had insisted vehemently that it would
risk allowing plutocratists to gut or kill the relief and clinate
bill.
Next thing you know, the plutocratists starting doing just that.
Wall Street took the idea of
"natural capital" literally:
the New York Stock Exchange now offers to list a special type of corporation which represents the
benefits that flow from some natural ecosystem, as a private good.
Blackrock is not altruistic. If it buys land, it will not dedicate
that land to a good purpose. At least, not once there is something
more profitable to do with it.
I suspect this will promote the privatization of state lands so that their "ecosystem services" can be owned by big companies. Next thing you know, the lands might be bought up by a "private equity" asset stripper that will remove
the water, the vegetation, or whatever is profitable to sell off.
Meanwhile, they will resell the land minus its "ecosystem services"
for other uses. If you live in a house on that land, you may find
that the previous owner -- Blackrock? -- signed away your right to
object to the asset stripping or whatever else the owner of the
"natural capital" decides to do there. That's what happens if someone
else owns oil or fracking rights under your house.
A UK official concerned with
bigotry among cops proposes to monitor
their digital communications,
I have mixed opinions about this proposal.
There are situations in which it is acceptable for the state to open a
person's letters, but I think they call for a court order based on
specific reasons to open that person?'s letters.
On the one hand, it is legitimate to monitor cops systematically in
ways that would be unjust to apply to people in general. It is very
important to fire cops that engage in bigotry, because they are likely
to be thugs.
On the other hand, doing this to cops might encourage the state to do
it to others.
Criticizing Biden's choice for "drug czar"
Biden's choice for "drug czar"
-- he does not lean towards
harm reduction.
Pakistan's
biometric national ID database illustrates how such databases
are dangerous.
An overeager algorithm can cancel the citizenship of multiple generations.
The system also serves purposes of repression and bigotry.
The US must take
strong enough measures to prevent a coup by the
wrecker in 2024.
I love the Churchill quote that fits the wrecker's feigning
supporters: "Each one hopes that if he feeds the crocodile enough, it
will eat him last."
The US and Canada, but not Japan, South Korea, or China, pledged to
stop
subsidizing foreign fossil fuel projects next year.
*Boston Free Assange Rally Calling on
Merrick Garland to Stop Criminalization of Journalism*
*
Threadbare US Social Safety Net: The War on Science, Medicine, and
Equality for All.*
* Where are Biden's trips to West Virginia and Arizona to rally support
for his legislation? Where are the fireside chats with the American
people? Where are Biden's attempts to corral votes among the Republican
Senators on
highly popular issues including paid family leave, lower
drug prices and a clean-energy future?*
*University of Florida reverses decision, will allow professors to
testify as
paid experts in voting rights case.*
If Big Tech companies such as Apple control cars, they will design them
to collect data on
where each person goes and how each driver drives.
But it's not just them.
We know that Tesla cars have told Tesla where
people go in them
and there is no reason to think any other company
is less of a snoop.
*To limit global warming to 1.5°C, the *
U.S. must ultimately stop
building new export terminals and pipelines that prop up this dangerous
fossil fuel worldwide.
* But Biden plans to continue them.
*The Fossil Free Finance Act would
stop major banks and other important
financial institutions from funding fossil fuel projects.*
*It's the Democratic Party's job, and Biden's job in particular, to beat
a highly
unpopular lobby that has poisoned the planet, not to surrender
to it.*
Big Pharma and Big Insurance spent spent $171 million, January through
September,
on lobbying against giving more Americans adequate medical
care.
*Catapult Industry Won't Survive Another Year Without
Medieval War Breaking Out.*
Shareholder resolutions call for
Pfizer and Moderna to teach other
factories how to make RNA vaccines.
Extinction Rebellion: *
Agreed at COP26 is an inadequate agreement that
allows coal to continue for nearly 20 more years. But that's
excluding major nations who refuse to sign at all.*
*Madagascar is
experiencing famine due to global heating.*
The US demand that North Korea discard its nuclear weapons is a futile
approach.
The US should aim for a lesser goal that is achievable.*
Transparency over emissions
remains a sticking point at Cop26.
*
*Airlines keep
losing and damaging wheelchairs at an alarming rate.*
The effective way to make your
clothing purchases sustainable
is to buy a lot less.*
*Bitcoin, Ethereum
Mining Threatens Paris Climate Agreement:
Swedish
Financial Regulator.*
I think this position is valid. To save the world, we need to
decrease the use of fossil fuel; merely increasing use of renewable
energy won't do the job.
As a means of anonymous purchasing, these cryptocurrencies have
several drawbacks. They are not a real solution.
GNU Taler
can be a real solution.
La Paz is suffering from high levels of UV radiation.
levels of UV radiation.
It may be caused by global heating; if so, it is likely happen more
often in coming decades.
US officials have still not found the parents of
270 children that the
bully's officials separated from their parents.
The effort to reunite these families continues, hampered by the
failure to keep records. The bully's border thugs were largely
motivated by cruelty and hatred, and I suspect that they deliberately
acted to prevent ever reuniting these families.
I think these children were too young, at that time, to know things
such as their parents full names and where they lived.
