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Each political note has its own anchor in case you want to link to it.
My intention is to make links only to publicly accessible, stable URLs. If you find a link to a page that requires subscription, please report that as you would report any other broken link.
Relating US intervention in Syria to oil.
Anti-trade-treaty protests in Bogota were crushed by soldiers sent by Colombian President Non-santos*.
He cited the usual pretexts.
UK thugs had no time to listen to Nazim Din explain that they had arrested the wrong one of his sons, so one pushed him and knocked him down. (This was easy as he was on crutches.) Mr Din died of a heart attack.
Are Chemical Weapons Reason Enough to Go to War?
Iran, Not Syria, Is the West's Real Target.
The US tacitly helped Saddam Hussein use
chemical
weapons against Iran.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
New Zealand has adopted a law that intends to prevent issuance of new patents covering computer programs "as such".
I have not seen the exact text of this law. I hope that it is airtight. The European Patent Office is operating under a treaty which excludes "computer programs as such" from patentability, but has issued thousands of computational technique patents despite the words of the treaty on the grounds that they cover techniques, not programs as such.
Meanwhile, they failed to protect programs from lawsuits under the existing patents, as I've recommended, so it will take around 20 years for this to eliminate the problem.
Data brokers are collecting and correlating a lot more data about people than you may realize.
If this sort of snooping is "essential" for the success of some business, we must make that business fail! Meanwhile, it is possible to keep most of our lives out of their data bases, and I do so.
In a setback for journalism, UK thugs were given court approval to seize and search people's memories for "communication of material to an enemy". This is meant to refer to leaked information about dirty deeds that the government is keeping secret from its principal enemy, the people. Naturally, knowledge of these dirty deeds might help other enemies too, so this is a pretext for the state to attack all the enemies at once.
This is in addition to material that "could be useful to terrorists", which covers almost anything when applied to someone assumed to be inclined towards terrorism.
The UK laws invoked are blatant disrespect for human rights, as are many of the "anti-terror" laws there and in other countries. Terrorism exists, but it is a minor danger compared with the deadly practices these laws are used to cover up.
Tsvangirai accused Mugabe of rigging the Zimbabwe election in several ways including manipulating the voters' rolls.
Argentina's government has made a secret fracking deal with Chevron.
Businesses are pushing states to ban adherence to the LEED environmental construction standards, and substitute lax greenwash standards.
US citizens: support Senator Merkley's plan for students to pay for college based on their earnings.
US citizens: call on Secretary of State Kerry to launch an honest environmental review of the Keystone XL planet-roaster pipeline.
West Papuans face charges of treason for saying they advocate independence from Indonesia.
Indonesia took over West Papua by force.
Evidence does not support claims that pornography promotes violence or sexism.
Since censorship is always dangerous, censorship of pornography cannot be excused.
The rape of middle-class women in India spurs indignation, but when poor low-caste women are raped, they face contempt and intimidation.
CEOs claim they deserve their enormous pay because they do such a great job. Of those that got the most money in the past 20 years, 40% got fired for failure, led their companies into trouble for fraud, or helped cause the financial crisis.
A lawsuit
demands
the publication of the formal legal opinions used by the US
government as the basis for its actions and to shield officials from
prosecution. They are, effectively, secret law.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
In the
US: sign
this petition demanding fast food companies give workers a raise
and this
one demanding they not retaliate against workers who strike.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
China is accelerating the arrests of people who criticize the state.
The UK parliament voted not to attack Syria. Thus, Obama won't have UK support.
The "discreet and limited" attack on Syria that Obama is considering would not have much effect on Assad's military capability.
There are other ways to deter further use of chemical weapons, either by Assad or by other countries.
It Takes More Courage To Say There Is Nothing Outsiders Can Do.
Stand
With Colombian Protests Against the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement
(FTA)
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
It's not clear what the Obama regime's policy on state-legalized marijuana will really mean in practice.
The US turns readily to war and to military "aid"
because it
supports the military-industrial complex.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: call on Obama to kill the Keystone XL planet-roaster pipeline now.
The Japanese government has sued anti-nuclear sit-in protesters, demanding the equivalent of $100,000 from each leader.
The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff listed several options for US intervention in Syria — all with big downsides.
The UK's published intelligence report adds nothing to previous speculation about chemical weapons in Syria.
US intelligence officials say
the US
does not know where chemical weapons are stored now in Syria, or
who controls them, and that it does not have firm evidence that Assad
ordered their use.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
I wonder if Obama will prosecute the officials for this leak.
Fast food workers held a strike and protest across the US.
Poverty's consequences, such as preoccupation with short-term difficulties, effectively cut people's intelligence.
Egypt has arrested al-Jazeera reporters, accusing them of threatening national security and supporting Morsi.
I do not support of Morsi, but no one should be arrested or banned from reporting based on who they support.
The US says it won't prosecute marijuana dealers that sell "small amounts" to adults, in states which have legalized it.
Secret US government programs amount to at least 75 billion dollars a year.
Fukushima showed us the intolerable costs of nuclear power. The citizens of Vermont show us the benefits of shutting it down.
America's next president had better believe in restoring liberty.
Israeli soldiers danced with Palestinians at a wedding in Hebron. The Israeli government says it will punish them for this act of fraternization with people who are supposed to be "the enemy".
One Year After Drone Strike on Anti-Terrorist Yemeni Preacher, Still No Apology From Obama.
Teacher Uprisings in Mexico a Lesson in Defending Public Education.
US citizens: Tell Obama not to bomb Syria.
US citizens: call on your congresscritter not to support attacking Syria. "The choice is not between doing nothing and bombing the Syrian people."
US citizens: call on the US to restore the "stream buffer" limitations on mountaintop removal coal mining.
A painting showing Putin and Medvedyev in female clothing has been
seized in Russia and
called
illegal with no explanation.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
I understand the logic. In Russia, Putin is the ultimate standard of good. To show Putin doing something is to say it is good. To show Putin in homosexual guise is therefore propaganda for homosexuality. ;-}
A church group that feeds homeless people in Raleigh, North Carolina, was told they'd be arrested if they did not stop. It is illegal to feed the homeless there.
The Republicans who voted for this law probably claim to be Christians, but they'd put Jesus in prison too. When they talk about "family values" they mean "Walton and Koch family values".
Envisioning what Martin Luther King Jr. might say today in the age of plutocracy.
The public deserves answers to the questions about what would happen after a US attack on Syria — and why possible paths for peace are not being pursued instead.
AT&T can use King's "I have a dream" speech to sell phones, but you can't post it.
Whistleblower Russell Tice says that the NSA's data is regularly used to blackmail officials including members of Congress.
NSA sysadmins can access any data about anyone. Snowden used this to inform us all, but a criminal-minded sysadmin could use this to get data to blackmail someone.
Aside from blackmail, here are some bad things that could happen to you thanks to massive surveillance.
California will expand access to early abortions.
A wide range of sea animals face disaster from CO2 in the water.
They evolved to live in water, not seltzer.
India bans shark finning.
Walmart is trying to pretend that it supports manufacturing in the US.
Any company that has 25% of the grocery sales in the US ought to be split up just for that.
A company monitors students' public postings on behalf of schools.
Since they are public, the company has a right to do this. It would become wrong if the school starts punishing students for things they say (such as criticism of the school, dissident views, etc).
Given your metadata, people can find out about addictions, sex, and accusations.
Free Speech for People reviews the various bills to amend the Constitution to reverse the Corporations United* decision.
Israel uses many
schemes in parallel to take Palestinian land.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
And now that "peace negotiations" have been announced, Netanyahu has sped up construction in Palestine.
Israeli "settlers" in Palestinian territory attacked a Palestinian shepherd with an iron rod.
They killed and injured sheep, too.
The Israeli administration bends over backwards to help "settlers" harass Palestinians and drive them off their land.
B'tselem documents the systematic Israeli torture of Palestinian minors.
Israeli Arabs are trying to return to lands from which they were ordered to leave, a few weeks after Israel was established.
Israel demolished the Bedouin village of al-Araqib for the 54th time. Jailed residents, offered release on the condition that they not return there, said they'd rather stay in prison.
The Leveraged Buyout of America.
Wisconsin has arranged to give half a million dollars to a right-wing lobbying organization.
After all the budget cuts and union-busting, the state has a little cash on hand.
Vandana Shiva: Seed freedom is the answer to hunger and malnutrition.
Former UK military high commanders warn against attacking Syria.
Using a military attack to "send a message" is a rather inarticulate form of communication, as the US found out when it tried "graduated response" in the Vietnam War.
A woman in Kenya wants to marry two willing men, but the state is sexist and won't allow polygamy to go in that direction.
In Russia,
satirizing
Putin is now forbidden.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The heroism of Manning and Snowden will mean
nothing if
the debate about how to judge them distracts us from the central
issue: our government is trashing the constitution with massive
surveillance.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Egypt's military rulers seem to be framing arrested protesters in order to "prove" that the Muslim Brotherhood is terrorist.
An imprisoned Iranian blogger on hunger strike is getting ill.
The New York Thug Department arbitrarily labels some mosques as "terrorist" and investigates anyone who goes into them.
Now that the CIA has admitted responsibility for the coup in Iran that toppled it democratic government in 1953, the Iranian Parliament has voted to sue the US.
There is plenty of justification for this suit, in the abstract; but Iran's current theocratic tyranny is part of the damage, and a suit is not going to fix that. Meanwhile, is there any court where such a suit could be heard and a judgment enforced?
Why military intervention in Syria would be wrong.
It is hard to demonstrate what happened well enough for the purposes of justice.
A measured attack against Syria would change nothing.
On the other hand, an attack powerful enough to make Assad really notice would have unpredictable effects.
If the goal is to deter other dictators from using chemical weapons, it would be more effective to wait for a chance to punish Assad cleanly.
Hans Blix believes the military sponsors of both sides could make them agree to peace.
In the US: support an action on Sep 5 against Walmart's low wages.
A New York City thug faces criminal charges for trying to frame a press photographer.
It's about time — but it will take more than one thug on trial to make thugs stop testilying.
Barry Eisler suggests the arrest of David Miranda indicates that surveillance state is trying to make journalism harder, slower and less secure.
He may well be right; this does not contradict my theory, that it is trying to declare journalism criminal.
US citizens: call on Obama not to attack Syria without consulting Congress.
The US
is planning to
fight in Syria on the side of al Qa'ida.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Obama's intended attack might
be meant to
keep Iran isolated (i.e., scupper the opportunity for a peace
deal).
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The evidence that Assad's men used chemical weapons came from an Israeli signal interception unit.
Israel has been trying to get the US to fight Syria for a year or two. Thus, I have to wonder whether this "intelligence" was fabricated for the purpose.
The Federal Crop Insurance Program paid for 17 billion dollars in crop losses in 2012, far more than normal, due to extreme weather that will keep getting worse.
What the Assault on Whistleblowers Has to Do With War on Syria.
US citizens: support Senator Merkley's plan for paying for college.
The South African equivalent of the NSA is explicitly meant for spying on South Africans, so it doesn't need to stretch the rules repeatedly — it monitors everything.
Three bogus investigations of the NSA are designed to reassure us that no major change is needed.
Colleges say Obama's plan to link student aid to college tuition could motivate colleges to reject students that need aid.
Overall, the Oregon solution looks better. It could be used to put pressure to cut costs.
The newspaper FrontPageAfrica has been closed, and its publisher jailed, for reporting on corruption in Liberia.
Australia's right-wing party says it will cater to fishermen by eliminating recently established marine reserves.
There is no one less concerned with the long term health of fisheries than the fishermen. They have a culture of short-term thinking, which is why they object to marine reserves; that reserves increase fish stocks outside, and lead to higher catches a few years later, is too long-term for them to appreciate.
Anti-gun-control forces are concentrating their money to defeat Colorado legislators who voted for gun control.
Japan is demonstrating that stimulating the economy still works.
We knew that in the US, too; but the plutocrats arranged for lots of economists to say that we need to cut the deficit.
US citizens: phone the White House at 202-456-1111 to oppose military involvement in Syria.
Also, sign this petition.
Many poor people are logistically compelled to eat expensively; to eat cheap and healthy food, that theoretically would save them money, is out of practical range for them.
A Tunisian group has been banned, accused of responsibility for
assassinating
two politicians.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The group might be guilty for all I know, but that should be proved in court, not decided by an official.
Greece should refuse to be "rescued" again, since the previous "rescues" have only made things worse.
Jail Becomes Home for Husband Stuck With Lifetime Alimony.
A professor told me he had been ordered to pay alimony and child support exceeding his salary. The sad thing is, he had a way to get that money. An evil way: proprietary software. It would have been more ethical to go to jail.
The former mayor of Salt Lake City plans to sue the NSA for spying on all communications there prior to the 2002 Winter Olympics there.
Entrepreneur Chris Kitze says that in 1997 the NSA had already stuck computers into his company to tap all emails.
Julian Assange: Google has become intimately involved with the US government.
The NSA systematically spies on the EU, the UN, and the IAEA. It has nothing to do with stopping terrorism, or even dissidents.
In the US,
"support
the troops" is the slogan of unthinking patriotism.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
UN inspectors in Syria are only supposed to determine whether chemical weapons were used, not who used them.
However, the latter is the crucial question.
Zurich will provide a safe facility for prostitutes to work in.
The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers rebuked the UK for its threats to the Guardian.
The damage of privatization in Britain, illustrated by taking a seaside holiday.
General monitoring of people causes various kinds of psychological harm.
Reportedly Cuba ceded to US pressure to
bar
Snowden from travelling.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
This despite the fact that the US protects terrorists that made attacks in Cuba and imprisoned the Cuban 5 for infiltrating anti-Cuban terrorist groups and warning when they were going to attack.
200,000 Colombians protested the US-Colombia free trade treaty, as part of a national strike.
Of course, the government said the strikers are controlled by the FARC and called them "terrorists". The FARC are terrorists, but not the biggest and worst terrorists in Colombia. That honor goes to the state-sponsored paramilitaries.
California is considering putting RFIDs for tracking into drivers' licenses.
Greg Palast: How Larry Summers and Geithner bullied 165 countries into eliminating their equivalents of Glass-Steagall through the WTO.
And Obama is closely connected to their gang.
Google Play deleted a man's whole collection of downloaded books because it saw he was in Singapore.
Android normally comes with Google Play, which is nonfree, so it's no surprise that it is malware too. Replicant, the free version of Android, does not contain Google Play.
The college loan racket screws all young Americans unless they are rich. If you go to college, you'll spend your life in debt; otherwise you can't get a job except at McDonalds.
Even if you're really smart and get a good job after college, you're not safe; you will be ruined permanently if you get fired or disabled.
Oregon's plan might be a solution: paying students' tuition in exchange for a share of their income.
However, people with poverty level incomes, or living on disability or other assistance, should not have to pay anything. They can barely get by anyway.
The Boy Scouts of America are
bullying
the Hacker Scouts, an organization which is very different in spirit
and purpose.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The BSA bans Atheists as members, which makes it discreditable in substance too.
1983: the power of the NSA was already dangerous.
Religious fanatics in Russia, encouraged by the dictatorship, attacked a small parade of Pastafarians.
Ecuador is considering a law to ban publication of secret documents, even if they have been published elsewhere.
The Obama regime makes itself a laughingstock for pretending that Wikileaks and Snowden material are still secrets; this law would do the same.
A Hindu man was taken for Muslim after he (not knowing why) set off the explosive detector in an airport, and his answers were misunderstood. But even after the TSA cleared him to fly, Jet Blue still refused to let him board.
Apparently someone on the flight crew exercised the despotic power kick anyone off, for no reason.
He thinks his home was subsequently searched and a photograph stolen.
American teens do care about being tracked through portable phones. Over half of teenage girls have turned off location tracking — by their parents.
However, there is no way to stop Big Brother from tracking them, except to take the batteries out.
Beyond Intimidation of Journalists
Internet companies that put their users in PRISM did so knowingly and got paid for the work.
Archeologists are
using
drones to detect looting of ancient ruins in Peru.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
A treaty like this can't do anything good, except for the plutocrats.
Having Obama speak at the anniversary of MLK's March on Washington is a sacrilege.
The UK imprisoned Syrian dissident Roudi Chikhi for using false papers to flee Syria to ask for asylum, and stole all his money too.
Progress in solar-powered vehicles demonstrates that we ought to be putting hundreds of millions into research, rather than leaving the matter to a few enthusiasts.
Growing up in poverty tends to stunt children's development permanently.
I'm sure it is true in the US too, though I don't have a study to point to. This is why we need a strong welfare system that lifts children out of poverty, not one that does only the bare minimum such as Clinton gave the US.
Of course, we also need to make it easy for poor people to avoid having children they can't afford to raise, by providing reliable contraception and abortion gratis to all women.
Assad has agreed to cooperate with UN inspectors who are investigating use of chemical weapons.
If it is too late to detect the gas on the site, maybe autopsies can confirm that gas was used. The crucial question is who used it, and maybe some evidence about that can be found.
Assad and his supporters claim it was a false-flag operation by the rebels. I can't put it past them, but I think it is more likely that Assad's forces attacked with gas.
Obama hates our freedoms — he wants the Supreme Court to rule that thugs can search people's phones without a warrant.
The EPA buried its own evidence that fracking was dangerous, and Americans are increasingly organizing to block it — and now it turns out that the amount of gas that can be retrieved is much less than was thought.
In other words, we have to launch a massive program for renewable energy.
A 2011 FISA court decision, published in fragmentary form, rebuked the NSA for unconstitutionally stretching its surveillance powers.
Manning has asked Obama for a pardon, and in the process, has taken back the ill-conceived apology.
Amnesty International says Obama should commute Manning's sentence and investigate the abuses he exposed.
I think Amnesty's stand is too weak. It should ask for a pardon, not a commutation.
Some NSA agents snoop on people they are attracted to.
Thugs have done this for ages ("running a plate for a date"), so it does not surprise me at all that NSA agents do it too. The crucial point is that there is nothing in the system to stop them from snooping on anyone they wish.
This validates Snowden's point that he could snoop on anyone. He wasn't "authorized" to do so, but he could do it.
The NSA staff call it "loveint", and the NSA punishes it, but only when it finds out. If a few cases have been discovered, there were probably many more that the NSA doesn't know about.
US citizens: call on Congress not to
allow "fast
track" for the TPP.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
In the US: tell the US and UK to stop equating journalism with terrorism.
In the US: tell Forever 21 you insist it treat workers decently.
"Big
Data" often means "Big Intrusion".
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The US is selling 1300 cluster bombs to Saudi Arabia.
When cluster bombs are used, they kill children long after the war is over.
Global heating is good for some things, such as the mosquito that spreads Dengue fever.
In countries where Walmart operates:
tell
Walmart to respect their workers and pay a decent wage.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Everyone: Call on Western Union to stop blocking funds transfers to China Labor Watch investigators that expose sweatshop practices in China.
Obama viewed against the background of the March on Washington 50 years ago.
Xu Zhiyong has been imprisoned for suggesting that Chinese have dinner parties to discuss political issues.
The US is running into stiff opposition in the Trance Pacific Partnership negotiations.
Apparently the other countries' negotiators are not entirely in a trance yet.
The
lesson of Fukushima: nuclear reactors can explode. And there are
dozens of reactors in the US which use the same design.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The UK government's demand to destroy the Guardian's files was a direct attack against the foundation of democracy: freedom of the press to report how the state treats the people.
A 165-sq-mile
forest fire in California is threatening to contaminate a
reservoir for San Francisco as well as to destroy power lines that
bring electricity there.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Saudi censorship is suppressing knowledge about MERS, which has killed half the people known to have contracted it. As a result, 3 million pilgrims to Mecca could get exposed to it and take it home with them.
Egypt after the revolution: curfew nights and blood-stained days.
The Koch brothers have reportedly given up on trying to buy the Los Angeles Times and other newspapers.
This avoided an immediate defeat but may not be a lasting victory.
Did the US or UK make a damaging leak pretending it came from Snowden?
A journalist in Kazakhstan was hit on the head with a crowbar.
In the US they just get threatened with imprisonment.
Apple is designing a new product to do surveillance on people's movements even more than mobile phones.
The idea of a "trust" to protect the use of the data is ridiculous. It won't be able to withhold anything from the NSA or GCHQ. It would be hard pressed to withhold anything from subpoenas for private lawsuits. Digital toll collection records are often subpoena'd.
Summarizing the NSA's series of lies.
Refuting lies about Washington's GMO-labeling initiative.
US citizens: call on the Department of Education
to dump
Sallie Mae for predatory behavior that violated its contract.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Everyone: call on Obama
to negotiate with the new
president of Iran.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Everyone: sign
this petition in support of Justin Carter, facing 8 years in
prison for a joke threat that he said was a joke.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
It's not wise to make joke threats on the Internet. Carter should get a warning from the judge: "Remember, when you're on the Internet, lots of strangers are see or hear everything you say. You can't joke around as if you were among friends." I am sure he would learn that lesson.
I expect that the judge knows this, but takes pleasure in applying perverse "zero tolerance".
In favor of taxing churches — all of them.
With the US morally compromised, now Malaysia's government plans to extend its snooping powers.
An Open Letter to My Former NSA Colleagues: Mathematicians, why are you not speaking out?
Brazil will pass a law that requires all royalties from oil drilling to go to health care. This has good and bad sides.
A teenager in the Maldive Islands will not be flogged for having been raped.
This is a step forward, but they must do more: people who have sex voluntarily should not be punished either.
Can you guess which religion dominates the Maldive Islands?
'Outing Corporate Evil,' One City at a Time.
Making all thugs wear cameras makes them considerably less thuggish.
People working for the state are not entitled to the same rights of privacy that everyone else deserves, and if there's anyone for whom surveillance is necessary, it's the thugs. So I am mostly in favor of this. However, this could lead to intrusive surveillance too.
Global heating seen as humanity's greatest-ever risk management failure.
Seabirds are threatened by global heating.
The world's general slow rise in sea level paused during 2010 and 2011 because the water was piled on parts of Australia instead.
Kucinich says, give Snowden a ticker-tape parade and abolish the NSA.
I broadly sympathize, but given how badly the banksters have mauled our country, I am not sure a ticker-tape parade is appropriate treatment for a hero.
Cynicism is Corporate America's Greatest Weapon: Disarm It.
Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison for revealing US crimes. When will we prosecute the ones who committed those crimes?
Some nuclear experts warn that the situation in Fukushima could be much worse than the "authorities" admit.
US citizens: demand that the next chairman of the Federal Reserve
answer
some crucial questions.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Plutocratic politicians in ALEC aim to inflame the public against people who are oppressed a little less than they.
Of course, the ones you ought to hate are the plutocrats that fund and direct ALEC.
The ACLU on the steady militarization of thugs in the US.
The US director of "national security" has started a blog with the aim of "more transparency".
This reflects his persistent campaign to make our activities and conversations more transparent to them.
Ladar Levison can't talk about his court battle for our privacy rights, but he's drawing a lot of attention to the issue.
Obama proposes totally inadequate measures to encourage universities to compete on tuition.
Children in Pakistan are getting sick with polio: perhaps this will convince the religious crazies to allow vaccination.
Former dictator Mubarak was released from prison but will be held under house arrest.
The UK should renationalize its railroads.
Correction: Clegg, head of the Lib Dems, has not endorsed the interrogation of David Miranda and seizure of his computer data.
Miranda's lawyers have won a symbolic victory with the court order for the state not to touch Miranda's memories "unless it is for the purpose of ensuring the protection [of] national security or for investigating whether Miranda is himself involved in the commission, instigation or preparation of an act of terrorism".
At present, it is only symbolic. Whatever they wish to do, they will do it anyway and say it is "protection of national security". Besides, they have surely given copies to the NSA, which will not be affected by this court order. In other words, they will continue playing the court, and the people, for fools.
A US court ruled that federal employees in "national security sensitive" positions can be fired or punished arbitrarily.
The next step will be for the government to drive them to suicide, to make sure they can't flee and start revealing dirty government secrets.
Over 50 large wildfires are burning in the western US.
The cheap solution to air pollution: stop measuring it.
Force-feeding prisoners who are prepared to fast to death solves nothing.
If they doubt whether prisoners really meant to order "don't feed me", why not just ask them now?
British thugs have killed thousands of prisoners since 1969, the last time a thug was punished for doing that.
Worse, relatives of the victims who campaigned for justice were subject to secret surveillance by thugs defending their buddies. But they still say, "if you're innocent, you have nothing to fear."
NSA gathered thousands of Americans' e-mails before court ordered it to revise its tactics.
On the implications of Assad's apparent poison gas attack.
The fact that jihadis are fighting Assad makes it hard to see a way to help the rebels without potentially bringing to power those who are worse.
Bradley Manning was sentenced to 35 years imprisonment.
He got a far longer sentence than others convicted of espionage; perhaps because Manning gave information, not secretly to an enemy, but publicly to the people that the US government betrays every day.
Former Egyptian dictator Mubarak will be
released
from prison.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Will he be put back in power?
Another defeat for freedom: New Zealand voted to legalize more spying on everyone.
The NSA collects 75% of US Internet traffic.
Correction — it is 75% of
communications
traffic, which does not include distribution of TV shows, etc.
Also, the word "collects" is not quite accurate; rather, this measurs
the fraction of the communications that the NSA searches through.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Comcast threatened to sue Torrentfreak for copyright infringement over publication of a subpoena, a court document in the public domain.
Six Questions Journalists Should Ask Barack Obama When He Visits (Enter Your Country Name Here).
Miranda's
Rights: How Europe Can Learn from Latin America's Independence.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Using the Boston bombings as a pretext, the National Football League now prohibits fans from bringing in suitcases, fanny packs, even a thermos.
If I couldn't bring my computer in, that rules me out.
I'd never want to go to a football game, so this does not affect me, not directly. But the dangerous current will threaten everyone.
Government Works Fine, Just Not For You (i.e., non-plutocrats).
The UK prime minister directly ordered the interrogation of David Miranda.
Even more horrible, the head of the Liberal Democrats supported the pretext for destroying the Guardian's disk drives.
Russia blocked a Greenpeace icebreaker from entering the Arctic sea, on the peculiar grounds that it isn't strong enough to deal with the little remaining ice.
The American Dream Rewards Few, Enslaves Millions.
Only through collective action against the plutocracy can most Americans make their lives better.
More detail about the increasing frequency of severe heat waves, the damage they to do people and to agriculture, and how ceasing or continuing to emit greenhouse gases will affect the outcome.
Syrian rebels claim the regime's troops fired poison gas missiles that killed over 200 people.
A tank of contaminated water at Fukushima has leaked, and the area around it is now dangerously radioactive.
Amnesty International condemned the Egyptian army and thugs'
"blatant
disregard for human life", and calls for
cutting
off arms supplies to the government of Egypt.
[References updated on 2018-03-10 because the old links were broken.]
A study found that heavy use of Facebook tends to make people sad, independent of how the users felt at the start of the study.
The study eliminated the hypothesis that people used Facebook more because they were sadder to begin with.
This is not yet proof, but given so many other reasons to avoid Facebook, why not take this precaution?
Israel has designated almost 1/5 of the West Bank as "military firing zones" as an excuse to kick Palestinians off their land.
Israel forced a Palestinian to pay to demolish his own home in Jerusalem.
The UK undercover thugs that infiltrated dissident movements seem to be part of an organized plan including all European governments, the US, and other countries. The governments involved refuse to investigate.
In the US, we have been unable to get it to become a scandal. Perhaps because the mainstream media have stayed away from it.
When oil companies promote biofuel, it's the kind of biofuel made by diverting land, water and chemical fertilizer that could have grown food. So it is a kind of greenwashing.
Conjecture: Alexei Navalny has been groomed by Putin to divide opposition and lead it nowhere.
The UK treats single parents as unemployed people, and makes them jump through many arbitrary hoops to get welfare payments. If they fail to get all the hoops — perhaps because they are taking care of their kids — then the state cuts off their money and says it's their fault.
This is the face of plutocracy. The people who set up this scheme deserve no mercy, and those who carry it out deserve none either unless they quit.
US citizens: tell the UK we condemn the detention of David Miranda.
Columbia, South Carolina, will give homeless people a choice between real jail and a "shelter" that is much like a jail.
A court ruled that changing your machine's IP address to get access to a public web site is a crime under the CFAA.
This absurd result adds to the need to reform the CFAA.
Under the shadow of the recession, US companies have massively converted well-paid full-time jobs into part-time subsistence jobs.
A court ruled that thugs can force-feed prisoners on hunger strike who signed papers saying to let them die.
Many of these prisoners have been put in solitary for a long time after they were falsely declared gang members based on coincidences.
The Guantanamo prison guards did not allow a prisoner to get a copy of Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago.
Perhaps the guards are afraid the prisoners will see some similarity to their own lives.
UK thug whistleblower Peter Francis says the thugs are threatening to prosecute him for revealing the dirty work he did for them. He refuses to speak to the official inquiry because he suspects they will use his testimony to punish him.
The Guardian destroyed its London copies of Snowden's revelations to avoid the damage that would have been done by handing them to the regime, or being legally banned from talking about them at all.
"As in Russia, the terror threat has become the excuse to curtail our rights".
Oswaldo Paya's relatives have sued Cuban officials for killing him.
Today is Earth Overshoot Day, when humanity has consumed more natural resources since January 1 than our biosphere can replace in the whole year.
The low wages allowed in the
US hurt and
cost everyone (except the plutocrats).
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The Moment
the US Ended Iran's Brief Experiment in Democracy.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Libya is on the verge of disintegration.
The UK government said it interrogated David Miranda because he was carrying "stolen documents" — which could only refer to the information Snowden gave to Glenn Greenwald.
This claim is both absurd and outrageous. The absurdity is that Greenwald already has copies of all that material, so if Miranda was carrying more copies, it was irrelevant. The only significant thing Miranda might have had would be their journalistic work, which was not stolen from anyone.
The outrage is that the state has now declared its intention to wage unrestricted war against journalists. This is the UK's Putin moment, it shifts from trying to cover up its tyrannical deeds to proudly announcing them.
The UK needs a deep public inquiry into the thugs' infiltration of anti-fascist groups and aid to construction blacklists.
This is also one of the reasons why massive surveillance is dangerous.
100,000 manicurists in the UK are Vietnamese, and most of them have been trafficked.
The crucial questions are, how did they get there, and what keeps them there? If they are there involuntarily, what stops them from escaping?
Don't pathologize heroism, warns a soldier who confesses his cowardice, in failing to blow the whistle on the gratuitous violence his unit carried out against Iraqis.
Groklaw has shut down because it can no longer protect its sources due to massive surveillance.
Here's Pamela Jones' statement.
Former Pakistani
dictator Musharraf
faces charges of murdering Benazir Bhutto, on the grounds that he
took away her bodyguards when she was receiving death threats.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Everyone: tell the US and UK to stop attacking and intimidating journalists.
The US cooperates with the Egyptian military in return
for convenience
in attacking other countries.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Note how the New York Times headline, "Ties With Egypt Army Constrain Washington," presumes that the US could not possibly forfeit Egypt's military cooperation — a considerable exaggeration compared with the facts stated.
The UK government forced the Guardian's London office to delete all of Snowden's material, on threat of seizing it.
Fortunately there were copies elsewhere, but this illustrates the fact that the UK and US governments will go to any lengths of lies and abuse to crush journalism that investigates their nastiest secrets.
It won't remain limited to those issues, because the plutocratic state is in cahoots with corporations that endanger our lives, health, and liberty. We have seen the UK thugs help businesses blacklist workers, while in the US, investigating factory farms is now a crime in many states.
These examples demonstrate that the US or UK will use its repressive power against any journalism that business finds annoying — not that different from China.
David Miranda describes his nine-hour interrogation.
Using the "anti-terror" law to interrogate dissidents entering the UK is standard practice.
Egyptian
thugs killed 36 prisoners. The thugs said they were shot (with
teargas) while trying to escape.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
If you are a journalist, or anyone else that must fear a repressive state, email is inherently unsafe, because you can't hide who you are talking with (i.e., metadata).
The article refers to trade secrets as "intellectual property", which is a gratuitous confusion because it conflates them with unrelated issues such as copyrights and patents. Every time the term "intellectual property" is used, it causes confusion — please join me in avoiding that term.
In the US: implore the Tribune
Company not
to sell its newspapers to the Koch brothers.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to support the Save America's Pollinators Act.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
By 2050, floods in coastal cities will cause a trillion dollars of damage per year.
In the US, Miami, New York and New Orleans are at high risk.
The UK helps people block wind farms even miles away from their homes, but won't let people block fracking even 10 feet away. Why this inconsistency? George Monbiot says he thinks that extraction is more macho.
He could be partly right, but I suspect that the extractors offer more money to corrupt the politicians.
Fracking debate: what does the battle for lead-free air teach us?
Thousands protested against fracking in England.
Everyone: call on Kerry to prove he is serious about peace negotiations by demanding that Israel cease expanding its colonies in Palestinian territory.
US citizens: call on Obama to block the USDA from letting poultry companies inspect themselves, and increase the contamination that's permitted.
Letting these companies "police themselves" is worse than letting teenage street gang members do so, because the companies have worse morals and are less trustworthy.
US propaganda presents officials as "idealists" who wish they could
make a better world —
with no resemblance to the truth about
them.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Karzai fired a cabinet minister for meeting
with Taliban
negotiators.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Islamist rebels in the Sinai stopped buses of Egyptian thugs and killed them.
The violent Islamists may be the worse of the two, in regard to disrespect for human rights, but we should not take this as excusing the massacres of nonviolent Islamists last week.
"The innocent have nothing to fear?" They do if they embarrass America and happen to visit British soil.
The Brazilian government and MPs are rebuking the UK thugs for arresting David Miranda and taking his computer memories.
I've read that his computer memories included information obtained from Laura Poitras that he was bringing to Glenn Greenwald. This makes me worry: will the NSA be able to decrypt it? If they did not send it through the Internet, they must have been concerned about this possibility.
I hope Big Brother did not get anything important.
The "Common Core" education standards, imposed on the US by the Gates Foundation, threaten to turn out to be the next stage in using standardized tests to declare children and public schools "failures".
The military grip on US policing.
Obama's speech about surveillance shows he wants to lull the public into forgetting about the problem, not correct it.
He also wants us to believe that his willingness to even pretend to discuss the issue is not due to Snowden.
On two occasions recently, Texas thugs performed body cavity searches for no obvious reason on women stopped for speeding or littering (though the women deny those accusations).
Ways to respond to the claim that "copying is stealing".
The US government is making lots of money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but it is unable to do anything useful with the money.
Two wildfires in Idaho have burned
almost 400 square miles.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The UK confiscated journalist David Miranda's computers and memories as he passed through Heathrow Airport, using powers supposedly meant for dealing with terrorists.
When the government says "terrorists", it means dissidents and journalists, or anyone that stands in the way of its abuse of power. If occasionally a would-be terrorist gets caught up in the net, they consider that a bonus.
David Miranda is Glenn Greenwald's mate, and this appears to be an attempt to intimidate Greenwald. But Greenwald is not intimidated.
If the UK regime still fears public disapproval, Greenwald will make it regret this.
Over 2000 marched against fracking in the UK.
UK thugs investigated anti-fascist campaigners so as to blacklist them so they could not work.
The Muslim Brotherhood held protest marches, which were not attacked.
Jihadis in Syria attacked the Syrian Kurds, so 20,000 refugees have fled to the Kurdish part of Iraq.
A heat wave and drought are destroying the crops in Austria and Hungary.
We get droughts like this every year (though not always in the same place). And this is just the beginning.
Australian aboriginals have a very high rate of problem drinking, but is jailing them if they don't go for rehabilitation a good solution?
If rehabilitation were a reliable treatment, perhaps no one would refuse it. But as far as I know, for alcoholics to stay sober requires a deep commitment. The threat of jail can make someone go to an activity, but can't give someone that kind of commitment. So I don't see how this can achieve its goal.
There is surely a relationship between the high consumption of alcohol and the way aboriginals were kicked off their land and continue to be downtrodden. Changing that may be the only way to correct this (though it will take decades).
Retired people in Portugal are protesting daily against the plan to cut their pensions to the bone.
Martin Manley set up a web site to represent him after his suicide, but Yahoo arbitrarily took it down.
His sister say Yahoo should put it back because Manley did not advocate suicide for others. But what if he had? That is no reason for censorship.
US citizens: call on Herakles Farms not to cut down 300 square miles of rainforest in Cameroon, which is habitat for chimpanzees and other threatened species.
US citizens: sign
this
petition against appointing Larry Summers as head of the Federal
Reserve.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
This is a different petition; if you signed the other, please sign this too.
Technology to record all conversations could turn life into something unrecognizable.
Russia plans to ban Tor, demonstrating how essential Tor is for resisting tyranny.
If the state has grounds to suspect that a person is committing crimes, it has many other ways to investigate, including planting microphones where that person lives and works. These take some effort, however, which is as it should be.
The NSA's 2776 "accidental" violations of its own rules in a 12-month period covered just the NSA headquarters. And the NSA concealed this report from the Senate Intelligence Committee until the committee saw the leak and asked for it.
A Time Magazine writer said he wants to see the US assassinate Julian Assange.
Some Japanese schools
won't
let students read a famous manga book because it shows some of the
atrocities that Japanese troops committed during the occupation of
other countries.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
One kind of atrocity they committed was waterboarding. The US executed some Japanese soldiers for this. However, the US has done nothing to punish the Americans responsible for committing the same brutal act.
It's clear that the Japanese officials who imposed this censorship care more about whether Japan looks good than whether Japan is good. You can see the same behavior pattern in officials in other countries.
The capacity to commit atrocities exists in every nation. Thus, all governments must do their best to prevent atrocities by holding perpetrators responsible.
Uri Avnery: Israel deserves the Guinness record for chutzpah, for condemning Palestinian "provocations" that are dwarfed by Israel's own provocations.
Companies running salmon farms on the US west coast are trying to take water that needs to be released to rivers so that wild salmon can survive.
Government Accountability Project:
Statement
on Edward Snowden & NSA Domestic Surveillance.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-08 because the old link was broken.]
Obama claimed that Snowden should have taken advantage of the protections in the Whistleblower Protection Act. But they didn't apply to him, since he employed by a contractor, not by the US government.
Even if that law had applied to him, other examples show he would have been a fool to try to depend on it.
The US runs international "aid" for Haiti so that it goes to create
resorts, mines and sweatshops
owned
by foreigners — while doing little for the Haitians who have
been homeless for three years.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Why the massive surveillance that Snowden showed to us is a threat to you … no matter who you are or what you do.
A UK law professor suggests that prison is the wrong punishment for thieves.
Under the standards of international law, al Qa'ida is too puny to qualify as an enemy to be at war with. It is unable to carry out military operations.
Thus, the US should stop treating this as a war.
Obama misused the word "decimated", which means to kill 1/10 of the soldiers in a military unit. (It was a Roman punishment for mutiny.) Al Qa'ida has been far more than decimated.
Any Other 'Statesman' Who Negotiated Peace Like John Kerry Would Be Treated as a Thief.
The UK had a housing bubble, fueled, like the US housing bubble, by enticing people into predatory mortgages, for which the capital was obtained by mortgage-backed securities. This article explains the whole process clearly.
In the US, the bubble popped and mortgage-backed securities lead to the systematic foreclosure fraud.
In the UK, according to this article, the bubble didn't stay popped; rather, the government patched it up and is blowing more mortgage funds into it.
Without the bubble's high prices, there would have been no need for so much money to pour into mortgages. Thus, I think mortgage-backed securities should be banned entirely.
However, the low rate of housing construction in the UK is also responsible.
Hong Kong's government is asking high-ranking thugs who are due to retire soon to stay on the job an extra 90 days, because of a planned Occupy protest.
This suggests to me that Hong Kong plans to repress the protest camp, as the US, UK, and other countries have done.
Uganda: Rigged Elections And Mysterious Killings: It's the Mugabe Script with a Different Cast.
In Egypt, both the Muslim Brotherhood and the supporters of the military are accusing the US of supporting the other side.
"Smart" electricity meters are not only surveillance devices, but sabotage devices too.
It is most likely that crackers from China could turn off your electric supply at will. It is certain that agents from your own unjust and lawless state could do so.
Why Isn't Beirut Bombing Called "Terrorist"?
The Police Keep Firing; The Bodies Pile Up. In Cairo, Bloodbaths Are Now a Daily Occurrence.
Egypt: we may despise the Muslim Brotherhood, but a coup is a coup.
Sundus Shaker Saleh, an Iraqi,
is suing
Dubya for war crimes.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
US nuclear power plants
are sitting
ducks for terrorist attacks. Essentially nothing has been done to
protect them since 2001.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The UK government's plutocratic policies are pushing even working people to use food banks.
Egyptian soldiers attacked a mosque occupied by pro-Morsi protesters. Armed men fired from the minaret. The protesters say that the doors to the minaret were controlled by the thugs, which would suggest that this was a false flag operation meant to create an excuse to attack the protesters. But even if they were real Morsi-supporters shooting at the soldiers, after being victims of a massacre while unarmed, they can't be blamed for fighting back.
Most Egyptians seem to be glad that the Muslim Brotherhood is out of power. I too would be glad of that if I were Egyptian. But banning the Muslim Brotherhood means excluding a large part of society from democracy. This is a recipe for inspiring an armed Islamic terrorist movement to replace the nonviolent movement that has just been defeated.
Fighting that will require long-term repression. How can there be room for democracy alongside that? I think the military are planning not to allow democracy.
Bahrainis have launched a renewed push for freedom despite laws more repressive than ever. Will the US support the repression because a fleet is based there?
A cute video can put a species in danger.
Psychotherapy can teach people to refrain from cruelty on the Internet.
E-book publishers plan to use watermarks to identify who purchased a copy.
This is a further reason not to buy any e-book in a way that identifies you.
Ever since New York State was ordered to stop keeping prisoners in solitary confinement if they had serious mental illness, there has been a mysterious trend to diagnose prisoners with mild mental illness instead. At least one seriously ill prisoner was driven to suicide by solitary confinement.
I have no easy answer for what to do with people like Amir Hall. However, any solution probably involves spending more money. If we end the war on drugs, and free lots of prisoners that shouldn't have been imprisoned in the first place, we could afford to care properly for those that we do need to imprison.
A merger between two large airlines in the US is being blocked because an executive admitted the goal was to raise fares.
We are fortunate that these executives confessed the truth of their merger scheme, but in the future there will be other executives and they will learn from this mistake. We must not depend on such confessions in order to thwart them.
Oligopoly (just a few major sellers) starts to cause some of the same harms as monopoly (one single seller). Therefore, any merger that would create a company having over 8% of some market should be blocked automatically; and if it would have more than 4% of some market, it should face stiff disincentives.
Africa's richest woman is the daughter of the dictator of Angola — and not by coincidence.
A Saudi prince has defected and describes how the regime persecutes anyone that calls for human rights.
America's cheering millions of high school graduates toward college every year, feeding them into the debt grinder under the banner of increased opportunity, when full disclosure would require admitting that there isn't a hell of a lot waiting for them on the other side, where the middle class has nearly vanished and full employment is going the way of the dodo.
Ladar Levison says he may face prosecution for shutting down Lavabit.
Will Bezos, as owner of the Washington Post, stand up to US pressure to conceal government wrongdoing? Not if Amazon is any guide.
US citizens:
thank
EPA official Richard Pelletier, who refused to lift Billionaire
Polluter's suspension from bidding for US government contracts.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
BP has not been punished enough to teach it or other oil companies a lesson.
One reason the US doesn't cut off arms aid to Egypt is that
the aid
really goes to US arms companies.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Médecins Sans Frontiéres has withdrawn from Somalia because gangs and militias, some of them allied with the government, are killing aid workers and kidnaping them for ransom.
Israel plans to pay hundreds of students to post pro-Israel statements on Twitter and Facebook.
The Great Divestiture (privatization state services to human beings) has been coupled with the Great Risk Shift (employers dumping various responsibilities onto individuals).
What we need is not "economic recovery" but reversal of those two changes. We must nationalize; we must reregulate. And, as the article says, we must aid and encourage unions.
In May, Obama promised to give us transparency about drone attacks. He has done none of that.
Who
Dies in Yemen Drone Strikes?
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
5 Myths Used to Justify Death By Drone and America's Assassination Policy.
Bloomberg wants to install electronic locks on New York City public housing. This means that the doors will record who enters and when, and deliver this info to the state.
Oh, he also proposed fingerprinting the residents.
Senators Sanders and Boxer propose a law that would really do something to curb global heating.
New York City Comptroller Liu proposes legalization and regulated sale of marijuana.
His report estimates the city could save $31 million a year by legalizing sale of marijuana, and bring in $400 million a year by taxing it to keep the price the same.
That's without counting all the other benefits, in the form of decreased repression and lives not ruined.
Young Dalit women are taking the lead to campaign against the rapes and murders carried out by upper-cast people to keep them down.
The perpetrators' first line of defense are the thugs, who refuse to take reports of these crimes, and even conspire with the perpetrators, who have the support of their caste-mates.
This calls to mind the racist arbitrary searches of people on the street in New York City. I think the fact that they are arbitrary already makes them wrong, but the racist application of arbitrariness is part of a broader pattern.
In several cases listed, Dalit victims committed suicide. Suicide sometimes works as a protest, but if you do it in private, it only gives the oppressor a further victory. If you are ready to die because you can't bear the oppression, you may as well go down fighting.
Chomsky: The U.S. Behaves Nothing Like a Democracy, But You'll Never Hear About It in Our 'Free Press'.
The Lancet says that the UK government treats NHS hospitals like failing banks, seeking to close them, and never mind health care.
The thousands of "errors" per year that the NSA has confessed to are "the tip of the iceberg", according to Senators Wyden and Udall.
At 60 more Egyptians were killed today as Morsi supporters protested.
Random violence plays into the hands of the military, which will use it as an excuse to condemn Morsi supporters. Therefore, I suspect that the unidentified gunmen who shot at passersby on the bridge in Cairo were from the military.
It seems there were armed men among the protesters, but they did not start the firing. Thugs seemed to be out to kill protesters for the sake of killing.
The Zimbabwe
opposition dropped
its court challenge to the election, saying this is because the
government refused to reveal crucial information about the vote.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
It is not clear what information this was.
US cities are sending SWAT teams for noise complaints and other matters where violence is not particularly likely.
That tends to cause violence.
4000 US women were forced to have babies in 2008 because they could not scrape together the money for an abortion until it was too late.
The figure will have risen since then because so many more Americans have become poor.
Women who cannot afford an abortion can't afford to raise children either.
Beyond Keystone XL: three other controversial pipelines.
First they came for the terrorists and the foreigners, and no one did anything. Then they came for the drug dealers. Then the tax cheats. Then the journalists. And that's just what we know about. How much worse does it have to get before we say enough is enough?
Tech company executives: fight government surveillance, or users will find out you didn't.
They are not limited to fighting in court. They can lobby, too.
Apple has got a patent on a phone or camera back door that would let Big Brother's men disable functions such as photography.
Actually implementing the idea would be a vicious attack on human rights, and would leave people vulnerable to the persistent abuse and lies of the state's forces.
Patenting the idea has no direct effect on users. It means that others would have to get permission from Apple if they wanted to implement this. But it shows Apple is at least thinking about trying to do this to us.
The Strange Case of Barrett Brown Just Got Stranger.
Explaining all the charges against Barrett Brown.
EFF Supports Human Rights Case Against Cisco for Selling Surveillance Technologies to China.
I think it is wrong to sell them to the US government, too.
The FISA court says it really has no ability to control the NSA. So the rare occasions when it says "no", that may not have much effect.
Obama said that there were three pillars of oversight of NSA mass surveillance, but all three turn out to be empty.
News organizations are using copyright to hush up their embarrassments.
Now that I have read (for the first time) the joke pilot names, I reject the accusation that this joke was "racist". Making jokes about names and words in any language is normal humor. It was the wrong time to joke about an accident where people had just died, but that's not racism.
Coal mines in Australia are making people sick. In one area, 40% of the children have asthma.
Bradley Manning's Statement: A Forced "Confession" Concludes A Drumhead Tribunal.
The defense witnesses tried to show that his heroic leaks were an error that he made because he was unable to think clearly.
Four questions the next chairman of the Federal Reserve should have to answer.
Everyone: call on Kazakhstan to move political prisoner Aron Atabek out of solitary confinement.
Two Londoners face "terrorism" charges for posting a video.
The video they made involves gloating over the killing of a British soldier in London. They had nothing to do with carrying it out; they only expressed an opinion. I don't like the opinion, and maybe you don't either; but freedom of speech includes the freedom to express opinions we don't like.
By 2040, deadly heat waves such as almost never seen today will be fairly common.
The extinction of large animals, 12,000 years ago in South America,
started a
process starving
the forest of nutrients that is still getting worse.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The Bankization of America: the imaginary economy of banks drives the real economy down.
The NSA's official rules on surveillance mean little, since
it breaks
those rules thousands of times every year.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: call on the State Department to dismiss ERM from evaluating the environmental impact of the Keystone XL planet-roaster pipeline.
ERM concealed a conflict of interest: a business tie to Transcanada.
US citizens: call on the senate
to take
action against global heating.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Here's a list of companies and pressure groups that sponsored the latest ALEC meeting.
ExxonMobil, Wells Fargo and UPS would be easy to boycott. People in the computer field could put pressure on SAP.
A year after South African thugs massacred 34 striking miners, apparently as part of a plan, the government continues to stonewall.
I am in favor of nationalizing the mines; compensation is unnecessary, given how much the owners have profited and how much they ought to owe to their past and present workers. However, merely changing the identity of the owner won't by itself result in decent treatment for miners, or the poor in general.
Ecuador has abandoned a plan to keep oil in the ground in exchange for foreign compensation.
Correa asked for half what ten years of oil drilling would have brought in, but received only a tiny fraction.
No Tanks: Let's Not Kid About It, the Government Is Afraid of Its Own Citizens.
Corruption from Siemens is partly to blame for high bus fares
in Sao
Paulo
that led to protests.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Supporters of Morsi are now attacking government buildings in Egypt.
It is understandable they would do so after so many of them were killed.
Many Christian churches have been burnt, and one Christian was shot dead.
There is no excuse for this. However, it is invalid for the government to cite this violence as an excuse for the attacks which sparked it.
In the US, drinking over four cups of coffee correlates with a much higher death rate.
I'm not convinced this study shows that coffee is the cause of the higher death rate. Maybe people drink more coffee because of some condition that also makes them more likely to die young.
Obama's weak response to Egypt's bloody crackdown is tantamount to support.
One of the Greenpeace protesters who climbed a London skyscraper faces the threat of a long jail term for "aggravated trespass".
The UK crime of "aggravated trespass" was invented as an excuse to punish protesters that didn't injure anyone or destroy property. In other words, it is an explicit and intentional attack against democracy.
An Afghan woman MP has been kidnaped by the Taliban.
Dozens of high ranking thugs in South Africa have been convicted of serious crimes (up to murder) and are not even fired.
Everyone: call for moving the 2014 Winter Olympics out of Russia.
Whites in California defend meritocracy except when they have to compete with people of Asian origin, who seem to have lots of merit.
Wikipedia refuses to participate in China's censorship.
A tentacle of Myhrvold's patent troll company, Intellectual Ventures, has hit a small setback, but it isn't a defeat.
Nova Scotia has passed a draconian law defining any communication that seems likely to hurt someone's self-esteem as "cyberbullying", with harsh punishments.
The practice of criminalizing statements that hurt someone's feelings is a plague that affects most of the world.
A bill has been introduced in Congress to stop schools from punishing students for wielding pastries in the shape of a gun, or drawing a gun on paper, etc.
I support it, but it does not go far enough. We need to reverse the factors that pressure schools to adopt lunatic "zero tolerance" policies.
Brazil has sued Samsung for operating a sweatshop.
More NSA language-twisting: they can search your email but it isn't "collected".
China will stop the official practice
of transplanting
organs from victims of execution.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Egyptian suppression forces killed over 500 protesters.
Secular Egyptians mostly seem to support the military; I received mail from one that accused the Muslim Brotherhood of "terrorism". There has been some minor terrorism, specifically attacks against Christian churches (but not people, from what I've read), but as far as I know the Muslim Brotherhood does not advocate this. It might well have violated the human rights of women and non-Muslims, and maybe Muslims too (by forbidding them to stop being Muslims), but that is not the same thing as terrorism.
Egyptian thugs killed over 270 pro-Morsi protesters, and eventually drove the doctors out of the protest camp field hospital by shooting tear gas at it. I wonder if the wounded protesters will turn up dead.
This means Egypt has turned to naked military rule. Will it be as repressive and persistent as it was under Mubarak? One can hope not, but the return of Mubarak's "emergency" law suggests the worst.
Mild criticism with zero firmness is how the US typically treats a repressive regime that it supports. I think it means that the US really supports the Egyptian military's repression and only pretends to disapprove.
Sustainable biofuel, not made using resources needed for making food, is now being developed, so the oil companies are trying to destroy the mandates for using ethanol in fuel.
The mandates should be changed so that they require ethanol made in sustainable ways.
The United Arab Emirates is trying to close the German server of a news site that criticizes oppression in the UAE.
In Ecuador, Indigenous Leaders Sentenced to 12 Years in Jail for "Terrorism".
US citizens: call on CBS to stop biasing the surveillance debate in favor of surveillance.
'Defense' contractor CACI International has sued the victims that its employees tortured.
Censorship Backfire: Surge of Interest in Zinn's 'People's History'
Longlines Killing Pacific Seabirds at Record Rate.
Endangered species protection has been proposed for a Florida butterfly, but if we don't stop pumping out CO2, it will be drowned with the rest of South Florida.
Brazil demands clarifications on NSA surveillance.
US schools have come to
resemble
prisons, physically and in the police state mentality applied to
their inmates.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Two Venezuelan newspapers were fined for publishing photos of violent crime scenes.
I hope people who find this censorship ridiculous will also question the censorship plans of other countries such as the UK.
Indian TV stations have been shut down for broadcasting coverage of a local autonomy movement.
The repression of the nonviolent Islamists in Egypt is likely to boost support for violent Islamists, who can now argue that peaceful methods won't be allowed to win.
It appears that Egyptian thugs intentionally targeted reporters.
Pakistan has disappeared 450 people, and their relatives are trying to find out what happened to them.
Everyone: sign
this petition
calling for no prosecution of the Anonymous leaker whose leaks led to
the prosecution of the Steubenville rapists.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Brazilian thugs banned showing a documentary in a poor neighborhood because it might make them hate the thugs.
There is good reason it might, since the documentary shows how children in that very neighborhood got killed in some sort of run-in with the thugs.
Thugs must not be allowed to censor!
US citizens: call on your elected representatives to support constitutional amendments to reverse the Corporations United decision. It's important to do this again even if you've done it before.
Governments that prosecute global heating civil disobedience are coming to court with dirty hands because they failed to protect the atmospheric commons.
The CIA said it had no file on Noam Chomsky, but it had one in 1970.
Israel has released 26 Palestinian prisoners, mostly people who killed civilians.
Can anyone tell me how these prisoners were chosen? Why not release the people who have been imprisoned without charges rather than prisoners convicted of something?
Does the
US Pay Families When Drones Kill Innocent Yemenis?
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: phone senators to oppose appointing New York Thug Commissioner Kelly to head the Department of Homeland Suppression.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Escalating military responses to rhino and elephant poaching are failing, just as they failed to stop drug trafficking, but efforts to convince people to stop buying them might work.
The big differences between poaching and drug trafficking are (1) legalization of hunting rhinos and elephants would not solve the problem, and (2) rhino and elephant horn have no physiological effect on their users.
Another NSA snowjob: it "touches" only 1.6% of all Internet traffic, but communication is only 2.9% of all Internet traffic, so maybe the NSA looks at "only" 55% of all Internet communication.
Or maybe the number means nothing because we don't know their meaning of "touches".
Eastern European Autocrats Pose New Test for Democracy.
A Hungarian friend tells me that Orbán has chipped away at democracy and civil society to the extent that it is nearly impossible to challenge his power, but has avoided the sort of harsh measures that would make lots of Hungarians wish to try. So it is a nondemocratic regime, but not actively oppressive.
War crimes tribunals have set a high bar for proving that high officials are responsible for war crimes carried out when they were not present.
There will be times that underlings commit war crimes that their superiors did not approve, or would not have approved. It would be unjust to hold the superiors responsible for that. However, they can be held responsible for not taking action against the perpetrators.
The Bahrain tyranny threatens violence against those who commemorate the anniversary of 2011 protests.
This tyranny receives the firm support of the US government and its tyrannical regional allies.
A UK agency ruled against
placing
license plate recognition cameras on all roads leading to the town of
Royston.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
However, there is no sign of any plan to limit the network that tracks car travel around the UK.
The Tea Party is being split between grassroots that support home solar power and the business-funded part that obeys the Koch brothers.
A former aide to Senator Wyden rebukes Obama for thwarting an open debate about massive surveillance in Congress for so long.
Finally, the US government opposes a merger between giant companies.
All such mergers should be blocked as standard practice.
Obama set up a web site and promised to respond to petitions, but
he ignores
some of the sharpest ones.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
"Bee-friendly" plants for sale in major US chain stores contain neonicotinoid pesticides.
The Koch-funded Franklin Center generates right-wing "journalism" so newspapers don't need to employ reporters any more.
More details of the Hungarian government's policies that undermine democracy.
Several state governments subsidize ALEC.
Guatemala may face trade sanctions if it does not end the murders of union organizers.
Some of these murders are connected to Coca Cola Company, which is part of the motive for the world-wide boycott of that company.
Why it would be impossible, pointless and misguided to charge Nidal Hasan with "terrorism".
Corporate greed, refusing to allow food workers paid days off,
spreads
illness to their customers.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
But hey, the plutocrats have their own cooks.
When Argentine prosecutors charged Iranian officials for the bombing of a Jewish institution, the only link connecting them to it came from the armed opposition (and sometime terrorist) group Mujahedin-E Khalq.
This is not a reliable enough basis to accuse anyone.
See previous notes for how the MEK got itself removed from the US list of "terrorist" groups.
Egyptian suppression forces attacked the Morsi supporters' protest camps, killing dozens of them.
300 protesters had been killed in previous attacks.
A British cameraman was shot dead as he covered the attack.
Assuming he was shot by the suppression forces, that shows they were shooting at people who were offering them no violence.
The coup has a lot of popular support, but that doesn't justify repressing the people who oppose it.
Algorithms trained from data can encode prejudice in a form that is hard to spot.
The hypothetical "grand solar minimum", even if it happens, would probably cool the Earth far less than we have already heated it up.
EU citizens: sign the
initiative for an unconditional basic income.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Australia plans a nuclear waste dump in aboriginal territory without the consent of the aboriginal people that live there.
US citizens: call for increasing social security benefits and remove the cap on social security tax for the rich.
US citizens: call on elected officials not to let the NSA open its new Utah data center.
The NSA already stores too much data about all of us; if storage limitations force it to be selective, that will crimp its excesses. Obviously, this is not a full or elegant solution, but it is a step forward.
Part of Australia plans to let mines pollute as much as they like at any given time, as long as the yearly average stays under a certain level.
A Bangladeshi human rights leader has been arrested for "fabricating information" about atrocities by government suppression forces.
It's normal thug behavior to lie and cover up their brutality. Thus, if a government is minded to arrest the people who reported it, it can easily find witnesses to testilie that they must have "fabricated" the reports.
Obama's announced
review of surveillance, in response to Snowden's revelations,
validates Snowden as a whistleblower.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Those who betrayed the US are its leaders who have ignored their oath to defend the Constitution.
US citizens: phone the Department of the Interior to object to the plan to allow mining of millions of tons of publicly-owned coal.
Laura Poitras, Glenn Greenwald and Edward Snowden talk about how their cooperation started and how it proceeded.
Israel's cabinet spat on peace negotiations by voting to expand its colonies in Palestinian territory.
Islamists in Banghazi have killed three journalists in the last four days.
The Moral
Imperative of Activism.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The WiFi-tracking trash cans have been deinstalled from a part of London.
However, the phone company continues tracking phones and recording their movements.
LA thugs arrested a photographer for "interfering" with them by photographing them from 90 feet away (30 meters).
This is typical thug behavior, documented dozens of times in earlier political notes.
The British Library's filtering software blocked access to the text of Hamlet, calling it "violent content".
It is insulting to refer to Shakespeare's plays, or any works of authorship, as "content". Please join me in rejecting that term.
Calling Hamlet "violent", however, is accurate, and the example shows why blocking access to violent works (or any works) is wrong.
The Obama regime and congressional leaders kept most members of Congress in the dark about massive surveillance when they had to vote on it.
Holder plans to stop charging "low-level drug offenders" with crimes that require a prison sentence.
It is a small step towards what must be done: ending the War on Drugs.
The groundwater near the Fukushima plants has so much strontium-90 that drinking it for a year would surely give a person cancer. When it gets into the ocean, it accumulates in algae and in fish, so the marine life in that region will be contaminated for a long time.
It would be interesting to see a comparison between the quantities of strontium-90 leaking from the Fukushima plants today and the amount released by above ground nuclear weapons tests in the 50s and early 60s.
John Grisham, whose books are banned in Guantanamo, writes about an innocent prisoner who may finally be freed — and sent to a country where he knows nobody.
The Australian government is taking many aboriginal children away from their parents because of problems that are caused by poverty. Meanwhile, it cuts the assistance that would help aboriginal families cope.
At one point during 2012, 13,299 aboriginal children had been removed from their families.
These statistics say that about 2/3 are placed with relatives or indigenous people, but it is still a large rate of taking children away.
Turkish journalists were sentenced to long prison terms for supposed participation in a conspiracy for a military coup.
It is not implausible, a priori, that Turkish generals were planning a coup. Turkey has seen such coups before. To claim journalists were involved in the conspiracy makes it implausible.
Zimbabwe women report interference with their voting, and threats.
There is no scientific reason for killing whales — the same information can be obtained through methods that don't hurt them.
The
Surveillance State, You, and the Time Traveling Detectives.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Murdoch is ordering journalists working for News Corp's Australian to bias their writing against the Labor government.
Universities snoop more and more on students, making a data base of data such as what web searches they do, their driving habits, whether they miss meetings, as well as how they use the library.
I think libraries should ensure that people's borrowing habits are not recorded in any permanent data base.
US Drones
on Yemen: 'al Qaeda's Public Relations Officer'.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Why the World Bank Shies Away From Energy Efficiency.
The US does not recognize that use of toxic Agent Orange was a war
crime, and offers
no
compensation to millions of Vietnamese who were affected.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The President of Purdue University, when previously Governor of Indiana, tried to ban Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the US" from schools in that state.
A new method for attacking dissident US journalists: send them a "leak" which is really "child" pornography, and get them imprisoned when they look.
To criminalize possession of any kind of digital material is an injustice, and endangers all other human rights.
German justice minister proposes ban for US firms that don't abide privacy laws.
Meanwhile, the German spy agency (BND) is passing metadata on to the NSA.
Teachers in the UK's deregulated "academy" schools report pressure from their managers to inflate grades.
This is a natural consequence of "grading" schools by the average grades of students.
Thanks to fracking, the town of Barnhart, Texas, ran out of water.
Fracking adds to many other forms of overuse, which are running headlong into reduced rainfall caused by global heating.
During 2012, CIA repeatedly followed one drone attack with a second drone attack, targeting rescuers looking for wounded from the first attack. This tactic is a war crime.
It was used by Iraqi resistance fighters; maybe the US learned it from them.
Recommending computing practices that partially resist surveillance is not enough to count as a solution to the surveillance problem. We need to make privacy safe for ordinary users.
US Could Exploit Trade Deal to Expand Spying.
The "trade" deal in question, which is more about giving business more power than about trade in the usual sense, is TAFTA: Turn All Freedom To Ashes.
Angola's principal investigative reporter, Rafael Marques de Morais, faces criminal charges for reporting on blood diamonds.
The government of Ethiopia is systematically kicking certain ethnic groups off their land, forcing them to settle in villages were they have no life, no farms and no future, in order to sell their land to foreign plantations.
When they object, they are tortured. Ethiopia's government has a close relationship with the US, and invaded Somalia for the US a few years ago.
I don't think the victims of this violence have any obligation to refrain from responding with violence.
Meanwhile, Nigeria plans to evict tens of thousands of people from urban areas, destroying their homes, for "redevelopment".
One of the causes of land conflicts like these is world population growth. Offering gratis contraception and abortion to all women will help to avoid some future conflicts.
Political prisoners in Iran remain a political influence.
"Ninja journalists" cover what Brazil's concentrated mainstream media ignore.
Torrent trackers should stop tracking their users.
The same applies to network services in general, I think.
Why did the Obama regime ask its Wikileaks mole to investigate Guardian reporter James Ball?
He asks this question because it seems to illustrate a policy that threatens journalists in general.
Despite a big increase in drone attacks in Yemen, the local al-Qa'ida organization seems to be getting stronger.
This is not surprising, because a guerrilla organization's strength is typically limited by its ability to recruit.
Undercover
thugs infiltrated
a tar sands resistance camp and sabotaged a civil disobedience
action.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The mainstream media present ex-officials such as Michael Hayden as trustworthy authorities, burying the fact that they misled us before and have commercial interests in distorting issues now.
A judge ruled that the New York Thug Department is practicing racial discrimination when it searches people on the street based on no evidence.
I think the question of discrimination is a side issue. Whether they search you because they don't like your skin color, or because they don't like your face, it is equally wrong.
On Friday, the President Treated Us Like Five-Year-Olds.
Liepman's claim, that the government is only listening to terrorists, is now known to be false. And it's not only drug dealers, either. Recall that "terrorist", for the US government, includes dissidents and whistleblowers.
In the US: call on textbook publishers to publish real science and resist the Texas Taliban.
Banksters paid a pittance to settle the US lawsuit over the homes that they foreclosed fraudulently. Now homeowners are suing, and we can see that they stole trillions of dollars.
Masha Gessen, her girlfriend and their children will flee Russia because the state will take away children from gay couples.
US citizens: oppose Rep. Issa's plan
to attack
the US Postal Service.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
What was it that Lavabit was ordered to do, such that it shut down instead?
World energy investment is projected to focus mainly on unconventional oil and gas, that makes more CO2 per energy delivered than ordinary oil.
A Republican admits that the rash of unsatisfiable "safety
regulations" being placed on abortion providers
is meant to
make them impossible.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: sign this petition to close the Guantanamo prison instead of US embassies.
Instead of fracking, make biogas from wastes.
US citizens: Call for a ban on neonicotinoid pesticides.
The patriarchy says, 'no' means 'yes', and they can ruin people's lives.
Others endorsed the opposite falsehood, claiming that 'yes' means 'no', and this too can ruin people's lives.
What part of 'yes', or 'no', don't they understand?
An ISP's "piracy" filter blocks access to the political site torrentfreak.com as well.
Please don't refer to sharing as "piracy" — that is enemy propaganda. Please call it "sharing". The only case where it's proper to use the word "pirate" in this context is in the name "Pirate Party".
US citizens: call on the Fish and Wildlife Service to choose advisors about protection of wolves based on their expertise, and not reject them because they objected to previous distortion of their views.
Christian theocrats are accusing Planned Parenthood of medicaid fraud. Planned Parenthood says it isn't true, but defending the cases is so expensive that it has to settle instead.
Trash cans in London track all WiFi-enabled devices as they pass by.
They do not track my laptop, as its WiFi device is normally turned off.
Bahrain has, in effect, exiled Maryam Al-Khawaja, by putting her on a "no fly" list.
Her father has been sentenced to life in prison there for protesting.
Saudi Arabia Continues to Fight Human Rights Organizations.
Jordan is imposing crushing censorship on the press.
This is part of a regional attack on dissidents.
Everyone: call on Miami to hold the killers of Israel Hernandez accountable.
Dr Sanjay Gupta, a prominent opponent of marijuana, calls for legalization of medical marijuana, because the US banned it without scientific evidence.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to support the Frack Pack bills to regulate fracking to protect air and water. Also send a message through this page.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Everyone: thank Edward Snowden.
Watch out for the tendency to define sadness as a medical condition.
Israel made a drone attack in Egypt, with private permission from Egypt's military.
It is not inherently wrong for Israel to help Egypt against rebels, if that's what they are and Egypt is fighting them militarily. Nonetheless, for Egypt to get this help from Israel seems like asking for trouble, and we can't take Israel's word about who was targeted or who was actually hit.
A large
movement in Greece reconnects people to electricity whose electric
accounts have been shut off.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
In ordinary circumstances I would not support this. However, a government of occupation such as the one that rules Greece, a government that is putting undesirables in concentration camps is not entitled to criticize any form of resistance, as long as it doesn't attack ordinary people.
The head of the NSA told us to
"get the
facts" instead of criticizing massive surveillance.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Since it is only through Snowden that we get any facts about this, Obama should pardon him and thank him.
The tiny railroad company that caused the Lac Megantic disaster is bankrupt; its insurance will not cover the damages.
This company is a piece of a business empire structured as many corporations with small assets. The apparent purpose of this structure is to save the empire as a whole from paying the damages for accidents such as this. It limits the liability to one small piece, which can go bankrupt in order to spare the empire as a whole. That this leaves the victims screwed is of no importance to the callous rich.
It resembles the strategy used by Peabody Energy which spun off a subsidiary containing its retired workers' pension obligations, so it would go bankrupt and screw those former workers.
This practice is lawful due to politicians and parties that have sold out to business. If they represented the people instead of the plutocrats, they would have adopted laws that hold the entire empire liable.
Why not accuse Dubya of "aiding al Qa'ida"?
The damaged Fukushima reactors are leaking radioactive material into the Pacific Ocean, and probably have contaminated the aquifer under the site.
The contaminated aquifer could contaminate plant life there for centuries.
A Tibetan musician was imprisoned merely for calling on Tibetans to be united and learn and speak Tibetan.
Pirate Party Reports IT Minister to the Police for Copyright Infringement.
A Jobs Plan Only Big Business Could Love.
Amerindians in Canada pressured a store to stop selling hair ornaments which "make a mockery of their culture."
It looks like this is not real mockery, just a resemblance that they feel they are entitled to own.
No one has a right to own a style of ornamentation, and these people should get used to that. There is no point fighting to continue the sale accessories that offend someone — they are not important enough. But on principle that would be right.
Senator Feinstein, militantly pro-surveillance, wants to narrow further a press-shield bill that is already ridiculously weak.
Quantifying how wildfires in the West have increased, and how they are projected to increase in coming decades.
This projection is not a certainty. What really happens could be less, or more.
Vietnam: Reporter Who Investigates Corruption Arrested for "Corruption".
US cities including New York are starting municipal composting programs.
The TSA is the Obama regime's scheme to impose random searches on Americans everywhere they go.
Minimum-wage employers are now the biggest employers in the US, and courageous workers are starting to go on strike.
The US need jobs more than it needs "efficiency". If companies use threats of automation as a lever to keep wages down, I suggest banning the automation that they would use. Why not ban automatic check-out machines in all stores?
Although Pope Francis shows concern for the poor, he still supports cruel Catholic dogma.
How I Exposed an Undercover Cop.
Journalists and activists are murdered with impunity in the Philippines.
China and India plan over 400 hydroelectric dams for the Himalayan region, and these are likely to cause big environmental problems.
Wyden: Obama's NSA Proposals Are Nice, But They Don't Go Far Enough.
150 human rights
organizations call
on Obama to stop prosecuting Snowden.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Some of these organizations' activities are explained in Cory Doctorow's article.
The US has sued Bank of America for tricking clients into buying bad investments.
Why no prosecution?
How did Shell get the Irish thugs to attack protesters? A company reportedly delivered around 50,000 dollars worth of whiskey to the thugs, as one among many other favors.
James Risen is ready to go to jail to protect his sources, but if the US is to reclaim democracy, it must ensure no reporter must do so.
Thousands Demand GMO Corporations 'Quit India'.
US forfeiture presented as an instance of systematic entrepreneurial corruption, as found in Russia and Iraq.
Jimmy Carter praised Snowden and said the US does not have a functioning democracy. US media ignored Carter's the speech, which goes against the official party line.
US citizens:
call
for ratification of the Agreement on the Conservation of
Albatrosses and Petrels.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: call on Obama to require government contractors to pay a living wage.
Obama's plans for "reforming" the government housing loan entities, "Freddie Mac" and "Fannie Mae", could lead to a repeat the mortgage bubble.
I think we should ban mortgage-backed securities and require each mortgage to remain in the hands of one sole bank — so that bank can give the homeowner an adjustment when it's called for.
Defense Attorneys Plan to Fight NSA Evidence in Drug Cases.
The NSA collects Americans' communications in a very loose way
by saying that
someone
else is the "target".
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The second in charge of the CIA listed the "security threats" that the US faces, and none of them is much of a threat. So why not have a smaller military?
The principal real threats to the well-being of Americans are plutocracy and global heating. A large army can't tax the megacorps' offshored profits or hold back the rising sea. But it can feed our money to the military-industrial complex, and start wars.
Glenn Greenwald comments on the shutdown of Lavabit.
I think the Obama regime will rue the day it did this. I cheer the courage of Lavabit's owner, who has dealt tyranny a great blow.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and say, support Rush Holt's repeal of the PAT RIOT Act.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
US citizens: call on the FDA to prohibit labeling GMOs as "natural".
US citizens: call on Obama to oppose Israel's plan to destroy Bedouin villages and to call on Israel to respect nonviolent protest.
US citizens:
call
on the judge to reject letting Halliburton off with a tiny fine
for its deadly practices.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens:
Call
on Congress to investigate the DEA's dishonest use of NSA
materials.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens:
call
on Obama not to allow fracking on public lands.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The effects of global heating are already making US electric plants shut down because they can't get enough water. And it will get worse.
Student Loan Law Raises College Costs, Sanders Says.
Lavabit's
Brave Stand (and Snowden's statement about it).
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
There is a big fuss because Oprah Winfrey asked to see a $42,000 handbag in a store in Zurich and was told, "That is too expensive for you." Was this prejudice because of her skin color, or because of her body size?
Whichever it was, the store employee was nasty — but before we get too indignant about the unfairness of receiving an insult when considering buying a bag that costs more than a working-class American makes in a year, let's consider a more important ethical question: should rich people, regardless of skin color or body size, pay more money in taxes? Should some of their gains be spent on education, health care, and renewable energy — rather than $42,000 handbags?
The fisherman of Fukushima still cannot fish, because radioactive material in water leaking into the sea pushes the local fish above the standard limit.
The email service Lavabit has shut down rather than spy on its users.
Since the management of Lavabit would like to tell us what happened, and the US government wants to keep us in the dark, justice requires us to presume the worst about the US government.
Miami thugs killed a prized graffiti artist because he ran away when they tried to arrest him for painting graffiti.
The family won't get any truth from the thugs. They will tell the story that serves their purpose.
Tasers kill quite a few people.
Every time you use one, you should realize, "This might kill."
ALEC and the Heatland Institute continue their funded campaign to falsify climate science and keep us on track to disaster.
ALEC continues to oppose gun control despite saying it would cease.
Richard Dawkins tweeted to criticize Islam because there are not very many Muslim Nobelists.
I don't think his point is cogent. Most have neither the talent nor the interest in doing the sort of work that might win a Nobel prize. If Islam diminishes one's chances of winning a Nobel prize, which has not been proven, that would at worst be marginally unfortunate, not wrong.
What is really wrong about Islam is its disrespect for human rights. For instance, its ban on conversion away from Islam. In general, Muslim countries prohibit this and punish those who try — in some places, with execution.
Fresh leaks say that major UK telecom companies have actively developed spy software for GCHQ.
A legal campaign has been launched against UK telecom that cooperate with GCHQ surveillance.
A lawsuit was launched against Dubya's illegal warrantless wiretapping, but Congress passed the FISA Amendments Act which made it legal.
Now there are plans to try to reverse that.
Prosecutor Heymann compared Aaron Swartz to a rapist, condemning him for dragging MIT through the ordeal of appearing in court by not making a plea bargain.
DC activists have identified an undercover thug infiltrator who arranged for other thugs to sabotage nonviolent protests.
These protests were aimed at pressuring retailers to support safer working conditions in Bangladesh. In other words, aimed at retailers that put people's lives at risk. Why would the thugs help them? Thugs have a general practice of helping the rich (including these companies) against the non-rich.
Cory Doctorow refutes the damaging myth that defenders of computing freedom are naive and foolish cyber-utopians.
One reason the US experiences so many leaks is that it is too quick to stamp things "secret".
On the distinction between real secrets and public secrets.
Manning
and Snowden revealed the latter kind.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Broad U.S. Terror Alert Is "Crazy Pants".
A judge was bribed by a privatized juvenile prison to sentence lots of kids there. He has been sentenced to a long prison term.
That is justice, in the small; but the privatized prison system will lead to such crimes over and over until we put an end to it.
Atherton, California, seems to be doing racial profiling when it stops drivers: 95% of the drivers stopped by its thugs have Hispanic names. And there are other irregularities too.
In the US: call on NBC to stop rejecting anti-Keystone XL ads.
15 Things Everyone [in the US] Would Know If There Were a Liberal Media.
Mothers face widespread workplace discrimination even when they do good work.
A Russian TV journalist who defiantly broadcast sober criticism of
Putin
is threatened
with charges of "hooliganism".
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
I Do Not Want My Daughter to Be "Nice".
The UK border thugs sometimes copy all the data from people's phones and computers, just like the US border thugs, but in the UK they also threaten to imprison people for not handing over their passwords.
Many elevator Door Close buttons are dummies. (I have sometimes suspected that it was a dummy in a particular elevator.)
So are thermostats in many offices. But that would not convince me I don't feel hot — I know that from empirical evidence, and I have a thermometer to test my personal sensations against.
A giant sinkhole 24 acres in area has swallowed part of Bayou Corne, and the toxic fumes make the rest of the town uninhabitable.
US citizens: call
for abortion coverage for peace corps workers in cases of rape or
medical necessity.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
This is not enough, of course. Every woman should be able to get an early-term abortion at no cost.
British Columbia has a carbon tax, and gives the money to people with low incomes.
Thus, the poor are not shafted by the tax, but they do feel pressure to conserve, just as everyone else does.
This is the sensible way to use the market to push society away from burning fossil fuels.
Our carbon emissions are gradually locking in substantial future rises in sea level that will eventually inundate large parts of many coastal cities.
This gives a new meaning to the concept of an "underwater mortgage".
Businesses may one day demand to monitor employees' medical readings all the time. ("Big data" means "massive surveillance".)
Of course, this monitoring will be "optional", except for people who would mind being unemployed.
We should prohibit the practice before it gets started, because limiting mass surveillance is more important than any other pertinent goals.
Obama postponed (probably cancelled) a summit meeting with Putin because negotiations on many issues have stalled.
Obama took advantage of this to smear Snowden again.
John Kiriakou: Obama's Abuse of the Espionage Act is Modern-Day McCarthyism.
Legal action against zero-hours contracts that leave workers in a totally precarious situation.
Forfeiture at work: Rochelle Bing has struggled for 4 years to prevent thugs from seizing her house on the grounds that her son sold drugs there.
The supposed reason for this is to terrorize the head of every family exercise an impossible level of strict control over the rest. Perhaps a middle-class housewife can watch everything that people do in her house, though teenagers will tend to resist that. However, no working person could possibly do this.
That is purely theoretical. The real reason is that the thug department wants money, and will take it on any available pretext from anyone who is vulnerable.
Seizing property is a punishment, and calling it something else is merely a legal lie. Under the US constitution, a punishment should only follow due process of law: conviction of a crime.
As for the thugs and the money they thirst for, if we legalize regulated sale of drugs, we could get along with a lot fewer thugs. Not only the victimless drug crimes, but the robberies fueled by drug habits, would disappear.
The article tangentially touches on another grave danger: it is a bad thing for anyone to have 18 grandchildren. We need to prevent that from happening in the future, but seizing houses from grandparents is not going to help.
ALEC is about to privately present its agenda for the coming year: many possible attacks on democracy.
Egypt's military maybe-ruler is associating himself with the memory of Nasser, a military dictator.
Governments are using Interpol to find and harass dissidents in exile.
Journalists in Russia who criticize mistreatment of people in connection with the coming Olympic games face repression.
Uganda has passed a law requiring all protests to get permission from the thugs.
It is not quite as nasty than Bahrain, but it's on the way.
Everyone: support freedom of movement for Palestinian journalists.
Richmond, California, is seizing houses from banks using eminent domain so that the occupants can keep living in them.
Tony Bennett's scheme of "grading" public schools systematically hands out good grades to schools with prosperous students, and bad grades to schools with students from poor families.
Then the "failing" schools (those whose students are poor) get privatized.
I suppose the privatizers don't care which schools they privatize, but the wealthier families could resist harder, so this scheme lets them do it to the families that can't resist.
US citizens:
urge
the EPA to set stricter standards for toxic pollution from
automobiles.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: call for raising the minimum wage to $10.50 an hour.
Five
Absurdities about High-Stakes Standardized Tests.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
What the US government must do to restore our trust.
Bezos Buys the Post, Pulled Plug on WikiLeaks in 2010.
New Hampshire thugs described protest groups as "terrorists" to apply for funds to buy an armored vehicle, with which to attack protests.
This is happening across the country, and the federal program that offers money to thugs to buy these armored cars (and other heavy weapons) is primarily to blame. Once the thugs in a town set up a SWAT team, they want to use it, so they set up criteria for when to use it. That results in fatalities because sometimes grandpa gets a heart attack when the house is attacked by a SWAT team.
Any city with less than five incidents per year for which a SWAT team is really needed should borrow one from a bigger city on those rare occasions.
Botnet operators takes advantage of the witch-hunt against "child pornography" to frighten users about getting their PCs disinfected.
This is yet another reason why the ban on possessing "child pornography" must be eliminated, to add to all the other reasons.
I put that expression in quotation marks because, in the US, it includes selfies made by teenagers for sexting.
Bahrain has banned all protests. The repression of the government of Bahrain is supported by the US and US allies sent forces to impose the crackdown.
The cyber-attack against Tor users may be due to some other agency rather than the NSA.
The corporate/state surveillance partnership explains why the state can get so much information about nearly everyone.
It is a shame that the article starts with defeatist statements: "We all carry mobile phones", "We notify Facebook". Not everyone does these things: some of us refuse, as resistance to surveillance. It is not impossible.
The measures proposed in the article are not enough. If data is collected, it will be misused. We must force companies to redesign systems so that they don't keep much data about anyone, except when a court order requires them to keep data about someone in particular.
Another aspect of the corporate/state surveillance
partnership permits
corporate misuse of the data that is collected for the state.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The More Nefarious US Foreign Policy, The More It Relies on Media Complicity.
The coup-installed "business-friendly" government in Honduras seems to encourage the murder of indigenous leaders who oppose dams in their land.
Egypt's government threatens to attack the Morsi supporters by Sunday.
The one firefighter who was not killed along with the rest of his group, because he was doing a job elsewhere at the time, reports feeling guilt that he was not with them, and is looking for some sort of "reason" why he survived.
This is a common pattern of irrationality among those who have the good fortune to escape a calamity. There was probably no "reason", only chance; and he has nothing to feel guilty about. If he had been there with them, he'd be dead too. One survivor is better than none.
The UK provides great subsidies for fossil fuel use but much less for renewable energy.
The US has the same harmful policy. I suppose that in both cases it is because the fossil fuel companies have purchased more political power than the renewable energy companies. In other words, it's a reflection of the fact that we have democracy in form, but plutocracy in substance.
A campaign calls for a boycott of the 2014 Olympics because of its repression of gays.
I think repression of political opposition ought to be cited also.
Congressman Lewis, who has long experience in civil disobedience, praised Snowden for it and compared today's surveillance with the surveillance of civil rights leaders such as Lewis himself.
While Russia protects an American hero from extradition, the US protects violent criminals from extradition.
This does not excuse Putin's repression of dissent, of course, but that's a separate issue.
Bruce Schneier, if head of the NSA, would ask if each surveillance program does enough good to the country to justify it.
That might be a good criterion if exercised by someone conscientious, but it would be too easily stretched, so adopting it would not fix the problem.
Meanwhile, I think it is not sufficient to stop the bulk collection of databases, and the bulk searching of massive databases (as in XKeyscore). We need to prevent these massive dossiers from existing about Americans except when probable cause has been shown to investigate someone.
NSA spying has torpedoed the US Internet freedom agenda.
I, like the author, support that agenda, but Snowden's revelations show we need to apply it to the US as well.
The Bank of England says it will keep interest rates low until 750,000 more jobs are created.
That would be good, if low interests rates created jobs. There was a time when that was to be expected, but I don't think that's the case any more.
Thus, all the plutocrats need to do, to continue to borrow cheaply, is to avoid creating jobs in the UK.
A fair number of teenagers use ask.fm to invite people to insult them. A few of them eventually kill themselves.
It seems to me that the site provided them with a way to nerve themselves to suicide, or (only slightly different) stimulated a latent fatal flaw. In other words, the site wasn't the cause of the problem; the problem came first.
To ban the site would be futile, and unfair to millions of others. Small tweaks in the site might reduce the frequency of making people feel miserable, but I doubt it, simply because that possibility always exists when people interact and want to be popular.
If we understood the reason why teenagers feel inclined to do this, maybe we could see a way to turn them away from death. My uneducated guess is that it will be something about their family life.
10 Ways to Reduce the Threat of Terrorist Attacks on Americans.
US political
parties offer
TV networks "partnerships" of a sort that is essentially
corrupting.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Peru's government has apparently discharged ministers that supported indigenous people's opposition to oil mining on their land.
Dishonest campaigns oppose wind and solar electricity plants in Australia.
"Forfeiture", the practice of confiscating people's property without first convicting them of a crime, has reached the point where some US thug departments threaten bogus charges against people passing through simply in order to take their cash.
Isn't it sad how Ms Boatright still thinks of the thugs as "heroes" despite experiencing their ingrained corruption first hand?
US insurance companies are mostly not facing what the effects of global heating will do to their businesses.
This is an important issue, because if they wake up to it, they will pressure governments to do something.
For Palestinian boys, throwing or shooting stones at Israeli cars and even tanks is socially obligatory as a symbol of resistance.
Throwing stones harms the Palestinian cause, because it makes the Palestinians look bad. However, we have to compare it with Israeli teargas canisters and rubber-coated steel bullets. All these weapons occasionally kill someone, but not often.
Palestinians protested in Jerusalem against the plan to evict Bedouin from their towns, and the army attacked them.
The Israeli intelligence agency is interrogating political activists to intimidate them.
Why Arabs rejected Zionism, and how that affects the issue of peace today.
In the US
plutocrats' war against the rest of the US population, Detroit Is
the Front Line.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The banksters whose LIBOR lies pushed Detroit into bankruptcy will now get priority over pensioners for the city's money.
The argument offered for this policy is, essentially, a statement that banks hold our country hostage. We need to destroy the bankster regime, regardless of the short-term damage — because letting them continue to bleed us will be worse in the long run.
Removing the safe harbor provisions for commenting on the Internet would be a disaster even bigger than SOPA.
In the US: call on WGBH to remove David Koch from its advisory board.
The NSA is feeding its surveillance data to the War on Drugs and over criminal investigations that have nothing to do with "terrorism".
This makes trials unfair.
Just a few days ago the government was trying to describe this practice in a way that understates the extent of it.
Surveillance blimps now stationed over Washington DC can be used to monitor armed attack — and to monitor cars and maybe even people.
There's lots of wind power capacity in the prairie. We just need to upgrade the electrical grid to transport the electricity to its users from the prairie.
Electric storage facilities are needed too.
Welcome to
Post-Constitution
America.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Refuting
three false arguments for lowering the tax rate on US
corporations.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
However, maintaining the tax rate is not enough. We need to block the tricks that they use to shift the profits out of taxation.
The official who organized the use of Guantanamo prison now says it was
fundamentally
wrong.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Transgender people in Greece are being systematically imprisoned without criminal charges, along with homeless people, prostitutes, immigrants and people infected with HIV.
Who will be next?
Uri Avnery addresses what will need to be done to remove various groups of Israeli colonists from expropriated West Bank land.
On the same day as the "1984 day" protests, the US closed several embassies and consulates in response to a high volume of "chatter". In other words, nothing specific.
No terrorist act has been reported, but they can always say they prevented one.
The US government has been caught using "terror alerts" for political purposes before.
The murder of an Afghan woman because she was accused of having an affair demonstrates the cruel misogyny that typically accompanies Islam.
The official, Sharaf, said that she should instead have been put on trial. That reflects the fact that Islamic law is guilty of cruel misogyny.