*ExxonMobil and Chevron are the world's most obstructive
organisations when it comes to governments setting climate policies,
according to research into the
‟prolific and highly sophisticated”*
lobbying ploys used by the fossil fuel industry.*
Toyota is also high up on the list.
*New report
shows that 10 Facebook pages are responsible for 69% of climate
denial posts.*
Right-wing extremist Rep. Marjorie Greene owes
$48,000 in fines for
going to the House of Representatives without a mask.
This demonstrates that this punishment is insufficient to achieve
its goal. Wearing a mask is a measure to protect the lives and health
of all the members of the House, and their staff. Those who refuse
to wear a mask should not be allowed in, no matter who they are.
US citizens: tell Kaiser Permanente to give its workers a raise,
not a pay cut. That company is making big profits and can afford a raise.
US citizens: call on the Senate to remove Senator Joe Manchin as
Chairman of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
US citizens: state your support for the Social Security 2100 Act
(the link gives details).
(satire) *Despondent Congressman Gerrymanders Self Into Own Isolated District.*
(satire) *Biden Social Spending Bill Whittled Down To $10 Billion
Check To Joe Manchin.*
*Major U.S. insurers continue to underwrite "the reckless expansion of oil and gas
infrastructure."*
The UK is deporting people to Jamaica who grew up in the UK
and have no contacts in Jamaica.
It's wrong when the US does this,
and wrong for other countries too.
Italy seems to have adopted a law that bans advertisements on the street
that "perpetuate gender stereotypes".
That is extremely broad censorship, since an ad need not disparage
or insult anyone to be banned. It is enough for it to show men and/or
women behaving in a customary way. Showing a party where women wear
dresses and men wear suits would be forbidden. Any scene in which
people are acting in accord with usual Italian sex roles is forbidden.
Advertising a romcom, or a James Bond movie, is almost impossible.
Macron’s ex-bodyguard got a light sentence (no prison time) for
attacking protesters.
Bogus Johnson will avoid the issue of the gift holiday he got from a
rich Tory by not officially declaring it.
A summary of what is known about the Ethiopia-Tigray war.
Some questions that occur to me:
Thugs in the Oklahoma City jail tortured prisoners by making them stand
for hours, as well as other methods.
Playing the baby shark song probably won't cause the same physical
pain and damage that standing for hours can cause. But if they play
it too loud, it could damage the victim's hearing.
Arguing that charging for parking benefits a city in many ways,
because the space near the curb gets made available for better uses
and people use cars less.
To make this truly beneficial, the city has to have copious mass
transit. Buses must be frequent enough that the precise schedule is
of no importance.
Many American women can't work because they can't find, or can't
afford, childcare.
One could argue that if a parent's can't find work that pays for the
cost of childcare, it's more efficient for the parent to stay home and
take care of per own children. Yes, indeed — provided we have a
welfare system that gives per an income to support the family.
Democrats urged Biden to push for a nuclear weapons limitation with
China.
Google seeks to run servers for the US military.
Governments must never entrust the operation of their servers to an
outside entity, because the state must have control of its computing.
*How These Ultrawealthy [US] Politicians Avoided Paying Taxes.*
Replanting destroyed seagrass meadows by hand is a crucial method of
restoring the ocean's ability to sequester CO2.
It can also provide employment.
The Prison Arts Collective teaches art in prisons in the US.
Beyond enriching their lives, it can also help them learn to live
outside prison.
*The Paterson [corruption] debacle shows that Johnson no longer has
advisers — he has courtiers.* Bogus Johnson repeatedly shrugs off
criticism of his own corrupt acts, and the Tory MPs just barely learned
to resist this to eliminate all checks on their corruption.
China jailed Zhang Zhan for publishing reports on the initial Covid-19
outbreak in China. She has been on a hunger strike, and reportedly is
weak and close to dying.
Reporters Without Borders reminds us that other writers and publishers
are in prison in China for publishing.
*Left Coalition Says McAuliffe Campaign Was a 'Controlled Experiment
for What Not to Do in 2022'. Either excite voters with a bold agenda
or risk losing power to the GOP.*
Questioning the goal, the possibility, and the idea of economic growth.
Economic growth, if it includes the non-rich, offers the opportunity
of a truce in the class war: if we divide the gains fairly, we can all
work together. But fair division is not assured; indeed, it is
unlikely today. What that suggests is that we had better focus
on how the world's income is divided.
While continued economic growth may be impossible, that doesn't
mean further growth is impossible for the next few decades.
It is true that using more resources has the potential to
backfire — but that result is not inevitably big enough to be
a real problem.
Reducing the birth rate so as to start reducing the human population
is a safe and ethical way to enable each of us to have more of some
things that make life more comfortable and enjoyable.
Extinction Rebellion protested at Cop26
against apparent greenwashing.
The thugs are
threatening protesters and blocking protests.
A year ago, Oregon decriminalized possession of illegal drugs.
This article describes the benefits
Baltimore's "conviction integrity unit" determined that David Morris
had been convicted of murder
based on unreliable testimony
and invalid
evidence. He will be freed after 17 years in prison.
*The real lesson of the election results?
Democrats must go big and bold.
*
Plutocratist Democrats say that plutocratist Democrat Terry McAuliffe
lost the Virginia governor's race because progressive Democrats are
stubbornly pushing for the progressive policies most Americans want.