Christianity used to carry similar misogyny, and for US theocratic Christians it still does so to some extent.
Uganda is passing a law that would allow thugs to ban any demonstration.
An American journalist who filmed Ugandan thugs attacked an unplanned opposition rally was deported, after being accused of committing journalism without a work permit.
The US also has the unjust policy of prohibiting foreign journalists unless they get special visas. Shame on the US!
Hot, dry weather in Alaska is killing salmon and trout.
In 40 years, normal conditions in Alaska will be hot by today's standards.
The US government sabotaged Tor by means of malicious Javascript code.
Fingers point at the NSA.
Here's an explanation of the attack method. It seems that they attacked certain Tor nodes, and every user who (by chance) was routed to those nodes was attacked.
I've been told that the malicious Javascript was not introduced into Tor routing nodes, but rather into some .onion web sites hosted by the same company.
Amnesty International calls on Cuba to free political prisoners who have been convicted of "dangerousness".
I agree, but Cuba is not the only country to imprison people because the state thinks they might commit a crime in the future. The UK does the same thing.
Where Do "Good" Software Practices Fit Into News Applications?
In Sri Lanka, the army attacked journalists who were covering environmental protests.
US citizens:
tell
Congress to pass the Save America's Pollinators Act.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
President Rouhani says he wants direct talks with the US and would like to make a deal.
A government-supported campaign to improve access to contraception has reduced Bangladesh's birth rate to roughly the replacement level.
The US should fund such campaigns in all countries with rapidly growing populations, including the US itself.
The prejudice against prostitutes becomes visible when they are murdered, and again when the murder is not investigated much.
I am convinced that much of the pressure to crush prostitution, whether it be punishing prostitutes, closing brothels, or punishing customers, reflects the stigma against prostitutes. The claims that this is mean to "protect" them are hypocrisy.
In 2010, Thai soldiers shot unarmed protesters who had taken refuge in a temple.
The NSA director is trying to distract Americans with speculation about what some supporters of Snowden might do if the US caught him.
He hopes we will worry about this rather than about the NSA's cyber attacks against all of us.
When Obama cited Amazon as the source of jobs in the US, he is saying that he wants Americans to have lousy precarious part-time jobs with no benefits.
Here's why you should not buy from Amazon.
Poor people in Greece face hunger as food bank organizations close for a holiday in August and their volunteers are near burnout.
Global heating is pushing marine species towards the poles at around 4 miles a year.
It will get a lot faster in a few decades.
Since the poles are warming fastest, species that are now too hot at polar latitudes, such as polar bear and harp seals and penguins soon won't have any place to go.
Mining figures show that fracking in the US has not resulted in any decrease in CO2 emission.
President Obama's Disastrous Counterterrorism Legacy.
Everyone: call on US colleges to treat rape as a serious offense.
US citizens: phone your congresscritters
to support
the EPA'a authority to act to curb global heating. Also sign this
petition.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The Spanish government's response to public condemnation is to harass Gibraltar. I hope the people of Spain are wise enough to see through this and refuse to be distracted from the corruption of the right-wing ruling party.
The sequester cuts will result in a significant reduction in US military forces.
The US military is so much bigger than all its rivals that even after these cuts it would remain the most powerful in the world.
These cuts are very desirable. We should restore funds in areas that do real good for Americans.
In the US, call on Safeway, Starbucks and Target to stop funding the opposition to GMO labeling initiatives.
Everyone: call on Google to let Google Fiber customers run personal servers.
In the US: call on US stores to stop selling neonicotinoid pesticides.
US citizens: call on Obama not to allow oil drilling in the Arctic Ocean.
US citizens: call on the Secretary of the Interior to give priority
to strict
safety regulations for undersea oil drilling.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The UK government has ordered local planning authorities not to consider using renewable energy instead of fracking.
The claim that there is something good about fracking is based on a dishonest comparison with coal. But even if an honest comparison found that fracked gas was a little better, it is irrelevant to compare them, because fracking has not reduced the amount of coal that is being extracted and burnt.
Thus, this policy is based on pure dishonesty, and I suspect someone has been influenced by gas company money.
The decline in Arctic sea ice, even in the winter, is killing baby harp seals.
As neonicotinoid pesticides enter the soil and rivers, we have no idea what species they are killing off.
The danger of a giant methane release from the Arctic should not be dismissed.
The London thug department has apologized for killing Ian Tomlinson.
A vat-grown hamburger is a first step towards producing meat without animals.
Tunisia is plagued by attacks by Islamist fanatics, which secularists
accuse the government
of failing to fight against.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
8 fields in which privatization in the US has done harm.
The Charitable-Industrial Complex: rich "philanthropists'" giving to charities means they stay silent as the "philanthropists'" businesses continue making things worse.
The East Japan Railway started selling weakly anonymized data from passengers' travel, which was tracked using transit passes that have the passenger's name.
If data is collected, it will be misused. The East Japan Railway, and all other transit systems, should keep no records of who travels where. They should make transit passes anonymous.
Nobel laureate Tawakul Karman was banned from Egypt because
she had
stated support for Morsi.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
A report found a slew of bad practices responsible for the killing of
Jimmy Mubenga when he was being deported
from the UK.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Privatization — the use of company employees to do things to prisoners — is surely the root cause.
Two thugs that stripped and chained a pregnant prisoner, keeping her shackled for half a day and causing her baby to be born prematurely, have been given a bad note, but not fired.
Members of Congress Denied Access to
Basic Information About
NSA.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
UK citizens: sign this petition against government Internet censorship.
US citizens:
call
on Congress to end the tax deductability of excessive pay to CEOs.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
JP Morgan Chase manipulated electricity prices in the same way as Enron did,but the penalty was a slap on the wrist.
The conviction of Bradley Manning under the Espionage Act suggests a
greater threat to Julian Assange
from the
Obama regime.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Human Rights Watch: the US should apply human rights law to end "perpetual war".
In other words, replace the "war on terrorism" with a "criminal investigation of terrorism".
The Obama regime plans to selectively declassify some documents about surveillance, to make it look better.
This will be a half truth that, as the saying goes, is worse than a lie.
Certain fungicides may be contributing to the death of honeybees.
Paul Lamb, who wants someone to be allowed to help him die, lost his appeal in the UK.
He is condemned to decades of boredom unless something fortuitously kills him.
Evgeny Morozov explains how Snowden's revelations upended the establishment political certitudes about the Internet.
He notes the danger in the "smart" products that will spy on you.
He is mistaken on one point. Gmail could not encrypt email in such a way that it could never read the email. If the encryption is done by Gmail, Gmail has already had a chance to see the non-encrypted message, and could send it to the NSA first.
Right-wing legislators have many ways of attacking abortion rights and women's health care, through pesky little regulations that cause considerable obstruction without being an absolute ban.
Congress is considering
various
proposals to limit surveillance.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Any of these would be an improvement, but none of them goes far enough to prevent the US from carrying out a total fishing expedition against anyone it can present suspicions about.
The UK government has quietly undermined plans for marine reserves, leaving wildlife in danger.
The FBI is forcing ISPs to install "port reader" software for total real-time surveillance.
Turkey's Lack of Democracy Is Storing up Problems.
The effects of massive consumption of sugar are showing up in a generation of obese children. And fruit juices have more sugar than sodas.
1700 Russian web sites protested against the Russian SOPA-like law.
Transcanada plans a pipeline to the Atlantic via Quebec to parallel the Keystone XL.
UK water and sewage companies are the biggest polluters of beaches. The fines are too low to do any good.
The Water Companies And the Foul Stench of Exploitation.
Uruguay's plan is to legalize sale of marijuana, but regulate it tightly.
Tsvangirai says the Zimbabwe election was rigged.
Since Mugabe rejected the usual international observers, there is every reason to believe this accusation.
It is easy to spy a considerable amount on most people's mobile phones. Anyone could do it.
Contrary to the article, there are ways to guard against this. For instance, don't enable WiFi in your computer except on rare occasions.
Even when whistleblowers are not convicted, the attack on them undermines press freedom in the US.
House Republicans passed a bill to eliminate most federal safety regulations; meanwhile, the Senate will hold a hearing into the harm caused by the obstruction of necessary regulations.
The House bill is mere propaganda for the right-wing bullshit that regulations are bad.
While the US government demands the extradition of Snowden, who has done the American people a heroic service, it refuses to extradite people accused of terrorism, murder, and fraud leading to economic collapse in other countries.
US mainstream media typically refer to unpopular pro-plutocrat views as the "center".
NBC misrepresents the collateral murder video.
Antibiotic resistance is spreading to another class of bacteria which could make common surgical operations likely to be fatal.
Two violent thieves dressed in thug uniforms turned out to be
real
thugs.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The US system for food aid is designed to aid US agribusiness more than the recipients of the aid.
EFF: MIT was not neutral in the Aaron Swartz case. It aided the prosecution.
Even more fundamentally, MIT never told the government that Swartz's use of MIT's network was not unauthorized.
That would have made the case disappear.
Google is attacking network neutrality by saying that ordinary subscribers of Google Fiber will be banned from running Freedom Box.
UK border thugs are accused of systematically accosting nonwhite persons at a London train station and ordering each to "show your papers".
The threats to citizens who asked what was going on is typical thug behavior.
A fracking company settled with a family sickened by contaminated water, imposing a lifetime gag on everyone in the family including the children.
The company now says that
the gag
order did not cover the children.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The CFAA has been used to punish Bradley Manning twice for the same act.
Past Republican administrators of the EPA demand action to curb global heating.
Their time in office was before the fossil fuel companies cracked the whip and required Republicans to deny the facts.
Steve Blank says
that Intel
and AMD processors are vulnerable to malicious microcode updates,
which could be sent by the NSA, by Intel, by Microsoft, or maybe by
someone else.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
When microcode can be changed, it counts as software installed in the computer. Then it needs to be free software.
The ACLU
points out that Edward Snowden qualifies as a whistleblower under
the definition in the Whistleblower Protection Act.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
That law does not protect people that work for the NSA, but this should still settle the question of whether Snowden is a whistleblower.
To understand the Bradley Manning case, look at why the Espionage Act was passed in the first place.
Although Michele Catalano was fingered due to local surveillance, the
US
government admits
it looks for such searches.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Migrant Workers and America's Harvest of Shame.
Senator Warren: It's Obscene That The Govt. Profits Off Student Loans.
When a government gives big handouts to the rich, then talks about "paying down the national debt" by squeezing students, it adds up to a government that's on the side of the plutocrats.
Paying off the national debt is a mistaken goal at present, because the way to end a recession is with deficit spending.
"What Does Idealism Get You Today? Abuse, Derision, Or Sometimes Prison."
But not in the free software movement. Here we campaign for real change, and we implement it too. It's only one area of life, true; but a good example in one area can get things started in others too.
The Afghan government has no idea what to do with child suicide bombers who failed to detonate their bombs.
US citizens:
call
on your state legislators to cut ties with ALEC.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
San Francisco will create a city-owned bank to reduce the risk and cost of using privately owned banks.
US citizens: call on Congress to limit NSA surveillance.
Just limiting the NSA's access is not enough, but it's a good first step.
The NSA has paid 150 million dollars to the UK surveillance agency GCHQ to ensure it remains a surveillance proxy.
Iranian conservatives say it is a waste of time talking with the US. Republicans are trying to prove them right.
I would expect that the Israeli hawks' lobby is behind this. They want the US and Iran to make war, not a nuclear agreement.
The environmental movement must teach people to question what aim all our work is directed at.
In other words, if we stop the plutocrats from taking most of what humanity makes, we could all live comfortably.
Tsvangirai says the election in Zimbabwe was rigged. Independent monitors seem to agree.
What else would one expect from Mugabe?
Oil drilling in Virunga national park could wipe out mountain gorillas directly, as it helps wipe out most other species on Earth.
Since we need to leave 80% of all fossil fuels in the ground, why not include these as part of the 80%.
If massive surveillance is used for profiling, most of suspects will be innocent. Here's a good example.
It is risky to let thugs search your house. Maybe you will luck out, as happened this time. But you should always consult a lawyer before you let them in, or answer questions for them.
The First Amendment's protection must be extended directly to whistleblowers, now that it has become impossible for journalists to protect their sources as was customary.
Deadliest
Month in 5 Years: Bloodshed Soars in War-Ravaged Iraq.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
In other words, the disaster that Bush's occupation visited on Iraq is not over. Since Bush used lies to start the war, the war itself was his crime, and he is personally responsible for every Iraqi who is killed. He ought to serve hundreds of thousands of consecutive life sentences.
The US security state has told so many lies, and half-truths, that
we cannot
trust any statement unless we can verify it. And with so much
secrecy, we can't verify anything. We can only judge who is
trustworthy and then trust him.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Here's a lexicon detailing the Orwellian US government practice of twisting everyday English words and making statements that mean one thing to us, while they claim it means the opposite to them.
This practice is deceptive. So I refuse to use these words with their Orwellian NSA meanings. I will insist on using them with their normal meanings and applying those normal meanings to the NSA's actions.
Obama and his men have lied and betrayed us many times, in many areas; but Snowden's statements, even when they seemed incredible, have turned out to be true. I don't trust Obama. I trust Snowden.
Snowden has been granted asylum in Russia.
I expect he is unhappy being stuck there, and would rather go to a country such as Venezuela which permits real political opposition, and has a real opposition press.
The foreclosure of 4 million homes in the US has devastated neighborhoods and entire towns. The banks do not bother to maintain the foreclosed homes, so they are looted and become valueless.
What's the point of foreclosing a house and letting it be destroyed? The only point I can imagine is sheer malice, a desire to make others suffer. The banks which have done this deserve to be destroyed themselves.
As for the people who carry out these evictions, it is a wonder that nobody takes personal revenge on them.
Anthony Weiner's wife and sexting partners aren't saints, sluts or victims.
UK telecom companies admit giving GCHQ access to tap their fiber optic cables.
The taps copy the full data, which the NSA can search via XKeyScore.
XKeyScore holds everyone's complete Internet data for the past few days. Messages or data considered "interesting" can be copied elsewhere for permanent storage.
This supports Snowden's claim that he could read anyone's email and demonstrates that, once again, our officials lied to us when they said he was lying.
Green Shadow Cabinet: The conviction of Bradley Manning for espionage
directly threatens
freedom of the press in the US, because the prosecution's argument
was that publishing (true) information is a crime because it makes the
US look bad.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
It is standard for tyrannical regimes to claim that exposing their flaws is disloyalty, as "grounds" to punish those who do it. Some of Dubya's followers argued that people who criticized Dubya's wars were supporting al Qa'ida. Obama has converted this notion into law.
When the US government calls on people to help it cover up crimes so as not to give opponents a way to make it look bad, we must respond, "You should have considered possible condemnation before you committed such acts." Then, as the Green Shadow Cabinet says, we must get the US to drop this practice.
But that's not enough. The US has an obligation to try the perpetrators of war crimes, starting with Dubya.
Green Shadow Cabinet: US funding for the Egyptian
military endangers
the prospects for democracy in Egypt.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Complexities of tying hot weather to violence.
In poor countries, misuse and abuse of pesticides lead to illness and even death.
Stock markets value fossil fuel companies as if all their reserves were going to be used some day.
This has been referred to as the "carbon bubble".
The bubble is sure to pop, but will it pop only after global heating disaster, or will we make it pop sooner? The sooner the better, because these companies use their wealth to paralyze governments and to cause negotiations about preventing disaster to fail.
US companies talk about the cost of adapting to global heating's effects, but say nothing about trying to prevent it.
Adaptation is a real possibility only in the early stages.
When thugs visited of couple suspecting them of terrorism, they said they were cued by general massive surveillance. It turns out they were lying — they were cued by local surveillance at the workplace.
I don't think this makes it much better, however, I think that it is scary people can be considered suspects just for looking for information about a topic.
The Chilean miners who survived being trapped in a mine have been blacklisted from working in mines any more. They are "too famous" — if they saw illegal dangerous practices, and reported them, the mine owners could not hush it up.
The article is mainly about the fact that the owners of the mine where they were trapped won't face charges. I don't know enough about the events, or Chilean law, to have an opinion about whether they were at fault.
Libya's government is unable to stop violence, and Tunisia could be following a few steps behind.
Focus on US
Government's Unlawful Behavior, Not Snowden.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
ALEC-sponsored bills aim to destroy state support for renewable energy.
117 ALEC-sponsored bills in US states attack workers' rights.
GMO companies have set up a web site to answer "virtually any question posed by consumers" — except whether the package of food you hold in your hand contains GMOs.
A study finds that hot weather increases violence.
Global heating is likely give people lots of substantial things to fight about. Now we see it is likely to make them start fighting, too.
Global heating is causing various causes of illness and death to spread.
Campaigners accuse the British GCHQ of selling its spying services to the US.
Berlusconi's conviction for tax fraud has been definitively upheld, and he will have to serve a sentence.
A right-wing Japanese politician proposed a stealthy change to the constitution, and proposed the Nazis' stealthy change to the German constitution as an example.
Proposing a stealthy change to the constitution is enough reason to end a politician's career, even if had not cited Nazis as a positive example of doing so. However, there is reason to think that that politician's may have other views in common with Nazis, as he visits the shrine in which war criminals, the Japanese equivalents of Dubya, are worshiped.
US citizens: stand up for the right to sell free range chicken eggs in the US.
US citizens:
call
on the SEC
to enforce the law requiring companies
to publish how much their CEOs are paid.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Thatcher considered trade unions "the enemy".
It is typical of plutocratic states to consider working people as the enemy.
Obama scuttled Congressional testimony for critics of mass surveillance, with a last-minute request for House Democrats to meet with him at the scheduled time.
The Bradley Manning trial: Slow Death For Democracy.
Ten important
revelations the world received from Bradley Manning.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Surveillance and the Corrosion of Internet Freedom.
A summary of MIT's report about the case of Aaron Swartz.
MIT says it was neutral in regard to whether Swartz should be prosecuted.
The Swartz family say that MIT favored the prosecution in subtle ways, but even if it had been neutral, that is wrong when someone faces an absurd prosecution for actions that help the public.
MIT should atone for this by committing to defend anyone who is prosecuted for "crimes" that involve sharing scientific information with the public.
US citizens: sign this petition for proper oversight of the NSA and to require individual warrants.
One further nasty side effect of the War on Drugs: it is as easy as pie to frame anyone by mailing drugs to him and giving the thugs an anonymous tip when the mail will arrive.
Argentina is planning to change laws to give Monsanto increased power over farmers there.
This has inspired protests.
Oakland's planned surveillance system has generated substantial local opposition.
Don't listen to defeatist propaganda saying "It's too late, privacy is dead" on the one hand, and "This is just an upgrade" on the other. We can defeat surveillance, if we recognize it as tyranny and demand "Whatever change is necessary".
Russia will move away from using foreign-made electronic components in sensitive activities, fearing they may have spy features or back doors.
This is a wise policy; several years ago I read that the Pentagon was concerned about possible malicious features in Chinese chips.
Raif Badawi, the founder of the Free Saudi Liberals website, has been convicted of "insulting Islam".
The evil regime also threatened to kill Badawi if he stopped being a Muslim. Human rights include, for any person, the right not to be a Muslim. Or not to be a Christian. Or not to be a Buddhist. Or not to be an Atheist.
If you feel in the mood to insult Islam, you don't need to say anything yourself. Just spread the word about these events, and behold! Islam insults itself.
The NTSB proposes to require cars to have wireless communication systems.
There are two dangers here. First, we already know that many car systems have bad security, and many wireless systems have bad security. Anything like WiFi in a car could enable someone to cause a crash.
Even if the car does not turn out to have this problem, it could prove to be an excuse to deny car owners control over any of the software in their cars — even the software in the entertainment systems.
Second, if a car can be identified from its transmissions, this will become another surveillance system for tracking everyone.
We must insist that the design be such as to avoid both of these sorts of problems.
Australia plans to dump nuclear waste on Aboriginal land after bribing one of the many concerned groups to "give permission".
Close attention to what Senators Wyden and Udall say to Clapper
enables us
to learn some
of the NSA's dirty secrets.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Florida has refused to investigate how an FBI agent killed Ibragim Todashev. It would be embarrassing if an investigation found it was murder.
A competition for making a commercial scale biofuel factory that would operate from plant waste reiterates that we should not be making biofuels from plants that use water, fertilizer or land that could grow other crops.
In the US: join a protest on August 4 against massive surveillance.
US citizens:
tell
Sallie Mae to stop supporting ALEC.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Uruguay's congress has voted to legalize marijuana.
The people who say that cocaine users started with marijuana could equally well say they started with beer, or mate, or water. Nearly all of them surely used those three first.
The "third party doctrine", that people have no privacy rights over data held by someone else, systematically undermines privacy rights in the US. An appeals court ruled no search warrant is needed to collect people's cell phone location data from the phone company.
It is not enough to limit government access to massive surveillance data. We must prevent the accumulation of those dossiers in the first place. Therefore, what we really need is to forbid phone companies from keeping that data for more than a few days.
The water in the Colorado river is insufficient to keep Phoenix going, and global heating is reducing the flow.
Fracking in North Dakota wastes and burns 30% of the gas extracted — equivalent to running a million more cars.
Manning's trial was unjust because the Espionage Act facilitates the War on Whistleblowers.
Mugabe's opponents charge nonviolent election-rigging is going on.
The US is declassifying some info about surveillance as a form of propaganda, stuffing it with false claims.
But officials had to retract a piece of bullshit — that collecting complete phone call records was their "most important tool".
They are trying to pretend that it is ok to collect bulk information about everyone because only computers, not humans, pay attention to most of it.
On the contrary, simply to accumulate these dossiers is unacceptable no matter where they are kept. The state should only be allowed to start building a dossier about someone given a court order.
Egypt's military-dominated government says it will break up the pro-Morsi protest camps.
That probably means an even bigger massacre.
I dislike the Muslim Brotherhood's politics as much as anyone in the world does, but they do not deserve to be attacked on the street.
A school privatizer in Indiana and Florida wrote standards to ensure a campaign donor would get a high mark.
Civilian casualties in Afghanistan are rising. Most are killed by Taliban land mines.
Australia is experiencing record high temperatures in winter just as it did last summer.
While a warm winter may not be immediately unpleasant, it is very dangerous. For instance, it allows pests to spread which were previously limited by cold. This is why forests around the American west are now dying.
Rwanda provides medical care to 90% of the population.
When will the US do as well?
McDonalds would be doing fine if it paid its store employees twice as much.
Scientists reject the excuses used for ending protection of wolves in the US.
Major US gay rights groups have ignored Bradley Manning, probably in order to appeal to corporate America.
Illegal immigration of Mexicans to the US has effectively ceased:
as many are
leaving as are entering.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
This is due to economic policies that spread poverty in the US, making it more like Mexico.
Nonetheless, defending the US from a nonexistent menace can provide money to companies (which pay legislators to favor these measures) and provide an excuse to attack our human rights.
A Swedish man who was drugged into confessing to multiple murders has been declared innocent.
Israeli
thugs attacked and arrested peaceful protesters against the plan
to demolish Bedouin villages.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Russia plans to track cell phones in the Moscow subway.
The US agreed to inform defendants when FISA spying was used in making the case against them.
This puts an end to a catch-22 that made it impossible ever to challenge the legality of that spying in court.
New Study: 82 of Top 100 Companies Used Tax Havens in 2012.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to support an amendment to reverse the Corporations United decision (*)
* To call it what it really is.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Did US Help New Zealand Spy on War Crimes Reporter?
Why Bradley Manning deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.
Receiving this prize will give Manning a chance to face the real consequences of his actions, which (aside from Obama's retaliation) are very good consequences indeed.
Senator Wyden talks about his campaign against the constantly expanding surveillance state.
Israeli settlers keep attacking the house of "Youth Against Settlements" in Hebron, most recently by shooting at it.
US citizens: Thank Senator Reid
for connecting
wildfires with global heating.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
UN human rights chief Navi Pillay criticized Israel's expulsion of Bedouin from their homes.
Uri Avnery says that the negotiations that Kerry has started can only succeed if the US ensures both sides get what they need most.
A lawyer for Volunteers for Human Rights talks about defending human rights in Israel, and says that peace talks are a distraction that enables Israel to get away with anything.
Starting peace talks also releases the boycott pressure that was starting to make Israel uncomfortable.
All in all, having talks that go nowhere is quite useful for Israel.
The Israeli annexation wall will separate the Cremisan Monastery in Bethlehem from most of its land.
Netanyahu expressed his contempt for peace talks by authorizing a new colony in East Jerusalem.
"Moral Monday" protests in North Carolina have focused public attention on the right-wing policies most people disapprove of.
The governor's popularity has dropped 20%.
Iran Nominee Seen As Olive Branch to United States.
As Zimbabwe votes, Mugabe's violent intimidation is limited to rural areas where the world doesn't notice so much.
Bradley Manning was convicted on most of the charges.
He was found innocent of "aiding the enemy", but convicted on other charges that threaten journalism in general.
Meanwhile, those guilty of real war crimes including torture and kidnaping receive Obama's protection.
Shame on you, Obama!
Persistent protests in Bulgaria brought down one government and may bring down another.
Asylum seekers in the UK are on a hunger strike to death.
Characters on MMORPGs that appear female are subject to
repeated
nastiness which isn't done to characters that appear male. One woman
demonstrated this by trying both ways of presenting her character.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
I can't understand what motivates men to be so nasty to women, and I think we should condemn threats of violence. At the same time, I think everyone needs to learn not to bow to verbal hostility from strangers.
This is why I admire Tuesday Cain, the Texas girl who rebuked the right-wing misogynists that called her a "slut" because of her political sign.
By the way, the word "slut" is twisted in the first place. It presumes that there is something immoral about a female's being disposed to have sex. Why should that be immoral for a female, any more than it is immoral for a male? Or any more than it is immoral to be monogamous, or celibate? The word packages two kinds of prejudice, anti-female and anti-sex. No wonder theocratic Christians use it.
If we dispute whether person X is a slut, we endorse the prejudices in the word. We should condemn the word instead. I have never used the word "slut".
Transferring control of forests in Australia to the states has led to reckless endangerment of species.
"Zero-hours contracts" make the lowest paid employees even more precarious.
I agree that this should be illegal.
New EPA chief Gina McCarthy calls for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and points out that this will create jobs in the US.
It has already created lots of jobs in some other countries.
Obama proposes to cut taxes for corporations, as a "bargain" with Republicans whose goal is to spread poverty.
Half of Americans consider themselves middle class, but the fact is 80% will need government assistance before retirement age.
Paying for this assistance calls for more taxes on the rich. That's also what's needed to enable lots of Americans to become middle class once again.
Eliminating business tax deductions is a good idea, but it won't go far enough, and there should be no cuts in the tax rate. Meanwhile, what really needs to be changed are the loopholes that permit offshoring of profits.
Dredging in Gladstone Harbour, Australia, released toxic metals which are making crabs in the area sick.
A journalist interviews a Taliban fighter.
Tough Copyright Laws Chill Innovation, Tech Companies Warn Lawmakers.
They refer to the value of innovation because that's a value that Congress claims to care about. I think freedom to share is more important than innovation.
The twisted values of Congress are reflected also in the use of the term "intellectual property" in the name of this committee.
Being robbed by thugs, then framed for having drugs, is standard practice in the US. Here's one example.
Enough!
Accounting and Remembering the Long War in Colombia.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
In the UK, many privatized government services and government-created monopolies have fallen to a company that has been charged with cheating the government.
You'd expect the government to ban this company from new contracts, and terminate old ones, if it wanted the public treasury not to be cheated. But the contracts are written so the company gets a bonus no matter how badly it ruins the service. Hmm, perhaps the whole point was for the public treasury to be cheated.
Why recreational drugs must be regulated instead of banned.
All 8 Republicans in the Senate Environment Committee are global heating denialists.
Meanwhile, the Marshall Islands face inundation from its effects.
Let's challenge those fools, who are certainly rich, to buy land in the Marshall Islands with all their money.
How media bosses in Turkey undermine democracy.
Much the same thing happens in the US mainstream media, except that instead of catering directly to the US government, they cater to the business interests that are above the US government.
The UK will protect employers from accusations of sexual harassment and racial discrimination by charging a high fee for each complaint.
The opposition in Cambodia says that the ruling party
rigged
the election by leaving over a million people off the voting list.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
It's like what Dubya did in Florida in 2000, only bigger.
Movie Subtitle Fansite Raided By Copyright Industry And Police.
Comparing the cases of Edward Snowden and Robert Lady demonstrates what it means for the US to have tremendous global power and use it with arrogance.
A Dutch documentary crew
was arrested
in Russia for interviewing gays to make a film.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Obama wants "free trade" with Vietnam, which achieves low export prices with child labor and slave labor and prohibits trade unions.
Some plutocratic Republican governors face persistent protests.
Yavuz Baydar: My sacking is an attack not just on journalism, but on Turkish democracy.
Egypt's government has formally reactivated repressive units of thugs.
Today's Apple Pegatron sweatshops are even nastier than the Foxconn sweatshops it used before.
Just because you're not pregnant, should that make it ok to require you to work 11 hours a day, 6 days a week? Apple is culpable if its products are made by people working a longer workweek than is allowed in the US.
Hawaii offer homeless people a gratis ticket to the US mainland. The danger is that thugs may bully people into leaving.
If this were applied only to people with an invitation to live with someone in another state, or whose last domicile was in another state, it might do more good than harm.
NSA: permission to spy in Germany.
One step forward, two steps back for media freedom (in the US).
Abdulelah Haider Shaye is no longer in prison, but will be blocked
from committing further embarrassing acts of investigative journalism
in Yemen
by two years
of house arrest.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
'Do the Right Thing': World Rallies Behind Bradley Manning.
Russia's persecution of gays is reaching extreme levels of cruelty.
Is Stolichnaya vodka Russian?
It seems to me that the company is not Russian, and if it claims on the bottle to be Russian, that is false advertising. The company cannot complain about being targeted as Russian if it has brought that on itself by a false claim. And maybe it should be prosecuted for that claim. However, this is not going to achieve the aim of punishing Putin.
Boycotting brands that are actually made in Russia could start.
In regard to the Olympics, if male athletes publicly kiss each other and female athletes publicly kiss each other, that would embarrass Putin. They don't need to actually be gay.
The UK government talks about "protecting children" through censorship to cover up for cuts in real help for vulnerable children.
If you don't like prostitution, it seems to me you ought to help people avoid being prostitutes who wish to avoid it, rather than stigmatizing or attacking prostitutes. Stigmatizing prostitutes causes them suffering and danger.
Australia must stop investing in carbon.
Thugs in schools combined with "zero tolerance" policies lead systematically to arresting, injuring and killing students.
Proposed UK Internet censorship would be dangerous, ineffective, and inconsistent.
And it might distract people from other sorts of censorship — such as increasing blockage of sites used for sharing copies of works.
Thomas Friedman aims to make massive US poverty look acceptable: holding out hope of very unlikely kinds of success and pretending we could all do it.
Being an entrepreneur involves taking a risk: most of those who try this fail. Around 1990 I read that 90% of new businesses in the US failed within 5 years; I doubt it has changed much. Most Americans can't afford to take a risk like this.
Oil spills in Alberta show how toxic tar sands oil is.
Green objection to technologies are not anti-science; rather, they are against extrapolating too far from limited scientific knowledge.
The immigration bill would expand the prison population.
Mexico is spying on the communications of activists and journalists.
Thousands in Germany Protest NSA Surveillance.
Ex-CIA agent Sabrina De Sousa, who was convicted by Italy of involvement in the kidnaping of abu Omar, says that Condoleezza Rice and Dubya personally approved the kidnaping but the US and Italy are scapegoating the underlings.
Everyone:
call
on US fast food chains
not to retaliate against workers
that strike.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: tell Obama to stop prosecuting whistleblowers.
US citizens:
call
on the Bureau of Land Management
not to allow fracking
in the Grand Valley area of Colorado near Grand Junction.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: call on your senators to support serious negotiation with Iran.
EU citizens: call for a ban on patenting plant varieties.
The European Patent Office is issuing patents on new varieties of food plants.
The German parliament has banned these patents.
Zero tolerance on a school trip: an unemployed mother was thrown into debt to collect her daughter, who was kicked out for having chocolate.
When someone in a position of power demands people agree to strict conditions, I don't think that buys any moral authority. For Holli to bring chocolate on her trip for her friends was about as wrong as violating a publisher's selfish EULA — that is, not wrong at all.
Crucial evidence against Bradley Manning is being kept secret, including an alleged chat conversation with someone from WikiLeaks which the government cites to insult WikiLeaks.
A 10-year-old girl in Yemen had
a narrow
escape from a forced marriage.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
When mothers take cocaine, that seems to
have no
long-term effect on their children. However, growing up in
poverty does horrible things to children.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Tuesday Cain defends abortion rights and sticks it to the Christian theocratic bigots.
A bill in Congress
would require
recycling of e-waste in the US.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Concern about snooping is leading many organizations outside the US to reject US-based Internet hosting and services, as they should.
When you consider using some Internet service, even for a single interaction, it is important to scrutinize carefully the privacy implications of using it. In other words, the right attitude is exactly the opposite of the attitude suggested by the word "cloud".
The US government tries to make Internet companies hand over users' passwords for cracking purposes.
An undercover thug agent was caught on camera planting cocaine to frame the owner of a smoking paraphernalia shop.
The things sold by the store are legal because they can be used to smoke addictive, deadly tobacco, but they can also be used to smoke a less dangerous illegal drug.
Obama says the US is at war with a list of enemies, and the list is secret.
Billionaire Polluters claims to be the victim of the Big Spill.
Bahrain Parliament Upholds Banning Protests in Capital.
The government started the violence and has committed most of it, but in typical dishonest fashion it puts the blame on the victims.
UK farmers say that global heating effects are the biggest threat to agriculture in the UK.
The heat wave this summer was a disaster for the wheat crop.
This is a big threat in the US, and around the world, but we don't hear much about it in the mainstream media.
Thousands Turn Out Against New Spy Powers in New Zealand.
4/5 of Americans are forecast
to live in
or near poverty or unemployment.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The US leads the opposition to a treaty
to defend
peasants' rights.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
GMO corn could be causing allergic reactions in some people.
What the FBI Needs to Tell Americans About Its Use of Drones.
The US border patrol wants to install not-usually-lethal weapons on drones.
Note that the US border patrol can operate at a considerable distance from the border, and the border includes all coastlines, so this area includes a large fraction of the US population.
Leaked Philip Morris documents show that the public position of tobacco companies, that the UK should wait and study the effect of imposing plain packaging, was a false front for a planned lobbying campaign.
The first black government minister in Italy is
the target
of racist abuse.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Racism is despicable, and people of good will in Italy should condemn it and use this as an opportunity to examine racism in Italy.
However, prosecuting people for throwing bananas (regardless of who is the target or why) would be an offense against democracy. Bananas are not dangerous weapons. People should not be prosecuted for that way of expressing disapproval, not even when their reasons are despicable.
The "aiding the enemy" charge endangers journalism in the US.
UK censorship will include, by default, many categories of sites including "web forums" and "web-blocking circumvention tools".
The FBI says it won't scan people's irises secretly.
Do you trust any assure from the FBI? I don't. We already know that they play word games with their assurances.
US citizens: tell Congress to pass Sen. Warren's 21st Century Glass Steagall Act.
New cartoon: Trance Pacific Partnership.
US citizens:
sign this petition
calling on Congress to replace
the recently invalidated parts of the Voting Rights Act.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens:
sign this petition
to remove all US troops from Afghanistan.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: support extending Oregon's plan for paying for college to the whole US.
Everyone: oppose the Australian plan to destroy the Great Barrier Reef by shipping giant amounts of coal across it.
When I signed, I mentioned that burning so much coal will cause ocean acidification that is likely to kill nearly all the world's coral.
US citizens:
call on Congress
to repeal the dangerous parts of the
PAT RIOT Act and FISA Amendments Act.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: sign this petition calling on Kerry to halt the environmental review of the Keystone XL pipeline and first investigate a lie by a company engaged to work on it.
US citizens: sign this petition against appointing Summers as head of the Federal Reserve.
Cancelling the sequester could add 1.6 million jobs in the US.
Biochar provides a way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. However, to prevent further heating, it would need to be used on a tremendous scale.
Human rights organizations call on Egypt's military to respect human rights and the laws that protect them.
The Obama regime may send Shaker Aamer to Saudi Arabia to be tortured, so that he will be unable to testify about how the US tortured him.
Justice Roberts' selections have made the FISA court even more of a push-over than it was designed to be.
US Government Promises Not to Torture or Execute Edward Snowden.
The thugs and courts in Australia are trained to let rich boys get away with crimes, while they fatally attack Aboriginals who have done nothing.
The defenders of NSA spying in Congress are the
loyal machines
of both parties.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
After 3,000 studies, there is no evidence that acupuncture provides any significant benefit other than that of a placebo.
The Obama regime argues, in court, that its officials should be
autonomous and should
not have to
worry about laws or courts.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The coup against Morsi seems to have been organized since November, and Sisi's call for mass rallies could be interpreted as calling for massive violence against Morsi's supporters.
An example in Nepal shows the sort of effort that it takes to increase the number of tigers that survive.
In 40 years, will anyone have money to protect tigers, elephants, rhinos, penguins, and thousands of other endangered species? Not if we continue causing global heating disaster.
A complex "ethical" charade disguises sweatshops in India.
Egypt: "The Injuries Were Very Precise as The Snipers Were Shooting To Kill".
The Arab Spring Is Being Stifled by the Force of Arms.
The consumerist economy is a recent thing, and it is unsustainable and already starting to collapse. Which poses the question of how to move forward.
The congresscritters who voted to continue collecting all US phone call data are getting paid more by the companies that profit from doing it.
In rural Yemen, villagers think of supporting al Qa'ida so they will get paved roads and electricity. (They fear drone attacks in any case.)
US citizens: comment to the SEC in support
of requiring
publicly traded corporations to disclose their political spending.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Urban Surveillance State Prototype in Oakland Exemplifies "Security" Mission Creep.
Kafka's
America: Secret
Courts, Secret Laws, and Total Surveillance.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Big Brother is pushing companies to hand over SSL master keys.
Overreaction of the week: a college in the US is pressuring students to use iris scans to get entry to college buildings, supposedly for their safety.
If you have any contact with students there, please ask them to "opt out". We must oppose all new "security" measures unless there is a specific strong local justification. School shootings in the US are a very small cause of death, so small that they don't justify contorting peoples lives in any matter at all.
I have opted out of the RFID-equipped ID cards that are the main method of getting into the MIT building where my office is.
The big secrets Manning and Snowden revealed
were secret
only from us, not from the enemies the US admits to.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
In some parts of India, nearly all those accused of crimes (including murder) against Dalits go free because the witnesses are intimidated into not testifying.
US law protects Internet speech from state laws. State attorneys general are asking to abolish that protection.
Wikipedia could be destroyed if their plan is adopted.
US citizens: oppose making Larry Summers head of the Federal Reserve Bank.
Since the EU decided that cooperation with Israel may not include helping Israel to colonize Palestine, Israel has retaliated by blocking EU projects to help Palestinians.
In effect, Israel is using Palestinians as hostages. Not for the first time.
The Egyptian military is investigating Morsi for working with Hamas as the revolution started.
US blacks still face a big disadvantage in
getting
jobs and entering the middle class.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The plutocratic parties have a plan for eliminating this disparity: shrink the middle class so nobody has much chance of entering it.
The Senate is
planning
trade war against any country that shelters Snowden.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
How the US supported Colombia's government as its right-wing gangs were carrying out massacre after massacre.
Obama's Tribute to Whistleblowers Disappears Two Days after First
Snowden Revelations.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Packaging public giveaways to sports teams in complex deals disguises the fact that they are public giveaways to sports teams.
Halliburton has pled guilty to destruction of
evidence
about the big spill. The fine is so tiny, for a company like
Halliburton, that it will hardly be noticed.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Turkish editor Yavuz Baydar says that publishers and the regime are colluding to censor criticism of the state.
In the US, the regime works for the megacorporations and the megacorporations own the mainstream media, so it comes out the same.
Israeli expansionists are buying houses in the Arab quarter of Jerusalem, while putting Arabs under pressure to sell.
If all they did was offer to buy, and did not couple that with harassment, I would not criticize it.
Dr. Joseph Bonneau won an award from the NSA, then condemned the NSA while accepting it.
Most Americans want to end the War in Afghanistan and believe it does not improve the security of the US.
When I supported attacking the Taliban, it was to end the oppression of the Afghanistanis. They appreciated that, in the first years when Afghanistan mostly experienced peace. I did not think the Taliban would resurge and turn life in Afghanistan into permanent war.
Is requiring corporations to disclose their political spending "partisan"?
This is not partisan in terms of Democrat and Republican; lots of people in both parties support it. However, if we imagine a struggle between Bow to Business party and the Restore Democracy party, on this scale it is partisan, and the government should be partisan too.
Businesses want TAFTA to exclude "politics" from deciding policies that affect business. For "politics", read "democracy".
#Summerheat Activists Arrested Protesting State Dept Contractor Who Lied About TransCanada Ties.
As Detroit Drowns, GOP says: 'Bailouts For Banks, Not People'.
The two assassinated Tunisian leaders were shot with the same gun.
Egyptian thugs killed at least 38 Morsi supporters who wanted to continue a sit-in protest.
Tsvangirai accuses Mugabe of election fraud and dishonesty. Strangely, the head of the African monitoring team went so far as to claim there were no such complaints.
The new president of Iran seems to have brought small but visible relaxations of some tyrannical practices.
Car ignition locks depend on security through obscurity, and car companies have gagged scientists who discovered the secret algorithm and were going to publish a paper about it.
The manufacturers should have published the algorithm themselves and let the public hammer on it for a few years, before trusting it so far.
Manning And Snowden Light Path for the US to Return to Its Better Self.
A summary of the environmental disasters we will cause by 2050 if we don't change course now.
A senior UK scientist who led a flawed study that appeared to exonerate neonicotinoid has gone to work for a company that produces one of them.
Officials that take actions to help business are often rewarded with a job later on.
A global heating denialist became editor at Reuters and cut the coverage of climate issues by 50%, says a reporter who quit in response.
This makes me wonder: why did Reuters hire him? I have a hunch this was not an accident.
It appears UK thugs spied on Janet Alder and her lawyer, while she campaigned for justice for her brother, who had died while held by the thugs.
Comparison with the thugs' handling of some other cases suggests they may have sought a way to smear Ms Adler so as to distract attention from their own dirty deeds.
Punishing Putin's anti-gay repression with a boycott of Russian vodka.
Alas, the campaign has apparently missed the mark by targeting a brand of vodka that is not Russian any more.
The movie Cars was profitable … as a commercial for toys.
Do you want to watch a movie that is effectively a commercial for toys? Do you want your children to see it? If you are worried they will watch porn, you've been distracted from the truly harmful media.
Drug prohibition kills — not only through the gangs that it fuels, but also by making fairly safe drugs fatal.
US citizens: sign this petition to expand Social Security.
The Turkish government is
systematically
persecuting journalists who covered the protests.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
If Unions Are Not Speaking Out Against Prism, It Is Because They Have Short Memories.
America's Real Subversives: FBI Spying Then, NSA Surveillance Now.
France has eliminated the unjust law making it a crime to "offend the president". This leaves in place the unjust law making it a crime to defame the president (and other officials).
Another Tunisian secular political leader has been assassinated.
Everyone: tell Google not to fund global heating denialists such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
US citizens:
tell
Putin you support freedom for Pussy Riot.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
US restaurant chains are organizing to fight against laws requiring paid sick days for restaurant workers.
After the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act, the North Carolina Senate is pushing a broad and drastic attack on voting rights.
The head of the Egyptian army asked the public to rally against "terrorists", which apparently is meant to refer to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Morsi continues to be imprisoned without charges.
Relatives of Guantanamo prisoners ask the US Senate for justice.
Koch Industries is an oil speculator.
NSA Opponents Call Out White House for Hypocrisy of "Informed" Debate on Spying.
Thug Commissioner Kelly claims his practice of searching people with no grounds is justified by the big drop in the murder rate that happened before he started it.
More about loss of Arctic sea ice and the giant methane escape.
The European Investment Bank has
decided
to stop financing ordinary coal plants.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Some rich Americans propose to help the poor by eliminating the minimum wage and soup kitchens.
"Dump them in the ocean and see if they drown," is their philosophy.
The UK will see even greater torrential rains in the future, due to global heating.
And that's not counting the flooding of the coasts.
US-style economic inequality is bad even for business.
Alas, it may not be bad for the banks. Today's banks seek to make a killing through fraud, not a reliable income from providing a service to society.
US fracking reduced US coal consumption. This made coal cheap, so electric companies in the UK imported and burned more coal.
This shows the error in supposing that fracking means that gas replaces coal. Not as long as a market determines the price of coal and we fail to drive the price up artificially.
In the Democratic primary on Aug 10 for senator from New Jersey, Rush Holt (who calls for repealing the PAT RIOT Act) is running against an Obama-like suck-up to Wall Street.
Here's what his opponent is like.
Refugees often have to do without contraceptives, so they have babies in the worst possible circumstances for someone to be born into.
Anti-"terrorism" laws intimidate and hamper humanitarian aid.
A study sponsored by the Colombian government says that the right-wing terrorist paramilitaries killed more than the left-wing guerrillas that are officially labeled as "terrorist".
An anonymous blog breathes political opposition into Zimbabwe.
This is an example of the importance of anonymous publication on the Internet.
The amendment to limit NSA collection of phone records was defeated, but very narrowly.
This shows that we have hope of winning if we keep pushing.
The UK National Health Service is running short of doctors.
The government is trying surreptitiously to destroy the NHS, by cutting its funds so it does a bad job.
Refugees from Syria are overwhelming the surrounding region.
1/4 of the population are now refugees.
The loss of Arctic sea ice
could trigger
a giant release of methane, which would cause tremendous global
heating.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The damage could amount to 60 trillion dollars.
How does that compare with the cost of writing off 4/5 of the world's fossil fuel reserves, so as to prevent this disaster?
Citizens of Massachusetts: call for more state support of mass transit.
ALEC brought state legislators on a tour of tar sand mines, paid for by oil companies and Alberta, and they subsequently introduced pro-oil bills.
Such handsome "thank you" notes suggest these legislators have more to be grateful for than just a trip to Alberta.
What is the context for Israel's arrest of a 5-year-old boy?
"Stand your ground" laws have led to many shootings.
US citizens: call on the Senate to increase Social Security.
In the US: march on Washington for peace and justice.
An Israeli soldier shot a representative of the human rights group B'tselem who was filming the weekly protest at Nabi Saleh.
The video shows that she was shot with a rubber-coated steel bullet at close range, in violation of orders and safety standards, for no good reason. Not so unusual, actually, because the army doesn't punish the soldiers that do this.
Three retail chains in the Netherlands have decided not to sell products made by Israeli colonies in Palestinian territory.
Both Israel and Palestine assume that Kerry's peace talks will go nowhere.
The Israeli army and the right-wing "settlers" play
"good
cop / bad cop" to Palestinians.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
"Settlers" have repeatedly attacked the Jaber family and destroyed their trees, irrigation systems and homes, hoping to drive them out and steal their land.
A right-wing mob attacked a Bedouin village in Israel.
If a company uses bitcoin, that is no guarantee it isn't a scam.
Hagel: "Troops At a Breaking Point";
Vets: "Then
Bring Us Home".
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The US is trying to stifle resistance to genetically engineered foods in Ghana.
Activists in Hawai'i are pushing for a local law to require farms to disclose when they use certain especially toxic pesticides, which are suspected of poisoning the drinking water.
Mali is being rushed into elections, which are not being held very well. Many eligible voters have been dropped from the list, apparently due to carelessness.
A former guard says that asylum seekers imprisoned by Australia in Manus Island are often raped and often try to commit suicide.
Salvation Army staff who have been there support the claims.
USDA Fast-Tracks "Rubber-Stamp" Approval of "Dangerous" GE Seeds.
Greg Palast explains the dishonest scheme that triggered the financial crisis, and the small part in it played by the only participant that is being prosecuted.
I see no need to use the smear term "frog" to refer to someone who is French. And what's wrong with garlic, anyway?
Massachusetts citizens: call for limits on keeping data from automatic license plate readers.
US citizens: sign this petition to raise the US minimum wage to $10.10 per hour.
Yemeni journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye has been freed in response to public pressure. He had been accused of aiding the rebels thanks to his reporting on a US drone attack that killed civilians, and was kept in prison due to pressure from Obama.
His release has conditions, though: he has to stay in the capital, and thus cannot investigate any more drone attacks.
Standard technique for protecting privacy on-line can be interpreted as felonies under the CFAA.
Stores are trying new methods of tracking and identifying physical customers.
A thug who leaked photos of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been tentatively punished.
It is interesting to compare this case with that of Edward Snowden. Both released confidential government data, but beyond that the circumstances were very different. Whereas Snowden's leaks told us about massive and grave government abuses, Murphy's only attempted to make Tsarnaev look bad — for shallow reasons.
Tsarnaev is accused of murdering several strangers, and I see no doubt about his guilt. This is the basis of my opinion of him. Only a fool judges someone morally based on how handsome or how weak he looks. How foolish it would be to think better of Tsarnaev due to a photo in Rolling Stone. How foolish it would be to think worse of him due to photos leaked by Murphy.
The NSA says it can't search its own emails.
That's ridiculous — it can search yours and mine.
Suing to overturn Utah's "ag-gag law".
Congress and the Justice Dept's Dangerous Attempts to Define "Journalist" Threaten to Exclude Bloggers.
Congress is considering two "patent reform" bills.
They are small steps for the better. They might reduce the total amount of harm done by patents in computing, and some other fields, but don't try to really solve the problem.
Al Qa'ida attacked three Iraqi large prisons simultaneously, and
freed
hundreds of prisoners, including some of its followers.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Al Qa'ida operates in Iraq thanks to the US conquest and occupation of Iraq.
Iraq is experiencing the return of the sectarian killing, which also started as a result of the US conquest and occupation of Iraq.
How Californians enacted a tax increase for the rich. The state's "Democratic" governor wanted to tax mainly the workers.
The US congress reduced the sentencing disparity between crack and other cocaine, but Obama's men don't want the prisoners already convicted under the old higher sentences to have their sentences reduced.
Increased goat-herding in Asia is driving many wild species into a little marginal land.
That area can't support so much human population.
Important butterfly species in Europe have declined by half, threatening pollination.
Does the NSA
Tap That? What We Still Don t Know About the Agency s Internet
Surveillance.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Detroit and Goldman Sachs: Makers and Takers.
When Australia forcibly renders asylum seekers to Papua New Guinea, it delivers gay asylum seekers to persecution.
An astroturf campaign pretends that wind turbines cause health problems.
I wonder if this is funded by coal mining companies.
In the
US, big banks
get bailouts — big cities don't.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
And auto companies get bailouts at the expense of their workers and the cities where they live.
The auto companies outflanked the unions through "globalization" (outsourcing). Democracy should not allow outsourcing to low-wage countries as an excuse to knock wages down.
Wild koalas are being wiped out by cutting down the trees they live on.
Preserving the wild relatives of crops such as wheat and potato could be worth $200 billion over the foreseeable future.
The next installment of Obama's mega-gift to the banksters: making Lawrence Summers chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Examining officials and companies that promote massive surveillance and profit from it too.
The chairman of the joint chiefs of staff warned senators that intervention in Syria is likely to lead to unintended and unpredictable consequences.
California's planned "digital license plates" could lead to even more surveillance of car travel.
The World Bank invests in mining companies, then pressures countries to rewrite their mining laws to favor those companies.
US citizens: email your congresscritter in favor of reducing the PAT RIOT act surveillance power.
Pass the word: Support the Amash amendment, not the deceptive Nugent amendment.
Also phone — that has more effect.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Russia's new copyright enforcement law allows blocking web sites without even a trial, like SOPA/PIPA.
Please do not make the mistake of referring to sharing as "piracy". That's the enemy's propaganda.
Obama's escalating war on journalism directed at the
security state.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Who was intercepting all pager messages in the US in 2001?
Assad seems to be planning to expel Sunnis from a strip of Syria from Damascus to the coast.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to
support
a constitutional amendment saying that human rights are for people,
not for corporations.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Global heating is colliding with business-imposed agricultural policies to create a crisis for US agriculture.
Texas School District Drops RFID Chips, Will Track Kids With Surveillance Cameras Instead.
Visualizing phone location tracking data as music.
Director Jahmil Qubeka's film, which was due to open the Durban film festival, has been banned as "child pornography".
Don't be surprised — this is what censorship does.
Here's the form people will have to fill out to turn off censorship on their UK Internet connections.
Why humanity has failed to take the necessary action to stop global heating.
A Norwegian woman in Dubai told the thugs she had been raped, and was
sentenced to prison for non-marital sex.
Now she
has been "pardoned".
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
This is one of the perverse cruelties of Islamic law: a woman who accuses rape, unless the rapist confesses, will in general be punished in this way.
Morsi's family say they will sue over his imprisonment without trial.
Leaked Pakistani Report Confirms High Civilian Death Toll in CIA Drone Strikes.
The US Government
Is Metamorphosing
Into the Borg.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The UK Conservatives' "strategist" advised companies how to exploit the "failings" of the NHS.
Perhaps he advises the Conservatives on how to change the NHS to make more "failings" that he can then advise other clients on how to exploit.
Syrian cartoonist Akram Reslan has been given
the Award
for Courage in Editorial Cartooning. He cannot personally accept
it because he is in prison.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: ask your congresscritter to cosponsor a move to
reduce
the price of medicines for a subset of Medicaid patients.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
A riot started in France when thugs checked the identity of a woman with her face covered.
I have to admire such firm defense of a custom against the state. At the same time, it is a shame that the custom being defended is a form of women that women are pressured into.
I have to wonder whether her husband really attacked the thugs. It could be true, but thugs often fabricate such accusations.
It is not only Muslim women who should have the right to cover their faces. Everyone must have this, especially in a protest, in case they wish to avoid the danger of retaliation — from the state, from their employers, or from the state and their employers in collusion.
US citizens: call on your congresscritter to support the bill to ban some uses of neonicotinoid pesticides.
Obama's treasury
secretary supports
continued austerity in Europe. He told the Greek government to
keep on making
the people
sacrifice.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Amina Sboui could be imprisoned for 9 years for her nonviolent protest.
Human Rights Watch condemns Indonesia's law that restricts mass organizations.
Indian border thugs killed protesters in Kashmir.
Chinese thugs threatened to kill reporters, but (for the moment) just beat them with sticks.
A study forecasts that starting around 2055 there will be a period every year when there is no ice in the Arctic.
Global heating could deprive Volta Basin of water.
This would be a disaster for several African countries.
FBI experts often made claims about hair matching, convicting people of murder, which could not be sustained by the real science.
Barrett Brown Prosecution Threatens Right to Link, Could Criminalize Routine Journalism Practices.
China closed a think tank connected with criticism of the government, based on lies as usual, and has arrested the lawyers that try to defend arrested activists.
A Kuwaiti activist has been sentenced to prison for offending the potentate and offending Islam, with tweets.
To punish either of those things is an outright injustice.
A large fraction of mercury in the ocean, which makes fish dangerous to eat in quantity, is due to human industrial activity, and it will persist in the ocean for centuries or millennia.
The main activities adding to this pollution are gold mining and coal burning.
With greater heat, plants lose ability to remove ozone from the air.
The Puerto Rico thug department will be reformed in an attempt to end their systematic thuggishness.
Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Widespread in Hudson River, Study Finds.
The US government is now allowed to produce "news reports" (i.e., propaganda) and show them in the US. Henceforth the security state won't have to depend on the mainstream media to make propaganda for it.
Even if someone gives away a lot of his privacy, that doesn't excuse taking away the rest of it.
A lot of the "voluntary" giving away of privacy results from "services" that are designed to herd people into doing so. Even young people would maintain their privacy more if they were not systematically pressured to surrender it.
Pharma companies are using astroturf "patient groups" to campaign against a requirement to publish all the studies that test the effects of drugs.
This requirement would make it harder for pharma companies to misrepresent the effectiveness or safety of drugs.
In Finland, a citizen's initiative proposes Snowden's Law, which would
punish excessive surveillance on citizens as a crime,
while protecting
whistleblowers.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
A German author calls on Germany to offer Snowden asylum
because in
the past it drove so many to seek asylum.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Poland is trying to investigate the secret CIA torture prison
that a previous government allowed to operate.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Ethiopia: Anti-Terror Law Terrorising
Journalists.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Evidence that the US government records and saves the content of lots of phone calls, in the absence of specific cause — not just the call records.
Thugs on a power trip arrested Antonio Morrison for barking at their dog.
Extinct golden toads will protest in British banks.
Kerry's Israel-Palestine peace talks seem not to be really happening.
US banksters, with Obama's quiet help, are trying to use the EU to get rid of the weak and inadequate bank regulations of the Dodd-Frank bill.
Everyone: call
on California to end long-term solitary confinement in its
prisons.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The US is conducting offensive cyberwar actions around the world.
The US cannot campaign for Internet freedom abroad while trashing it at home.
A thousand people have died in the US since 2007 due to not getting the usual vaccines.
The Department of "Justice", in drawing up conditions for protecting journalism, is defining a class of privileged "official" journalists who will get protection, in order to deny it to most journalists.
Of course, the protected journalists will be those from the mainstream media, who will usually support the state (with occasional exceptions).
Staff at the Committee for Public Safety * have been ordered not to view certain Washington Post articles on computers not classified "secret", because then for bureaucratic reasons they will have to go through a sort of secrecy exorcism.
The US government pretends that Snowden's leaks are still secret, and is carrying this to the level of lunacy.
A person that persistently denies reality is dangerous. A powerful state that persistently denies reality is extremely dangerous. These delusions could become a "reason" to kill people.
* Officially, the "Department of Homeland Security".
The US takes two contradictory positions about disclosing when it uses information in court that was derived from massive surveillance. Each position is used to block judicial consideration of the constitutionality of massive surveillance.
New York thugs display their arrogance by playing the storm troopers' theme from Star Wars out of their cars.
As press photographer Mandi Wright filmed thugs arresting someone on
the street, a thug in civilian clothes
attacked
her, stole her video camera, and threatened her with prosecution.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The judge in Bradley Manning's trial nearly always decides questions in favor of the prosecution.
This does not surprise me. It looks like an instance of a fundamental flaw in military trials, known as "command influence". The judge is a military officer who reports ultimately to Obama, Obama wants Manning convicted, and the judge knows this. The judge wants to be promoted, and the people who will decide on her promotion also work for Obama and want Manning convicted. What would an ambitious judge do?
MIT requested and got the chance to keep MIT secrets out of the documents that the Secret Service is required to turn over to reporter Kevin Poulsen. This leads Edward Felten to suspect that MIT is looking for a chance to spin the discussion of some MIT actions that might appear nasty.
Obama is trying to confront the WTO's ruling against "dolphin-safe" tuna labels by making the criterion stricter, rather than by weakening it.
This is a good response to the specific problem, but it is a general problem and the general solution is to do away with the "free trade" treaties.
The pending publication of lists of people who get state pensions in California spotlights the point where personal privacy and government transparency conflict.
I value freedom more than transparency; I think the list of people who get pensions should not be published.
If that statement surprises you, you may be misinformed about my views. For instance, I never advocated "open source"; that's the slogan of people who disagree with me. I advocate "free software", free as in freedom.
See also Evgeny Morozov's article on the difference between the two.
How Goldman Sachs makes big profits by intentionally delaying the delivery of aluminum to US factories.
In India, pogroms against "uppity" Dalits have never stopped.
The UK wants to extend its witchhunt against "child pornography" to blocking searches in search engines.
Don't they do that in China already?
There are other materials on the web that are deemed "illegal". If search engines accept this form of censorship, the next step will be to make them block searches for Snowden's revelations.
I find gruesomely violent pornography disgusting, as disgusting as gruesomely violent nonpornography. However, censorship is far more disgusting. The UK is rife with censorship, and that's the injustice it ought to address.
The UK privatized payment of support for refugees, and some people have been evicted because the company didn't do the job.
Everyone: put
heat on McDonald's for telling workers to keep working in the
kitchen during a heat wave with the air conditioner broken.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Uri Avnery thanks Europe for making government cooperation and contracts exclude Israeli institutions and businesses that have any connection to Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine.
I did not realize before that this included European government purchases. That will put substantial pressure on Israeli business.
Avnery's article was evidently written before the announcement that Israel and Palestine have agreed to hold talks about having peace talks. Based on his past writings, I expect he will show that these talks about talks don't really change anything.
US
citizens: sign
this petition to the Senate to support a rule change so that
filibusters require senators to actually speak on the senate floor.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Tea plantations in Assam pay starvation wages, and claim they "can't afford" to pay more.
Of course they can afford it. They simply have to raise the price. That's fine — we can pay a little more for our tea.
The poverty of the workers pushes them to fall prey to selling their children to be domestic slaves. This is a separate problem, and could be tackled by informing people around India about the dishonesty of these recruiters/purchasers.
A papal visit to Brazil will be
the occasion
for protests, both against the public subsidy for the visit, and
against some positions of the Catholic Church.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
A protest by UK Uncut transformed HSBC banks into food banks.
Updates to Suggestions for National Constitutions.
Journalist Barrett Brown could be sentenced to 105 years in prison for journalistic activity, including posting a link to a site with scandalous information that had been obtained by a cracker from HBGary.
Protest in the US is getting the same treatment as abortion clinics in Texas: a series of laws, enforced with bizarre strictness, leave it permitted in theory but not in practice.
Our response to this must be to say that such laws are just bricks in the wall, and breaking them is not wrong.
The same applies to laws that forbid government officials from telling us how the state really treats us.
The proposed TAFTA treaty is purely a means to let a range of businesses bypass democracy to get rid of the regulations they don't like.
Lt. Adam Cohen faces prosecution instigated by the officer he accused of raping him.
It seems crazy to prosecute anyone for homosexuality after the law was changed so that it is no longer illegal
The crucial role of concealed weapons in the Trayvon Martin killing.
Big US phone and telecom companies have formed a "privacy coalition" to lobby for something.
Everyone: call
for humane
release for Herman Wallace, who has been in solitary confinement
for 40 years and now has terminal cancer.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The 3 Most Absurdly Outdated Internet Laws (in the US, that is).
The "talks" Kerry has arranged to start are actually talks about starting talks.
It looks like they will not go so far as to start actual peace talks.
Kerry has convinced Israel and Palestine to restart negotiations. However, an unusually honest remark from an Israeli official suggests that Israel wants to be able to say, "See, we are negotiating," while making sure no agreement is reached.
Obama rebuked Putin for trying to lock up people that disclose the state's dirty secrets, even as the US made sure a fleeing international criminal would not be extradited.
I agree with Obama's rebuke: prosecuting whistleblowers is wrong when the Putin regime does it — just as wrong as when the Obama regime does it. However, as an American, I believe Americans have a particular responsibility to defend freedom and justice in our own country.
Can we assume that "terrorism" means violence? Can we assume that a "weapon of mass destruction" can kill thousands of people? Not when the US government is talking.
When the US government says "terrorists", think "dissidents", and you can judge its proposals properly.
McDonalds published a suggested budget employees which says they need
a second job, and continues by saying they
can't afford food, medical
care, or heat in the winter.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The Turkish protest movement continues activities
every day.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The NSA is considering leaving people's phone call records "in" the phone companies — and searching it there, Prism-style, still without individual warrants.
This would not respect the 4th Amendment, or our freedom, but it would given them a way to confuse the issue.
Note the argument that it is ok to collect everyone's communications records ("metadata") because they are "information that the telecommunications companies obtain and keep for their own business purposes." The implicit premise is that if it is legitimate for a business to amass certain information about those who choose to be its clients, then the government is entitled to systematically seize all that information. This is blatant contempt for the 4th Amendment.
However, it is also true that any data that businesses record about people could be obtained by the state, and amounts to a massive dossier about each person. We must make businesses collect and retain less information about people — regardless of "business purpose".
Reporter James Risen may have to go to jail to protect a whistleblower.
The UK Conservative Party's main election strategist also works, in parallel, as a PR agent for many businesses, including tobacco and fracking.
In effect, he is an embedded lobbyist.
The NSA has announced that it will continue collecting data about all phone calls in the US.
This represents an act of defiance against freedom-minded Americans, meant to make us despair and give up.
Global political organizing, using available satellite data, made it possible to put pressure on Indonesia to take action against massive fires that are set by humans.
Panama reportedly allowed the CIA agent wanted for
kidnaping in
Italy
to return to the US.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The US has a lot of power over the government of Panama, enough apparently even to spring a kidnaper.
The ex head of the NSA is campaigning to imprison journalists, citing Glenn Greenwald as the base of his campaign.
Charter schools in the US are often an excuse to recreate segregation.
The Gates Foundation is trying to "reform" education by optimizing it
as one might optimize a factory — resulting in
schools
more like factories. Hardly anyone in education dares to express
doubt about whether this is a good thing, because they are all
desperate for Gates' money.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
There would be no need to turn education into a factory for efficiency's sake if we were collecting enough taxes from the rich.
US citizens: Call
on the US not to allow prospecting for oil near Alaska using air
guns that deafen whales.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: call on the National Marine Fisheries Service to cooperate with state laws that restrict the shark fin trade.
US citizens:
call
on your state legislature to repeal the "stand your ground" law,
if your state has one.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The UK has cancelled some arms exports to Egypt because the arms might be used to repress protesters.
The US is legally required to do likewise but is ignoring the requirement.
The UK admits that it rejected an inquiry into Litvinenko's death in order to pander to Putin.
The Zimmerman case is a return to the "business as usual" of American racism.
The judge in Bradley Manning's trial upheld the basic concept that informing the American people implies aiding "the enemy", under certain circumstances.
Whether Manning will be punished under this heading remains to be seen, but the United States of America is already being punished.
The OECD has made a list of proposed changes to stop businesses from tax dodging.
My
proposal could also help.
[Reference updated on 2022-07-15 because the old link was broken.]
The Zambian government is blocking access to exile news sites and arresting their reporters.
People who arrive in Australia by boat will be arbitrarily refused asylum.
In other words, asylum is only for those wealthy enough, and unpersecuted enough, to get on a plane.
Corporate Internet surveillance is nasty in its own right, not solely because all the data is available to Big Brother.
California prison guards are retaliating sadistically for the prisoners' hunger strike.
Many of the so-called "gang members" have been "identified" based on coincidences.
Egypt's new government has cracked down on media that don't support it.
This could mean they hope to get away with killing protesters because we won't see it.
Egypt is cooperating with Israel in besieging Gaza. Very little construction materials and fuel are now reaching Gaza, and people find it hard to get out.
Spanish thugs attacked thousands of people protesting against austerity and the government's demonstrated corruption.
Some economists predict that high economic growth rates have become impossible, because resource availability now limits growth, and productivity per worker is not increasing.
Productivity per worker increased greatly in the US from 1973 to 2013, but workers did not get a corresponding raise. This shows that workers' income is not really tied to their productivity. For US workers to get a raise, they need to fight for it politically.
In addition, increases in productivity per worker nowadays tend to go with reducing the number of workers, and that's no good for most people. In the next decade, robots could tremendously boost productivity per worker in the US, by putting millions of Americans out of work, and they will never find another job. The number of jobs in the US has not increased in decades.
I am glad that the article points out how important it is to reduce the population growth in the rest of this century.
Public Citizen fought to establish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and fought for years to get Richard Cordray confirmed as its head.
US citizens: call on Obama not to nominate New York's notoriously unjust Chief of Thugs to head the Department of Homeland Suppression.
Everyone: call on the AARP to stop sponsoring Rush Limbaugh.
The AARP purports to represent retired people in the US, while lobbying for right-wing policies that would harm their interests. This is why I am not a member of the AARP.
US citizens: call your congresscritter to oppose the "Monsanto & Animal Torture Protection Amendment", the latest perversely cruel Republican measure. It would ban states from regulating farms, whether to avoid inhumane treatment of animals, or to require labeling of GMOs.
A CIA agent has been arrested in Panama, and may be extradited
to Italy where he has been
convicted of
kidnaping for the US.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The UK government actively and structurally helps corporations buy influence where it does the most harm.
Texas Governor Perry signed the restrictive anti-abortion law, pretending to the last that it will protect women. In fact it is likely to kill women instead, by forcing them to choose between underground abortion and childbirth, each of which is dangerous compared with a proper abortion in a proper facility.
The law is likely to be overturned by courts, though.
Detroit's bankruptcy will be devastating to retired workers, since US bankruptcy law gives priority to the banks that inveigled Detroit into bad investments.
Gina McCarthy has been confirmed as the head of the EPA.
She wants to try to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Alas, as long as the president wants to use "all of the above" sources of energy, it is impossible to make enough progress towards reducing them.
The Obama regime refuses to say whether it will continue collecting records of all the phone calls in the US.
Peru will give solar panels to 2 million poor people.
When Egyptian soldiers killed 51 protesters, it was planned and unprovoked attack against civilians who were only praying.
A gay rights activist in Cameroon was tortured and murdered in his home.
ALEC is pushing bills in many states to reduce the compensation businesses pay when they injure people.
If these bills pass, big corporations will do more things that injure people. They are psychopaths by their structure, and too big to be restrained by anyone's human conscience; "I'll sue" is the only language they understand.
ALEC is pushing hard to privatize US public schooling.
How Florida's "stand your ground" law enabled Zimmerman to escape conviction.
I support repeal of these "stand your ground" laws. This would reintroduce the "duty to retreat", so that shooting must be the last resort means for defending oneself, rather than the first priority.
However, it is clear that Zimmerman did not approach Martin in a friendly way, saying "Hi, what's up?" Zimmerman must have tried to threaten Martin in some way — something that gave Martin a motive to fight with him. Perhaps Zimmerman said, "What are you doing here?"
Thus I suggest another change in the law: to make it a crime to approach someone in a threatening way while carrying a weapon, or perhaps while carrying a concealed weapon, outside of certain special exceptions.
Cars can be deadly. We allow people to own and drive cars, but we require them to get training and pass a test, and we punish certain dangerous ways of using them (while drunk, racing on the street, etc). Why not do the same with guns? Carrying a gun could bring with it the special responsibility not to accost people and demand they explain themselves.
Punishing these actions even when they don't result in a death — and they usually don't — would teach most of the Zimmermans of the world to avoid the sort of conduct that led to this killing.
The movement for a basic income aims to give every citizen an income that is adequate for a non-luxurious life.
The more work gets automated, the more necessary a basic income will become. However, in order to make it possible, we need to make sure that the owners of the robots can't dodge taxes.
The UK examined people's phone call and Internet contact data half a million times in the past year.
Many tech companies are pressuring the US to allow them to publish information about the number of users that the US has demanded info about using National Security Letters.
House Judiciary
Committee criticisms
of the NSA's general surveillance.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Russia has become a flat-out tyranny that crushes all opposition, even weak and powerless opposition.
Edward Snowden, True Hope for Change.
Could we convince him to run for president?
Russian dissident Alexei Navalny has been sentenced to 5 years in prison after an absurd trial.
The Israeli army arrested a 5-year-old Palestinian, supposedly for throwing a stone at a car.
The army says he was not arrested, which I consider a lie. It probably represents a policy of abusing language.
25 Palestinian families are cut off from their olive trees by Israel's annexation wall. They heard chainsaws, but could not approach their trees to see that 1150 of them were being cut down.
Another Palestinian was forced out of his house by fanatical "settlers" who later stole his olive harvest. Recently they set fire to it. The army won't allow him to go there and see what the damage was.
The army says it's all his fault; that his house's proximity to a colony (i.e., "settlement") "causes friction".
3/4 of the bumblebee colonies imported into the UK have dangerous parasites.
Greece's government of occupation has imposed an additional austerity measure.
They do it step by step so that people won't see, at any point, how bad a change it will add up to.
Peasants in Catatumbo, Colombia, are staging mass protests demanding government protection so they can keep their land.
In some parts of Colombia, the "paramilitaries", essentially gangs of thieves connected to the army and supported by the state, have invaded villages and killed lots of peasants to scare the survivors into selling their land very cheap. I suspect that the "land that communities were forced to abandon", which "fell into the hands of businesses", was the subject of this practice. If so, the subsequent owners would have been involved with the paramilitaries.
The previous president, Alvaro Horrible (officially "Uribe"), was found to have connections with the paramilitaries. I don't know of any evidence against the current president, Nonsantos; but since he was previously the minister in charge of the army, I would not be surprised if he had such connections.
A town in Colorado proposes
to pay
a bounty to anyone that shoots down a drone aircraft.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: call for legislation to ban neonicotinoid pesticides in the US.
The NSA says it is allowed to investigate anyone up to three degrees of separation from a terrorist suspect. That would be a large fraction of the US. It got this broad permission from the FISA court.
Chinese control of Internet public opinion is becoming more subtle, involving spin as much as outright deletion.
This resembles what businesses do to shape Internet public opinion. John Dvorak presented evidence that Microsoft was doing this to create a favorable attitude towards Windows 8.
A UK thug chief admits that undercover thugs gathered evidence about the relatives of murdered Stephen Lawrence.
There was no reason to suspect them of any crime, but they were campaigning for a proper investigation of Lawrence's death. (Fortunately their campaign was successful, and found the real killers.)
I do not see anything particularly bad about using the names of dead children. It's not as if they could be hurt, and if their parents ever met these thugs, they would think it was a coincidence of names.
A leak suggests that the EU is
about to
abandon network neutrality.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
As Americans campaign against NSA surveillance, we should also limit surveillance of cars by license plate readers.
These systems can serve valid purposes, but they are unacceptable if they surveil everyone. They must be designed so that they don't really "see" a car unless its plate is on a list, and only a specific court order about a specific plate should put it on the list.
It's possible that Intel has given the NSA a
back
door into CPU chips.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
In any case, upgradeable microcode that isn't free software means that these processors require nonfree installed software to run.
A coalition led by the EFF has sued to put an end to massive government collection of Americans' phone call records.
The Free Software Foundation is one of the plaintiffs. Here's more information about the range of organizations.
Sad to say, even if this suit is successful, it won't go far enough to give us privacy rights. We must not allow a complete dossier about every American to be there, just waiting for the government to have some reason to investigate him.
Bills proposed to put an end to massive surveillance also do not go far enough to really solve the problem.
US citizens: phone your senators and say, close the Guantanamo prison and free or charge each prisoner. Don't allow imprisonment without trial. The Senate will vote soon on the issue.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
The right-wing Spanish ruling party is accused of corruption, but hopes to survive by refusing to acknowledge it.
Global heating changes ecosystems drastically, in the Southern Ocean and in Missouri.
The Muslim Brotherhood complains of being excluded from Egypt's new cabinet but maybe it is actually boycotting the cabinet.
The Senate has not formally changed the rules for filibusters, but when Democrats showed they would do so, Republicans gave up on obstructing many of Obama's nominations.
I advocate changing the rules so that a filibuster must be carried out physically by senators prepared to speak as long as necessary.
Workers in an Amazon warehouse and shipping center walk all day under the orders of a computer, and are forbidden even to speak to each other.
US citizens: ask your congresscritter to support an amendment to ban the US from spending Pentagon money to arm Syrian rebels.
A spending ban is not airtight. When Congress banned spending money to aid right-wing rebels in Nicaragua, Reagan arranged for private arms dealers to ransom American hostages by selling arms to their terrorist kidnappers, then used the "private" profits to fund those rebels. Obama might try the same thing.
Still, the spending ban is a good step forward.
US citizens: call on Congress
to repair
the Voting Rights Act.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: call on Obama
to support
UN efforts toward global nuclear disarmament.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: call on Obama to order government contractors to pay a living wage.
Urgent: US citizens: call on the EPA to prevent the pollution that frequently makes US beaches unsafe.
US citizens: call on Congress to cancel the F35 fighter jet.
Long-term unemployment in the UK has reached a 17-year high.
PayPal blocks payment for books that have "Iran" in their name.
Former Senator Gordon Humphrey says Snowden did the right thing and wishes him success in finding asylum.
On resurrecting the concept of homicide by a corporation in the US.
I am left wondering why the practice ceased. If it was done before under state law, why not now?
Feminism fights to free men as well as women from patriarchy.
10 commentaries on the George Zimmerman verdict.
Everyone: call on
McDonalds to stop making workers pay to collect their pay.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Amartya Sen's new book points out how India has directed its new wealth towards a few. 50% of Indians have no access to a toilet, and 50% of the children are stunted by malnutrition. Poorer neighboring countries have done much better for the poor, and so has China.
Large and increasing quantities of oil are being shipped around North America by rail, making disasters only a matter of time.
Pipelines would solve this problem, but they won't prevent the bigger disaster that burning oil is likely to cause. We need a "none of the above" solution — move away from fossil fuels.
The EU has banned another pesticide to protect honeybees.
Russia blocked the creation of a marine life sanctuary near Antarctica.
This is a victory for the short term over the long term.
Morsi's supporters continue protesting, while talks between them and the government were a failure.
The US is trying to create a world in which
no
one the US wants to get can find shelter.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens:
ask
your congresscritter to sign the Grayson-Takano letter, promising
to vote against any bill that would cut Medicare, Medicaid, or Social
Security.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
A mining company, freshly given state permission to pollute water supplies, uses masked armed guards to "protect" itself from imaginary violent protesters.
The World Bank is once again backing big dams in Africa, despite the visible problems of their previous big dams in Africa.
I wonder if the companies that use most of the electricity from these dams are related to mining. If so, these dams could be regarded as another projection of the political power of the mining companies.
The Chinese government
is persecuting
anticorruption activists, thus undermining its own proclaimed
campaign against corruption.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
All EU deals for cooperation with Israel are now required to explicitly exclude Israeli colonies in Palestinian territory — specifically, the West Bank.
US
citizens: write
to Obama against the Keystone XL planet-roaster pipeline.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: call on your senators to approve Gina McCarthy as head of the EPA.
'You Can Trust Good Guys to Spy on You': The Difference Between Bush's Spying and Obama's Spying, as Explained by 'Obama'.
A study
confidently predicts
2.3 meters of sea-level rise per degree of increase in the global
average temperature.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Thus, two degrees rise would mean many coastal cities are in big trouble. And it will require vigorous efforts to avoid even worse trouble.
The SEC is prosecuting an underling who was involved in a massive fraud, but shows no interest in prosecuting the higher-ups.
I don't think it is wrong to prosecute Fabrice Tourre if he knew what he was doing. (I don't need to try to judge, for myself, whether he did.) The wrong is in letting the others off the hook, and failing to change banking law so it can't happen again.
Afghan government soldiers continue shooting government troops and NATO troops. One who was caught and arrested has escaped through the help of one of the officers in charge of the prison.
These events demonstrate that the Taliban inspire a kind of loyalty which Karzai's government can't compete with. It is difficult to win a fight against that sort of disadvantage.
Alice Walker's reflections on the killing of Trayvon Martin.
The chain of events that directly led to his killing started when a white racist assumed a young black man was a criminal mainly because of his looks, then pursued him. That must happen fairly often in the US. If it leads to a fight, there is some chance one of the people will be killed (most likely the young black man).
A crucial psychological principle is that the probability of punishment and the frequency of punishment matter more than the amount of punishment. If we want to prevent repetition of this chain of events, it would be more effective to punish or discourage some event near the start, rather than an unusual outcome. Perhaps limiting carrying concealed weapons is a good solution.
GlaxoSmithKline is accused of bribing doctors in China.
I won't say it can't be true.
Demand
that Texas investigate why state troopers confiscated tampons
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Oyster reefs and wetlands provide vital protection from the ocean inundations that global heating will bring.
How the FISA court rubber-stamps massive surveillance.
Palestinian prisoners are still hunger striking.
Those who wish to discredit science operate by attacking individual scientists, with insults and lawsuits. Scientists have organized to defend science from this.
We must directly confront those who pretend that banning abortions is an expression of concern for people.
Russia wants to make multinational Internet companies cooperate with Russian surveillance rather than US Internet surveillance, regarding data about Russia and Russians.
The NSA says its mission is to collect "all" data, and it effectively targets everyone.
US citizens: call on the EPA to release its report about flammable tap water due to fracking.
Australia deposits asylum seekers in a prison in Papua New Guinea while their cases are heard. A committee that is supposed to monitor how these prisoners are treated has never actually met.
DuckDuckGo can't guarantee anonymity for users' searches even given the best will in the world. And neither could any other search engine in the US.
The NSA could be monitoring the search requests before they arrive at DuckDuckGo's servers. Those servers are hosted by Amazon, and Amazon could monitor them too.
BUT, if you visit through Tor, you block that.
The return of bison to part of the former American prairie restores the ecology.
Debunking the lies that try to excuse TAFTA (and other free exploitation treaties).
A further one: the idea that economic growth will benefit most people no matter how it is brought about. If the means to achieve growth serve the rich in other ways, they will get the increased income and the rest may be worse off.
Barrett Brown faces over a hundred years in prison for posting a link to the (already published) data obtained from Stratfor.
Kyrgyzstan, the one democracy in central Asia, wonders why the UK shields the son of the former dictator, who is accused of stealing tremendous amounts of money.
The UK government arbitrarily cancels the citizenship of dual nationals, typically when they are outside the country.
The US government is the principal opponent of tax reforms to prevent Internet companies from escaping taxes.
The Guantanamo prison guards are trying to pretend that fewer prisoners are now on hunger strike.
The acquittal of George Zimmerman could encourage racist whites to attack black teenagers presuming they are criminals, and then kill them.
Black leaders in the US want George Zimmerman to be tried on a federal charge of "violating civil rights."
I don't support this campaign because I think the practice is a sneaky way to violate the constitutional prohibition of double jeopardy.
Something needs to be changed in the law so as to avoid encouraging such killings, but I am not sure what it should be.
The manufacturer of tasers says, don't fire at the chest — it can cause a heart attack. Can you guess what body part thugs usually fire at?
The Australian right-wing "plan" to confront global heating is a phony plan developed by deniers.
Leaked Regulation: Schrödinger's net neutrality on its way in Europe.
To resist massive surveillance, people must learn to reject invitations to use services that surveil their users.
Although the article has a valid point, it undermines itself with the typical defeatist statements that "we" all engage in these surveillance-feeding practices now. Readers might well suppose that if "everyone does it" then there is no point seriously thinking of stopping.
But it's not all of us, only some of us. It is possible to say no. I have never used Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Foursquare, Google+ or Path. (I might consider using Twitter for tweeting, if it were convenient for me.) I don't have a portable phone because I don't want to tell a phone company everywhere I go.
How the US pressures Internet companies into cooperating with Prism: by threatening to install their own surveillance gear without the companies' help.
Privacy International is suing the UK government over its massive surveillance practices.
Other human rights organizations are demanding changes in surveillance policies.
Daniel Ellsberg: Edward Snowden was right to flee; the US of today is "not the same country" as the one Ellsberg dared to remain in.
The latest media campaign to smear Snowden is to point out that Venezuela is guilty of some wrongful surveillance too.
Surveillance of people because they are opposed to government policies is no more legitimate in Venezuela than it is in the US. However, that need not stop Snowden from acceping asylum in Venezuela.
There are also reports that the Venezuelan government is harassing a journalist that published reports about Chavez's cancer, much as the US harasses some journalists. This too is no reason why Snowden should go to the US and face even nastier treatment himself.
As a patriotic American, Snowden's focus is how his own government wrongs his own countrymen, but his efforts will tend to help other countries too.
If we can accept that the world's most powerful government sometimes needs to work closely with really horrible states, we should accept that an individual hero fleeing the world's most powerful government can't be expected to choose only spotless states to ask for asylum. He needs to accept shelter wherever he can find it.
Ideally he would get shelter and protection from the US government itself.
US officials have a pattern of making misleading (or outright dishonest) statements about surveillance practices.
How gratis-to-play games psychologically manipulate players into paying over and over to have a chance of winning.
There is nothing exploitative in a chess set, a deck of cards, or an ordinary board game; the company that sells them doesn't manipulate the game you play so as to pressure or trick you into buying more of its product. Those are the standard of comparison by which we can see if some other game is exploitative. When you see how these companies fool people into spending money, I hope you will decide never to deal with them.
John Kiriakou explains what he had to go through to get medical treatment when he broke his finger while in prison.
Once phone call records are saved and made available for later
examination, governments examine them for the
smallest
of reasons.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Nina Paley on limiting mass immigration … of sperm.
The benefit of increased trade from TAFTA is projected to amount to three cents per person per day.
Of course, that benefit won't be evenly divided. It will be for the rich. The rest will get only the fallout from everything else in the treaty, whose name stands for Turn All Freedom To Ashes.
Skanska construction quit the US Chamber of Commerce because that organization is lobbying against green construction methods.
Summarizing the dangers of fracking: polluting the water globally, and increasing heating globally.
Obama plans to keep troops in Afghanistan far beyond 2014.
An experiment found many vertebrate species can't adapt fast enough to survive global heating.
They can adapt to 1C of temperature change in a million years, not 2C (let alone 4C) in a hundred years.
House Republicans have removed food stamps from the farm bill entirely.
Republican leaders met and made a specific plan to sabotage Obama in every way.
However, their sabotage campaign is broader than that. They also try to sabotage everything that contributed to women's rights, the wellbeing of poor Americans. or even energy efficiency.
Obama is easy for the friends of the plutocrats to sabotage, since he never tries very hard to oppose them. A real friend of most Americans would have used the Republicans' sabotage plan to attack them. But since he won't do that, it is up to us to do it.
As the US directs ever more resources into "security", which includes massive surveillance and war, it neglects the activities that could really make the world more secure.
Avoiding global heating disaster is one of those activities. The Pentagon recognizes that the effects of global heating will cause "instability" (wars, mass migration, etc.), but Congress and the President do not pay due attention to this.
Billionaire Koch Brother Says Eliminating The Minimum Wage Will Help The Poor.
He suggests that we judge US wages by comparing them with wages in other countries, which implies a great reduction in US wages. That's an admission of what we figured the US plutocrats want.
A federal judge ordered Microsoft to give Chevron massive amounts of personal data on 30 anonymous Internet activists tangentially related to Chevron's lawsuit against Ecuador.
China, Local Leaders Threaten Hong Kong Press Freedom.
US citizens: call on the
US not
to allow seismic test with very loud noises off the Atlantic
coast. It can kill whales by deafening them.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Everyone: call on Starbucks to move to compostable containers.
US citizens: sign this campaign
to reform
the filibuster.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Uri Avnery: the moral dilemmas of Syria and Egypt.
Time Magazine's idea of a discussion on US budget policy was to present two Republicans who disagree on some details.
It could have been worse: they could have presented a Republican and a Democrat like Obama that is little different from a Republican.
At NBC News, the Anchor Has to Remind You You're Not Watching an Ad.
TV pundit David Gregory
treated Americans
with an income under $200,000 a year as negligible.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Many parents in the UK won't let their children wander outdoors. As a result, children hardly ever go outdoors, and when they do, it is like a package tour in a foreign country.
The same thing happens in the US: parents are terrified of allowing children to be alone. These children are totally dependent on parents for transportation, and the parents are stressed by the need to do this.
A UK union leader will suggests that unions drop their support for today's "Labour" party, which has become almost as plutocratic as the Tory party.
US citizens: tell your senators not to weaken the EPA's regulation of toxic coal ash.
Everyone:
tell
UPS to stop lobbying against improved fuel efficiency.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Texas Republicans passed their law to restrict abortion, which will probably be blocked as unconstitutional.
One of the students who talked back to NSA recruiters
writes about
the experience.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Malala Yousafzai addressed the UN on her 16th birthday, advocating the cause of providing education to the 57 million children who are denied schooling.
Overfishing in the Mediterranean is coming back to haunt humans as jellyfish take over many beaches in the Mediterranean.
The Obama regime says it will (for the time being) not get search warrants against reporters that publish leaks to find their contacts.
Unfortunately, this doesn't do as much good as one might hope. Thanks to the massive surveillance that Snowden has revealed, they can find the reporters' sources without a subpoena on the reporters.
The Portuguese Socialist Party has rejected further austerity, which was demanded in return for yet another "bailout".
"Bail out" means "we're pushing your country out the door of the plane".
The EU encourages the corporate land-grab in Cambodia.
Secular and jihadist rebels in Syria are on the brink of fighting each other.
If they do become enemies, that might have the paradoxical result of opening a path for foreign aid to the secular rebels without helping the jihadis. However, that doesn't mean it would be a good idea to get hitched to the FSA.
Latin American countries including Brazil and Argentina will
withdraw
their ambassadors to Spain, France, Italy and Portugal for the
blockage of Evo Morales' plane.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
This will have a real impact. I won't try to guess whether it will be enough.