This makes no sense, but you have to expect plutocratist politicians
to blame progressives for everything.
(satire) *
Democrats Spooked By Loss In Virginia Vow To Work Twice As Hard To Muddle
Their Agenda.*
The Pentagon investigad its last drone attack in Kabul -- the one thet
killed the Ahmadi family -- and concluded that troops properly
followed the procedures intended to avoid attacking civilians.
Nonetheless,
the procedures gave the wrong conclusion, and the attack
hit civilians.
What this shows is that the procedures are not entirely reliable.
What is not so clear is whether there is a way to make the procedures
more reliable. A way may exist, but we can't assume a priori that
there is one. It's possible that the procedures are unreliable and
yet there is no way to make them reliable.
That sort of thing happens in war. It is called "the fog of war" --
there are crucial facts that you need to know, which you can't know.
Without them, you have to make decisions based on guesses.
But what if the army changes the question? What if it considers
an option that wasn't considered in August?
For instance, what if one drone hovers in front of the car, making it
slow down and stop, while another drone stays ready to attack? The
reactions of the people in the car might show whether they are
bomb-throwers or harmless civilians.
Senator Schiff
calls for the US to state clearly its commitment to
defending Taiwan if China attacks,*
The logic of this is obvious: to make sure doesn't someday attack Taiwan
on the supposition that the US will not help Taiwan resist.
I am unable to judge how "strategic ambiguity" might help avoid an
attack, but I won't claim that is impossible. I am no expert on
displomacy.
*Restoring mangrove swamps could be an effective way of
sequestering
large amounts of carbon in the sea.*
I see two possible problems with it.
*NIH Officials Worked With EcoHealth Alliance to
Evade Restrictions on
Coronavirus Experiments.*
These experiments took place in the Wuhan lab in China, with US
funding specifically to do these experiments, and the experimenters
pushed the safety limits.
These experiments did not cause a pandemic, but there was a risk they
could have done so.
The Senate tried again to hold a vote on the John Lewis Voting Rights
Advancement Act, mainly to pressure Manchin and Sinema,
who insist on
maintaining Republicans' power to block laws.
*The Senate needs to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act,
and a suite of other democratic protections, in
time for them to be
implemented before the 2022 elections.*
The Federal Election Commission ruled that foreign companies (and perhaps foreign individials and governments too)
can contribute to campaigns for and against
ballot questions.
The International Criminal Court will
investigate accusations of torture
by Venezuelan state suppression forces -- with Maduro's agreement.
Interviews with exiled Nicaraguan opponents of the Ortega couple's
dictatorship,
including their daughter.
*Why is Trudeau pressuring
Michigan to keep a dangerous oil pipeline open?
*
Author Jen Wasserstein says,
"My life without a smartphone is getting
harder and harder."
Good on her to resist, but she should stop doubting the rightness of
her resistance.
It is interesting to compare her account my own experiences this year
without any portable phone whatsoever, in Europe as well as the US.
There were inconvenient moments, but I always got through them.
I am fortified in my resistance by knowing powerful moral reasons to
condemn portable phones. It's not just that I find their effect on
other people alarming. I recognize them as a threat to democracy
due
to their massive general surveillance
as well as an injustice to each user (due to their remotely
modifiable nonfree software). As a result, I never feel abashed about
rejecting them, nor ashamed if the ignorant look askance. I am proud
of my resistance.
When a waiter tells me to scan a QR code, I move my finger slowly over
it while staring at it intently, as if a menu should magically appear.
After sufficient time, I may say, "It doesn't seem to be working."
Try it, it's fun!
Please join me in resisting the pressure to make everyone run nonfree
software.
Even if you only say no once, saying no even once is helping.
And once you've said no the first time, the second time is easier.
New York City has reduced the debt payments for
taxi medallion owners
who borrowed to buy a medallion.
One of several contributing causes of the medallion owners' problem is
the arrival of Uber, which was prepared to lose billions of dollars a
year for many years to wipe out the taxi companies.
Uber would have been an injustice simply for the concentration of the
industry of replacing many small local companies with one large
company, even if there were nothing else wrong with it. But its
biggest wrong is to its customers: it makes them run a nonfree app
on a nonfree operating system, and they can't pay anonymously since
the company does not accept cash.
Uber was compelled to stop running at a loss, and raise its prices.
Uber drivers make less than taxi drivers now. Uber is now weak.
So choose a real taxi, and pay in cash!
Warning of potential abuses in
privatizing access to space.
Communications satellites are already private -- built and operated by
large companies which pay to launch them. It is not clear to me that
SpaceX makes the situation very different. But there may be problems
I do not recognize.
Zillow has given up on the business of
peculating in houses that other
people need as places to live.
Each state and territory in the US has its own laws that determine how
much it
facilitates tax dodging and hiding wealth.
*Banks are still financing fossil fuels –-
while signing up to net zero pledges.*
*"Invisible Toxic Cocktail" in
Tap Water Across US Due to "Regulatory
Capture".*
Many poisonous substances found in tap water
are not regulated at
all by the EPA. These include the PFAs plus many more.
US citizens: call on the Senate to
confirm Jessica Rosenworcel and
Gigi Sohn in the FCC.