The US is attacking world standards of human rights in order to get Snowden.
It is also
denouncing
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for standing up for
Snowden's human rights, and for what he did for everyone else's human
rights.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Obama replied to Snowden's statement by rebuking Putin for repressing human rights organizations in Russia.
That is a valid criticism. Putin's regime is not in general a supporter of whistleblowers. It did not just kill whistleblower Sergei Magnitsky in prison; it put him on trial after death. (I am sure Snowden wishes he could go straight to South America without needing Russian help.)
However, that doesn't excuse what Obama is doing to punish an American hero. "Better than Putin" is no standard for judging our own government.
Twitter has given France the personal data about people who posted anti-semitic insults.
These insults are nasty, but censorship is nastier.
The UK government has cancelled plans to require plain packages, based on reasons that can't be serious. The UK government austerity policies aim to reduce the number of jobs, and plain packages in terms of marketing need not be easy to counterfeit.
Senator Wyden says the Obama regime is "considering" reducing the bulk collection of Americans' phone records.
I would not trust the Obama regime to really do so, but what this shows is that the movement against massive surveillance is strong enough to win something real.
ACLU-NJ Praises Newark's Adoption of Stop-and-Frisk Transparency Policy.
I think the celebration is premature. This policy may be a step forward if it makes thugs do that less, or shows people how bad it is. But thugs shouldn't have the power to search you at any time on the street without cause.
Republican "pro-family" policies cause suffering for modern families.
Having a baby in the US is especially expensive and dangerous to the mother, and Republican policies put the safer alternatives such as contraception and abortion out of some women's reach.
If the article's author thinks babies are adorable and something to celebrate, she should not claim we all feel that way. I don't, and you don't have to. When a baby is born, we should help it achieve a good life, but the world would be no worse off if that baby had not been born.
The spread of human activities in India has brought wild elephants and humans into conflict.
The Republicans in the House are killing the immigration bill.
I'm in favor of offering immigrants without papers a path to citizenship, but the immigration bill has another provision which would require employees to have state-issued ID cards, making them in effect almost national ID cards. I think this is a change in the wrong direction.
If we don't want a surveillance state, we must start opposing and reversing surveillance measures.
Alexei Navalny is running for mayor of Moscow, but will most likely be imprisoned on bogus charges for opposing Putin.
Snowden has asked for asylum temporarily in Russia until he can get to one of the Latin American countries that has offered him asylum.
Florida set out to ban Internet cafes, which is unjust, and accidentally banned all Internet connections.
US citizens: call for
an investigation
of oil companies for manipulating the price of oil.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Everyone: urge the mayor of Washington DC
to stand
firm against Walmart bullying and sign the living wage law.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Any community is better off without a Walmart store. Walmart systematically pushes down wages.
US citizens: call for serious negotiation with Iran about uranium enrichment.
US citizens: support reinstitution of the Glass Steagall Act to separate banking from investment gambling.
Don't celebrate the election of an Iranian president approved by the theocracy.
The election was not free, since candidates were limited by the theocratic regime. The new president is not to be celebrated, as he will not give human rights Iranians. However, he might be open to a reasonable settlement on the uranium refining dispute, and the US should be ready to make one.
In order to do this, the US will have to defy the Israeli hawks' lobby, that want conflict between the US and Iran regardless of the pretext.
Air pollution, mostly soot and ozone, kills 2.5 million people a year.
The soot comes from diesel engines, power plants and coal fires. The ozone comes from engines.
Mining companies are pressuring the Australian government to relax environmental protections on exploratory drilling.
If the drilling finds gas, supposedly it would provide 1/4 of the gas that New South Wales would plan to burn. So what? We already have far more supplies of fossil fuels than we dare use; what good is it to find more?
Some of the large fires in Indonesia are on palm oil plantations.
Some of them are members of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil.
US citizens: support the prisoners on hunger strike in California.
There may be a good reason for imprisoning them, but that doesn't justify cruelty.
Everyone: call on Kellogg to stop supporting deforestation in Indonesia (for palm oil plantations).
US citizens:
support
elimination of the filibuster, for presidential appointments.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The UK put off plans to discourage marketing of cigarettes to young people in order to show it is "open for business".
This demonstrates that "open for business" is the wrong thing for any country to try to be.
Justin Carter, accused of making a threat in an explicitly labeled joke, received a gift of money for bail, but still faces absurd charges.
Organized peaceful protests in Rio de Janeiro turned violent after discovery of a box of molotov cocktails, which might have been planted by thugs so as to be discovered.
Ireland has legalized abortion in some limited situations. This decision, defying threats from the Catholic Church, is an important victory for women and for humanity, even though it does not go far enough.
Meanwhile, the law imposes a harsh penalty on abortions in other circumstances.
San Francisco mounted real opposition to a bid to hold the Olympics there.
So did Chicago, although the campaign failed.
If we are to avoid the other disasters that CO2 emissions will cause, aside from those due to temperature, we need to cut emissions even more sharply.
Palestinian prisoners, imprisoned without trial, have been on hunger strike for months.
Palestinian children chosen at random face life imprisonment after being tortured into confessing to throwing stones. It is not clear whether any stones were actually thrown.
Greenpeace is making a success of a range of civil disobedience campaigns.
The Afghan government has moved to protect people who torture child brides.
Journalism is now a social network rather than a profession.
Burma has convicted 25 people of murders carried out in a pogrom against Muslims.
The US has underestimated the monetary value of the damage caused by the Big Spill.
The deeper corporate crime behind the oil train explosion in Lac-Megantic.
Microsoft changed several systems to help the NSA spy on users. These systems include Skype, web chats, email, and remote file storage.
This means that Microsoft's claims about encryption and privacy in these programs and services are effectively fraudulent.
There is no US law requiring user software for encryption to have a back door. But you can't trust encryption unless it is done by a free program in your own computer.
The UK thugs systematically spied on anti-racism campaigners who were supporting a man they were trying to frame, looking for "subversives".
A study suggests fracking can cause large earthquakes. (It is known to cause small ones.)
The Horrible Psychology of Solitary Confinement.
Journalists should learn to expect surveillance and protect themselves from it.
I find the term "Hidden Wiki" strange and misleading, but Tor is a good thing.
Republicans in North Carolina attached severe abortion restrictions to a bill about motorcycle safety.
US high schools and colleges need to study freedom of speech.
Censorship and repression in Turkey is being copied from traditional media to social media.
Human rights organizations in France have sued tech companies and US agencies for their cooperation in handing over the data of French citizens.
Researchers build an all-optical transistor
My campaign against using Facebook now has support from Venezuela.
It is useful to be able to communicate with people, but let's not use a platform that hands your data to the CIA. What we really want is a distributed system where your data is in your own server and made available to others as you see fit.
A victory in the US against copyrighted laws.
Nationalism,
Tech Giants, and Spy States. Why don't big tech companies lobby to
keep their customers' data private?
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
"Pro-life" Republicans want US children to go hungry.
They value "human" life only before a human is born.
Mexican prisoners (who say they were forced to sign blank confessions) are being treated horribly in a new US-funded private prison.
A Saudi princess living in the US has been charged with
keeping
a Kenyan woman as a domestic slave.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The French parliament voted to give free software (logiciel libre) priority in higher education.
"Priority" is a rather weak preference; it is too easy to justify making an exception. Also, this doesn't apply to primary and secondary schools. However, it is a good step forward.
Egypt's military has arrested journalists from Al Jazeera and other foreign media.
Walmart and other US companies have rejected the binding scheme for improving factory safety in Bangladesh. They have set up their own dummy plan so they can pretend to be doing something about the problem.
The US and China agreed to cooperate on reducing pollution and global heating, but they are only considering nibbling around the edges.
Pesticide Use Spikes as GMO Failure Cripples Corn Belt.
The election in Zimbabwe is rigged again, but opposition leader Tsvangirai has not done a good job of winning support either.
The UK's welfare "changes" (cuts dressed up as a reform) have
tripled
the number of people turning to private charity for food.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
How do we build the
power
to stop NSA surveillance.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Nonuniformed thugs attacked a University of Virginia student for buying a six-pack of soda-water. They later said they thought she had bought beer. She did not know they were official thugs and tried to drive away.
They charged her three felonies: failure to read thugs' minds, failure to clairvoyantly recognize them as thugs, and attempted self-protection when attacked by a group of threatening strangers. These are not official felonies, of course. They represent what plainclothes thugs generally do people who try to protect themselves when attacked by an armed group of strangers for no obvious reason.
Fortunately the charges were dropped. But the thugs deserved to be fired at the very least. Firing might be sufficient in this case since they didn't permanently injure the victims.
There is a dispute about whether the 11-year-old Chilean pregnant girl was raped. Her mother said the sexual relations were voluntary. The girl said the man hurt her, which might mean she does consider it rape, or might mean something else.
She also says she wants to have the baby, and was praised by plutocrat president Piñera.
Piñera calls her position "maturity"; I call it childish folly. I won't rebuke her for having sex with anyone she chooses to have it with, as long as they take precautions so it goes no further than that. But I doubt that she is ready to have children, either medically or psychologically, and it seems that she is putting her health at risk if she does not get an abortion (though it is not stated why). In other words, Piñera is urging her to risk grave harm.
To avoid disastrous ocean acidification, ice melt, and decrease of food production, in addition to disastrous global heating, requires a much stricter limitation on the amount of greenhouse gas emitted.
See which US senators and congresscritters support a constitutional
amendment to reverse
the Corporations United decision (to
call
it what it really is).
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Tariq Ali: the Pakistani report on Osama bin Laden admits to incompetence to cover up something worse.
Interviews with Syrians about al-Nusra.
The Egyptian military have called for arrest of more leaders of the Muslim Brotherhood, meanwhile imposing a plan to amend rather than replace the constitution that it imposed.
Burning even 1/3 of the fossil fuel reserves is likely to trigger a runaway greenhouse effect through release of methane hydrides from tundra and sea bottoms.
Look at Venus for an example of where that goes.
We may be only 10 years away from this disaster. Or maybe 30 years. Whichever it is, the fossil fuel companies are forcing Earth to disaster.
Apple has been convicted of conspiring with publishers to fix e-book prices.
While I disapprove of fixing prices, we must compare it with what Amazon does. Since Amazon is so close to a monopoly, it can effectively fix prices all by itself. The ban on price fixing makes sense only as part of a comprehensive policy to prevent any one company from being in such a position.
However, the price of ebooks is a minor issue compared with the injustice of most e-books. I wouldn't buy an e-book from Apple or Amazon even for a negative price.
A Swedish agency that wiretaps Russian communications for the NSA also conceals vital intelligence from the Swedish navy.
Modern intensive agriculture can backfire in strange ways. Slugs thrive because their predators are wiped out, so people kill them with chemicals that we then have to ingest.
Now put this together with superweeds and the fact that we're running out of water for agriculture, and compare that with the increasing population and you wind up with a choice, soon, between birth control now and starvation in a decade.
A study finds that tiny Antarctic krill, which are food for a large part of sea life, may die out in a few decades due to acidification of the ocean from the CO2 we are pumping out.
Many species of whales eat krill. We don't have to worry about whaling if the whales will starve.
The Great Barrier Reef's health was estimated as "poor" in 2011 due to heavy rain in the neighboring land.
The coral has declined by 50% since 1985.
A UK government report warns droughts will devastate food production there starting in ten years or so.
A user found that his Motorola Droid X2 phone was transmitting lots of personal data to Motorola.
He could have prevented this if his phone allowed him to install a software load consisting of entirely free software.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to oppose HR 761, which would exempt mines from many environmental regulations.
US citizens: support removal of US troops from Afghanistan next year.
The US has failed to take action to protect endangered marine species.
US citizens: tell your senators to vote to reduce student loan interest rates.
The UN has concluded that the Israeli army used Palestinian children as human shields. Some soldiers have been convicted of this, but they got no punishment.
When Israeli troops take over a peaceful Palestinian village, is it training, or just to show them who's boss?
Two Palestinians face a military trial for a peaceful protest in their village. The army had declared the village a "closed military zone" to provide an excuse. The prosecutor admitted the real goal is to deny Palestinians the right to protest over the theft of land from their village.
Israeli troops arrested Palestinian film-maker Mohammad al-Azza. They didn't fracture his skull, they just hit him where they fractured it last time.
An Israeli colony in Palestine destroyed Palestinians' farmland by pumping sewage onto it.
Fanatics from other colonies carried out a pogrom against Bedouin in Palestine. "Pogrom" is the word that was used when Russians did likewise to Jews. My mother told me about how her mother lived in fear of pogroms.
Soldiers
ransacked another Palestinian village, whose inhabitants are
threatened with expulsion.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Everyone:
tell
Google to stop funding Senator Inhofe and other
global heating denialists.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
One aspect of corporate power today is that the managers are never responsible for anything they do wrong. They can always say the system is so complex that nobody could possibly monitor it.
Part of the motive for treaty-imposed globalization of business was to make things so complex that businesses could use this excuse. Thus, cancelling those treaties (needed to restore democracy) would also help with that.
30,000 California prisoners have started a hunger strike to protest long-term solitary confinement, which is a form of brainwashing.
The arguments used by the Obama regime to justify massive surveillance would equally well justify putting surveillance devices in every home.
Of course, that's exactly what is being done, in the form of the portable phone (which can be remotely converted into a listening device) and the Xbox One.
These devices are not mandatory; we have the option to reject them. That does no good unless we do reject them.
UK troops in Helmand alienated the population and strengthened the Taliban, according to a study.
Even Le Carre's latest fiction can't do justice to Snowden's truth.
Irony of ironies, a disabled veteran was told to remove his uniform to enter the California State Capital, where he was invited to a ceremony to honor him. His medals set off the medal detector. But this was hard for him to do, due to his permanent injuries.
Some US cities are banning wearing of pants that sag.
Plutocratic politicians are giving us progress on gay rights so they can dodge the pressure to run the economy for the benefit of all.
Comparing the data collection of the US NSA with that of the former East German NSA ("Stasi", in German).
France has stopped punishing file-sharing with disconnection from the Internet, but has not stopped attacking individuals for sharing.
Meanwhile, Ireland has adopted a similar unjust plan.
French and Irish Internet subscribers, like those everywhere, should run WiFi nets without passwords so as to avoid being instruments of unjust state power. Both file sharing and Internet anonymity are at stake.
The NSA says all the data it collected about you is "secret", even if you are not suspected of anything.
Obama FBI Nominee Defends NSA's Dragnet Surveillance. He also wants to attack protection of journalists' sources.
More about the Electronic Privacy Information Center's lawsuit to end blanket collection of Americans' phone calls.
Right-wing think tanks and media that repeat their stories
allow the most
absurd
arguments to pass as valid.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Indonesia has put limits on what sorts of causes a civil organization can stand for. A wide range of causes are banned, including amending the constitution.
The importance of this is shown by the organizations now campaigning to amend the US constitution to reverse the Corporations United decision. Imagine if that were banned.
Indonesia's official philosophy, Pancasila, demands that everyone have a religion. Thus, this law forbids organizations to campaign for the right to be recognized as an Atheist in Indonesia.
Everyone: protest on July 28 by standing still outside a Turkish embassy or consulate.
Thanks to Snowden, countries in South America, many supposedly friends
of the US, know about intense US surveillance, including
business
secrets as well as military secrets.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Both Christians and Muslims in the US occasionally throw up a
religiously-motivated murderer. More of them have been Christian.
Irrationally, the US heavily infiltrates the Muslims and doesn't
bother the Christians. Meanwhile, a double standard of justice is
applied to the two groups: general statements condemning the
government are recognized as acceptable under the first amendment
when Christians say them, but
put Muslims in
jail.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens:
call
for replacing the part of the Voting Right Act
that the Supreme Court destroyed.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Rupert Murdoch is being investigated after a recording was leaked in which he said that paying police for information was standard practice.
One small ISP in Utah protects its customers from massive surveillance.
A jury ruled that
guards
killed Jimmy Mubenga while deporting him from the UK to Angola.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Retired Judge Robinson, whose responsibilities including supervising the FISA court, say it has ignored its legal authority and is unable to keep surveillance in check.
China has forcibly relocated 2 million rural Tibetans, forcing them into towns where they have no income.
Google is raising funds for senators that pretend there is no global heating, and has funded a denialist legal harassment organization.
Egyptian troops shot and killed pro-Morsi protesters.
Daniel Ellsberg says that Snowden was right to flee; the Obama regime has no respect for legal rights when it is out to get someone.
No one has an obligation to face unjust prosecution by an evil regime.
Obama talks about the danger of global heating, but has given up on proposing to create jobs by addressing that danger.
My analysis of the reason is slightly different. Unemployment is still a great problem in the US, but Obama sees no need to even talk about trying to address it.
US citizens: tell your senators you object to telling federal employees to report their coworkers for anything that seems out of the ordinary.
Perhaps traditional values in Africa might help stop poaching of elephants.
Another idea that occurs to me, as a last resort: cut off all but the root of the elephants' tusks, and attach ceramic prostheses for them to use instead.
UK thugs tased a man, then kicked him after he fell on his face. Apparently he had not complied with an order to "put his hands up". Perhaps the tasing left him unable to move.
Reportedly the man was trying to steal food. Stealing is bad, in general; but there is an exception: anyone unable to get food to eat, in a land with plentiful food, is entitled to take food to eat.
It's possible this man had food to eat, and was taking something fancy that he did not need. That would be wrong. But if he was going hungry for want of food, that is the state's fault, and there was no reason he should starve when food was to be had.
Chinese thugs
shot
Tibetan monks who were carrying out a ceremony.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Many Egyptian men, and even religious authorities, say women deserve and want to be raped, if they don't stay at home.
Many Western men make claims of a similar spirit based on different actions women take.
European clothing labelers have committed to improving safety in factories in Bangladesh, but US companies have mostly refused to support this.
1/4 of all people surveyed, world wide, paid a bribe last year.
The probability of extreme heat waves in Australia is five times what it was years ago, due to global heating.
Personal Declaration of Richard Stallman and Euclides Mance on Solidarity Economy and Free Software.
1/4 of rivers and lakes in South Minnesota are so polluted by agricultural nitrogen fertilizer runoff that they could not be used for drinking water.
With Windows 8.1, Microsoft is moving step by step closer to forcing every user to make a Microsoft service account. And it will spy on users' searches, Ubuntu-style.
We could call it Windows Prism Edition.
500 million Chinese lose an average of 5 years of life due to burning coal.
I think that some of the coal they are burning is exported from the US.
Republicans say schools should keep students safe by giving arms to their staff. Insurance companies refuse to cover schools which do that, saying it is too dangerous.
A Chilean girl, 11 years old, is pregnant due to rape, but she cannot have an abortion there.
Privacy Is Lost, And We Are All To Blame.
Actually, it's not all of us. I refuse to do many of the foolish things the article says that we "all" do. But if you don't refuse, you are partly to blame.
So redeem yourself by fighting hard now!
Why GOP Wants to Tax Students and Not Polluters.
(It wants to discourage studying and encourage polluting.)
The Electronic Privacy Information Center sued to put an end to the FBI's collection of all phone call records.
A great step backward: the UK will convert wheat into ethanol, not very useful as wheat production is endangered by global heating.
Capacity to grow staple foods, in Europe and Asia, is reaching physical limits.
A Pakistani government report condemned Pakistani intelligence for failing to find Osama bin Laden, and the US for invading Pakistan to kill him.
The Australian opposition wants to cut taxes on mining and carbon emissions.
Why tax mines if you can dump on poor people instead?
The UK plans to ban two organizations without trial.
To ban an organization without trial is a violation of freedom of association. The fact that other countries (including the US) do it too is no excuse whatsoever. Boko Haram is a terrorist group, responsible for horrible atrocities, according to what I have read; but there should be a trial to establish this and not merely a political decision.
This ban will result in sentences of 10 years in prison for wearing certain forms of clothing. I am going to the UK soon, and I don't know what forms of clothing they are; am I in danger? Can someone tell me what I need to avoid? And can someone try to demonstrate that this doesn't infringe freedom of expression?
The US has applied such bans to charities that had bent over backwards to follow US rules in order to aid the poor and not terrorism.
Pope Francis visited Lampedusa to call attention to the suffering of those that try to get to Europe by boat — and the poverty in Africa which impels them to do it.
The Xbox One's great new feature is advertising targeted based on monitoring users.
The US has agreements with non-US telecom companies to retrieve data at will.
Empirically, copyright makes books and songs disappear after a few years.
Nick Turse tried to interview US soldiers at a base in Qatar (which in
the Obama fantasy world is not called a base). He got a runaround,
and on returning to the US
was harassed
with accusations that he was a jihadi.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Four Contemptible Examples of Corporate Tax Avoidance.
The US is now number 27 among countries in median wealth, reflecting the effects of austerity and catering to the banksters.
Although blasphemy charges were dropped against Rimsha Masih, she still faced the danger of lynching by Muslim fanatics. She has been brought to safety in Canada.
Citizens of Massachusetts: ask your state legislators to restrict surveillance using drones.
The witch-hunt against people who watch "child pornography" may provide an excuse for US to start ordering people to decrypt their files.
Note that "child pornography" in the US includes images of people who are old enough that they can lawfully have sex in many states.
The UK government proposes to scrap the protections against torture that blocked its attempts to deport Abu Qatada. He returned to Jordan when UK negotiators obtained assurance he would get a fair trial there.
It seems to me that if the UK stopped promoting and facilitating torture, it might have more success in discouraging other countries from practicing torture, and then it would have an easier time deporting unwanted visitors, or even convincing them to leave, without trampling human rights.
Hundreds of prisoners in Italy, sentenced to life in prison, asked to be executed instead.
The death sentence is an injustice, but anyone should have the right to die (and to ask for help in dying, in case they can't bring themselves to commit suicide). There is no reason to deny prisoners that right.
There is a valid concern that, if prisoners have the right to get help in dying, the prison may be set up so as to drive prisoners to want to die.
However, prisons can be set up that way in any case, and often are, in the US. A number of prisoners in Guantanamo have killed themselves — but it's not just there.
Snowden describes how Germany cooperates with NSA spying on Internet traffic passing through Germany.
Me and my metadata — thoughts on online surveillance.
AT&T plans to sell use of the data it gets about cell phone customers.
The UK has finally succeeded in deporting Abu Qatada to Jordan, but it is not clear whether there was any reason to do so, as he was never accused of a crime except based on evidence obtained by torture.
It is especially strange to say the goal was to get him out of the UK, then oppose bail on the grounds that he might leave the UK.
An interview with Kristinn Hrafnsson of WikiLeaks.
We have not taken care of trees well enough, and now the effects of global heating are killing whole forests.
Ye Haiyan, women's rights activist in China, has been evicted and harassed by local governments, including sending people to beat her up, accusing her of injuring her attackers, and kicking her out of her home.
How Do You Know When President Obama is Lying? MSNBC Won't Tell You.
Snowden says that the NSA works with intelligence agencies in Germany
and various Western countries on a
"no
questions asked" basis.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
95% of people can be identified from hourly location traces from their mobile phones.
This is why I don't think getting a prepaid phone anonymously is acceptable.
Get a picture of how thoroughly Big Brother knows about your life by looking at your email metadata.
The history of
Morsi's
downfall.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Violating the Egyptian Constitution is not such a grave thing, considering that it was imposed by Islamists, not long ago, over the objections of the Secularists. What is crucial is to establish a democracy that the people accept and that respects human rights.
US law requires
cutting off aid to Egypt until a democratically elected government
takes office.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Russia's libraries protested a new law allowing the state to block web sites accused of sharing.
The US already practices a form of such oppression, through seizing domain names without a trial, and has narrowly escaped laws such as SOPA/PIPA which would extend it.
68
dissidents in the United Arab Emirates were convicted of dissent,
in a bogus trial.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
The Intelligence Lies Just Keep Coming…
The first decade of this century was the hottest and wettest on record.
US citizens: call on your senators to confirm Richard Cordray as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The Observer published a story reporting that various European countries
share personal data with the NSA, then
removed
it after concluding that the source was not dependable.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
I had a political note pointing to that story, which I removed after the story disappeared. Until seeing this, I didn't know until now why it had been deleted.
If the report was based on documents posted by the NSA, I think that is sufficient basis to say that the NSA claims that other countries cooperate with it in the reported ways, and never the nondependable intermediate source.
The NSA went to a college to recruit, and students gave it some hard questions.
The Obama regime has
reimposed
secrecy on the number of nuclear weapons the US has, after
publishing the number once.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Google search has been changed to give overwhelming precedence to
search results that somehow have a
special
preference from Google. In one case, only 7% of the screen was
used to display anything else. In another case, one had to scroll
down four screens to find anything else.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
I think that my occasional searches will be less vulnerable to this problem that most people are. I rarely search for a product or service in the first place. I search for other sorts of things that are less business-oriented.
It seems silly to use a search engine to search for "Italian restaurant" — that is not the way to find a good Italian restaurant. I would not make the decision to "eat in an Italian restaurant" in the absence of knowing about a specific good Italian restaurant that is feasible to eat in. If there isn't one, I'd rather eat in a good restaurant of some other kind.
However, this doesn't make the article's issue unimportant. A biased search engine is no substitute for an unbiased one.
Someone did a similar study in 2015 and says things are not as bad.
Jeff Olson was acquitted of vandalism charges brought because he had written slogans condemning Bank of America in chalk on the sidewalk.
However, fear of the hassle of being prosecuted may still have a chilling effect on what people say. I suggest holding a mass chalk-in in San Diego to uphold freedom of of expression.
John Kiriakou writes that the FBI tried to entrap him to give them an excuse to prosecute him.
He warns people never to cooperate with the FBI in any fashion.
Obama has kept the public in the dark about crucial points in Bradley Manning's trial.
However, we know the crucial point: Obama is out to get him because he was loyal to the American people.
The case against Bradley Manning has gaping holes.
Even if it fails, he will still be imprisoned for the lesser charges to which he pled guilty. I suggest we celebrate Bradley Manning Day annually on Dec 17 (his birthday).
The UK government claims to be powerless to do anything about Guantanamo, but it could demand release of Shaker Aamer if it wanted to.
Where should Snowden go to be immune from US authorities?
MasterCard has voluntarily resumed allowing donations to Wikileaks.
Speculation: Google shut down Google Reader because RSS does not fit with server companies' idea of controlling everything a user does.
You shouldn't use Facebook or Google+, or any communications service that demands to know your "real name".
Amazon's Mechanical Turk service is a distributed sweatshop.
It's not the only sweatshop that Amazon runs. Amazon mistreats independent bookstores, publishers, authors, the national treasury, and its workers — as well as readers that use the Amazon Swindle.
Republicans are campaigning against a fictitious "war on coal".
We should have a war on coal. Coal mining is done today by removing the top of a mountain, which poisons the surrounding streams permanently. Burning the coal produces pollution that kills people, too. And it contributes greatly to global heating.
Therefore, it is no surprise that the corporatocracy in the US has no "war on coal". Coal mining continues as before; as the US burns less coal, it exports more to be burned elsewhere.
Joseph Nevins regrets that he listened to Senator Gillibrand speak
without protesting
her support for US wars and proxy occupations.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens:
sign
the Anti-Corruption Pledge.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: call for protection of Atlantic herring; overfishing them leaves many other fish and whales insufficient food.
Another UK undercover thug infiltrator that spied on dissident groups, and later managed the whole group of them, has confessed.
Amnesty International calls on Israel
to stop
judicial bullying of Palestinian activists.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Egypt's
army shot
protesters supporting Morsi and shut down TV stations that support
the Muslim Brotherhood.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
A Christian priest was shot, perhaps sectarian violence.
The suppression services of Russia, Ukraine, and Central Asian countries collude regularly in kidnaping, disappearance, and torture.
They also extradite accused people rapidly, disregarding objections from the European Court of Human Rights that they are supposedly committed to obey.
The US and EU countries are so deeply involved in similar outrage that they don't dare criticize when Russia does it.
South Korea's spy agency sabotaged the last presidential election with a massive attack campaign against opposition parties using large numbers of sockpuppets.
The campaign was criminal but its leaders have not been punished, and it is destroying evidence.
If South Korea doesn't make sure this can't happen again, its will not have a fair election again.
Jay-Z (a rapper, apparently) released a song through a nasty app that spies on users and extorts them into advertising the song to others.
If people don't push back hard, in two years this will become "normal", as have so many other nasty practices.
The Wall Street Journal says Egypt needs a murderous dictator.
The world is approaching "peak water", when the supplies of fresh water for growing plants will decrease. Countries including the US, India and China are exhausting the aquifers they use.
We could make enough food with considerably less water, if we ate a lot less beef. However, in the long them, the regions that can't grow food any more need to stop their populations from growing.
Updates to the Internet Music page.
Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua have offered asylum to Edward Snowden.
Shamai Leibowitz
was convicted
of espionage for telling the public about FBI crimes. He believes
that Obama punished him in an attempt to teach whistleblowers a lesson
— and thinks that Snowden learned useful lessons from it (though
not the ones Obama had in mind).
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Leibowitz cites "the obligation to our consciences and basic human rights" as the justification for doing his duty despite laws against it, but he could also cite the US Constitution.
Commentary
on Morsi's
ouster.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Saudi activists face jail for taking food to woman whose husband left her effectively locked in the house without enough food or money to get it.
The Muslim Brotherhood's supporters held a large rally in Cairo, and soldiers shot at them.
Elsewhere in Cairo, Secularists and Islamists fought, and someone started shooting. Perhaps that was the army too.
Rebooting democracy with new elections might be the best thing under the circumstances; repressing the Muslim Brotherhood would make it much worse. Excluding them from democracy for a substantial time would be oppression; however, what they do when they get power is also oppression. It is hard to choose between them.
One article suggests this might convince Islamists around the world to give up on seeking power through democracy, and use violence instead.
This might occur, but what they do when they gain power includes violence too.
The second article suggests a stratagem that might have avoided both of the repressive outcomes. I don't know enough to judge whether it would work.
Right-wing UK policies have made it impossible to buy a home in London if you're not rich, and hard to rent one either.
Allowing people to buy their apartments in public housing was a fundamental mistake, unless the state was going to build more public housing apartments as fast as they were sold.
A UK thug that shot a man dead for no reason may finally face a murder prosecution.
The government went to great lengths to prevent an inquiry.
The TPP aims
to ban
the advantages that public medical systems offer, and require
patents on surgical and other medical treatments.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
Dissident Alexey Navalny, in the closing arguments of his trial, condemned Putin's "feudal" state.
US politicians and even journalists are trying to smear Edward Snowden by fabricating the claim that he specifically collaborated with enemies of the US.
What he did was collaborate with the American people; but perhaps the American people qualify as enemies of the US state, considering the plans for the TPP.
The US makes a habit of labeling the Haitian people's leaders as "bandits" to excuse killing them.
The Haitian revolution made US leaders uncomfortable because they feared slaves in the US would rebel next.
Verizon wants to stop providing land-line telephone service in some areas, and force people to use a wireless service that is technically limited, unreliable in disasters, and imposes nasty conditions.
UK thugs secretly recorded a meeting between Duwayne Brooks and his lawyer.
The thugs were trying to frame Brooks for the murder of his best friend, rather than find who really did it.
Supporters of the Trans-Pacific Partnership call it a "trade treaty",
but most of it is not about trade at all. It's
about giving
corporations more power.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
For instance, the TPP would ban the sorts of
regulation needed
to keep banks from cheating their clients and causing a financial
crisis.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
University financial aid staff have been corrupted by banksters to steer students into disadvantageous loans.
There Is Nothing Innovative About Privatizing Our Water.
There is no difficulty investing public funds in water infrastructure. We just need to tax the rich and businesses enough.
Draft EU documents reveal
plans to use
"trade treaties" to exclude the public and democracy from regulatory
issues.
European companies may
stop
hosting their data in US servers, thanks to Snowden's disclosures.
It's about time!
The purpose of the term
"cloud" is to create a
cloud in your mind, that you will use Internet services indiscriminately without posing
crucial questions such as, "Which companies and countries would I be
trusting this data to? What data would they get? Would they get
control over how my computing is done?" If you think about Internet
services with your mind in a "cloud", you will surely make bad
choices.
There are some Internet services that are acceptable to use, but
companies (and governments!) in Europe must never entrust any of their
data to servers outside Europe.
What the TSA has in common with the NSA: unreasonable searches.
I don't object strenuously if someone touches my genitals while
searching me. I don't see why other people care so much about this.
Rather, I object to searching people and their baggage for anything
other than weapons that could endanger the safety of the plane. Being
stabbed with a tiny knife is a tiny danger. Someone with a tiny knife
could stab you on a plane, or in a store, or on a street. Where is it
more likely to happen? On a street. To trample our rights to avoid
this tiny danger in planes is unjustified.
The fact is, the TSA searches for anything it can find that can be
used to arrest people — and then tries to fool you about this
with the same sort of dishonest language that the NSA uses. "We don't
intentionally target your marijuana, etc.. However, if we notice it
inadvertently while checking to see whether you have a forbidden tiny
knife, we inform the [thug] who is waiting near by to arrest you."
Morsi may be prosecuted for
"insulting the presidency".
There is no insult to the presidency like the president's own actions.
If insulting the presidency were a crime in the US, we would prosecute
Dubya and Obama.
However, I have a hunch that the Egyptian military does not see the
irony of this, and must have dredged up some words Morsi spoke as an
excuse to prosecute him.
Freedom of speech includes the right to insult any one, any thing, any
view, and any institution. Including, of course, the presidency of
any country.
Limited available supplies of phosphorus and potassium for fertilizers
could make today's farming impossible in 40 years.
A whistleblower reports that oil companies operating in the North Sea
between the UK and Norway make a
mockery
of safety.
New York is reducing the number of prisoners and the crime rate,
and it seems to be due to the use of
alternative
forms of sentencing.
Private prison companies try to prevent such success.
In fact, some of them fine the state if it doesn't
imprison a certain number of people.
Meanwhile, the whole US could tremendously reduce the amount
of incarceration by legalizing possession of drugs. It would
probably reduce the rate of other crimes too.
A campaign to eradicate mice and rats on South Georgia
island may
allow seabirds to return.
The floods that global heating will bring are likely
to destroy
valuable farmland as well as people's homes.
Oil companies
are rushing
to search for oil in the Arctic, which will constitute an
additional positive feedback in global heating.
France
practices massive surveillance on people's communications.
The Egyptian military is trying
to arrest
300 members of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Although I condemn their theocratic views, they have a right to
express them.
Restore
the 4th! A movement to opposing massive government surveillance.
Americans: This Independence
Day, Thank a
Protester.
Payment companies
are blocking
payments to VPN companies.
It looks like a systematic attack on people trying to get around
national censorship or surveillance.
US citizens: call on Aida Alvarez, a director of Walmart, to get
the workers
fired for striking rehired.
US citizens: call on the EPA to adopt
the strictest
proposed standards for power plant CO2 emissions.
US citizens: support Rep. Ellison's call
for raising
the minimum wage to a living wage.
The Clergy Project gives religious
preachers support
in coming out as nonbelievers.
The
US photographs
the covers of all snail mail in the US, which fills the gaps in
the complete communications dossier for every American.
US citizens: call
on the US to protect orcas from plans to export
100 million tons of coal per year.
Of course, burning that coal would endanger all of us by boosting
CO2 emissions.
The UK, Denmark, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Spain, and Italy
have all had formal
agreements to provide communications data (about their citizens)
to the US.
US citizens:
call
on your congresscritter and senators not to allow US intervention
in Syria.
US citizens:
call
on McDonald's to stop using bank cards with imposed fees as the
imposed system of payment.
Austerity in Portugal has failed in its ostensible goal, as
bond
interest rates have shot up.
The plutocrat's response,
as
usual, is to complain that wages haven't been driven down enough
and demand further cuts.
The Egyptian army has
removed
Morsi as president.
Intervention of the military in politics is always dangerous, but in
Egypt the alternative was dangerous too. The army says it will make
the head of the constitutional court an interim president to hold new
elections for president and congress. On the other hand, I have read
it has shut some TV channels, including the Egyptian branch of
al-Jazeera. I don't think I can tell whether this is heading
for democracy or tyranny.
A UK thug who called an arrested man a "nigger" has been
fired.
In general, expressions of racist views should not be a crime.
Freedom of speech must include the ideas we disagree with.
However, public officials dealing with the public are a
special
case,
because they represent the state. They must conduct themselves
without prejudice — not only in their words, but in their acts
(such as searching people on the street).
Westerners made a grave mistake in accepting the creeping general surveillance
that authoritarian states say
"keeps
us safe".
Fallout from French nuclear tests in Polynesia
spread
plutonium over Tahiti and all of French Polynesia. Increased
levels of cancer have resulted.
Parents whose child died as a result of eating their heroin
have been sentenced to
long
prison terms.
It is gratuitously cruel to punish people harshly for not preventing a
tragic and unusual accident (tragic for them!), the danger of which
they didn't recognize. If the goal is to teach other parents to
prevent such dangers, merely publicizing the events of the child's
death would do the job.
The doctrine of legal negligence has a valid place. There are common
dangers that everyone is supposed to know about and actively prevent.
But this one seems too unusual to claim everyone should know about it.
I wonder if the doctrine of legal negligence should be accompanied by
a state responsibility to inform people from time to time of their
responsibilities to avoid accidents. Not only could that help
legitimize punishing people who fail to carry out those
responsibilities; it might also in practice do far more to reduce
these accidents than the remote threat of punishment.
Giant US food companies are
preparing
to spend millions, perhaps billions, in many states to block laws
to require labeling of GMOs.
The US border patrol is considering putting not-usually-lethal weapons
on drones to operate
near
the US border.
A bill in North Carolina would
shut
most abortion clinics in the name of preventing the imposition of
Shari'a law in that state.
Thus, opposing vicious Muslim theocracy (fortunately no threat today
in North Carolina) is used as the excuse to impose vicious Christian
theocracy.
The NSA ingratiates itself with US children in school by
putting
its name on educational materials with various sorts of advice.
Many of these seem to be good advice, but the side lesson is "The NSA
is your friend".
It also recruits through the
Cryptokids
program.
A US drone attack killed 17 people in Pakistan. The many wounded had
to wait for medical care because
first aid
workers were scared to approach them, lest they be bombed in turn.
The practice of attacking the first aid workers was started
by terrorists, then picked up by the US.
Killing tourists in retaliation is not legitimate guerrilla war; it
is attacking civilians deliberately, which is even worse than what
the US does with the drones.
Why European
Nations Must Protect Edward Snowden.
Individual Germans are
filing
criminal charges against the US over NSA spying.
I agree with what the German Pirate and Green politicians say.
The government should have the authority to impose these limits,
even if Nestle has a contract to buy water.
The ACLU is
arguing
in an amicus brief that the state should need a warrant to access
a cell phone's location data.
Some
states are passing laws requiring this.
These laws are a step forward, but they are inadequate.
A GPS tracker on a car collects data only once it is placed.
Requiring the state to get a warrant before placing a tracker on
someone's car is adequate protection of privacy in regard to that
technology, because it prevents the state from tracking everyone's car
all the time (at least, doing so this way).
By contrast, requiring the state to get a warrant in order to access
previously recorded cell phone location data is inadequate, because
the system builds a dossier about each person advance, and
the state could take it later if it presents a reason to investigate someone.
This is ideal for fishing expeditions against whistleblowers, or
anyone the state wants to get. Cell phones perform dangerously
excessive surveillance by collecting this data in the first place.
To restore privacy rights we must prevent the collection of so much
data about a person unless there is already a warrant.
FISA spying criteria were designed carefully to
allow
the NSA to collect lots of information about Americans while
creating excuses to say it was "inadvertent" and we were not
"targeted".
If They Can Lie
About NSA/Snowden, They Can Lie About Syria & Iran.
If the US security state resembles a government of occupation, that's
because
its origin
was in the occupation of the Philippines.
Biometric ID cards were a central part of this, which is why we must
fight to prevent their adoption, or to put an end to them.
I support in principle the idea of offering a path to amnesty and
citizenship for the many illegal immigrants in the US; but I oppose
the current immigration bill because of its requirement to increase
the need for a government-issued photo ID card, in effect converting
them into national ID cards.
In Venezuela, a recording, supposedly of government-aligned journalist
Mario Silva in conversation with a Cuban
agent, describes
alleged corruption and infighting in the government.
However, Silva says the conversation did not occur, and the recording
was faked by editing snippets of other conversations.
Stores are
using mannequins
with cameras to track customers.
I think there should be laws to limit the ways stores watch their
customers. Security cameras should be allowed only if their
recordings are not available on the Internet and are deleted within 2
weeks unless there is an incident or court order to justify checking
them.
Amnesty
International condemned
US attempts to stop Snowden from gaining asylum, and says that no
country should return Snowden to the US because he might be subject to
inhumane treatment.
In addition, Amnesty said that Snowden's "crimes" consisted of
revealing violations of human rights and that they must not be
prosecuted at all.
A hidden microphone
was found
in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
Military sonar has been connected
to mass
strandings of whales.
New Zealand is considering a law
to permit
increased surveillance.
The European Parliament approved steps to try
to improve
the broken European carbon emissions trading system —
temporarily.
How global heating is making wildfires
go beyond
what our methods of containment can handle.
Vienna forced President Morales to submit his plane to
a search
for Snowden. The result is a diplomatic crisis as other South
American countries support Bolivia.
Countries that condemned US spying revealed by Snowden nonetheless
denied
him asylum, and even blocked President Morales' flight alleging he
might have Snowden with him.
Morales should show his firmness against this intimidation by going
back to Moscow now to pick up Snowden.
2001-2010 was
the warmest
decade since records started.
US citizens:
ask
your senators to vote for keeping student loan interest rates
down.
US citizens: call and ask your congresscritter to fix the voting rights act
by setting up a new criterion for "pre-clearance". Also send a message through
this
page.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
Poverty among children has been
rising
in the US, showing that the "recovery" is a misnomer.
Most "think tanks" get funding from companies and this directly
shapes
the positions they take.
Many parts of the US make parents
pay
for school buses. When this is applied only to magnet schools, it
can have the effect of excluding excellent but poor students from
magnet schools.
While reporters are losing their jobs, a few media executives and
pundits are
getting
rich by supporting plutocracy.
Clapper said he gave a false answer because
he
"forgot about" the PAT RIOT act.
No one could "forget about" something so important, for testimony
before Congress, when he had been informed of the question in advance.
His statement is really an expression of contempt for the Senate and
the people. It says, "I am prepared to tell even the most incredible
lies."
US citizens:
call
on Obama to negotiate elimination of nuclear weapons.
We
have relied on technical and economic constraints to the extent of
government surveillance of everyone, so technological advances have
led to more surveillance.
Republicans have switched from denying that human activity causes
global heating to obstructive
quibbling
about the expense of stopping it.
"Cap and trade" might be effective if it worked as intended, but the European
experience shows that the system is too easy to game or defraud. I support
a simple carbon tax.
Senators accuse NSA officials of
misleading
them on additional points.
Massive
surveillance is making some Americans hesitate to sign petitions
lest they be punished by intensified personal surveillance.
This is the result of the state's demonstrated practice of treating
dissidents as "terrorist suspects".
The US is not close to being a dictatorship with one tyrant at the
top, but that's not the only nondemocratic form of government. What
rules the US now is a plutocracy — government of the people, by
the flunkies, for the rich and their businesses. It steadily eats
away at what remains of our democracy, while increasing the repression
against those that try to defend it.
Thus, the fact that a one-dictator state is not likely in the short
term is of less significance than one might have wished.
Some Egyptian Islamists say they
will fight
to impose their religion's cruelty on the country.
As e-commerce makes retail more
efficient, lots
of jobs are disappearing in the US.
If retail were the only sector increasing efficiency by eliminating
jobs, it might not be a problem. But it's happening, or will soon
happen, in
many other sectors, resulting in a large pool of people who can't
ever get work. Of course, the plutocrats want to get rid of those
people by condemning them to sickness, or pushing them into crime so
that they can
be locked
up and turned into slave labor.
The school-to-prison
pipeline is part of that scheme.
Calling on the US government
to respect
the rights of all participants in journalism.
Doctors in some Catholic
hospitals secretly
perform medically necessary abortions, hiding the practice so that
bishops can't stop them.
I wonder if it would be possible to pass an initiative in the State of
Washington saying that hospitals may not impose a policy of refusing
to provide a lawful life-saving medical procedure for non-medical
reasons. This might make the Catholic Church sell its hospitals
there, which would be a decisive victory.
Thugs in a town near
Chicago shot
Randy Green's dog for no reason. The dog had got loose in the
yard, but never showed any hostility towards the thugs.
I read in an article I don't want to link to (because it focuses on a
video in YouTube) that thugs in California shot a man's dog because he
made a video of them.
A brain-eating
amoeba is spreading in range, apparently due to global heating.
Rehan Motiwala was
eventually allowed
to fly back to US, but does not know whether he is still on the
no-fly list.
The no-fly list is a form of punishment without trial, and should be
abolished. If these people were searched very carefully before
boarding a plane, that would achieve the same supposedly intended
result. Anyone that is not a US citizen and not in the US can simply
be denied a visa.
US
officials are teasing the press with vague stories claiming
terrorist groups have somehow learned from Snowden's revelations to
change their communication methods. But they won't say how, even
though the terrorists presumably already know.
There are several reasons to suspect that this is manipulation, and
that we wouldn't reach the intended conclusion if we knew all about
it.
Discussion in China about US massive
surveillance sparked
concern there about China's massive surveillance.
Of course, China's massive surveillance is worse — it does not
have the flimsy limits that apply to the NSA. This does not make US
surveillance legitimate. We must hold a "free country" to a higher
standard than that defined by China.
The idea that a corporation's prime duty is to make money for its
shareholders is presented as an unquestionable given, but
it comes
from an article published in 1970.
Since stopping drivers to check for drugs is illegal, thugs in Ohio
are using
a fake
drug checkpoint to see if anyone gets worried about it.
There seems to be no limit to the level of dishonesty thugs will
practice to trample people's rights.
Of course, imprisoning people for possession of drugs is an injustice
no matter how they identify these people.
When all the political parties are
lousy, they
trigger protests, but it's hard for protests alone to bring about
a better government.
Six Months Later,
U.S. Still Importing
Contaminated Meat From Australia.
The US government pretends that Australia's self-inspection system is
adequate because it wants to introduce the same inadequate system in
the US.
US citizens: call your congresscritter
to demand
an investigation of massive surveillance like the Church
Committee.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and
888-355-3588.
BP's 20 billion dollars for damages from the Big Spill will
be exhausted
in a few months.
I hope it will have to pay more, because the damage is ongoing, and
having to pay more will scare oil companies a little.
Iran's new president wants
to reduce
censorship and improve human rights.
That would be a welcome rejection of the worldwide trend. However, I
think he won't be permitted to go very far in this direction.
The
Dictionary of the Global War on You (GWOY).
Even
as Alberta is
flooded, its politicians still push accelerated global heating.
The US government
has blocked
access to the entire Guardian web site from military bases in
Afghanistan, South Asia and the Middle East.
Perhaps they want to keep the troops ignorant so they can be
manipulated into carrying out atrocities and imagining that they are
"serving their country". Or perhaps they are simply trying to prove
on principle that truth cannot overcome their wall of ignorance.
In the US:
rebuke
the Texas legislature for trying to ban abortions.
A community currency in a slum in Kenya
was
working well for alleviating poverty, but the organizers have been
charged with "forgery".
These charges are obviously absurd, but I fear that the state will
excuse them based on a legal lie.
A UK government agency knew for years that companies were regularly
breaking into other companies' computers, and
decided
to suppress the issue.
A US military study found that, empirically, drone attacks in
Afghanistan are
ten
times deadlier per attack to civilians than attacks using
manned bombers.
Meanwhile, the US has little ability to tell whether the casualties
from drone attacks outside Afghanistan were civilians.
Snowden has dropped his request for asylum in Russia
in
response to Putin's statement that the condition would be to shut
up.
French right-wing candidate Le Pen
faces
prosecution for comparing the presence of Muslims praying as an
"occupation".
This demonstrates how France fails to respect freedom of speech.
Due to widening inequality,
hundreds
of millions of children remain poor in countries that are not
considered poor overall.
Part of the cause of this problem is that poor people have too many babies.
However, that's partly our fault for not giving them the reliable
contraception which they can't afford.
Rapid population growth, caused by
bad
government policies on birth control and abortion, will push the
biosphere closer to disaster.
We need to slow this down.
Twitter is being used for
advertisements
that pretend not to be advertisements.
The Republicans pretend they can get Americans back to work by
punishing
the unemployed.
That's like trying to squeeze blood into a stone, when there's no
space in the stone.
The US Treasury Secretary is trying to undermine and destroy Europe's
planned tax
on financial transactions, by getting an exemption for the big US
banks.
Sad to say, under a government that basically represents the rich,
the question is not whether but how it will betray the rest of us.
The investigation into the death of 19 elite firefighters in Arizona
will focus on the
immediate
causes, which might enable avoiding putting teams into such
conditions in the future.
However, the underlying cause is well understood, predictable,
and correctable with sufficient will:
global
heating.
The UK government cuts aid for the poor, but
fights
to maintain farm subsidies for the rich.
This is entirely consistent, since its policy is to help the rich and
crush everyone else.
Snowden denounces Obama's efforts to block him from receiving asylum,
saying they are
meant
to frighten future whistleblowers.
Clapper is trying to get away with
lying
to Congress by saying it was the smallest possible lie.
That excuse could apply to any lie he wants to tell, so we must not
believe anything he says.
US citizens:
call
for an investigation of the NSA and FBI like the one carried out
by the Church committee in the 70s.
Large
protests in Hong Kong demanded real democracy, despite heavy rain.
The Egyptian Army
gave
Morsi an ultimatum: deliver "the demands of the people" in 48
hours or (it isn't clear what).
Morsi has
not yielded to this.
Young, educated Europeans find that their skills are of
no
interest to any employers.
One side effect, falling birth rates, is good for society. But that
can be achieved in other, less damaging ways.
I don't think this problem will ever get better as long as the
plutocrats remain in power. In a few decades, the poverty of
austerity will merge with the increased poverty of global heating.
US citizens: call for offering
subsidized
quality education to all.
Campaigning to change the traditional
scorn
for widows in parts of Africa.
There is no stigma on widows in the US or Europe, so this one seems
absurd to us. However, we do have a tradition of scorn for other
groups, such as homosexuals, prostitutes, and ephebophiles, and most
people in the US and Europe find that as natural as scorn for widows
seems in parts of Africa.
Putin offered Snowden asylum
if
he stops revealing US dirty secrets. Putin realizes that Snowden
won't want to accept this offer, because he does not seek personal
safety at the cost of letting his country down.
President
Correa rejected helping Snowden reach Ecuador to apply for asylum.
He also said he would consider a US request to deny him
asylum. I find this extremely disappointing.
Here is the private (leaked)
letter
that Snowden sent to Correa.
Many in England tell the Welsh nationalist party they wish it offered
to represent them in England, because of its
progressive
position.
Perhaps its Welsh supporters could be persuaded they don't need to
separate from England, if they could instead govern England with their
English allies.
Everyone:
call
on San Diego to drop its prosecution of Jeff Olson for writing a
protest slogan on the sidewalk in wash-away chalk.
All US army bases are
blocking
access to all reporting about Snowden's revelations of mass
surveillance.
The authoritarians who have hijacked our government would block access
for all of us if they could — and this blockage may be a
precursor to that.
Glenn Greenwald called this a "prestigious award for good journalism",
and he's right. But it is more than an award — it is an
opportunity for activism.
Is there a US military base near you?
Print many copies of a few banned articles giving lots of substance
about the issues, showing clearly the well-known newspapers or
magazines they came from, and make a big sign saying, "MASSIVE SPYING:
THE US WANTS TO STOP YOU FROM READING THIS". Stand near the road, far
enough away from the gate of the base — perhaps around the next
corner in the road, so that soldiers driving by can stop unobserved
— and hold the sign. Give copies to the people who stop and ask
for them.
Bring a friend with a videocamera to discourage anyone from messing
with your constitutional rights.
Twelve True
Patriots for July 4.
The online tracking-and-advertising industry is
very
troubled by Snowden's revelations, knowing that if people get mad
enough at massive general surveillance, they might demand laws that
really put a stop to it.
I don't mind seeing ads. I would not bother to block ads on the
Internet if all they did was present a message to me. However, I find
the tracking done by today's digital advertising unacceptable.
So how should we support web sites and their services, when those
cost money?
We should be able to make an anonymous payment to use the site.
2000
supporters of Bradley Manning marched in the San Francisco Gay
Pride Parade.
Republicans
blocked
action to keep student loan interest rates down.
Fighting Roundup-resistant weeds requires
ever-higher
dosages of highly toxic herbicides.
Prisoners in a US jail, locked in their cells for 23 hours a day with
little to
do, communicate
using toilet pipes as speaking tubes.
US officials including Obama have
a history
of using deceptive language to mislead the public about massive
surveillance, and even flat-out lies.
Congress should jail Clapper for this.
Many countries in the EU
are not
on track to meet their renewable energy targets for 2020.
It is difficult to achieve substantial changes by setting a distant
target first. Success comes from firm policies whose effects can be
predicted.
Tons of
plastic trash
pile up on remote beaches in Alaska, as measured by volunteers who
travel there to collect the trash. In some cases, it's a ton per mile.
And it kills birds and fish.
If we made some of this stuff biodegradable, it would not pile up so
high.
Many Americans want to believe that Hillary
Clinton would
be a good president.
I see no indication that she would try to do what America needs any
more than Obama does. She has not shown an inclination to fight the
authoritarians and plutocrats on any of their major attack fronts
(fossil fuels, banksterism, copyright, austerity/unemployment,
privatization,war on drugs, surveillance). She's just another bought
politician, another right-wing Democrat.
Thus, while I would be glad to see the US capable of electing a woman
president, I will not support Ms Clinton just because she's a woman. A
candidate's gender is as unimportant as a candidate's skin color.
Timbuktu has been saved from theocratic rule, but it
is not
back to normal or even close.
Euro-austerity
continues making
unemployment rise.
A
"hotshot" crew
of elite firefighters was killed, every last one, because the
Arizona fire spread too fast for them.
High heat and drought and dead trees, which global heating tends to
cause, make fires spread faster. In effect, these men were killed by
global heating, and it's going to kill a lot more as it gets hotter.
UK PM Cameron contemptuously brushed
off concern
for human rights in Kazakhstan, saying that his reason for going
there was oil and profits, not human rights.
Of course, we knew already that he puts money above people, but now he
has admitted it.
Cameron thus gained the
personal endorsement
of the strongman of Kazakhstan:
That's a strong recommendation for Britons to vote for some other
party, but which one would be better? Not New Labour, which says it
will not try to reverse most of the harm that the Conservatives have
done. Perhaps the Green Party.
Private initiatives show it is possible
to reduce
the use of palm oil, the production of which is ecologically
destructive.
However, I suspect that it will require government actions such as
tariffs to make a big dent in the use of palm oil. This would require
defeating free exploitation treaties.
Chinese herbal medicines sold in Europe and North America often have
small amounts
of highly
hazardous pesticides.
Sumatran tigers
are half
as numerous as was supposed; human activity is the main problem.
Peru received a grant to create a reserve for wildlife and "isolated"
tribes, but
now plans
to drill for oil there.
In the US: rally for the
Fourth Amendment (limiting searches and seizures) on July 4.
US citizens:
call
on Obama to guarantee due process for Snowden.
I hope Snowden never falls into US hands, but that is a different matter.
Morgan Stanley
corrupted
bond rating agencies so they would certify collections of bad
mortgages as super-safe AAA-grade investments.
Matt Taibbi's long article shows that
there
have been no reforms and there is no reason to think that
bond-rating companies will be honest in the future.
Globovision, the pointedly anti-government TV station in Venezuela,
has been sold to
new
owners that won't criticize the government strongly.
Nonetheless, there remains opposition press in Venezuela.
A Bush forces soldier who was convicted of murdering an Iraqi will be
freed because he was
held
in solitary confinement without access to a lawyer.
US citizens:
call
on the government to stop the massive logging of old-growth trees
in Alaska's Tongass National Forest.
US citizens:
sign the
NAACP's petition to restore the Voting Rights Act.
Edward Snowden
Isn't on the Run… We Are.
Why
do politicians push for genetically modified food, when there are
other good methods to produce desirable food varieties?
The article speculates, and I agree, that the push comes from
companies such as Monsanto. It is unfortunate that the article
uses the misleading overgeneralization
"intellectual
property" rather than being clear and specific by saying
"patents".
Global heating protesters were arrested after blocking a train carrying
very
toxic oil obtained by fracking in the US, for export to Canada.
Reportedly the UK government is concerned that Pakistan
may "neglect"
relations with Afghanistan.
Contrast this with the article that says Pakistan's powerful intelligence service regards
Afghanistan as a proxy for India.
Further details of Prism have been published, showing that the NSA's
equipment can fish directly and arbitrarily in the
data
bases of companies such as Google and Microsoft.
What (later president) James Madison said about
maintaining
liberty versus ceding control to the forces of order and
submission.
India's new surveillance network is
even
worse than the NSA's.
Italy's and Canada's are too.
This doesn't make the NSA's spying acceptable. We must demand that
our governments respect our rights. It is not enough that some other
state is worse.
Everyone:
tell
McDonald's to stop forcing workers to take their pay
in debit cards that charge them fees.
This practice ought to be illegal.
Massive protests
call
for Morsi to leave office.
The US has
focused
its spying on EU officials, including the embassies of many
"allies"
of the US.
Comparing Snowden and Greenwald to
Gandhi the
journalist.
HRW: EU
Should Demand Release of Activists (in Bahrain).
A high school student was sentenced to a
year in prison for a
tweet that criticized the government.
Unfortunately, the US is
not
free of such oppression.
A radio system can
track
people behind walls.
We have to prohibit the state from tracking us all this way.
Jeff Olson is being prosecuted for
writing
in chalk on the sidewalk to criticize Bank of America.
He faces 13 years in prison, and his lawyer has been
forbidden
to talk about the first amendment in the trial.
The judge apparently realizes how shameful this is, because he has
ordered Olson not to talk about it.
I moved some IRA money out of Bank of America a couple of weeks ago.
The FSF moved its money out of Bank of America a year or two ago. If
you have any money there, please move it out.
The latest insane step in giving US corporations human rights
is to
claim
they can be religious.
Activists
Leverage Stronger EU Privacy Laws to Seek More Information on PRISM.
Amazingly, WIPO has finalized a treaty establishing a
copyright
exception for blind people.
Although the copyright industry has become so greedy that it opposes
the treaty, I fear that they will accept it, and use it to show
that DRM is ok because it no longer shafts blind people.
How
Dangerous is the 'Security/Digital Complex'
Unanswered
Questions in NSA Disclosures
The Japanese government was unable to decontaminate an area near
Fukushima to the planned safety level, so it told the inhabitants to
go
home with dosimeters to see if they are getting dangerous amounts
of radiation exposure.
The idea is not necessarily misguided. The purpose of decontaminating
the ground is so people don't get high exposures of radiation. If the
ground isn't decontaminated, but people lower their exposures to the
same intended level by staying indoors, they will be just as safe.
However, some may be rather unhappy about having to spend their lives
indoors. Perhaps Japan should pay nonathletic geeks to move to
Fukushima, because they will stay indoors and not mind it.
Meanwhile, we should stop making plans that suppose it is feasible to
decontaminate areas covered with fallout from reactor explosions,
because apparently that can't really be done.
Mairead Corrigan-Maguire, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize,
says Bradley
Manning deserves one.
In
Wales, everyone
will be an organ donor unless he says no in advance.
This is a good policy and we should copy it. Meanwhile, if you live
in a place which doesn't have this policy, please fill out the form to
be an organ donor, as I have done.
I don't think a person's relatives should have any say in the matter.
What happens to that person's corpse might affect their feelings, but
nothing else, and their hurt feelings don't count for much compared
with saving lives.
Jeremy Forrest's girlfriend
says their
relationship was her initiative, she still loves him, and she
wants to visit him in prison and marry him after he gets out.
I would not bet on their relationship's lasting till he gets out of
prison. Forrest has not been good at making relationships last, and
most 16-year-olds aren't either. However, she is doing her best to
defend his name against the legal fiction that he kidnaped her.
The dishonest basis of the prosecution shows clearly in the rebukes of
the judge, the detective, the mother, etc., that Forrest (actually
both of them) perturbed their families. That could equally well have
been said about Romeo and Juliet, which is a reductio ad absurdam.
(The refutation does not depend on assuming that this couple is like
Romeo and Juliet in any other way. It's enough that the same argument
would have applied to those two.)
The court pretends, contrary to all the facts, that Forrest did
something wrong to his girlfriend, while in fact punishing him for how
their relationship made her parents and other people feel.
After the two were captured, she was forcibly returned to her parents,
and while the articles claimed they were giving her some sort of
support, it is clear they tried to brainwash her into supporting their
way of seeing things. It is good for her that they failed.
She should demand a conjugal visit in prison. That will give those
cruel prudes apoplexy.
RSF: Ecuador's new media law
— mix
of good principles and bad provisions.
Ecuador's new election law bans media
from promoting
candidates for 90 days before an election. If interpreted
strictly, this could chill coverage of the campaign and the
candidates.
The CPJ has many criticisms of Ecuador, some of which are valid while
others seem exaggerated based on the facts I have found.
Racist Republican politicians are charging ahead
in implementing
voter-suppression measures that were blocked under the Voting
Rights Act before the Supreme Court threw it away.
The imprisonment of a large fraction of the American black population
— mostly for possession of small amounts of drugs —
amounts to a
disguised replacement
for the racist Jim Crow laws that were abolished in the 1960s.
Obama's climate plan
is too
little, too slow.
Instead of an "all of the above" energy plan, we need an "all of the
above" greenhouse gas reduction plan.
We know the US considers dissidents "terrorists". What's news is that
some
specific nonviolent
activists were put on the "domestic terrorist list".
The no-fly list is a kafkaesque excuse
to stick
US citizens in foreign prisons.
Thousands protested in Istanbul
after Turkish
thugs killed a Kurdish protester.
The Turkish government has repressed not only Kurds but people who
supported human rights for Kurds.
The Supreme Court
has opened
the door to stealing elections.
UK
thugs stripped
a woman and kept her handcuffed in a cell for 11 hours. They also
beat her up, causing premature birth of her baby.
It could have been worse — they might have killed her, as they
have done to many others.
Legal resistance
to privatization is starting in the US.
Anonymous US officials want us to believe that terrorists will
benefit
from knowing about how the US government spies on us all.
The danger from these terrorists is too small to worry about, and even
if it were doubled, it would still be too small to worry about. Thus,
if this means Americans might actually be able to protect our privacy
through our own actions, it is good news.
However, I don't think we can do the job individually. We need to
organize to limit surveillance.
US citizens:
tell
Energy Secretary Moniz not to encourage more fracking.
Uri Avnery: Netanhayu would get
immediate
political benefits from starting negotiations with Abbas. Then he
can spin them out forever with no agreement, to ensure he loses
nothing.
It's wrong,
and unconstitutional, for the government to track all your contacts
without specific grounds, even if it does not proceed to repress you
in additional ways.
A Wikileaks participant
gave
information to the FBI for money. He seems to have done other
nasty things for money too.
Traffic
Cameras Bring Tiny Ohio Village To A Stop.
The US Conference of Mayors unanimously called on the Obama regime
not
to impose its War on Drugs against state legalization of
marijuana.
Justin Carter is threatened with 8 years in prison for
a "threat"
that was followed by "lol, just kidding".
Note how the "authorities" look for excuses to disregard part of the
truth in order to twist something into a crime.
US film
studios collaborated
with Hitler's regime in the 30s, changing films to avoid losing
revenue from Germany.
We've seen a similar pattern of US businesses' catering to China and
Chinese censorship in the past decade.
The people of southern Sudan won freedom from the government of Sudan.
Now the government of South Sudan
is oppressing
journalists that criticize it.
The island of Barbuda
is destroying
itself by sand mining to get short-term income.
Lots of irreplaceable things on Earth will be destroyed forever in
this century, on the same logic. If we invest in sustainable
activities, we can reduce this — but part of that is having
fewer children.
Besides which, these beaches, this sand, will probably be inundated in
this century anyway if we don't stop causing sea level to rise.
Now that Republicans and Democrats have created a shortage of jobs in
the US,
Republicans blame
individual Americans for having no work.
What It's Like to Get
a "National-Security
Letter"
(that is, a demand to give data to the state secretly and you'll be
imprisoned if you ever tell anyone).
Some plutocrats are drawn
to geoengineering
schemes to try to compensate for our CO2 emissions.
The sulfate scheme is toxic and fails to prevent the other harm done
by CO2: ocean acidification, which
can kill
a large fraction of the life in the oceans.
Removing CO2 by fertilizing plankton would prevent both problems. It
might be better than allowing the disaster to happen.
However, we could still probably prevent the disaster through
renewable energy, which would be better than stopping it using drastic
measures.
Republicans' response to Obama's climate plan is
to extract
more fossil fuels.
Unfortunately, Obama's
plan isn't
very different from that.
New York's night-mayor Bloomberg, and the thug chief Kelly, are still
trying
to defeat
the bill to limit arbitrary searches.
The bill would also increase civilian control over the New York thugs,
who have been found to
systematically repress
human rights.
Bloomberg
explicitly advocates
increased racism in these searches.
Such racism is wrong, but it's a secondary aspect of the wrong. The
root of the wrong is allowing thugs to search people arbitrarily.
The UK says that anyone carrying out a demonstration at the site where
a soldier was
killed will
be arrested. So much for political freedom in the UK.
Whether we agree with those people's politics is beside the point.
Hospital
patients throw
away 82,000 meals every day in the UK, because the food is so
lousy they don't want to eat it. The staff say they would not eat it
either.
This is the result of the budget cuts which are intended to ruin and
then destroy the NHS.
US national security advisor Susan
Rice downplayed
the effect of Snowden's revelations. We will cite this when
someone says they "hurt the US".
Of course, what such officials mean by "the US" is the power of the
state, not the collectivity of Americans. We Americans are "the
enemy" that people
like Bradley
Manning are accused of aiding.
"Biometric cars"
will monitor
their users in many ways, and of course the data will be
warehoused for companies to hand to the NSA via PRISM.
We must insist on free software in our cars.
Iran's new president
says
he wants to reach a nuclear settlement with the US.
I hope the US looks for a settlement, and offers an end of sanctions
as part of the deal. We can't take this for granted. Netanyahu will
use his influence to prevent any settlement, because he wants the US
and Iran to go to war rather than resolve differences peacefully.
The Iranian regime is a disgusting tyranny, which oppresses women and
sometimes men too. But the US can't change this by conflict with
Iran; the sanctions drive Iranians into supporting their government.
Resolve this dispute, and the state will have nothing to distract the
people with.
Everyone: thank
Wendy Davis for defending women's rights with courage.
The New York City Council adopted
some
limits on arbitrary searches of people's persons by the municipal
thugs.
"Stop and frisk" without reasonable grounds for suspicion should not
be allowed at all.
Everyone:
please sign the
Washington Statement on privacy rights and data.
In the US: join
a human
chain protest on Tuesday against disguised cuts in Social
Security.
Wendy Davis's filibuster won't permanently stop Texas Republicans from
passing the law
to close
most abortion providers. But it may reinvigorate supporters of
women's rights in Texas.
Germany and the
UK blocked
stricter EU fuel economy standards.
The German PM was obeying orders from car companies — a form of
corruption common in the plutocracy. Companies powerful enough to
issue such orders must not be allowed to continue to exist.
26 senators have demanded that
the NSA
come clean about its massive surveillance based on "secret law".
[Reference updated on 2018-03-10 because the old link was broken.]
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[Reference updated on 2022-07-11 because the old link was broken.]
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[Reference updated on 2018-03-08 because the old link was broken.]
[Reference updated on 2018-03-08 because the old link was broken.]
The mother of murder victim Stephen Lawrence says it will take time for the thugs (who tried to smear her and her relatives) to regain her trust.
Mere time should not suffice: unless they stop their violence and lies, and their sabotage of democracy, nobody should trust them.
The US mainstream media are pushing a federal shield law that would protect only the journalists of the mainstream media.
These are the same media that call Snowden a traitor; not much use for telling us what the government is really doing.
Global heating is wiping out forests in Oregon. When trees burn, they don't come back.
Obama is finalizing a rule that will require insurance to cover contraception for employees of most employers.
The policy as originally proposed was better, but this is pretty good.
The issue of "religious" employers would not exist if not for the misguided US policy of associating health care with employment. This causes several problems:
We
should tax
companies based on their income, and use the money to provide
health care for all Americans whether employed or not.
[Reference updated on 2022-07-15 because the old link was broken.]
With a big effort, one very harmful US software patent was invalidated.
One down, hundreds of thousands to go. It is a shame to talk about "bad patents" as if only some computational idea patents might be good.
Trying to make software safe from patent extortion by fighting patents one at a time — under the patent system's current rules — is like trying to make people safe from malaria by swatting mosquitos (and only the ones that come within reach of your hands). We need to get rid of them all, and I've proposed the way.
A Liberal like
me responds
to a mailing he received from Rand Paul.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-08 because the old link was broken.]
I agree with most of his points, but I disagree on one of them. I don't think we should disparage abortion as "the last resort", because human population growth is a big danger to life on Earth. I encourage people to have an abortion rather than a baby.
NYC fast food workers accuse their employers of stealing pay and obscuring it by making it hard to determine what what they were owed.
The US Army is blocking access from its computers to the Guardian's coverage of the NSA spying scandal.
It is afraid that soldiers who see the unapproved side of the story will be tempted to take the people's side instead of the government's side.
If you know anyone in the US military, offer to show that person the pages that are blocked.
Why Ecuador Would Be an Ideal Refuge for Edward Snowden.
Criminalizing libel is an injustice, but lots of countries do it, including the UK, France and Italy. A man was arrested in France just for saying "Sarkozy I see you" when he witnessed an injustice. We should campaign to abolish these laws, in whatever country suffers from them, but in the mean time this is no reason to condemn Ecuador.
Heavy rain in the Indian Himalayas is not unusual, but human construction and deforestation turned it into a disaster.
The UK says it will draw up a "national pollinator strategy".
I hope it is a serious attempt to protect pollinators rather than an excuse to keep using neonicotinoids for longer.
Dependence on fracking is a foolish policy even if it offers riches to those who get the profits.
President Rousseff has abandoned Lula's commitment to participatory democracy, human rights and popular movements, while focusing on increasing Brazil's economic strength — which has the effect of increasing the wealth and power of Brazil's rich.
UK citizens: sign this petition against the expulsion of Trenton Oldfield.
The NSA extracts data from the whole world, often through the idiotic cooperation of other governments.
Please don't call this "hacking" — it's an insult to us hackers to compare us with the NSA.
Everyone: rebuke Walmart for firing striking workers.
http://action.sumofus.org/a/walmart-firings/2/3/
http://afl.salsalabs.com/o/4023/c/33/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=6782
[Reference updated on 2018-03-08 because the old link was broken.]
(Why not sign both?)
Obama is trying to punish
someone
who told us about the Stuxnet cyberattack.
The dead zone in Gulf of Mexico has reached the
largest
extent ever observed.
It is caused by nitrogen from sewage and fertilizer.
A cell
culture from an aborted fetus has "no doubt saved the lives of
millions of people" through development of important
vaccines. However, even if the abortion had not led to such tremendous
benefits, it was a good thing, because the woman who was pregnant did
not want another baby.
We must firmly reject the idea that there is something ethically
dubious about using aborted fetuses for research. These ideas come
from people who want to ban abortions, typically based on religious
dogma; they hope that tainting everything that relates to abortions
can help them achieve that nasty goal. If they kill millions of real
people along the way, that's just collateral damage.
I don't think there is any reason to require a patient's consent for
research use of removed tissue unless that research might somehow hurt
the patient. That is starting to become a possibility, since genetic
analysis of that tissue might reveal things about the patient which
could cause that patient to be denied health insurance or denied
employment. However, the same analysis can be done for other reasons
and cause the same dangers; meanwhile, those dangers can be prevented
entirely with proper health care laws.
Likewise, the idea of paying the patient from whom the tissue was
removed is absurd. What we need from medicine is not the chance of a
windfall on the rare occasions when our cells are used in a big enough
way that we'd get a significant sum. What we need is for important
research to be done, and for the resulting treatments to be available
to all those that need them. We can easily have this, if we resume
taxing businesses and the rich sufficiently.
The demand for this income comes from people who face the effects of
growing inequality that forces many down into poverty. If they joined
the campaign against plutocracy instead, we might all win.
One way to block a cell phone listening device from listening to you and
transmitting the conversation is to put it in a refrigerator, which
blocks
the radio signal.
However, if the programmers of the spy software are clever, they might
make it compress and save the audio and transmit it later when it gets
signal. Thus, blocking the signal is not reliably sufficient.
Blocking it from hearing you is more reliable, if you can be sure the
audio blockage is adequate.
George Orwell's birthday was celebrated in Utrecht by putting
party
hats on the surveillance cameras.
Foreign protesters released from prisoned in Tunisia describe the
horrible
conditions of the prison there.
Their apology deserved to be withdrawn, since it endorsed the idea
that their protest was wrong. However, it was bad that they
apologized for it at all. I understand how this might have required a
sacrifice they could not make, but it still would have been better to
refuse.
President Erdogan
accused
a reporter of treason for covering the protests in Turkey.
I wonder if examples of similar claims from the US against journalists
such as Wikileaks and Glenn Greenwald encouraged him to think he can
get away with this.
A Sustainable
Energy Future is Within Our Grasp.
However, governments that kowtow to fossil fuel interests
won't grasp it.
The surveillance state, faced with inevitable unrest because of the
increasing poverty it encourages combined with the effects of global heating,
will almost inevitably become a
terror
state.
US citizens:
call
on Obama to pardon Snowden.
Facebook shut down some pages about protests in Turkey
because they had
"fake
profiles". No surprise that people protesting in Turkey may not
want to tell the Turkish state who they are.
This shows why any communication system that requires users to
identify themselves is inadequate for democracy. That means Facebook
and Google+ are no good. (Google+ allows pseudonyms, but since Google
has an office in Turkey, Google would have to tell Turkey the user's
real name.)
Chilean thugs
removed protesting students who had occupied schools that are
supposed to be used as polling places.
Even if there are problems with the electoral system, or no good
candidates, I don't think occupying polling places is a good idea.
The Support, Don't Punish campaign aims
to restrain
the War on Drugs from boosting the spread of diseases.
Massive US infiltration of dissident groups is covered by limits that
turn out to
be quite
weak. And there is evidence that infiltrators have intentionally
started violence to discredit protests.
The New York Thug Department gave CIA agents
an excuse
to spy on Americans. And their attitude is, the more people they
spy on, the better.
Ecuador stood up to US threats to cancel a trade treaty
by cancelling
it unilaterally.
In addition, Ecuador offered the US aid in human rights training.
Mass
protests are called for Sunday in Egypt, by the group that has got
15 million signatures on a petition for Morsi's resignation.
James Comey's threat to resign blocked the NSA's massive surveillance
only until
it found
another legal excuse for that surveillance. That one, he
accepted, it appears.
The NSA
systematically collected
email metadata about everyone in the US for two years under Obama.
This apparently included every communication between people whose
identity the NSA did not know (since in that case it would not have
known that either party was a US citizen).
The UK's program to get disabled people to work
is failure
at its stated purpose. However, it was quite effective at
fabricating excuses to cut off benefits
by falsely
claiming that people were not disabled.
Glenn Greenwald gives suggestive evidence
his Skype
conversation was monitored.
Someone started violence before 100,000 started a
peaceful mass
protest in Chile.
I wonder if the violence was organized by thugs as a provocation.
That is standard thug tactics.
US citizens: call on the EPA to follow its own conclusions
and protect
Bristol Bay, by banning Pebble Mine, if you haven't done so
already.
The Koch brothers are recruiting lots of people to submit comments in
favor of the mine. Please help cancel them out!
Deregulation of logging in part of Australia
could wipe
out endangered species.
A report suggests that people across
Russia dislike
their government, but the Moscow-centered opposition failed
because it lacked a connection with people elsewhere in Russia.
The article seems to present this as a personal failing of the
opposition activists. I think that criticism is unfair; they can only
use what they have. However, this is something that activists in
Russia should think about.
Turkey
threatens to block Twitter unless it submits to Turkish
censorship.
It is ironic that "insulting Ataturk" is cited as a reason for Turkish
government censorship, since President Erdogan is the worst insult to
Ataturk that there could ever be.
This example shows that German censorship of Nazis sets a dangerous
precedent for other censorship. I detest the views of Nazis —
they would kill me just because of my ancestry — but censoring
any political views leads to spreading repression.
Texas Governor Perry called a special session of the state legislature
to try again
to pass
the anti-abortion bill.
If companies know all about your purchasing practices, and can offer
you prices based on that
knowledge, they
will stop competing. They will each arrive at the same price to
offer you.
Everyone: call on CNBC
to stop
denying global heating.
Everyone: ask President Correa
to give
Snowden asylum.
US citizens: call
for repeal
of the dangerous parts of the PAT RIOT Act.
Texas continues
eagerly executing people even though some of the people executed
were almost certainly innocent.
The EU has made provisions for future bank bailouts to be done at
the expense
of the banks.
This is how it should be, but a proper system also requires (1) making
sure that no bank can get too big, and (2) limiting the ways they deal
with each other so that failure of one bank can't pull down other
banks.
Almost 1/3 of the campaign funds in US elections now come from
the richest
.01% of Americans.
And this is without considering all the corporate money allowed by the
Corporations United decision; a large fraction of that is surely under
these people's control too.
Brazil's president Rousseff has
proposed transport
improvements and other reforms to try to satisfy the protesters.
Snowden
Saga Reveals a Broken Whistleblower System.
The NSA deleted the dishonest "fact sheet" from its web site
but refuses
to acknowledge this.
A UK politician says that UK spies have found excuses to
ignore
legal limits on what they can do.
Mother Teresa exploited India's poor sick people,
raising
money but spending none of it on medical care for them.
It would not
surprise me if spies are just as bad.
US citizens: call
on Congress to approve Obama's global heating reduction plan.
It is not sufficient, but it is necessary.
US citizens:
call
on Congress to repair the Voting Rights Act.
Glenn Greenwald presents the
minor
issues that mainstream "journalists" want to use to smear him,
hoping we will be distracted from important issues such as how the
government spies on us.
The civil war in Afghanistan has an
ethnic
dimension, and is also a proxy for the rivalry between India and
Pakistan.
US citizens:
Thank
Wendy Davis for blocking the Texas anti-abortion law.
US citizens:
Support
Obama's plan for reducing global heating.
It is not enough, but we need to fight those who will oppose it anyway.
Please sign
this
one too.
The Supreme Court
gutted
the Voting Rights Act, opening the way for Republicans to block
millions of Americans (mostly black, Hispanic or poor) from voting.
The election of Obama has
mistakenly convinced many Americans that
there is no racism.
But even if Republicans are not racist, they are unscrupulous.
They don't need to hate blacks or hispanics or poor people
to try to disenfranchise them.
Thanks to a recent Supreme Court decision, contractors employed for
torture in Abu Ghraib
can't be
sued in the US by their victims.
Drones make war, or assassination, so easy that leaders are very
tempted
to do it.
The article also shows in detail how Obama's criteria for approving
drone assassinations are deceptive and mean the opposite of what
they appear at first glance to mean.
Guatemalan peasants are being
uprooted
by big companies that grow sugar cane.
The EU proposes
substantial
penalties for the individuals and firms that distort market
indices such as Libor.
The Supreme Court
invalidated
the Defense of Marriage Act, saying that same-sex couples legally
married in any state are entitled to whatever benefits the US
government gives to married couples.
Republicans want to force Americans to go to work when sick,
and skip visits to the doctor
so
they won't be fired.
Clapper must be fired for
intentional
premeditated lying to Congress and the public.
Citizens of Massachusetts:
oppose
relaxing requirements for wiretapping.
The UK needs
a public inquiry into the thugs' systematic practice of spying on
and smearing people who get in their way.
Texas State Senator Wendy Davis
personally
spoke for almost 11 hours to block approval of an anti-abortion
law.
I have supported the campaign to reform the filibuster in the US
senate to require senators to personally speak on the senate floor as
long as it takes. I have not supported abolishing the filibuster
entirely, because it's a good thing that this form of resistance is
available when legislators are willing to go to great personal lengths
to do it.
The UK adopted long-term CO2 emissions targets but its actual policies
are insufficient
to achieve them.
A long-term target is a handy a way to avoid real action.
The Supreme Court made
it harder
for states to protect wetlands and other aspects of the
environment, giving landowners priority.
If taxes on the rich and business were high enough, we could afford to
"compensate" landowners when their land must be protected.
The German government objects strongly
to UK
spying.
It has a duty
to protect
its citizens from this spying.
The Espionage Act in the US
is much
harsher than the laws of other countries about leaks to the
public.
For the NSA, having an EFF sticker on your computer is considered a
"warning
sign".
Australia has taken Japan to the World Court for
its "scientific"
whaling.
US citizens: support a constitutional amendment
to assure
voting rights.
US
citizens: sign
this petition in favor of a constitutional amendment to reverse
the Corporations United decision.
(It is hypocritically referred to as the "Citizens United" decision,
but I prefer to call it what it really is.)
300 untested recreational drugs are
now being
sold, legally.
Some of them might be safer than tobacco or alcohol. Some might even
be as safe as marijuana or MDMA, but some might be more dangerous than
those. It would be better to steer people towards the safer drugs
that are now illegal.
US mainstream media
choose state
power over journalism, featuring "journalists" that demand the
arrest not only of Snowden but even of Glenn Greenwald.
US citizens:
tell
Israel's ambassador to the US that you oppose Israel's plan to
force 40,000 bedouin out of their homes.
Everyone else:
sign
this petition about the same point.
The UK government persistently
sends
asylum seekers back to be tortured, even if they were tortured
again since the previous time they were denied asylum.
If the state would rather not give them asylum, it should do more
to discourage torture in their home countries.
Obama stated possibly significant
plans
to reduce CO2 emissions, but the details will determine
whether they amount to anything.
If he is honest, he cannot deny that the Keystone XL pipeline will
greatly increase CO2 emissions. But he may yet look for an excuse to
pretend it is not so.
The Natural Resources Defense Council
supports
the plan, and so does Greenpeace,
but even if it is carried out in a substantial way, it
won't
go far enough to prevent global heating disaster.
A former Bush forces soldier in "intelligence" committed suicide
because he could
not bear to think of the suffering of the widows and orphans he had
made.
His guilt makes rational sense (I won't claim to understand it
emotionally, since I have never had an occasion to feel that way),
but I think if he had thought more calmly he could have found a better
response. For instance, he could have published the details of the
atrocities he felt guilty for, before committing suicide. Then his
death would have helped to make the world better. It's even possible
that the awareness that he was doing something to compensate for his
past wrongs might have assuaged his guilt enough for him to face
continuing to live, perhaps in Ecuador.
The sad general point is that so many soldiers sign up for the US
military based on the myth that they are going to "serve their
country". Many naive teenagers have never heard anyone question this.
If the idea of serving their country were 100% false, it would fade
away; but occasionally it is true, and that real complexity keeps the
simplistic myth alive. Young people who are indoctrinated in it are
easy to manipulate into thinking that's what it's going to be like for
them, and when they find out the truth they are caught and their lives
are more or less ruined.
The main witness in the murder of Stephen Lawrence suffered a many-year
campaign by UK thugs to
smear
him and frame him.
The Supreme Court made it
much
easier for states to disenfranchise minority group voters.
The Supreme Court not only denied the existence of racism, but the existence
of callous Republican by-hook-or-by-crook
voter
suppression efforts.
That's the Republican strategy for holding power: by turning US
elections into a sham.
Assad continues
prosecuting
nonviolent dissenters as "terrorists".
If only the US were an example of something better.
Lithuania:
Reopen Investigation Into Secret CIA Prisons.
A rally in Egypt for nonviolence was the opportunity for
violence
against journalists.
Recent "advances" in computing technology
deny
any possibility of privacy. But fools will tell you to rush to
use technology that spies on you and controls you, because otherwise
you'll be left behind in the 90s.
If you're foolish, you can heed their advice. I don't use these
"advances" — I think about the freedom and privacy implications
of Internet services before I use them.
The article uses the term
"cloud"
to encourage people not to think carefully about new technology. For
the sake of clear thinking, please don't use that either.
Arguments for banning tipping and
paying
staff a decent wage instead.
A senate amendment to the immigration bill calls for
extreme
militarization of the US border with Mexico.
I have to oppose this bill now, because of its requirements
for every American to be listed in a government data base
to be able to have a job.
Postcard from
Ecuador: A Living, Breathing Democracy.
With UK thugs,
innocent
people have everything to worry about. A special unit was set up
to smear innocent people, to suit the state or the thugs themselves.
The UK's banksters are setting up a
new
tax haven in Kenya, even as they veto serious action against tax
havens in British territories.
This uses the pretense of denying the power that the UK government exercises
over those territories.
Israeli
authors campaign against expulsion of Palestinians from their
villages in the South Hebron hills.
US citizens: call on Congress
to ban
the toxic pesticide atrazine.
Netanyahu demonstrated his contempt for Kerry and the US-supported
"peace process"
by visiting
a school in an Israeli colony in Palestine a few days before Kerry
came to see him.
Saeb Erekat: The Israeli government has officially declared
the death of the
two-state solution, and says the international community must
"face reality".
Netanyahu acknowledges that Israelis who engage in pogroms against
Palestinians qualify
as terrorists, but says it would be disadvantageous to admit this.
I don't like stretching the word "terrorist", so I'd call them
"violent bigots".
In any case, the official Israeli
thugs protect
these unofficial thugs.
Demolition of Palestinian homes is the constant
background noise
of the occupation.
The UN
accuses Israel of killing and wounding Palestinian children, using
them as human shields in battle, and torturing them in prison.
Israeli journalists condemned the army
for arresting
Palestinian journalists.
GM Crops:
the Genetic
Colonialists.
Senator Warren attacked the head of the FHFA for
supporting high
interest rates for student loans.
The EU's broken emissions trading system
will negate
progress towards renewable energy.
A race rower opposes expulsion of the man
who protested
by stopping a UK boat race.
The US subpoena's Herbert Snorrason's email from gmail.com because of
his past
connection with Wikileaks.
Thousands joined the
latest Moral
Monday protest in North Carolina.
A Chinese state-run newspaper praised Snowden for
"tearing
off Washington's sanctimonious mask".
US condemnations of China's human rights abuses are typically valid,
and China's condemnations of US human rights abuses are typically
valid too. These two governments increasingly resemble and deserve
each other, but both Americans and Chinese deserve something better.
The IRS used various phrases to choose groups to study carefully,
but studied them all by the
same
criteria.
The IRS also looked for some
keywords
associated with progressive groups for special scrutiny.
The US infiltrated anti-war activists as "domestic terrorists";
this is proved because
one
infiltrator confessed.
UK thugs infiltrated
groups
that criticized the behavior of thugs (for instance, corruption
and apparent killing of prisoners).
The UK human rights group
Liberty
demands an investigation of whether it has been spied on.
Berlusconi has been found guilty of paying an underage prostitute,
and then
using
his official powers to cover it up.
I don't think it should be a crime to pay an underage prostitute. (It
should be a crime to force anyone into prostitution, but Ruby
Heartstealer was not being forced.) However, his misuse of power
deserves punishment.
It is important to treat prostitution as a normal part of society
because that will help protect prostitutes from violence, disease, and
extortion. In addition, reducing the stigma on prostitution will make
it easier for prostitutes to switch to some other line of work.
A 100-sq-mi wildfire in Colorado was
fed
by global heating in three ways: lots of hot weather, drought, and
trees killed by beetles that have spread due to higher general
temperature.
A UK man has been sentenced to prison
solely
for having copies of publications.
This is tyranny.
Senators demanded the NSA correct
misleading
statements in its "factsheet" about surveillance.
The US is threatening countries around the world to try to
stop
Snowden from reaching asylum.
The US seems to have
known
for a long time about oil in Haiti. Its puppet government in
Haiti may be intended to help the plutocrats take that oil for a
pittance.
Senator Sanders has proposed a
bill
that would narrow some of the PAT RIOT act surveillance powers.
I can't tell without more information and advice whether this would be
sufficient to make that law good, but it looks like a substantial
change in the right direction.
Bob Brown faces
100
years in prison, either for exposing a conspiracy to falsely smear
Wikileaks and Glenn Greenwald, or for the rant he posted when he
couldn't bear the government's threats about that.