If global heating continues, the Great Barrier Reef will be toast.
*Q&A: how fast do we need to cut carbon emissions?*
60% of people from India and vicinity have a particular allele (gene
variant) that doubles the chance of death from Covid-19.
However, the allele is also found (though less frequently) in other
human populations.
I wonder whether people should get tested for this allele.
Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed posted on Facebook that he would
"bury" the Tigrayan rebels; Facebook deleted the post for "inciting
violence".
That is a rather absurd precaution, given that the two armies are at
war.
Why did Facebook do this? I speculate that it is an attempt to ridicule
the idea of trying to stop Facebook from being used to provoke violence.
*A secret document distributed by Israel to justify its terrorist designations of six prominent Palestinian human rights groups shows no concrete evidence of involvement in violent
+activities by any of the groups.*
US citizens: call on JPMorgan Chase and UBS to divest from Amazon oil
and gas, to avoid the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.
In Siberia's north, global heating in the summer is drying up lakes,
cratering the ground, and killing young deer.
*Australia’s Largest Retail Union Colludes With Bosses to Exploit Workers.*
Some pizzerias are using robots to deliver pizzas, rolling on
sidewalks -- and, horribly, they require the customer to have a
smartphone.
I urge people to reject the food-delivery gig economy companies
because they require customers to identify themselves and pay digitally
(as well as other reasons).
By contrast, a human delivery agent working for the pizzeria can
accept payment in cash.
The robot is even worse. You have to identify yourself, and you have to do
it with a phone. Instead of paying workers too little, it gets rid of them.
Cambridge, Massachusetts, has posted signs on the street urging people to
go to the restaurant and pick up their order.
*Cop26's worst outcome would be giving the green light to carbon offsetting.*
*Cop26 has to be about keeping fossil fuels in the ground. All else is
distraction.*
*Possible war crimes on all sides in Ethiopian conflict,*
according
to a joint investigation by the UN and Ethiopia.
The EPA must make sure the packaging of our food is not slowly poisoning us.
The US Supreme Court may block all efforts to regulate CO2 emissions;
for instance, the emissions of fossil-fuel-fired generators.
*Ireland would need to cull up to 1.3 million cattle to reach climate
targets.*
If civilization's survival depends on it, Ireland must do it.
The world's greenhouse pledges, supposing they are carried out, might now
limit global heating to 2C.
That's big progress, but not enough to avoid disaster, because (1) 2C
of heating will probably be disaster, and (2) positive feedbacks we
don't know about could come into play.
*The dystopian danger of a mandatory biometric database in Mexico.*
In the past 10 years, Australia has given fossil fuels 37 billion in subsidy;
renewable energy, only 3 billion.
Trying to curb global heating by planting trees will not help much
unless it is done right -- and that's not easy.
Comparing Insulate Britain to the suffragettes shows that their
annoying tactics are justified.
I don't doubt that the cause of saving civilization justifies blocking
highways as a protest. I just hope it doesn't backfire.
The US has put NSO, the company that makes the Pegasus cracking software,
on a blacklist that forbids its use of US technology products.
I wonder if the US will be able to enforce that prohibition. What NSO sells
is software.
Bogus Johnson went by private jet from the climate conference in
Glasgow to London for a reunion dinner.
This makes his words about the need to reduce greenhouse emissions
look like total hypocrisy.
Bogus Johnson has joined the effort to protect MP charged with corruption
from being investigated through Parliament's system for such investigations.
This is tantamount to a campaign to open Parliament to corruption
without limits, at least for his friends.
Some economists say that if the US were racially integrated, that would
increase US economic growth a significant amount.
I think the reason to try to end racism is more fundamental -- it's an
injustice.
Iran has agreed to resume talks on reinstating the non-nuclear deal
that the wrecker cancelled.
*Biden Urged to Repair US-Iran Relations With Humanitarian Aid.*
A stage production directed by Terry Gilliam has been cancelled
because staff at the theater objected to some of his political views.
Cancellationists seek universal support for their political stances,
not by convincing everyone that they are right, but by bullying everyone
who states any doubts.
The President of Palau:
*Frankly speaking, there is no dignity to a slow and
painful death -— you might as well bomb our islands instead of making us
suffer only to witness our slow and fateful demise.*
Arguing that the transition to clean energy will inevitably involve a stage
of using much less energy than now.
Depletion of the easy-extract fossil fuels will make energy more
expensive, years before we have enough green energy capacity to fill
ths shortfall.
Biden has announced new EPA regulations to reduce methane emissions.
*Biden's New Methane Rules "Do Not Go Far Enough" to Slash Planet-Warming Gas.*
The use of AI should be regulated, when it affects the public.
Cop26 has launched a fund that aims to give
1.7 billion dollars to indigenous peoples, and other local
communities, for the sake of ending deforestation.
The money will be used to "support [their] capacity to govern
themselves collectively, assist with mapping and registration work,
back national land reform and help resolve conflict over territories."
This can be a good idea, but it needs to be done carefully.
Indigenous peoples are made up of human beings who have the same moral
and intellectual flexibility as other human beings. After the US
divided up the land of various Indian reservations as private property
of various Indians, many of them agreed to sell that property to
whites. (That was, I think, the US's aim in dividing the land.)