There has been no investigation of the conspiracy he exposed.
This selective prosecution shows the government regards laws
as means of imposing its power.
Genetically modified crops
destroy African agriculture by trying to impose inappropriate US
agriculture in its place.
Banksters in Ireland
lied
to sucker the state into giving them a bailout.
A Palestinian children's
puppet
festival in Jerusalem was shut down by Israel because it was
funded by the PA.
"Don't
tell me my affair with a teacher was abusive — I'll be the judge
of that."
The author dares to resist the pressure to pretend that Forrest is a
predator and that his lover was his victim, saying that we should
listen to her (she does not think so).
Everyone:
call
on Obama to refrain from foul play against Edward Snowden.
In the UK:
support Defend
the Right to Protest.
Misleading articles say global warming has slowed, but really
it's just that the
heat
retained by greenhouse gases is mainly going into the oceans in
recent years rather than into the air.
America's worst charities are less than 10% efficient in serving
the causes they raise funds for. Here's
a list.
UK massive surveillance violates
the
European Convention on Human Rights, and EU law may make it
possible to force the UK to stop.
Arguing that the hardened power structures today's states are based on
make public opposition
inevitable.
The long drought in the US southwest is
destroying
forests there, through fires and through sheer dryness of the air.
A large fire can replace forest with grassland, and it can take
centuries for forest to spread back in, even assuming the climate
still permits trees to grow there.
The Heatland institute is
using
concern about bald eagles and condors to try to block wind farms.
We should make sure to protect eagles adequately as a species,
but if wind farms are not a significant threat to them, that is
no reason to stop building wind farms.
The biggest threat to California condors is the
lead
bullets in the carcasses they eat. That is where we need to put
the effort to protect them.
Oil companies will cease using noisemaking devices that injure marine
mammals' hearing, in some areas of the Gulf of Mexico, for
2.5
years.
Well, it's a start.
David Mery writes about how London thugs arrested him because they
found it suspicious he was wearing a jacket in summer and did not look
at them when entering the train station — then
charged him with
"public nuisance" because they overreacted and shut the
train station.
The mere fact that "public nuisance" carries a potential
sentence of life imprisonment is already a reason to
convict the UK state of the crime of repression.
Radioactive waste has apparently
leaked
out of a double-shelled tank at Hanford, WA.
Increasing human population is leaving
no room
for many mammals and birds.
An Australian who was jailed for a nonviolent protest in the UK
will be further punished by
expelling
him.
I suppose his British wife and child will follow him into exile.
This is the War on Democracy at work.
The German parliament voted for a
resolution
against software patents.
Banks point out that they can't keep stimulating economies through
artificially
low interest rates.
The right way to stimulate the economy is with deficit spending.
A pregnant woman in Spain dropped her baby down a drain, because
she could
not afford an abortion.
It should not cost anything for a poor person to get an abortion.
An undercover UK thug infiltrator says the state asked him to find a
way to smear
the family of a black teenager who was murdered by racists, so as
to blunt the pressure for a proper investigation.
The Egyptian army threatens proposed mass rallies against Morsi,
"if
they become violent".
The army can make them "become violent" whenever it wishes, and
has made a practice of
trying
protesters in military courts.
The population of Egypt is estimated at 84 million.
For 15 million to sign a petition is amazing.
Miami will be
inundated,
probably before the end of this century, due to the CO2 we have
already put into the air.
At least a third of south Florida will vanish with it. And if we don't
curb the greenhouse gases soon, more of Florida will vanish. And good bye to
any chance of restoring the Everglades, too, if they are under water.
The State of Florida does not recognize this, and I can guess why: the
current landowners want to sell their land to someone who doesn't
realize it will melt away. This is comparable to the
carbon
bubble.
Margaret Doughty was
given
US citizenship.
She was
in
danger of being refused it because regulations say that
conscientious objectors have to present an endorsement from a church.
Labor
Group: Walmart Fired Five Workers For Participating In Strikes.
House Republicans want to shift federal education funds
away
from the poorest schools.
US citizens:
support
the Udall amendment (saying that human rights don't apply to
corporations) and the Tester amendment (affirming the right to
regulate spending on elections).
Edward Snowden left Hong Kong (which refused to detain him) for
Moscow,
reportedly to head for another country for asylum.
US citizens:
call
on Obama to take strong steps to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Noam Chomsky: NSA surveillance is an
attack
on American citizens.
More of what
he said.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter via 1-STOP-323-NSA
and call for an open investigation of the NSA's spying programs.
Erdogan insists he is not authoritarian, even as he sends thugs to
break up a
memorial
for protesters who were killed by thugs.
A large
Redd project in Indonesia might protect orangutan habitat.
If Birute Galdikas thinks it is good, I'm inclined to trust her.
US citizens: call for Louisiana water projects
to protect
brown bears.
In the US: call on PBS
to stand
up to Koch brothers money and show Citizen Koch.
Why Britons should care whether
their DNA
is in the national registry.
If you allow grocery stores
to track your
purchasing habits, in some cases they use that to charge
you more.
The latest argument of supporters of massive surveillance: we must let
the state take away our freedom because otherwise there will be a big
terrorist attack and
the state
would then take away even more freedom.
Can you spot the unstated pernicious assumption?
Some Western clothing sellers
are agreeing
to safety requirements for their factories, but Walmart is still
marred and the Gap is a gap.
Once "security" surveillance breaks loose from control by the public,
it
can mission-creep
without bounds.
Julian Assange
asks, who is
the real traitor to the US?
The US risks
getting stung
by Stinger missiles again.
(Warning: be on the lookout for sarcasm in the article.)
Unapproved genetically engineered wheat is
probably present
in small quantities in the US seed supply.
If wheat is not exposed to Roundup, this modified wheat would have no
advantage over normal wheat, so it would probably propagate but not
increase as a fraction of the total supply.
"Keep Calm and Carry On" is the proper response for terrorism, but
not for
plutocratic government. That calls for massive protests.
Republicans want to require the NSF to fund only research that will
have very
important results.
This is ridiculous, since we can't tell in advance which lines of research
will turn out to have very important results.
Moroccan thugs regularly convicts dissidents in occupied Western
Sahara of crimes based on
torturing
confessions out of them.
Sometimes they forcibly
push a man's hand against a fabricated statement to "sign" it.
On the great inequality and poverty in Brazil that motivates the
protests.
This inequality and poverty occur despite strong programs to help the
poor, which have reduced poverty in recent years. The US, by
contrast, is getting worse under the plutocracy. I hope most
Americans will put a stop to plutocracy before it makes them as poor
as most Brazilians.
Canada threatens to imprison anyone
wearing
a mask during an "unlawful assembly", which threatens prosecution
of anyone protesting with a mask if the thugs say the protest is
forbidden.
US citizens: call
on the EPA not to raise the allowed levels of glyphosate.
Some new discoveries associating glyphosate with
harm
to human health.
It will take more time and study to be sure what level of harm
glyphosate causes, but since the issue is in doubt, we should treat
it cautiously.
This is in addition to
other
dangerous substances in Roundup.
The Supreme Court is bringing back
Lochnerism,
the discredited doctrine that laws can't limit what sort of contracts
companies can make with workers or customers.
It seems to me that even rejecting the idea that corporations
deserve human rights does not go far enough — because even
if your employer is a human being rather than a corporation,
it should still be possible for laws to limit what he can put
in a contract with you.
The corporate concentration of the Internet is
ideal
for massive surveillance.
The NSA isn't satisfied yet — it wants Congress to give
legal
immunity to companies that help the NSA spy on people.
One variant of UK
Internet filters does not (as first thought) block YouTube by
default. But it does block things such as the Jargon File (i.e., the
Hacker's Dictionary) and a bunch more surprising sites.
They might correct these specific problems, and the errors vary from
one scheme to another, but these censorship schemes are always full of
errors. After all, there are too many web pages to have humans judge
them all, so the filtering has to be computed by algorithms.
Even if there were no errors, censorship is an injustice. Remember
that the government wants to impose these filters on everyone except
those with private Internet connections.
The
NSA can easily afford to store recordings of all the phone calls
made in the US.
The Snowden Principle — and how
the authorities and their pets
respond every time it is applied.
The accusations against Snowden say his revelations will "be used to
the injury of the United States", but Obama's
War on Journalism is
what's doing the US injury.
A
journalist reports of a visit to Guantanamo, where he was not
allowed to talk to any prisoners and hardly even allowed to see them.
The guards say the prisoners are lying when they talk about the horrible
conditions, but did not allow the journalist to check for himself,
so I believe the prisoners.
I'd like to clear up some erroneous information about
where I stand
that is circulating on 4chan and perhaps elsewhere.
Obama lied
when he said, "I can say unequivocally is that if you are a
U.S. person, the NSA cannot listen to your telephone calls and the NSA
cannot target your e-mails."
By contrast, Clapper this time played a word game, making a statement
that didn't really mean what it appeared to mean.
The NSA saves all communications that it "happens to collect" that are
encrypted
or use Tor.
If you are using encryption because you're discussing committing a
crime, and you never want it to come out, that might be of concern to
you. As for those of us that use encryption on general principles to
reduce massive surveillance, I don't think we should let this deter
us.
Bills in Congress would
declassify
the decisions of the FISA court; legislators don't like being kept
so much in the dark.
US citizens: call
on Congress to protect endangered species from
global heating.
US citizens:
call
on the US government to protect whales from undersea oil drilling
in the Arctic.
US citizens: call
on Obama and the EPA not to let frackers' friends substitute
themselves for the EPA in investigating fracking.
Guantanamo guards have adopted
two
new tortures for prisoners on hunger strike.
Obama is not "working on" releasing Shaker Aamer and the other
prisoners. There is no "work" for him to do. He can order them
released at any time, and the remaining bureaucratic work would be for
others to do.
What's happening is that Obama refuses to release them, and wants to
pretend he is not responsible for the decision. Quite a change from,
"the buck stops here."
How global heating is expected to affect New York City in
this century.
Obama has ordered
criminal
charges against US government employees who don't report someone they
suspect might be a whistleblower.
The example of Snowden shows that this won't stop real whistleblowers,
but it will sow the atmosphere of a police state throughout government
agencies.
Once they are used to living in it themselves, they will see no
reason to hesitate to impose it on the rest of us.
There are doubts about evidence of chemical weapons use in Syria
because of
unclear
chain of custody of the evidence.
That doubt is only significant if the evidence could have been faked.
I don't know whether it would be feasible to fake it.
However, it is not crucial, because there is
no
way to intervene in Syria and expect a good result. Even if Assad
has used chemical weapons, it would be a mistake to intervene.
In the US: tell
Domino's Pizza to stop firing workers who
try to organize.
Supermarket purchase-tracking cards make shopping more expensive,
but that's
just the
beginning of the harm.
Roundup contains other "inactive" ingredients besides glyphosate,
and one of them
appears
to be toxic.
Don't believe Comey is a supporter of human rights. He
supported
waterboarding, wire-tapping and imprisonment without trial.
Obama says that the "Privacy and Civil Liberties Board" will keep
massive surveillance in check, but that board seems to have been
stacked with
people
who won't try very hard — if it does anything at all.
GCHQ, the UK equivalent of the NSA, is recording
phone
calls and emails as well as metadata from undersea cables.
The system of oversight is more
loophole
than substance.
Companies are withdrawing ads from Facebook to pressure it to
block
mysogynist material, including photos of women who have been
attacked.
I expect I would find those photos unpleasant to look at, and I would
prefer to avoid them. I understand that advertisers don't want their
ads shown next to those photos.
However, if commercial pressure makes Facebook delete certain
material, that would be censorship. When a single company is as
powerful as Facebook is, its decision to refuse to publish something
qualifies as censorship.
In other words, it is wrong for the range of material you can publish
to be decided by what companies want to have their ads appear next to.
Corporatizing
National Security: What It Means.
If the NSA stopped outsourcing its work,
some abuses would be prevented, but we must
also limit what the NSA can collect about us.
Unsurprisingly, the World Food Prize was
given
to genetic engineers. The Food Sovereignty Alliance says their
work goes in the wrong direction for ending hunger.
Cities should use
public
banks, not big banks.
Aside from this, Americans must demand increased taxes on the rich,
and on businesses. They must pay their fair share, which is larger
than the fair share of anyone less rich or less powerful.
Mining US students'
school
records and personal data, thanks to the Gates Foundation.
Some US workers are being
forced
to pay bank fees to get their pay.
2
million people have joined the protests in Brazil.
When Chen Guangcheng arrived at NYU, he was given phones and an iBad
which had
special
spyware. That was perhaps intended to make them report his
movements to China's Big Brother was well as to the US Big Brother.
Metadata is more convenient than the "content" of our communications
for building a
dossier
about each one of us.
One of the authors of the McLibel leaflet was an
undercover
thug.
Comparing Obama with Bush is a distraction — we need to compare
both of them with
the
Constitution and the standard of human rights.
The first cluster bombs were dropped on England in 1943. Deadly bomblets
still
show up occasionally.
More recently,
the US has dropped large numbers of cluster bombs
which often kill children that play with them.
Massive forest fires in Sumatra, in many cases set for the purpose of
deforestation (probably bad in itself), are making the
air
in Singapore unbreathable.
Increasing CO2 in the air seems to be causing
spiny
bushes to take over Namibia, making survival difficult for
farmers' cattle and for cheetahs.
US citizens:
sign the Education
Declaration.
The US Supreme Court allowed big businesses to impose contracts
denying their clients (small businesses) the
right
to class action lawsuits.
The US had a similar problem in the first third of the 20th century:
the Supreme Court persistently opposed attempts to limit what
contracts could require, and that gave businesses dangerous and unjust
power over workers.
Genetic engineering
fails
to help feed the poor. Given the requirements for pesticides, it
may not be sustainable either.
Jeremy Forrest was
convicted
of "abducting" his pupil, who wept as she heard the verdict. Evidently
they still love each other, and this is a typical legal lie.
I am glad for her that she has tried to help his case, because even
though she failed to save him from conviction, she will know she did
the right thing, and will not have to feel guilty.
From the information published, it appears that Forrest is not good at
relationships, and doesn't have as good judgment as most adults. A
teenager of 16 may not know her mind either. If these two were let
alone, I would be surprised if their relationship were to last a year.
It would probably have ended by now — and that would have been a
much better outcome, for both of them, than what the court has done.
But that failure is not a certainty. Their relationship might last
despite the adverse circumstances, or even because of them.
When the NSA taps Americans' communication "inadvertently",
which it does often, it is allowed to keep and use the recordings
on a
wide
variety of grounds.
The monetary cost and practical burden of the present soccer world cup
and the coming 2016 Olympics are a
substantial
grievance in Brazil.
It may henceforth be
more
difficult to get countries to agree to host them. (That article
suggests that world leaders trust Skype and Facebook; I guess the
author doesn't know how foolish it is to trust them.)
If you live in a democracy and your city is proposing to hold
Olympic
games, organize now to scupper the bid!
Bruce Schneier:
has the US started an Internet war?
One Congressman has been
allowed to see the TPP. He
described it as a "punch in the face to the middle class of America."
The TPP is likely to undermine drug safety and food safety
regulations, and make medicines
more
expensive.
In broad terms, it
would
put businesses above governments.
The TPP would be the culmination of a long process in which
businesses have negated state power in order to use the state
against us.
Democracy means that the many non-rich unite to be stronger than
the rich. To restore democracy, we must establish a state that
will keep businesses under firm control no matter how they squirm.
US citizens: ask
your elected officials to oppose intervention in the Syrian civil
war.
The Supreme Court ruled that federal anti-HIV funds
cannot
be conditioned on taking a pledge to condemn prostitution.
The president of the Associated Press warns that Obama is
winning
his war on journalism.
Senators Wyden and Udall say that the NSA director is
bullshitting
us when he claims that massive surveillance prevented attacks.
However, even if it had, mass surveillance is the bigger danger.
Everyone:
support the
strike by Chicago fast food workers.
I saw an
article which makes a false assumption that calls for criticism:
it equates recognizing some negative characteristic in a
person with despising or mocking it.
Friendship does not call for denying facts about a person, not even
the fact that you find something about your friend annoying. Denial
isn't required. You can even criticize them constructively. However,
being a good friend means not sneering at the annoying characteristics
that you find in your friends.
Republicans helped
defeat
the farm bill. They realized their constituents wouldn't stand for
cutting food stamps as the Republican leaders wanted to do.
Professionals must not store information about their clients in
servers that might
yield
that data to Big Brother.
The lesson is, store your data on your own computers, not in some
service.
The article uses the term "cloud", but that term
clouds
the issues. I think we should avoid it.
US house prices are increasing, but it's
big
real-estate businesses that are buying; Americans who want a place
to live can't afford them.
Food production is increasing
more
slowly than the human population.
We need more effort in reducing birth rates.
The US is on the brink of another
"war
of choice".
Children are better off in countries that
(1)
give better care to old people and (2) give less profit to the
banks.
"Free trade" was
never
really about trade. That's why I call them
"free
exploitation agreements".
Israel says it takes 7 minutes to pass through a checkpoint in the
annexation wall, but empirically it takes
28
minutes — on a good day.
On a bad day, it can take an hour; but this does not count the hours
waiting in line. Nor does it count the radiation from the body
scanners (we don't know what sort of radiation they use).
The FBI is starting to use surveillance drones
in
the US.
(European) Data Protection Responses To PRISM
"A
Smokescreen".
Karzai's
complaints scuttled the planned meeting between US and Taliban
representatives.
Afghan women are worried that the Taliban will deny them
what
rights Karzai's regime has established for them.
The US should have armed Afghan women. Who knows what sort of gun
a woman has under her burqa, and if a woman kills a talib, there will be
no way to identify her afterward. Eventually the Taliban would be forced
to order women not to wear burqas.
The commander at Guantanamo intentionally responds to the hunger
strike with
extreme
cruelty.
30%
of women suffer violence from their lovers at some time.
Everyone: support
the Right to Heal initiative for a hearing into the human rights
and health impacts of the US interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
A Mimi and Eunice
calendar.
Protesters in Brazil say that
education
is more important than football.
Of course, that is true, but it is amazing to see large numbers
of Brazilians come to their senses and recognize this.
The FBI's "time-tested" way of judging whether shooting an unarmed man
was justified:
wait a while
and say "yes".
US citizens:
thank Senator
Udall for opposing US involvement in Syria.
Jim Hightower says,
repeal
the PAT RIOT Act.
US citizens:
Call
on your senators to confirm Gina McCarthy as head of the EPA.
US citizens:
call
for sanctions on Iceland for killing whales.
US citizens:
call on
the senate to investigate intelligence gathering by the FBI, NSA
and CIA.
Mali has
reached
a cease-fire with Touareg separatists.
A UK man has been
sentenced
to 11 months in prison for refusing to wear clothes.
What horrible damage his nakedness must do to anyone in the vicinity
;-). I will spare people the sign of my naked body, but I admire his
indomitable spirit.
U.S.
Airports Face Increasing Threat From Rising Seas.
Look
Out Below: Antarctic Melting From Underneath.
Illinois
Adopts Nation's Strictest Fracking Regulations.
Laws like this, if enforced, will give Americans a fighting chance
to protect their drinking water from fracking. However, there's
also the issue of CO2 pollution.
Republicans are
very
creative in finding ways to cut food stamps and condemn Americans,
who are increasingly poor, to hunger.
An interview with George Annas, M.D., about
force-feeding.
Among the 48 men that Obama plans to hold prisoner without trial,
there are
5
that Obama would like to try in civilian courts.
Imprisonment without trial negates the idea of human rights. Every
one of those prisoners deserves to have a fair trial or be released
promptly. They deserve this because they are human beings. They
deserve this whether they understand the idea of human rights or not
— because the US is supposed to understand it.
If an honest and decent president told Congress, "Permit trying these
people in civilian courts, or I will have to release them," Congress
would probably allow them to be tried. Has Obama ever been honest and
decent as president?
Bank of America Whistle-blower Bombshell: "We Were Told to Lie" to
Rip
Off Borrowers.
This will give us another chance to see which US officials
are on our side and which are on the plutocrats' side.
Is
the Spying Comey Approved More Important Than the Spying He Opposed?
How
Can Any Company Ever Trust Microsoft Again?
Collecting metadata is
worse
than listening to you. Instead of what you say, it records what
you do.
The latest Republican idea:
teach
gender stereotypes in elementary school.
He need not bother. These stereotypes (and lots of others) are taught
informally to everyone.
Glenn Greenwald explains with great care, and shows how the FISA court
"oversight" is
so
weak it is effectively none.
The ACLU has sued the New York Thug Department over its
systematic
infiltration of Muslim groups.
US campaigns for "Internet freedom" in other countries — a
laudable goal — have been undermined by seeing the US
contempt
for Internet freedom at home.
US citizens: support the
Citizens' Climate Lobby.
US citizens:
call
for banning neonicotinoid pesticides in the US.
An increasing fraction of Israelis, now almost 1/4, say they favor
evacuating Israel's colonies in Palestine in exchange for
peace
with Palestine.
Google is
challenging
the restrictions on reporting the extent of government
surveillance under the PAT RIOT Act.
US citizens:
ask
your senators to push for transferring nuclear waste from "spent
fuel pools" to dry casks.
Citizens of Massachusetts:
call
for a Massachusetts law to require labeling of GMOs in food.
Almost
a thousand Israeli soldiers have gone to Breaking the Silence
to confess horrible things they have seen or done in the occupation of
Palestine.
The army responds with excuses for not investigating these reported
crimes.
Ishmael Coovadia was incensed when he received a certificate saying
that the Jewish National Fund had planted trees "in his honor",
on
top of an erased Arab village.
US citizens: tell
Congress the EPA should continue making mines pay for cleaning up
their toxic messes.
Israeli colonists in Palestine burned
1000
olive trees last Saturday.
Racist vandals
attacked
cars and wrote "Arabs out" in the Arab village of Abu Ghosh.
Abu Ghosh is full of restaurants that cater to non-Arab clients. On
my first visit to Israel, my Israeli relatives brought me there for
dinner. They told me that the that the residents of Abu Ghosh were
considered allies of the Jews in 1947.
Israel made a deal with Palestinians so that they would not
ask for UNESCO protection of the old irrigation works of Battir.
Once the UNESCO deadline was passed, Israel
cheated
on the deal.
For Palestinians whose homes or land fall in the "seam zone"
between the annexation wall and the border of Palestine,
ordinary
activities require military permits which the Israeli military
makes rather hard to obtain.
A different form of oppression is opposed on Palestinians in
"area
C", which contains a large fraction of the West Bank.
The EU is considering placing a
limit
on biofuels made from food crops. Agribusiness companies are
trying to prevent this, so that they can go on with wasteful
production and make poor people around the world go hungry.
The most popular candidate for mayor of Jalapa is
Morris
the cat. (Not the same Morris that was used in an advertising
campaign.)
Jalapa gave its name to jalapeńo peppers, which are too spicy
for me to eat. It is home to a museum that displays fascinating Olmec
sculpture.
In the 1970s, Woodstock the cat ran for head of MIT's student
government, with the slogan, "A good lack of student government
requires a good lack of students." MIT called the votes for Woodstock
"spoiled ballots" and refused to say how many of them were cast;
however, some calculations show that Woodstock almost certainly won.
Woodstock was run over by a car a couple of years later, in what was
suspected of being political retaliation. Watch out, Morris!
However, who is mayor of a city ought to make more difference than
who was the head of MIT's student government.
Global heating will devastate agriculture in parts of Africa and Asia
within
20 years, throwing millions (and then hundreds of millions) into
poverty.
A Russian official proposes Russia should arrange to
imitate
the US in Internet surveillance.
China has imposed tighter censorship on Tibet, by
requiring
all Internet access and mobile phones to be identified by people's
official names.
This shows why restriction of anonymous commenting is a dangerous
injustice.
The UK Supreme Court told other courts to
limit
their use of the new "secret court sessions" law. This does not
mean that the danger of that law has been eliminated.
The
World Food Prize, Brought to You By Monsanto.
High levels
of radioactive substances are in the groundwater near the
Fukushima nuclear reactors.
The NSA continues offering
fear and
vague claims to justify massive surveillance.
The latest Moral Monday protest in North Carolina had
1000
participants.
More about these
protests
against right-wing cruelty.
The US has a long history of
applying its
spy mechanisms to domestic dissent: it's in the nature of such
surveillance to wander off its original target.
Fisa
Court Oversight: A Look Inside a Secret and Empty Process
US citizens:
tell
Congress to support Meals on Wheels.
Republicans reminded US women of their
hostility
to abortion rights.
I hope women will respond appropriately, and that means more than just
voting for candidates that support abortion rights. If you go out with
a Republican, you're asking to be mistreated.
Doctors call on Obama to allow Guantanamo prisoners
independent
medical examinations.
A UK report has proposed
substantial
changes in punishing banksters for misconduct.
On the causes
and demands of the protests that have spread across Brazil.
"Beewashing": pesticide companies are hosting events about how to
"save the bees", and inviting some serious scientists to them, to
focus the public's attention on
all avenues
except the one that leads to their pesticides.
The US (and Karzai) will enter
negotiations
with the Taliban.
Using a mobile phone while walking appears to be
dangerous.
Assange says he
would not dare leave the Ecuadorian embassy even if
Sweden dropped its extradition request; his lawyers say the UK would
extradite him to the US instead.
Germany is
trying
to weaken new EU rules for automobile emissions.
Everyone: Call on Israel to allow students
to leave
Gaza for study.
Destabilization
is propagating
between countries in Africa. The overthrow of Gaddafi allowed
Islamist fanatics to get arms.
Should we have helped Gaddafi crush the uprising and stay in power? I
don't think so, but the countries threatened by Islamist fanatics
deserve help in fighting them off.
US thugs are using drivers' license photos to identify people from
photos
in many
kinds of circumstances.
Turkish
thugs attacked
marching union members in Ankara.
Some banksters involved in Libor
rigging have
been charged.
However, they seem to be small fry.
An Ethiopian project to dam the Nile could
leave Egypt
short of water.
A segment of Ethiopians, in cities,
have found
prosperity.
But that doesn't excuse letting companies drive poor
Ethiopians off
their land.
Africa 'Ripped
Off Big Time' by Foreign Resource Firms, according to the head of
the African Development Bank.
The demand for elephant ivory
is destabilising
central Africa.
UN Challenges Australia
to Protect
Great Barrier Reef.
After thugs attacked, Turks turn
to protesting
by standing silently.
Citizens of Massachusetts:
tell
your legislators not to give the state increased power to spy on
us.
US citizens: tell
public officials, don't let the G8 spew more austerity.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to
repeal
parts of the U SAP AT RIOT Act.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and
888-355-3588.
US citizens:
call
on the Chief Justice to apply the usual ethical code for US judges
to the Supreme Court.
Brazil's biggest cities are
overrun
with protests sparked by an increase in bus fares.
Greek public broadcasting will
continue
operating while it is restructured.
The next crucial question is whether the restructure provides an
opportunity to increase political control over what they broadcast.
Big Food is finding clever
new
ways to market junk food to children, including various sorts of
computing that you ought to reject anyway.
The Obama regime has published the
list
of people that are being held
indefinitely without trial in Guantanamo.
Clearly identifying the injustice can be the first step towards
correcting it. But if we don't push hard, it could be the next
step towards making it "normal".
A 100-acre spill in Canada of water tainted by
petroleum
toxins killed every plant there.
The NSA program
"BLARNEY"
appears to collect data from all the communications flowing through
certain major Internet hubs.
Saudi blogger Raif Badawi has been
imprisoned
for a year, while awaiting charges of "blasphemy" that could get
him killed.
US/North
Carolina: Don't Deter Workers From Reporting Abuses.
SNAP, which helps many Americans avoid extreme poverty, is
being
cut by Congress.
Fracking
Is Already Straining U.S. Water Supplies.
Publishers plan to alter the words in individual copies of e-books
as a
sort of watermark.
This technique depends on making people who get copies
identify themselves. Since you should never identify
yourself when acquiring a book, this won't affect you
if you are protecting your freedom properly.
Corporate-written US textbooks have
forgotten the
significance of the Pentagon Papers, and don't tell students that
the US lied about the war.
The US will
consider a marine reserve for the Bering Sea.
US citizens:
call
for passage of employment nondiscrimination protection for gays
and transgenders.
A major Thai shrimp farm company
uses
child labor, and abuses their workers. US companies such as
Walmart have various ways of disguising and whitewashing what's going
on.
Shrimp farms cause
other
problems, too.
Food aid does a short-term job, but building
long-term
food sustainability is also necessary.
Unfortunately, US government and plutocratic actions have the opposite result,
in
Haiti and
in
Africa.
US citizens:
call
on Congress to support reasonable gun control
legislation.
The
5 Uncontrollable Urges of the US Security State.
Explaining how free exploitation treaties enable powerful companies to
make
sustainable development impossible.
The Green Shadow Cabinet calls on everyone to
oppose
the TPP.
It's democracy or plutocracy.
The US and EU are planning a new
"trade"
agreement that would surely involve preventing governments from
protecting citizens from abuses by businesses.
Cameron pretends
that it would create jobs.
That's what they say about every proposal to increase the plutocrats' power.
They use one-sided reasoning to try to justify it and hope it gives
the bought legislators enough of an excuse.
Snowden's revelations have invigorated the
campaign
for strict protection in users' data in the EU.
Bono's ONE campaign, and the Gates Foundation, are supporting the "New
Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition", which pressures African
governments to permit
corporate
land-grabs and patented seeds.
Any nutrition and food security resulting from this plan will be exported
to the wealthier inhabitants of the wealthier countries, while those
dispossessed (often by force) from their land face precarious lives
or start guerrilla wars.
Morsi appointed a member of an Islamist militant group as the
governor
of Luxor.
His
answers when asked about what access the NSA has to record your
phone calls are not entirely clear.
As US employers pay less and less, so that workers
need
food stamps, sneering Republicans cut food stamps saying they help
shirkers.
The idea that "If you don't work, you don't eat" is pure injustice
in a country like the US that doesn't offer enough jobs for everyone.
The Chinese government
praises
Snowden while Chinese people try to hint, despite censorship, that
China is no better than the US.
An Israeli minister has
openly
proposed annexing part of Palestine, rejecting the very idea of
making peace.
Jeremy Forrest's teenage girlfriend said in court that she was going
to run away in any case, and he
went
with her so she would not be alone.
Obama
says he will
unblock shipment of medicine to Iran.
Obama Needs to Show Some Spine on Guantanamo Closure.
However, Obama only has spine for attacking whistleblowers.
There are good and bad ways to close Guantanamo.
Moving the prison to US territory while continuing imprisonment
without trial is what Obama
tried
before.
New York Times editors and columnists think Snowden should have obeyed
orders
instead of his
oath to defend the Constitution.
The surveillance state has an excuse to block every avenue to find out
what it is doing. If we could count on the president, congress, or
the courts to keep it in check, we would not depend on whistleblowers.
Why
Our Schools Are Broke: Five Years of Corporate State Tax Avoidance.
The latest generation of sincere
American
patriots choose the principles America is supposed to stand for,
against the government's contempt for them.
Syria is awash with weapons, except for heavy ones, and any that are
sent to the rebels will be
traded
to jihadis.
Everyone:
Tell
Monsanto to provide real information on the side-effects of
Roundup.
Nevada has decided to replace a pollution-spewing coal-powered
electric plant
with renewable
generation.
This is a step in the right direction, but if the coal is exported to
be burnt elsewhere instead, this won't make a difference as regards
global heating. We need to reduce the total amount of coal mining in
the world, and drastically.
The UK
spied on diplomats' messages at G20 meetings in London in 2009.
It planned to snoop on
a Commonwealth
meeting too.
More polio
vaccination workers were shot in Pakistan by Islamist fanatics.
This parallels the Christian theocrats that keep girls ignorant so
that they get pregnant, then kill them by denying them abortions.
However, this is even more deadly, since it could keep polio a real
danger world-wide.
How Google and Silicon
Valley Screw
Their Non-Elite Workers.
Tibetan singers who praised self-immolation protests have
been sentenced
to prison.
A Tunisian singer was sentenced to prison
for "insulting
the police". He called them "dogs"; I think "thugs" is a more
accurate description of how they attacked people at the end of the
trial.
Residents of Burlington, Vermont
say thousands
of people will lose their homes if the F-35 is based there,
because it will subject their homes to unacceptable noise levels.
TransCanada gave US thugs training
in treating
pipeline protesters as "terrorists".
When the US government talks about how it "protects us from
terrorists", remember that this means protecting TransCanada from the
Americans it threatens.
Vietnam
continues arresting
bloggers.
Vietnam depends on the friendship of the US, which apparently does
little to pressure it not to be a tyranny.
The UK will
impose filtering
on all public wifi access points, supposedly to "protect
children".
That means anyone who isn't an Internet subscriber will be "protected"
by censorship even if he is not a child. And since these filterage
lists are full of errors, lots of material that isn't porn will be
blocked.
15 reporters have
been attacked
in Guinea since elections were announced.
The IRS tracks lots of
people's financial
transactions.
Too bad this will only catch the small fry. The big tax evaders, such
as Apple, have procured laws to let them get away with it.
US thugs
are building
up large DNA databases.
Brazilian thugs
attacked nonviolent protesters against a raise in bus fares.
The Government Accountability Project discusses the issue
of Snowden's
whistleblowing.
Obama built
a slippery
slope in Syria and is now sliding down it.
Margaret Doughty is being denied US citizenship because
her pacifist
views are not based on religion.
A discussion between a congressman and an official suggests that NSA
analysts looking at people's metadata are allowed to
decide
on their own which of those people fit a pre-approved general
criterion, and then wiretap them.
This supports Snowden's statement that he could listen to anyone's
phone calls. Perhaps he would not have been authorized to do this
arbitrarily, but he could have done it.
US citizens:
call on
Obama to let the Yemenite prisoners in Guantanamo go home.
US citizens:
call
for an end to "signature strikes", a term used, perversely, when
they don't know who is being attacked.
Sectarian warfare killed
1000
people in Iraq in May.
This is the continuation of Bush's invasion, so the question of
how many Iraqis he killed has an answer that keeps changing.
Now that one of the Koch brothers has
bought
a plaza at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, how about an
installation of the permanent pile of tar sands waste that his company
makes?
Wall Street Is Winning the Long War
against Post-Crash
Regulation.
The riots in Stockholm were caused
by kicking
the poor out of the center of the city, which caused segregation
and despair.
Uri Avnery: Israel's greatest victory turns out to be
its greatest
problem.
US citizens: object to prosecuting the man who collected evidence
against the Steubenville rapists,
who faces
more imprisonment than they got.
Microsoft and
others tell
the NSA about security-related bugs before publishing fixes.
Ecuador's new media law
imposes punishments
on reiterated criticism of anyone.
While this is not as bad as punishing a single instance of criticizing
someone, it still violates freedom of speech.
Libyans who published a cartoon in favor of women's rights are being
charged
with "insulting Islam", plus similar crimes that amount to excuses
for censorship. They could be executed.
If this is what Islam means, mere insults are not enough to do justice
to it.
We should not defend them by arguing that the cartoon did not mention
Muhammad, since that grants undue legitimacy to the idea that they
would be wrong if they had.
The Australian state
has removed
13,000 aboriginal children from their families, accusing various
kinds of mistreatment or neglect, but without trying to help the
parents much if at all.
The population of Australia is around 23 million, so the aboriginal
population is around 600,000. If 1/4 of them are children, that means
almost 10% of these children have been taken away from their families.
That's not an entire "generation", but it is a large fraction.
John le Carre, a former spymaster, explains how
they manipulate
politicians as well as the agents they run, and how the UK's
secret courts would be unnecessary except to cover up torture,
kidnaping and killing.
Just now, as the NSA says "If you knew what we know, you would let us
monitor everything about everyone", we must challenge them "Prove it
or shut up."
US telecom companies operating outside the US
have given
the NSA back doors.
A soldier who fought in Afghanistan says the US
must try
hard to get some sort of agreement as it withdraws troops.
Unfortunately, the Taliban have no reason to think they need to agree
on anything.
The UK's deal for ending tax havens will help investigate specific
companies but won't be of much use
for preventing
corrupt cash flows.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter
to oppose
increasing the US military budget.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and
888-355-3588.
Jihadis in Syria now have
shoulder-launched
anti-aircraft missiles.
Erdogan's thugs attacked the protesters in Gezi square, and drove them
out with
tear
gas and blows.
Misguidedly loyal Democrats defend massive surveillance
because
Obama likes it; meanwhile, some Republicans have started
condemning it, and never mind that they loved it when Dubya was doing
it.
A whistleblower claims Microsoft has
hired
people to vote on Reddit in Microsoft's favor.
Leaked: the NSA's suggested talking points
in
support of massive surveillance.
The House of Representatives voted once again
in
favor of imprisoning people (even Americans in the US) without
trial.
They have effectively declared war on the US.
The US government's massive collection of data is useless for catching
terrorists because it makes the haystack bigger for the needles to hide in.
More precisely,
they
can't begin to evaluate all the data they get. They got very
suggestive evidence about the September 2001 attacks and did nothing
with it.
Obama's war on leakers is selective: it
targets
only the leaks he doesn't like.
A 14-year-old who was raped, then under the influence of fanatical
Christianity decided not to have an abortion, is now
shunned
and alone
after receiving sneers from other victims of fanatical Christianity.
Thus, Christianity has hurt her twice.
US journalists that condemn Snowden are traitors to journalism.
A fanatical
Republican congressman said Glenn Greenwald should be prosecuted
for publishing Snowden's revelations.
With so many laws that nobody knows how many,
you
always have something to hide. You just may not know what it is.
Given complete information about everyone, our plutocratic state will
always find an excuse to imprison whoever it wishes to imprison.
The
fishing
expedition against Kiriakou was an example of this.
US hospitals often charge out-of-state patients
illegally
high fees.
Another argument for single-payer.
A psychologists points out how metadata could enable Big Brother
to determine
who
his patients are, and how well they are doing.
Using
Metadata to find Paul Revere.
This method works just as well to
find key people in peaceful democratic
protest organizations, and the US is surely using it, since it calls
them "terrorists".
In the 1960s they investigated
civil
rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr.
Verizon wants the next free exploitation treaty to
limit
privacy protections for the sake of its profits.
The House has probably passed, by now, a
loophole
to let US banks get out of the weak existing regulation.
When businesses say, "Deregulate us so we can compete with foreign
businesses", the right response is, "Let's regulate what they can do
if they want to sell here."
Chemical weapons experts say they are
not
convinced Assad used chemical weapons. The evidence is not clear.
I don't think it makes much difference; if there were a good way to
intervene in Syria, it would have been justified already.
Russia is passing a law similar to SOPA but
crazy
as well.
US generals are struggling to preserve impunity for rapists.
People should not give up on political change just because it isn't easy.
Egyptian Ahmed Duma was
sentenced to prison for calling Morsi
"a criminal and murderer".
The US is still somewhat better than Egypt: many Americans have called
Bush a war criminal and we have not been charged with a crime for
that. On the other hand, journalists and their sources are being
attacked over and over.
Bad population news: Africa's birth rate is
higher
than was expected.
This could lead to a human population of 11 billion, instead of the
expected 10 billion.
It's not just Africans' fault, it's our fault too. The US and Europe
ought to give poor women (in Africa, and at home) effective birth
control, which poor women can't afford.
Environmentalists say the proposed Nicaragua Canal would
endanger
nature reserves and damage water supplies.
Spanish scientists
marched
to protest spending cuts on research.
Spain should spend more on research, on medical treatment, on helping
people stay in their homes, on food for the poor, and lots of other
things. Deficit spending is the way to get people back to work, and
science is a fine way to spend part of that.
Researchers have found particular kinds of
nerve
damage in veterans who report Gulf War illness.
This does not tell us anything about what caused the illness, or by
what mechanism. All human thoughts, knowledge, and tendencies have a
biological basis in the brain, so it is not inconceivable that this
damage results from certain thoughts or experiences. However, brain
damage usually results from trauma or exposure to certain chemicals.
Either way, we now see that the veterans have a real illness; the
Pentagon should stop accusing them of malingering or imagining things.
A demonstration in Hong Kong calling for not extraditing Snowden
attracted
hundreds despite heavy rain.
From
hope to fear: the broken promise of Barack Obama.
US
'Military Support' in Syria Will Lead to Full-Scale War, Critics
Warn.
Exxon has been sued for the
tar sands
oil spill in Arkansas, which made people sick.
Tar sands oil is particularly corrosive and thus particularly likely
to spill. If the
Keystone
XL pipeline is built, or
Enbridge's
stealth pipeline, we will have a lot more spills.
Remember that "xx" stands for the letter exx, which appears in the
Exxon logo and is pronounced like "j" in Spanish. Don't pronounce the
name as if it were "Ekson". People would think you're talking about
part of a gene.
There is some
evidence
that BPA makes pubescent girls fat.
US citizens: sign
this petition calling for an end to Obama's
"signature strikes".
That doesn't go far enough; drones should not be used to attack
outside of battle zones. But it is still good to sign.
US citizens: ask
your congresscritter to make sure the farm bill
protects the wetlands in which northern pintail ducks (and lots of other
less visible species) live.
Facebook and Microsoft have published some
aggregate data about US government
surveillance, while Google is pushing to be able to give more information.
Getting information on 19,000 or 31,000 accounts in these companies
with millions of users does not amount to general surveillance. But I
do not trust Facebook, Microsoft or the NSA to tell the whole truth,
even if they are not lying.
(Clapper
perjured himself on this very question just months ago.)
Even if those figures are the true answers to a question, there may be
some sort of trickery in the question. For instance, these numbers
might count only orders that demand something beyond "metadata", while
some other general surveillance scheme collects metadata about all
users.
Unless we can get to the bottom of things, we don't know what if anything
this means.
The Education Declaration opposes
the business-driven
plan to privatize public schooling and thus ruin it.
Growing concern
about India's
'cyber snooping agency'.
Europeans feel threatened by the US push
to expand
high-tech surveillance and warfare without limits on their use.
It's Not Just About US: How
the NSA
Threatens Human Rights Internationally.
A man with a
rifle killed
four people in Santa Monica, and wounded others. This attack was
comparable in magnitude to the Boston bombing.
Angelinos clamored immediately for the whole Los Angeles metro area to
be shut down, like Boston, but Hollywood told Obama not to do that.
So he responded with a plan called Keep Us Really Safe Everywhere, or
KURSE, which would implant a radio-transmitter ID in every person in
the US and put a detector on every door.
Senator Feinstein said, "Once we put a KURSE on every American, nobody
will be able to attack you, unless he does it through a window."
This levity is not intended to make light of the deaths and injuries
in Santa Monica, nor those in Boston. Any person's death is a
tragedy. The point is to ridicule the idea that certain killings in
Boston were far worse than all others.
Glenn Greenwald talks about
the attempts
to demonize Snowden, and how loyal Obama supporters defend massive
surveillance because it's Obama's policy now.
He makes an interesting point that if PRISM is really nothing more
than a streamlined way for companies to hand over what they had been
handing over since 2001, its supporters could hardly claim it makes a
tremendous difference.
Tax cuts for the rich played a major role
in creating
the income inequality of the US today.
If we could roll back all changes in the US since 1980, with the
exception of useful advances in technology and the few advances in
human rights (such as gay rights), we would be a lot better off. The
other changes created the plutocracy that now owns our government.
The US government
is worried
about "domestic disturbances" caused (for instance) by climate
disasters or energy shortages, and spying on environmental activists
seems to be part of its response — along with martial law.
As the Earth heats up, "disturbances" will happen by and by in many
countries, including the US. (Food protests have happened
in some countries in the
past few years.) Rather than prevent them by curbing global heating,
the US government plans to respond to them with repression.
Erdogan has made a compromise with the protesters about
the fate
of Gezi Park, but this by itself will do nothing to reduce the
creeping censorship and repression in Turkish society.
Song
parody: Edward
and the NSA.
In an exhibition of art in tribute to Mike Brown, an artist convicted
of obscenity, a collage was seized and
the artist
may be charged with "child pornography".
From the description of the collage, it must be unmistakeably clear
that no real children had sex in the making of it.
This is part of
a long
pattern of censoring art in Australia.
If Australia extracts its coal, it
will doom
itself and the rest of us.
Implications of the US decision
to arm
Syrian rebels.
I think this is a mistake, and never mind the possible Russian
response, because there is no reliable way to support the secular
rebels and avoid helping the Saudi-supported jihadi fanatics.