We should give local communities the authority to protect forests and
ecosystems, but not the authority to sell them or despoil them.
Australia's resources minister gave a subsidy to a fracking project
without even considering climate effects.
Australia should have a climate defense minister rather than a
"resources" minister.
Bosnian Serbs are reportedly planning to break away from Bosnia again.
In Sudan, bankers are on strike to protest the military government.
This has brought much of the economy to a standstill, and is causing
hardship for people who don't have cash to buy food.
Is it correct to think of bankers as part of the people?
Is it a good thing that bankers can bring the country to its knees
by striking, or does it show they are dangerously powerful?
*Mercenaries, the army and Bashir-era business interests have seized
control and will sell the country’s resources to the highest bidder.*
Afghanistan's improbable history, from progressive king to
Communist civil war to religious fanatics.
* UK, US and China among countries representing two-thirds of global
economy to agree to push green energy and cars.* They plan to make
many technologies cheaper and make them available to the whole
world, starting with clean electricity, electric vehicles, green
steel, elecrolytic hydrogen and sustainable farming.
This won't make the global heating problem fix itself — we will still need
to end deforestation, and fund quick adoption of these new solutions.
That will require a lot of investment in poor countries.
Yahoo has ceased doing business in China rather than obey China's strict state surveillance laws.
When it is impossible for a US company to operate justly in another country,
it should do as Yahoo just did, and cease operating there.
A woman died in Poland as a result of being denied an abortion. This has
provoked protests.
This was a special case — a late-stage abortion which most European
countries would permit on grounds of medical necessity.
The everyday issue of abortion rights concerns the rights of women who
simply don't want to have a baby.
The US is suing to block the merger of Penguin with Simon & Schuster.
Finally, the US government treats big mergers the way it should never have
stopped treating them.
Bacterial infections are becoming ever more dangerous due to
antibiotic resistance, which spreads further every year.
In a few decades we will be back where we were in 1940, when there wasn't
much to help people fight fight off an infection in a wound.
The article proposes "more incentives" to develop new antibiotics. I
fear that means "more patent power, as well as subsidies." If we
aren't careful, that will result in antibiotics that are too expensive
for most people to use.
Let's learn a lesson from the other drugs that are so expensive people
die for lack of money. Let's fund more research on antibiotics, and
exclude them from the patent system.
*Facebook to shut facial recognition system and delete 1bn
"faceprints".
*
How significant the deletion of the faceprints is depends on how hard
it would be to regenerate each one.
450 big banks and investment firms will pledge to
reduce greenhouse emissions,
but it looks like that pledge lacks firm requirements.
A San Francisco thug is charged with manslaughter for
escalating a
nonviolent encounter
with Sean Moore to the point of killing him.
Hong Kong now officially
bans documentaries
that depict the massive protests.
Some will be released by underground groups.
*Minneapolis voters reject bid to
replace police with public safety
department.
*
I'm disappointed; this would have made it possible to avoid using armed cops
on most instances.
Liberal justices argued in the Supreme Court that the Texas
bounty-hunter approach to prohibition would, if allowed to stand,
enable any state to wipe out any constitutional right.
A US woman went to a hospital's emergency room and waited 7 hours
without being seen, so she left.
The hospital charged her $700 for that.
Just imagine what they might have charged is someone had actually
looked at her problem!
The root of this problem is the structure of the US medical system,
which pressures each clinical unit to try to gouge patients. We need
to replace it with a national medical system funded by the federal
government.
Every year, Britons march in memory of everyone that
died as a
prisoner of the British state.
I don't use the word "custody" to describe this.
Biden urged
OPEC to increase its oil output
to relieve a temporary
shortfall of oil, and acknowledged the irony of this.
He's right, in a narrow sense. However, I think the economic harm of
capping fossil fuel extraction at the current level would be far less
than the harm done by allowing extraction to increase as the market
would happen.
An intermediate option would be better if it reduces extraction
effectively and soon. Perhaps Biden should have demanded such a deal
before asking OPEC to increase extraction.
The Archbishop of Canterbury presented clearly how much is at stake
when political leaders decide how hard to push to curb global heating:
inadequate effort could
result in a much bigger genocide
than the one
Hitler launched.
Apparently some criticized this statement as disrespectful to Jews,
and he apologized for the alleged disrespect. This criticism puzzles
me, because I don't see any disrespect in his words. They seem
entirely valid to me as a statement of the danger that we face.
What are you going to compare the biggest genocide of all time with,
other than the biggest known genocide of the past?
I think that 6 billion deaths from climate mayhem is plausible. Of
course, that's just handwaving -- we can't know enough to make more
than a rough estimate. If we take effective action and are lucky,
perhaps only a few hundred million will die from climate disorder. If
we run into surprise positive feedbacks, all 7-8 billion humans could
die from climate disorder. All depends on how effectively we curb
global heating.
The US and other main historical greenhouse gas smitters spend more
on keeping migrants out than they spend on
helping poor countries
deal with global heating effects
that drive people to leave.
The jury in Majid Khan's pseudo-trial condemned the
torture he experienced
and called for him to receive clemency.
Allowing Majid Khan to testify about how the US tortured him served
the cause of justice, but prosecuting him based on a confession that
was tortured out of him is a dangerous precedent. Under the usual
rules of the US legal system, his confession should have been
considered inadmissable, the case against him should have been
dropped, and he should have been released.
Sanders is still fighting to allow Medicare to
negotiate drug prices
,
as the national medical services of more civilized countries do. He
faces opposition from plutocratist Democrats as well as from
(plutocratist and then some) Republicans.
*New Zealand plan to halve greenhouse gases criticised as an
"accounting trick".
*
It also depends on supposed
"carbon offsets"
that are not reliable.
An analysis of global heating world politics in
terms of three pressure blocs.
I disagree with the author's final point. The crucial priority in
decarbonizanion is not fairness, it is rapidity.
Going too slow, which the world's governments' current plans would to
do, risks causing the collapse of civilization and the death of nearly
everyone. Even if those deaths are distributed "fairly", that would
still be a bad outcome. We must at all costs act fast enough to
minimize the damage.
Africa is plagued by
anti-vax Christian churches.
We have observed similar problems with Christian sects in the US and
South Korea, and with Jews sects in the US and in Israel.
Governments democratic in form have not made an adequate effort
to curb global heating in time, but authoritarian rulers
are
generally doing much worse.
The article suggests, and I agree, that more and better democracy is
what we need. I put a name to the problem: plutocracy, where
democracy ought to be.
New York State's new greenhouse emissions regulations have
blocked
construction new gas-fired generators.
*The State of the Climate report for 2021:
Extreme weather events are "the new norm".
*
Debunking the Philadelphia thugs' cynical report: in fact, some
bystanders did take action when a
rape was committed on a Philadelphia
subway train.
Everyone: call on Hello Fresh to respect its
workers' unionization drive
and pay its workers enough to live on.
I personally consider it out of the question to be a customer of Hello Fresh
because there is no way to do that anonymously. But that is a separate
and unrelated issue.
US citizens: call on your senators to
defend abortion access for all.
US citizens: call on the US to unlock
Afghanistan's assets so it can buy food.
US citizens: call on the EPA to
speed up regulating PFAs.
New Zealand schools will start teaching the history of
British
colonization of New Zealand.
It is important for New Zealanders to study this history. I hope
however, that the courses will not fall into the widespread modern
myth of nasty Europeans vs the peaceful united native peoples. The
Maori were far from peaceful or united before Europeans arrived, and
the desire to despoil others was not limited to Europeans alone.
Australia will export
"green hydrogen"
to the UK.
That means hydrogen produced without consumption of fossil fuels.
Opponents of Virginia's Republican candidate for governor, a
right-wing extremist,
went to his rally pretending to be his supporters,
while swinging the torches that rightwing extremists carried
violent rally in 2017.
It is valid to try to tie right-wing extremists to recent past acts of
violent right-wing extremism, but this way of doing it was wrong and foolish.
It is wrong because it can have the effect of a false-flag attack.
The Republican candidate denounced it as one, and that was easy to do
because the difference was small. If you're going to criticize
someone through a comparison, you must show clearly and visibly that
it is a comparison rather than a falsehood.
Second, it could easily backfire by winning the Republican candidate
more support from white supremacists.
Just as India's extemist Hindus persecute the Muslim minority,
Bangladesh's extremist Muslims persecute the Hindu minority.
The persecution of Hindus in Bangladesh is not a new thing.
Taslima Nasrin's book Lajja described that persecution in 1992.
Persecution of Muslims in India is not new either.
I wonder if these two persecuted minorities can help each other.
Could Indian Muslims campaign in Bangladesh, and Bangladeshi Hindus
campaign in India, for respect and coexistence?
Probable extreme-right French presidential candidate Zemmour is
using an anti-semitic dog whistle by
attacking Alfred Dreyfus.
A Republican Texas legislator has demanded that school districts
describe all the books they have that might make students feel
discomfort (or various other negative feelings) about their race or
gender.
The aim seems to be censorship.
To illustrate how broad the demand is, consider the plays of
Shakespeare. Othello, The Merchant of Venice, and The Taming of the
Shrew might make students (and others too) uncomfortable for reasons
having to do with race and/or sex.
Will Republicans eventually move to ban them?
If they do, will progressives oppose the move -- or support it?
*New Zealand pledges to halve
greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
*
*EPA Withheld Reports of Substantial Risk Posed by 1,240 Chemicals.*
* Optimistic assessments of progress on tackling the climate crisis were
“an illusion”, the UN secretary general has said in a scathing critique
of world leaders’ efforts so far to cut greenhouse gas emissions and
stave off climate breakdown.*
*Don’t mourn, organise! Politics and poverty have reached the US
sitcom -– and could change everything.*
India has made a climate commitment which won't make major reductions
in greenhouse gas emissions until decades from now.
All countries must push hard to reduce emissions, if we are to have
a chance of avoiding global disaster.
That global disaster will hit India hard. Several major Indian cities
are on the coast, at very low elevation, including Mumbai, Kolkata,
Kochi and Kozhikode.
New York City's order for city employees to get vaccinated convinced a large
fraction to do so.
However, some occupations have a substantial fraction of workers
who have yielded to right-wng brainwashing; they would rather die
than protect themselves and the public.
I regret that firefighters have fallen into this irrationality,
because a right-wing fireman is probably a good fireman nonetheless.
However, a right-wing cop is likely to be a racist thug,
therefore a threat to public safety. It's good to get some
of them off the force.
*As teens left Facebook, company planned to lure 6-year-olds, documents show.*
Let's take care not to focus on manipulation of children
in a way that would excuse Facebook's manipulation of teenagers and adults.
Reporting from Cop26: *The sense of purpose at Cop26 is tangible.*
*Biden, Bolsonaro and Xi among leaders agreeing deal to end deforestation.*
* Campaigners warn Brazil may make empty promises at Cop26 to gain access
to conservation money.*
The EU and Poland are headed for a fundamental conflict which neither
side can afford to lose.
The EU has a grave flaw in that it is not very democratic. In its
structure for legislating, democracy plays a weak role. However, the
Polish right-wing government does not aim to change this. Its goal is
to break the EU's defense of human rights and honest justice.
A summary of
climate-protecting trends
that are seen across the
spectrum of human activity.
They are not growing fast enough -- we need governments to accelerate
them.
The EU and Poland are headed for a
fundamental conflict which neither
side
The EU has a grave flaw in that it is not very democratic. In its
structure for legislating, democracy plays a weak role. However, the
Polish right-wing government does not aim to change this. Its goal is
to break the EU's defense of human rights and honest justice.
US citizens: call on Congress to pass laws to prevent Facebook from
promoting right-wing extremism
over other views.
US citizens: call on Biden to ban
offshore drilling for fossil fuels.
An interview with Steven Donziger, who has been sent to prison
for
suing Chevron on behalf of Ecuadorians whose land was poisoned with oil.
UK prosecutors frequently fail to follow the legal requirement to tell
the defendant's lawyers any information that would help per case. When this
becomes known, the case is dismissed. Many cases are now being dismissed in
this way.
Prosecutors say that their system
is not set up to carry out the requirement.
*Politicians talk about net zero — but not the sacrifices we must make to get
there.*
Announcing a campaign to protect Britain's NHS from privatization.
The Corporations United decision (*) gave every industry the power to
sneer at Congress — and at non-rich Americans.
* The official name of the organization was "Citizens United…"
But since it represented corporations' rights, I call it "Corporations
United."
Douglas Rushkoff: *Exponential Tech Doesn’t Serve Social Good.*
The UK government wants to film protesters with drones operating 1500
feet up, and identify them without their being able to tell.
Pelosi helped Manchin kill the billionaire tax.
Prominent Liberal and Conservative activists and academics have joined
to condemn the fascist threat to democracy.
This includes condemning the Republican Party as it has become,
despite the fact that some of them supported that party in the past.
*Philadelphia to become first major US city to ban police from stopping
drivers for low-level traffic violations.*
The point of this is to protect black drivers from one frequent opportunity
to harass them for "driving while black".
The University of Florida told three professors they were forbidden
to testify as expert witnesses in a case against Florida's latest
voting restrictions law.
What the state is doing is much worse than an infringement of academic freedom.
It is an attempt to bias the trial about the constitutionality of the
voting restrictions law, and thus a second attack on democracy piled
on the first one.
The history of the DMCA and other similar unjust laws around the world.
The DMCA's DRM exceptions process, every three years, is a repeated distraction
from campaigning for what we really need to do: legalize breaking DRM,
and make DRM a crime instead.
See also my 1997 science fiction story, The Right To Read,
which warned
about the dangers of the DMCA as it was still going through Congress.
As far as I can tell, it was the only science fiction story ever
published in the Communications of the ACM.
Universities in the past welcomed argument about important issues.
Now, it seems, they let mobs hound those who disagree.
The G20 meeting did not agree on aiming for net zero even in 2050.
*Sudan coup protesters man barricades on seventh day of unrest.*
This followed a day of large protests in which soldiers fired at protesters,
wounding and killing some.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and say, refuse to have a vote on the
infrastructure bill until the Build Back Better bill is settled and certain
to be adopted.
The Capitol Switchboard number is 202-224-3121. If you call, please spread the word!
US citizens: call on Congress to refuse to vote on the weak infrastructure
compromise without a vote on the Build Back Better Act.
Even though plutocratists such as Manchin and Sinema got rid of 4/5 of
the original Build Back Better proposal, the Build Back Better act is
still crucial because it has a lot of climate defense. We must insist
that it pass.
Biden offered two California school boards federal funds to compensate
for the salary funds that Disease DeSantis denied them as punishment for
requiring masks. Now DeSantis has arbitrarily fined them the same
amount again.
This act violates federal law, so maybe a court will order Florida to deliver
those funds.
Facebook's "metaverse" means many more kinds of sensors feeding new
kinds of data into each zucker's dossier.
Facebook's attempt to rebrand itself is much worse than a distraction.
(satire) *Congress Addresses Child Care Crisis By Loosening
Restrictions On Locking Children In Car For 8 Hours.*
Venezuela will have another election, with many parties, and the
situation is complex. The US-supported extreme opposition is less
popular than moderate opposition.
Comparing China's renewable energy with America's: both grossly
inadequate but in different ways.
(satire) *NRA Accuses ‘Rust’ Producers Of Endangering Crew By Not
Giving Everyone Guns.*
(satire) *Exxon Staff Wins Company-Wide Pizza Party After Greenhouse
Gas Levels Hit New High.*
Estimating that the wrecker is responsible for around 150,000 American deaths,
by his failure to encourage Americans to wear masks from Sep 2020 to Jan 2021.
Proposing the sort of infrastructure program that the US really ought
to run, in order to move rapidly away from fossil fuels.
* New research reveals how six fossil fuel giants captured European
climate politics.*
Likewise in the US.
A company proposes to make
beehive-protection AI systems
to protect beekeepers' hives.
I forecast these will do to beekeepers what John Deere tractors are
doing to farmers.
The Rolling Jubilee Fund frees Americans from
debt-based perpetual
punishment by buying their debt and cancelling it.
Majid Khan, prisoner in Guantanamo,
has testified about how the US
tortured him.
He has confessed to aiding al-Qa'ida, but we cannot know whether he
really did so. Torture is quite effective at eliciting false
confessions -- that is what it's designed for -- so we cannot presume
he deserved the punishment he has already received.
*Joe Manchin single-handedly denied
US families paid leave.
*
The companies that created the
world's biggest environmental problems
also launch PR campaigns to distract individuals into striving to reduce
their personal contributions to these problems, instead of organizing to
change the systems that cause them. They also lull people with the
fantasy that they might someday enjoy the life styles of millionaires.
I disagree with Monbiot's dismissal of a carbon tax. If the tax rate
is big enough, and schduled to grow steadingly year by year, it can
mobilize massive investment in decarbonization along with general
divestment from fossil fuel companies.
What won't work is a small, token carbon tax.
*Outcry after Oklahoma prisoner
vomits and convulses during execution.
*
I am surprised that people give so much importance to whether the
person being excuted suffers during the process, because in my view
that is a secondary issue. I think the principal wrong of the death
penalty is that the prisoner dies from it.
*Cop26 breakthrough will require
require rich nations to finally make good
Nobody has to suffer from this, if we get the funds by taxing the rich more.
Oil company executives testified to Congress and told
blatant lies
about their past denial
of global heating.
But they did admit to recent lobbying meetings with Manchin.
Rep. Maloney
specifically accused the Exxon CEO
lying about climate
science. under oath.
There are plans to subpoena more testimony from these companies.
*What Big Oil knew about climate change,
in its own words.*
Some conclusions about
planet-roaster strategy.
Global heating effects including fires and droughts, plus deforestation,
have turned some important forests into
net emitters of greenhouse gases.
This shows several examples of positive-feedback effects that magnify
the consequences of our emissions. These examples are well-known, but
we keep discovering new ones.
Meanwhile, some countries are falsifying their progress by
citing
forests
that don't really exist.
Seven years after a
New York City thug
killed Eric Garner, the high
officers of the thug department have refused to testify in an investigation of the killing.
US citizens: call on the FTC to block the proposed merger of Amazon
and MGM.
Any merger that includes (or results in) a large company is harmful;
the details can make it even more harmful, or not.
New Zealand is buying out the homes that are endangered by the
spreading flood zones. It's much cheaper than trying to hold back the
floods.
I would admire the people who stubbornly refuse to move, if their firm
stand could dissuade floods. But the only way to do that is by
curbing global heating.
Canada's supreme court has defended the right to mock other people.
This is a central part of freedom of speech. If it were illegal to
mock people and hurt their feelings, you can bet that the first people
you would be punished for mocking would be greedy billionaires and
right-wing politicians.
*Australia's 2050 net zero emissions plan relies on "gross
manipulation" of data, experts say.*
I am not surprised. The leaders of Australia are planet roasters.
After the big fires, they have been compelled to give lip service to
climate defense, but getting more than lip service out of them
will be difficult.
California is considering a plan to make home solar power more expensive???
Frances Moore Lappé: *America's Killer Diet*.
New Zealand is pressuring the people of the Tokelau Islands to vote
for independence from New Zealand, but they keep voting to remain
a colony.
The highest elevation in Tokelau is 5 meters above sea level. Maybe
the people figure they will be forced to move to New Zealand later
this century.
AI is advancing rapidly, and the dangers that researchers and science
fiction writers have imagined may hit us soon.
(satire) *Andrew Yang Developing New Fourth Party After Failing To
Gain Support With Third Party.*
(satire) *Texas School Censors All Of ‘Huck Finn’ Except The N-Words.*
*This move will allow educators to focus on the key elements of an
American classic without fear of trafficking in the novel’s harmful
themes of compassion and racial equality.*
(satire) *SpaceX Under Fire After Autonomous Rocket Hits Pedestrian.*
(satire) *Billionaire Buying Sandwich Unfairly Targeted With 5% Sales Tax.*
*The Myth of Redemptive Violence* says that the way to solve the
world's problems is by killing.
US citizens: call on your congresscritter to end US support for the
war in Yemen.
To sign without running nonfree JavaScript code
from the web site,
use the Salsalabs workaround.
US citizens: call on Congress to abolish the PAT RIOT Act.
Any song I listen to,
I can share a copy too.
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