It looks like this is developing into a war between Sunnis and
Shi'ites, and it would be bad for the US to take a side in that war.
Both sides produce theocracies (Saudi Arabia and Iran) that are among
the most evil regimes on Earth.
Why you should care
about privacy.
There is one additional reason. You should care that people who talk
to journalists have privacy, because otherwise nobody will dare tell
us how the state is lying to us.
Unusual ecosystems are found around Rockall, and
a ban
on fishing is needed to preserve them.
To make this ban reliable and easy to enforce, it should be simple: no
fishing within X km of Rockall.
On the implications
of killer
robots and bee drones.
If the developer of the bee drones really believes their main use will
be to find people in collapsed buildings, he is a fool. They could be
made to kill, perhaps with a poison needle. But even if all they do
is take pictures, the NSA could operate hundreds of billions of them
to watch everything everyone says and does. We'd have to sweep our
rooms frequently for faux bugs.
Snowden
has achieved
his initial goal: a real debate about massive US government
surveillance. Even some legislators say they appreciate his help.
Walmart is moving increasingly
to temporary
workers, who get no benefits.
It continues to get clothing from factories it
said it
would reject on grounds of worker safety.
Attacks on Edward Snowden follow the standard pattern
of retaliation
against whistleblowers.
TIME
Magazine Equates
Whistleblowers with Spies in Cover Story on Snowden, Manning &
Swartz.
US citizens: phone your senators to support the Arbitration Fairness
Act, which would stop companies from imposing forced arbitration on
customers and employees.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and
888-355-3588.
The UK government
could force
Bermuda to expose tax evaders, but it might prefer to fail and
say "See, we tried."
Pakistan has
had extreme
heat waves in recent years; the Indus river has run dry and this
is spreading waterborne diseases. Hundreds at least have been killed.
Global heating is partly responsible, and will make things much worse.
A horrible incident has pushed the Nepali government to take action
against domestic
slavery.
It's Booz Allan and its former employee Clapper
that we
need to investigate, not Snowden. Clapper lied to Congress just a
few months ago.
Our government should get off the Booz.
2/3 of the population of
Haiti can't
get enough to eat. It was caused by US-imposed policies, followed
by extreme weather that global heating will increase.
If starving people surround the presidential palace, they could take
it; soldiers would only be able to kill a few thousand before running
out of ammunition. Then they could kick out
the US-imposed
"president" and Haitians could have a real election.
Part of the excuse for the expense and oppression of the Olympic Games
in London was that it would encourage people to play sports. However,
participation
is down.
A man charged with bank robbery has tried
to subpoena
his own phone records from the NSA to use in his defense.
Danielle Powell was
kicked
out of college for being a lesbian, and the school then demanded
she repay the scholarship money she was given, and is holding her
credits hostage.
The copyright claims over Happy Birthday to You will be challenged
in
court.
Analyzing Snowden's revelations as a
conflict
of asymmetric courage.
One detail in the article superficially appears to be an error. It
says that the US security state has no law. In fact, it does have law
at its disposal. It has plenty of laws, designed to allow it to spy,
imprison and even kill effectively without limit, and
cut
off all roads for us to find out what it is doing (except with the
help of leakers such as Snowden), let alone control it. However, this
amounts to a declaration of lawlessness, so that detail is correct
when not interpreted with rigid literalism.
Clothing factories use toxic substances which
pollute
rivers.
Before globalization, these were banned, but companies have moved
production to countries where they can pollute. Any treaty by which a
country pledges not to ban the importation of clothing made in a way
that threatens health of workers or people who live near the plant
ought to be abrogated just because of that.
The EU is surrendering to US and corporate pressure
to stop protecting
citizens'
rights over their personal data.
Canada's tar sands companies are
failing
to clean up toxic waste ponds.
Colorado's most destructive wildfire in recorded history is burning
out
of control.
Global heating is part of the cause. Human population growth is also
directly implicated (as well as pushing global heating).
US citizens:
tell
Obama and the USTR to negotiate "trade" treaties in full public
view.
When poor single mothers work, their children do
better.
Compare
Obama today with Obama in 2008.
US citizens:
support
Senator Warren's call for release of the draft of the TPP.
We don't need to see it to know it is horrible, but
secrecy is what helped them make it horrible.
Everyone:
tell
the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil that cutting down forests
is not sustainable.
US citizens:
call
on the US not to remove protection for wolves.
US citizens:
call
for an end to selling adulterated honey in the US.
Massachusetts citizens:
support
the extended bottle deposit bill.
Pollution
from uranium mines is causing birth defects in the Democratic
Republic of Congo.
Journalists and human rights defenders that investigate secret uranium mining
get threatened or killed.
Turkey has held defense lawyers prisoner
since
January without charges, apparently for defending people that the
state wants to railroad.
Senators report that massive surveillance goes
far
beyond what recent leaks have disclosed.
Ironically,
narrow
French business interests may thwart a proposed free exploitation
agreement between the EU and the US.
Any such treaty would
favor
large companies and harm people in the US and Europe. Preventing
it, in any manner, would be a triumph. How disappointing that no
government in Europe is prepared to oppose it on principle.
The UK government is thinking about making student loans
more
expensive.
US Republicans are
doing
just that.
Erdogan threatens
to attack the remaining protesters in Istanbul.
The US says it
has confirmed
that Assad has used nerve gas.
This might be more of a reason to intervene against his rule, if there
were a rational and constructive way to do
so. But
there isn't.
FBI head Robert Mueller claims
that total
surveillance is what the US needed in order to prevent the 9/11
attacks.
It is well known that some of the 9/11 hijackers aroused suspicion,
which the US government perversely ignored. Evidently, raw data such
as the state now collects about all of us not the kind of intelligence
that government officials lacked.
Thugs in Thessaloniki,
Greece, regularly
arrest transgenders and accuse them, on no particular grounds, of
being prostitutes.
There are two injustices at the root of this. One is bigotry against
transgenders. The other
is persecution of prostitutes.
Suppose the US
were #1 in
peace rather than in military power.
UN: Drones Have
Caused Permanent
Fear & Affected Wellbeing of Children.
In some places children don't dare go to school because of fear of
drones.
The US Supreme Court
ruled human
genes are non-patentable, which means the tests for certain genes
(including those that make breast cancer very likely) can become
cheaper.
Patenting any sort of medical procedure can have the same deadly
effect.
In the US, if you want an abortion and can't get one, your health and
your way of life
are likely
to suffer.
The Nile countries
are heading
for a war over water.
A journalist in Gezi Park reports on
the strong commitment to
nonviolence and decorum that he has observed among the protesters
there — completely the opposite of the suppression forces.
He also reports on the many journalists who told them that their
stories are censored if they criticize the state.
A Turkish activist I
know comments
on the situation.
The tyranny of Iran is trying
to crack
tens of thousands of gmail accounts.
The US secrecy
system is out of control, with congressional "oversight" set up as
a rubber stamp. Thanks to the use of company contractors for spying,
dissidents can now be threatened by companies as well as by the state
itself.
Yanis Varoufakis, who was blacklisted by the government from appearing
on Greek public TV and
radio, condemns
its shutdown anyway.
The government plans to create a replacement organization, filled with
its supporters of course.
An MEP proposes to make Europeans'
data vulnerable
to US spying so as to avoid "stifling business."
Stifling abusive business practices is one of the purposes of
government. Ready, aim, stifle!
In the UK, workers' pay has suffered more from the current austerity
attack than in
the Great
Depression.
The Taliban
threatened
to kill school principals as blackmail.
Israel has passed a law for imprisonment without trial
Anyone suspected of planning "terrorism" (which would include also
resistance against the occupation) or even generally encouraging it
could be imprisoned without trial.
Putting this in a "law" is no excuse for it.
Ralph Nader:
Society's
Decay Rewards Wrongdoers.
Snowden says that the NSA regularly
cracks
into Internet backbone computers around the world, in order to
look at lots of people's and organizations' data.
I won't criticize the NSA for spying on other countries this way, but
the US should not criticize China so much for doing the same thing.
More on
non-domestic
spying on the Internet.
US citizens:
co-sign
this letter supporting public funding of election campaigns.
As part of the witch hunt against "child pornographers", a UK man was
charged for
having photos
of his nude grandchildren playing in the backyard pool.
Another dangerous giveaway to business in
the Totally
Preposterous Plutocracy treaty — this time, exempting big
agribusiness from US food safety rules.
What sort of people
become whistleblowers,
and why?
I am not a whistleblower, but I am somewhat like that profile, and
that probably has to do with why I started
the free software
movement (which is
very different
from the "open source" that some others support) and
the GNU
operating system.
"Corporate Pirates": How "Fix the
Debt" CEOs
Plan to Make Billions in Offshore Havens.
Edward
Snowden: Change
You Can Believe In.
"Organic berries from our farm in Oregon" turned out to contain fruit
from several other countries, and some of
them came
with Hepatitis A.
The Obama regime, trying to defend massive
surveillance, makes
bogus claims that this surveillance prevented one terrorist plot
and led to conviction of an accomplice to another.
Even supposing massive surveillance prevented a real attack once in a
while, that is small potatoes compared with the harm of trashing
everyone's privacy, and the
even greater
harm of catching leakers and thus concealing or facilitating the
government's enormous crimes. Those
crimes dwarf
the crimes of non-state-supported terrorists.
The US government is stretching facts and laws
to persecute
the leader of the Anonymous group that found and published the
evidence that led to conviction of the Steubenville rapists. He is
threatened with a much bigger punishment than the rapists got, over an
insignificant excuse.
The Greek public are protesting the
sudden closure
of public broadcasting.
The staff
have occupied the building and are broadcasting anyway.
This is part of
a broader
attack on critical journalism in Greece.
In parts of the
UK, half
the honeybee hives did not survive the winter. Overall, 1/3 of
them died.
The specific cause was unusual weather, which will become more common
in the future due to the effects of global heating. We can reduce
this with the well-known measures that businesses order states not to
do.
The same
weather also hit agriculture directly, with a bug failure of
harvests.
We've seen similar failures in Russia and the US.
Professors of medicine have called on the doctors at Guantanamo
to refuse
to participate in force-feeding in the name of medical ethics.
It is naive to think that examining metadata
won't reveal
your most intimate secrets. For instance, people have found this
allows identification of people who are gay and don't say so.
US citizens:
call
on the Senate to keep student loan interest rates low.
US citizens:
call on Obama to debate Edward Snowden.
Everyone:
thank
Edward Snowden for informing the public about government spying.
The Israeli state wants the Supreme Court to leave the
constitutionality of the anti-boycott law undecided so that all
Israeli organizations must be
afraid
it will be applied to them.
This is the law that allows any colonist in Palestine to collect
large damages from any Israeli that calls for a boycott
of products of those colonies.
US policies continue
forcing
Haitians into hunger despite millions in supposed "aid" that keeps
them poor.
Israel disregards its obligations as an occupying power, by managing a
large part of Palestine for the benefit of Israeli colonists and
making
life very difficult for the Palestinian population.
Israel
imprisoned,
without charges, the Palestinian minister for prisoners. He was
just released after two years.
Israel has demonstrated contempt for peace and Kerry by
accelerating
the construction of its colonies in Palestine.
Kerry calls
on American Jews to tell Israel that it needs to make peace; that
continuing the occupation of Palestine will lead it to disaster.
Without privacy, there is
no democracy.
Those web site terms that she talks about signing, you don't have to
sign. I almost never sign — I won't use most such services.
For those that I do consider using, mainly WiFi portals, I check the
terms before agreeing to them. And in any case I don't identify
myself to them.
Bloomberg proposes a
megaproject
to protect New York from the effects of global heating, for a few
decades.
However, by the end of this century it
may
need to be surrounded by levees, as New Orleans is today. And so
will Newark, Boston, DC, and many other US coastal cities. And you'd
be crazy to live in them if you had any choice.
It would be cheaper to launch a national crash program for renewable energy
and then lead the rest of the world. Shanghai will be in the same boat and
likewise in danger of being swamped; when the Chinese rulers realize that,
they will do whatever it takes, if the US is with them.
Hong Kong human rights NGOs plan a
rally
in favor of Edward Snowden.
I a glad they support him, but I am not sure if this is a wise
strategy for influencing Hong Kong's government.
US political campaigns spend
lots of
money on data mining and surveillance of the electorate.
The right-wing UK government will push for Europe to allow
more
genetically engineered food crops, based on the thoroughly refuted
claims that they are "more efficient" and "sustainable". GM crops
have been proved to be neither of those.
Then there is the ridiculous claim that otherwise Europe will be "left
behind". If you are surrounded by a crowd of idiots who are jumping
into a fast-moving, dangerous river, left behind is exactly where you
should aim to be. No legislator is such a fool as to be persuaded
by this childish argument, but those in the pocket of business might
find it useful to pretend they were.
I do not consider genetic engineering as a violation of something
sacred. In principle, if done right, and available on ethical terms
(no patents), it might do good in some cases. However, you can be
sure that Monsanto's genetically modified crops will do harm,
by increasing that company's power over society.
Soot from combustion is making the ice on Greenland darker,
and that has caused it to
melt
faster than ever observed before.
This means that sea level could rise, in this century, much more
than the one or two meters now predicted.
Thomas Drake: All you need to know about so-called oversight is that
the NSA was
already
in violation of the [PAT-RIOT] Act by the time it was signed into
law.
He also explains, from his own experience, why it is totally useless
for whistleblowers to take such complaints to the "chain of command".
A French teacher was
suspended
for showing a gruesome horror film to 11-year-old students.
I don't think children should be pressured to watch such a thing.
Some can handle it, and some can't, so we should make sure they can
easily avoid it if they wish.
I would not want to see it, myself. I avoided the film Alien because,
fortunately, I saw the story in a less impactful comic book form and
knew what the film would do to me.
However, the fact that some of us find a work disgusting and painful
to see is no excuse for censorship.
David Nutt:
International
drug prohibition amounts to scientific censorship.
Before the US prosecutes Snowden, other
bigger
questions must be resolved.
France's current system of punishing people who share has been
ineffective for making people pay the record companies, so they plan to
replace it with a
modified
system of punishment for sharing. Sharing is good, and must be made
legal.
An appeals court ruled that Monsanto's statement that it would
not sue anyone whose crops were contaminated by patented pollen
was legally
binding.
The Australian fossil fuel industry has whipped up a rash of
apparently psychosomatic health problems attributed to wind
generators, as a
scheme
to impose a regulation that would make them too expensive to use.
Even if this were a real problem of wind generators, it would have to
be compared with the health problems due to the likely alternative,
coal-burning generators. We know that their pollution (which includes
radioactive fallout)
kills
lots of people today, and that is not to mention the global
heating disaster it contributes to.
Coal-burning power plants in Europe cause
22,000
premature deaths each year, in addition to making a much larger
number of people sick.
Despite recent revelations, we
still
don't know much about how the NSA spies on us or how much.
A whistleblower discloses a
"culture of
noncompliance" in pipeline construction in a part of TransCanada,
the same company that wants to build the Keystone XL planet-roaster
pipeline.
Obama has fired the head of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission
for
supporting better regulation of banks.
As usual, Obama is the banksters' tool.
NSA massive spying is part of a general web of militarism
that has
trampled most
of the amendments in the Bill of Rights.
A former US prosecutor turned dissident has
sued
Obama and the NSA over surveillance.
ACLU
Files Lawsuit Challenging Constitutionality of NSA Phone Spying
Program.
NSA whistleblower William Binney:
"On
a Slippery Slope to a Totalitarian State".
Snowden says he and other staff of private NSA contractors
can
monitor anyone.
A former NSA director describes these companies as "Digital
Blackwater".
A British girl who ran away to France with her teacher is
being
used to convict him of "abducting" her.
Their plan to run away was foolish; even if they had not been pursued,
they could not have made a life together that way for very long. Each
one of them ought to have been able to recognize this.
However, joining in foolishness is not the same as being kidnaped.
That absurd claim is one of the many lies that the legal system uses
to smear people.
Since she ran away with him voluntarily, testifying against him now so
he will be imprisoned for it is an act of treachery. I suspect that
her family has brainwashed her into it. Her former lover will suffer
from it for years, but she will suffer even longer, because she will
find it difficult to admit to herself what she has done.
California thugs
beat
David Silva, who was lying on the street, and did not stop
although he begged for his life. After a few minutes he stopped
begging, because he was dead.
Then thugs began
confiscating
the phones with which a crowd had made videos of the killing.
They said this was to protect the evidence, as if the people who made
the recordings would want to suppress them; but the thugs seem to have
already started erasing videos.
Clearly the thugs intend to lie about their actions. Thugs are
habituated to lying, even lying in court, which they call
"testilying".
In 2003-5, 38
people were killed by US thugs while shackled. I can't find the
total number killed by thugs while helplessly subdued in any fashion.
Schools
subject
their students to surveillance if they lead the students to store
data on company servers.
Parents are falling for the bait of the convenience of the associated
SaaS facilities, which are in themselves
unethical.
Both houses of congress
want
to cut food stamps, just as many Americans are starting to need
them.
NSA and GCHQ:
Mass Surveillance Is about Power As Much As Privacy.
Snowden's example shows that loyalty to the US Constitution
may
require revealing government secrets, even if it is illegal.
Unions have
invited
international monitors to Ulster in case the UK government crushes
the right to protest.
Several senators have proposed a
bill
to publish the opinions of the Fisa court.
The growth of the banks
drains
the rest of the economy.
Can Oz: I
Can Never Trust the Turkish Police And Government Again.
Turkish thugs attacked protesters in Istanbul after a group of thug
provocateurs, pretending to be protesters,
staged
a phony attack.
Some of their excuses, such as that police would clean up litter,
were also used by the Obama regime against Occupy Wall Street.
The protesters
fought
back for many hours.
Thugs also
dragged
away lawyers who protested at the main courthouse.
Clapper seems to have
lied in his testimony to Congress about massive US
surveillance.
Thugs
attacked
protesters who occupied an empty building in London.
Russia is going to make it a
crime
to advocate gay rights, and to "offend religious feelings".
US whistleblowers enhance US security, because
government
secrecy has killed lots of Americans and harmed the country's
interests.
A proposed
bill would help put an end to wage discrimination against women in
the US.
GMO companies'
false
claim: that their crops help the poor.
The US Constitution was always a piece of paper, but it
had
real power while people respected it.
Instead of a social contract, what we have now is a
business-to-business contract.
US citizens: Gene patents kill;
call
for ending them.
Ai Weiwei
condemns
massive US surveillance, saying it resembles what he knows in
China, but he is shocked to find it in the US.
India is
shutting
NGOs funded by private foreign donations if they have associated
in any way with antinuclear protests.
Unemployed Britons, who were illegally forced to do unpaid work and won
compensation in court, and then were denied this compensation by a
retroactive law, are
suing
to overturn that law.
A UK judge disregarded the leaked evidence that the Chagos marine reserve
was created to keep the Chagos islanders from returning, then
ruled
that this couldn't possibly be true.
The
Listening Tree, by NSA.
In reality, it's not trees that have microphones, it's buses, taxis
and lampposts. For practical purposes, in a city, that makes little
difference — what this cartoon warns about is
already
true.
Republican pressure is making Obama start to talk about
changes
to the PAT RIOT Act. Ironic, given their previous support for
various kinds of government surveillance.
However, this will not be enough to do the job. We need to make it
possible to be an anonymous whistleblower.
Obama has ceased trying to block the
unlimited
sale of emergency contraception drugs.
Daniel Ellsberg:
Edward Snowden:
Saving Us from the United Stasi of America.
The rules of Catholic hospitals
endanger
patients, amounting to medical malpractice in some cases.
We must not forget that
states
can do important work for the good of society. What makes the US
government dangerous today is its subservience to business.
The article errs in thinking that Labour might try to change this in the UK.
It is clear that Labour aims to get into power while
changing the cruel
status quo as little as possible.
A former British soldier in Kenya says he was ordered to shoot unarmed
people
and
then say they were "terrorists".
How
many people could Richelieu hang with the data that the NSA
collects about most people today?
If the world does not take steps now to end global heating, it will be
on a path to
5C
of heating.
Great
whistleblowers talk about Edward Snowden.
One of them, Ian Foxley, thinks Manning and Snowden should have taken
their information to their chain of command. That makes sense for
situations like Foxley's, where the commanders may feel they are the
victims of the scam. However, when the evil comes down from the top,
that probably would have got them arrested without being able to tell
the public.
Rich parts of China are
outsourcing
their carbon emissions to poorer parts of China.
A greenhouse gas tax is the best way to stop this. If it were applied
to all of China, it would stop this outsourcing within China. If it
were world-wide, it would also block international outsourcing.
Although it ought to be world-wide, one should not wait until all
countries agree to participate before starting the system. It needs
to start somewhere.
The UK government and the NSA have a
clever/stupid
excuse to trash the rights of people in the UK, in the name of
protecting them of course.
The US is
developing semiautonomous
robot soldiers, and nothing would stop them from being made to
shoot people.
The Judicial
Lynching of Bradley Manning, explaining how Manning's trial has
barred the most important defense arguments in advance.
Mining companies are trying to use a free exploitation treaty to force
El Salvador to let them
take water
supplies away from the people.
Can anyone tell me which treaty it is?
A law in New York State making it
a felony
to "harass" a thug is tailor-made for the false accusations thugs
frequently make.
Protests each Monday in North Carolina against
the state's
attack on education.
The massive surveillance Snowden has demonstrated is a repeat of the
massive surveillance of
dissidents practiced
in the 60s and 70s, updated for the Internet.
In the first public event in support of
Snowden, hundreds
rallied in New York City.
Some questions to ask about the meaning of
Obama's "counterterrorism"
speech.
The US
Congress ought to want to talk with Snowden — about how the
NSA has misled it.
Snowden
is not
necessarily safe in Hong Kong.
Tear gas is presented as a safe weapon, but it
regularly kills
people or makes them badly sick.
Eve of
Destruction (or How to Destroy a Planet Without Really Trying).
Chomsky: How
to Destroy the Future.
The World
Economy Is a Ticking Time Bomb (and The Fuse is Burning).
Users with "cloudy" minds allow themselves to
be serfs
of the feudal lords of computing.
Where the article errs is when it claims that some sort of "advantage"
can justify serfdom, and that we don't have a choice. That sort of
defeatism is what leads people to serfdom.
What We Don't Know About Spying on
Citizens: Scarier
Than What We Know.
US citizens: Call
on Obama and Congress to stop spying on Americans.
US states are selling data about patients, weakly anonymized so that
the
patients can be reidentified.
Even if tech companies have not made back doors for the US government,
they have made it
easier
for the US government to get data from them, with a potential for
abuse.
The Obama regime claims that
NSA
snooping on everyone is no different from your bank's knowing
about your checks.
US citizens:
call
on the Armed Forces Network to stop broadcasting Rush Limbaugh.
What makes Turkish media especially vulnerable to government censorship
is that they are nearly all
part
of conglomerates with other business interests.
Obama is not the only one that punishes whistleblowers. A rail union
accuses a UK railway construction project of
blacklisting
whistleblowers and union representatives.
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden
fled
to Hong Kong before providing his information to the press.
Isn't it a shame to the US when people who reveal government
oppression must flee to China?
Here is an interview
with Snowden.
This man is a hero comparable to Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning.
With Democrats and Republicans bought by fossil fuel money,
the Green
Party is the only way to influence US politics against global
heating.
Keystone XL isn't even built yet and already it's
faulty.
House votes on approving the planet-roaster pipeline were clearly
purchased
by fossil fuel companies.
Germans worry about
US data surveillance. Everyone in Europe should.
Net
Neutrality Is Still a Chimera in the EU.
Everyone:
Tell
Turkey to stop using excessive force against peaceful protesters.
US citizens:
call on the
senate to oppose intervention in Syria.
Everyone:
recommend
Bradley Manning for a Nobel Peace Prize.
Obama said he would end illegal surveillance, but it was a trick
what he did was
attempt to
legalize it.
Staff of some political NGOs in Egypt have been given
prison
sentences.
Several of the NGOs that were shut down are directly financed by the
US, and one by a right-wing German political party. It might be
reasonable for a country not to allow that sort of foreign
organization to operate.
However, it is absurd to imprison the staff. And other NGOs,
not funded by governments, are another matter.
A Libyan militia
shot
protesters calling for militias to disband.
Why didn't Obama tell us before the last election that he would run
on a total-surveillance-to-make-us-feel-safe
platform?
Bills to require court orders to access people's email and phone call
records have
strong
support.
However, these bills do not go far enough. They restrict government
access to company-held personal dossiers, but don't prevent companies
from accumulating these dossiers over long periods of time. These
dossiers might consist of records of years of phone calls, or backups
of old emails. The state could collect this retroactive information
so as to fish for something to accuse you of, as it did with John
Kiriakou.
We need to limit the dossiers that can be kept, not just limit access
to them.
The crucial criterion for any proposed change in these laws is, would
it have protected John Kiriakou from the intense investigation that
strained to come up with a crime to charge him with?
Women of the
World's Largest Peasant Movement Call the Shots.
There are many Turkish media companies, but they were all intimidated
by threats
from the state.
This calls to mind the
US
intimidation against all the services that wikileaks used.
Liu Xiaobo's brother
was convicted
on ridiculous charges and imprisoned.
A stealth
project to build a tar sands oil pipeline effectively equivalent
to Keystone XL.
US citizens: call for cans of Glade
to list the
chemicals it contains, some of which seem to be toxic.
The US Postal
Service photographs
every piece of mail.
While it is useful to be able to identify the person who sent these
ricin-laced letters (perhaps giving a new meaning to the term "poison
pen"), the extension of pervasive surveillance to our physical mail
worries me more than the ricin.
Reminding Senator Spy Feinstein that the Fourth Amendment
is not a mere
suggestion.
The EU says
it no
longer advocates "austerity", but doesn't plan to increase
euro-zone deficit spending, so in fact it will still practice
austerity. However, now it wants to attack workers' rights too.
Even though PRISM does not allow the government direct access to
servers, the government's spying represents a direct
threat to the
US Constitution and American values.
I disagree with only one point of that article, but it is an important
one. Even though big Internet companies sometimes oppose
government spying, they are nonetheless part of the problem. If these
companies did not collect so much information about Internet users,
the government would not be able to make them hand it over.
"Your Smartphone
Works for the Surveillance State".
I'm glad to see others say what I've been saying: today's digital
surveillance is worse than in the Soviet Empire, and it is taking us
towards tyranny.
I wish he didn't assert that "we" do all sorts of foolish things. I
don't do them. I hope you don't either.
People in wealthy
countries must
eat less meat, to reduce pressure on the world's growing capacity
and for their own health too.
When I am at home, I eat little meat on most days.
Massive
Internet surveillance
in India, together with censorship of opinions that displease,
adds up to a step towards oppression.
A "virtual"
Iranian presidential election offers Iranians the chance to vote
for candidates who were banned from running.
The system described is ripe for fraud, by voters and by the ones
carrying it out. It should never be used or a real election.
However, it is ok for this sort of use.
Mali
has tortured, killed and disappeared prisoners.
France will continue
its ban
on fracking, taking note of the harm fracking has done in the US.
Studying the
spreading Sunni-Shi'a
conflict.
Both variants of Islam regularly oppress women and trash the human
rights of dissenters and atheists. That doesn't mean this war is
likely to make things better for anyone. I think it is more likely to
make both sects more fanatical and more oppressive.
Blacks in the US encounter systematic, frequent and occasionally
deadly violence
by thugs.
Spy Feinstein says force feeding of Guantanamo prisoners is
"safe
and respectful".
When Obama (and Feinstein) talk about "closing Guantanamo", they do
not mean ending the injustice of indefinite imprisonment without
trial, or that of torture. What they mean is shifting the same
bestial treatment to the US itself. That's what Congress refused to
approve.
Slot machine technology has advanced, making them
more
addictive.
Just goes to show how foolish it is to make "innovation" the primary goal.
Who will decide which innovations will be used in your life? You,
or someone else?
If what the addicts want is the feeling of flow, can't they get the
same feeling in a way that doesn't cost them money? Perhaps with a
free software slot machine program that pays off in Roulette Rupees
instead of real money?
How supermarkets get data about their customers, and
what
they do with it.
You can protect yourself by (1) not using a buyer's card, (2) paying
cash, and (3) not using any coupons that are given to you by the store
when you purchase. (You could trade them with someone else and confuse
the store.)
US citizens:
call
for a racist federal judge to be disciplined.
It appears PRISM refers to a
system
by which the US government demands information from companies, and
not a back door for direct government access to the companies'
servers.
Nonetheless, many companies
went
out of their way to make it easier to give the data to the
government.
The US can do plenty to spy on Internet traffic to these companies
even
without their cooperation.
The government should be able to get information from individuals and
companies for investigations. That part of things is not what's
wrong. What is wrong is that Internet sites collect so much
information about nearly everyone, which can then be handed over
to the US government for an investigation of "terrorist suspects"
such as dissidents or whistleblowers.
Obama will allow death squads to target
wolves
too.
Government officials
condemn
heroic whistleblowers and call for investigations to find the
"reprehensible" people who told us about how much the US government
spies on all of us.
These investigations will, naturally, require spying more on all of us.
Obama has ordered preparation of a
list
of possible targets for cyber-attacks.
I do not consider contingency planning in advance to be an outrage,
but Obama has already shown an inclination to launch pre-emptive
attacks.
The US
needs
a new Church Committee to deal with the NSA's massive
surveillance.
The Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that
a
warrant is required to install a GPS tracker in a car.
That's the way it should be: tracking cannot be started without a
warrant.
Unfortunately, for anyone who has a portable phone, the tracking is
done all the time, and the data can be collected (with or without a
warrant) retroactively. This is tantamount to maintaining a dossier
about every person, which the state can look at retrospectively at
any time.
Various experts and activists consider how to reconcile the leak about
PRISM with the
statements
by company executives that they have not allowed the US to
establish back doors.
What the US government gets when it tracks
"metadata"
such as URLs visited and phone numbers called.
If you're a whistleblower, it also finds out if you phoned a reporter.
329
charges against a kidnaper shows how prosecution in the US has
become absurd.
From what I've read, he kidnaped and raped three women, and ought to
be charged with this. He ought to get a fair trial, which I suppose
would result in his conviction based on the testimony of the victims.
However, anyone who faces 329 charges, even if innocent, is unlikely
to ever get a fair trial because he will accept a plea bargain.
Obama personally has
pushed
the use of executive privilege to shield massive surveillance from
the courts.
This is the same man who said we should trust courts to limit
surveillance.
The "hunger summit" is a front for
corporate
colonization and land grabs in Africa.
If agribusiness succeeds in boosting food production in Africa, it is
likely to be exported, while those dispossessed of their land
are forced to cities to look for work.
Some European fisheries are recovering after fishing was banned
— even cod.
Cod in the Grand Banks are recovering slowly also, but have far to go
before fishing should be allowed.
The victims of British empire war crimes included
Israelis, too.
Senators Wyden and Udall say that PAT-RIOT Act surveillance
has never
proved necessary, and call for the government to publish more
information about it.
Facebook deleted
pages calling
for protests in Turkey.
States must respect anonymous communication; here are
the basic
requirements.
I don't think these go far enough, because there are other ways to
restrict and surveil people on the Internet.
Republicans in Wisconsin are trying to rush through a law to apply
many know voter
suppression and election corruption techniques.
The US
is funding
death squads in Honduras.
Big Brother
has collected
information about credit card transactions, but we can't tell how
often.
It amounts to Total Information Awareness by another name.
A US spy official acknowledged the practice of collecting information
about all
phone calls of millions of Americans, and secret back doors into
servers of many companies.
As usual, he condemned the patriots who told us how our government is
setting up a surveillance state. He's on the side of the bad guys.
The UK government is using
this same
program to spy on UK citizens, which could mean disregarding and
nullifying their legal rights.
It is strange that the NSA confirms this program but executives of the
companies involved deny participation. I wonder if employees were
coerced into setting up the surveillance without telling their bosses.
I have it on good authority that that is the way the US typically
handles PAT-RIOT act seizures. It goes to a sysadmin and telling him
to hand over the data and not tell anyone else, or be imprisoned.
Everyone: call for action
to stop tax havens
from functioning.
On
the heroism
of whistleblowers, and the villainy of the Bush/Obama regime in
trying to attack them.
Summarizing what we know about
the NSA
spy program, Prism.
European companies and government agencies should not be allowed to
make any personal information available to a US company under any
circumstances.
Found US nuclear power plants have been closed as they have
become more
expensive than other energy. Even renewable energy is cheaper.
Nuclear energy is tremendously expensive, and only massive subsidies
make it feasible. With similar subsidies, renewable power would take
off tremendously.
Holder says he
will not
prosecute any reporter for doing his job. He aims rather to make
the job impossible, by drying up all their sources.
Turkey's president calls the protests foreign meddling and says he
wants
to crush them.
He cites
European repression of protests to justify his own.
It is true that countries such as
the
UK and
Italy
have repressed protests. So what? Injustice in one country does not
excuse injustice in another country.
However, this should be a lesson that European countries and the US
must not tolerate repression and lying thugs at home.
Obama
says
he's not responsible for agencies that report to him; their
supervision should be left to Congress and courts.
Of course, no sensible American trusts the FISA court to defend our freedom.
Whether Congress will do so has yet to be seen. But what good is a president
who passes the buck on our freedom.
Peak
Soil: Industrial Civilisation Is on the Verge of Eating Itself.
Problems like this must happen sooner or later as the population rises.
In addition to eating less meat, and especially less beef, we
need
to reduce the birth rate so that the population starts to go down.
An Indigenous group in Peru vows not to allow oil extraction, citing
the
way other areas' rivers have become polluted.
Air and water pollution in China are
rapidly
getting worse.
Privatized trains in the UK have been a rip-off, resulting in
little
private investment, old trains, and high fares.
The profits have come from what are effectively state subsidies that
go to the businesses.
Even though this privatization does result in a limited amount of
competition for the business of individual passengers, it was not
enough to bring about a good result.
Tear gas is a
booming
business, along with oppression in general.
Internet activism sometimes does bring about changes in
offline
activity.
I don't sign change.org petitions because signing them requires
running a nonfree Javascript program. I wish change.org would change that.
A passenger on a train in the UK is being sought for prosecution for
calling
a black passenger a "monkey".
Here we see how racism operates. A believed B had woke him up, but
instead of rebuking B for doing that, he saw that B belonged to a
racial minority and insulted him for that entirely irrelevant point.
That was stupid and irrational, as well as nasty.
However, it should not be a crime.
Naomi Klein:
'Anti-Shock
Doctrines' Show the Way to Resist.
Some scientists say that Monsanto's supposed tests to find GMO wheat
are flawed
and cannot be relied on. In other words, we don't know how widespread
those genes are.
US citizens: help convince 10 senators to switch their stand and
support state laws
to require
labeling of GMOs.
US citizens: call for
a tax
on financial transactions, to support education.
Such a tax can support lots of things we need.
US citizens: call on Congress to investigate Obama's massive tracking
of our phone calls. Please sign both
of these petitions.
US citizens: thank the senators that
have put
pressure on the persecutors of Aaron Swartz.
A project
to make
genetically engineered plants that glow in the dark is getting
funding on Kickstarter.
Synthetic biology outside the lab needs to be regulated, and fairly
strictly — "Then company told us they knew it was safe" is not
enough, not here and not in general.
Plants that glow in the dark could have an effect on ecosystems, so it
would be unwise to let such genes loose into the wild. But can these
genes spread into the wild? The facts which determine this are
probably known, and I wish the author had checked and told us.
The UK
government approved
torture in Kenya at the highest level.
Fossil fuel industry bosses really
do say
the darndest things (to deny their contribution to global
heating).
Bosnians protested
because babies
can't get national ID numbers.
They ought to protest against laws that make them need these
numbers.
The European Central Bank recognizes that the recession in Europe will
get worse this year, and proposes to do something about it
by keeping
interest rates low.
However, as the US has shown, super-low interest rates are not an
effective way to make the real economy better. They let banksters make
big profits but don't put people back to work. Thus, they are the
choice of governments under the control of the banksters.
Putting people back to work requires deficit spending.
1/4 of the prisoners in
Guantanamo are
now being force-fed.
Unsurprisingly, the Department of Homeland Security (formerly called
the Committee for Public Safety) concluded
that searching
people's laptops at the border for no reason is a good policy. It
based its conclusion on the premise that even a shadow of a
possibility of preventing some crime (which could well be an act of
journalism) is more important than your freedom. That premise, which
the Obama regime seems to hold with increasing vigor, leads in only
one direction: to a total surveillance state.
Patent trolls are
only part
of the harm done by the patent system.
US citizens:
sign the ACLU's petition calling on Obama to stop
massive tracking of Americans' phone calls.
Bush and Obama have used a long series of
legal
tactics to keep their tracking of all telephone calls secret from
Americans.
The US government has made sure that
nobody
is allowed represent the Americans that the US proposes to spy on,
even when that is all Americans.
Senator Spy
Feinstein says this tracking has been going on since 2006, if not
longer, and we should just accept it.
"This is called protecting America," she said, and she's right —
that's exactly what Big Brother calls it.
Obama recently nominated Cornelia Pillard to the Court of Appeals of
the Federal Circuit. I looked her up in Wikipedia. I can't be
certain from what it says there, but she seems to have argued for
several positions I think of as dangerous.
It looks like she is a supporter of mandatory arbitration clauses,
which many companies impose so they can get away with mistreating
customers and employees. This is a crucial area for US courts, and I
would not want someone with these views to be on track for possibly
being on the Supreme Court some day.
It appears she has also participated in efforts to bend over backwards
to give thugs impunity, and limit the right to a jury trial.
In other words, she is the sort of candidate that I'd expect someone
soft on like Obama to nominate. I will not sign the petition urging
the Senate to vote on her nomination.
Obama has nominated two other candidates for that court. With the
small amount of research I can do, I did not get enough information to
have an opinion about them. Maybe they would be good people to put on
the bench, but I'd like to see if someone has actually evaluated them
from a progressive viewpoint before I support them in any way.
Cameron D'Ambrosio has been jailed without
bail, accused
of "terrorism", for his song lyrics.
The UK wants to let
people veto
wind generators in their vicinity, which they might consider
unsightly, but not fracking that could make them sick.
14 Turkish journalists have
been injured
by thugs while covering protests.
Meanwhile, the mainstream media continue ignoring the protests much as
US mainstream media ignore Occupy Wall Street.
President Erdogan remains
totally, absurdly
defiant.
UK activists, accused of a crime that is tantamount to "holding a
protest",
received
light sentences for their protest at a fossil fuel plant.
A California bill
would penalize
Walmart for each full-time employee that ends up depending on
Medicaid.
This is a good idea, but if it applies only to full-time employees it
will be ineffective. Walmart is making just about all employees
part-time.
The FBI
demand to require a back door in communications software would
enable all sorts of bad actors, not just the Obama regime, to spy on
everyone.
If such a law applies to free programs, it would ban the distribution
of versions that are not malicious.
A UN report recognizes
how massive
surveillance and freedom of expression are incompatible.
Health professionals call on Obama
to ban the
massive use of antibiotics in farm animals, so as to protect
humans from drug resistance.
Irrationally overreacting flight attendants and congressional
fearmongers made the TSA back down
from applying
a little common sense.
This one decision is not terribly important in itself — it means
one annoyance more, rather than one annoyance less — but it
demonstrates how vulnerable the US remains to appeals for repression
in the name of a minuscule amount of "security".
This inability to weight different dangers bodes ill for the US
response to the bigger threat of total monitoring of phone calls,
which is also supposed to be for "security against terrorists". (Of
course, the most important of those so-called "terrorists" are really
dissidents and whistleblowers.)
US citizens:
call
on Obama to give US workers a living wage.
Governor Walker has snuck radical
ALEX-sponsored
changes in education into a budget bill.
How the massive US "counter-terrorism" apparatus of "fusion centers",
which was probably not necessary in the first place, has been
redirected to "all crimes", including above all the crime of taking
democracy seriously. When a citizen sent email to the Phoenix thug
department asking the thugs not to harass Occupy protests,
the
fusion center investigated him too.
The FDA must immediately
make one form of emergency contraception available without an ID.
A gold
rush in Uganda probably means a corporate land grab is coming.
Malnutrition is the
main
killer of children under five.
Global
heating is making food prices rise, and is expected to do so
further in the coming decades.
The world economic system favors the rich; we need redistribution of
wealth. But we also need to stabilize the population, which means,
reduce the birth rate considerably. We should provide modern
effective birth control gratis to women who can't afford to raise
children properly.
The Obama regime is secretly collecting records about
all
phone calls made on Verizon Business Services. I expect it's the
same for other major phone companies.
This has been going on
since
2006.
These records allow the government to find out
who
you know and who you talk with.
These records allow the regime to catch any whistleblowers who might
talk with reporters about the regime's dirty work. That's the effect
that really matters. If this makes it possible to catch some
criminals as well, that's a minor side issue. Small benefits cannot
justify great harm.
I am glad that the mainstream media are starting to recognize that
limiting the use of information the state and corporations collect
about you is not enough. We must limit the information that they can
collect.
Estimating that austerity has led to
10,000 more
suicides in Europe.
The IMF has privately
recognized that imposing austerity in Greece did harm.
Thugs in Bangladesh
attacked
protesting workers from the factory that collapsed.
The reason for Abu Nusaybah's arrest was
making
statements of his views and helping the publication of other
statements.
Comparing his opinions with those of the Conservative Party, which are
worse? Both advocate oppression, and call for acts that can kill
people, but which one is likely to oppress and kill more? Obviously
the Conservative Party.
Robert Bales pled
guilty to murdering 16 Afghan civilians during night raids.
A report calls on the Centers for Disease Control to do research into
the patterns
of US gun violence.
Such research has been
blocked
by NRA lobbying.
Turkish thugs arrested
people for tweets that encouraged or aided protests.
In Dresden, 11 years after the "flood of the century", there is
another
flood.
This makes me suspect that global heating is at work.
Journal editors call for pre-registration of experimental studies
before
the results come in.
Protecting privacy by distributing "anonymized" data is ineffective
because it proves
easy
to re-identify the subjects.
US citizens:
call
on your senators to oppose trampling the environment in
immigration legislation.
Connecticut has passed a bill
requiring
labeling of food with GMOs, but it will only go into effect when
four other states pass such a law.
Obama is trying to make it possible to
fire
civil service employees arbitrarily if they are in departments
related to "national security".
Don't confuse the nation's security with the regime's security.
Over 3000 protesters in Turkey have been arrested, and
over
1000 were injured.
US wildfires burn
twice
as much land annually as they did 40 years ago.
Fires spread much faster now, which means people have much less time
to evacuate.
Bradley Manning's trial is a show trial, complete with rehearsals,
and secret
witnesses will provide the basis for conviction.
Amnesty International rebuked
the court for not allowing Manning to argue based on public
interest.
American
Gets Targeted by Digital Spy Tool Sold to Foreign Governments.
It appears to have leaked to a non-state underground movement,
which is no surprise.
The UN gave cholera to Haiti, but its plans to eradicate cholera there
are effectively
imaginary.
U.N.
Panel Reports Increasing Brutality by Both Sides in Syria.
How
the US Can Facilitate Peace in Syria: Talking to All Sides including Iran.
Obama's proposed "trade deal" is
much
more (worse) than a trade deal. It is an agreement to adopt
oppressive laws — a
Free
Exploitation Treaty.
The US Supreme Court approved a state law that allowing thugs to
take
DNA samples from everyone arrested for "serious crimes".
Greece is systematically
attacking freedom of the press.
Israeli soldiers post
threatening
signs aimed at Palestinian children.
Everyone:
support
Latin American leaders in breaking away from the War on Drugs.
Israel tries to force Bedouin into towns with
no
employment, by declaring their homes illegal.
A series of civilians were brought into a US/Afghan base, and emerged
as mutilated
corpses.
An Australian plan to compensate for CO2 emissions by
planting lots of trees
cannot
possibly work.
As UN Warns of 'Human
Costs,' US
Sends More Weapons to Syria Border.
America's biggest tax breaks amount to around
a trillion
dollars a year, and most of it is for the rich.
Why the purchase of Smithfield by a Chinese company
is dangerous
— for reasons having nothing to do with nationalism.
The government of Turkey has
bought 62
tons of tear gas in the past 12 years. I guess the government
recognized that its repression was likely to provoke resistance.
Foreign Shi'ites are going to
Syria to
fight for Assad.
If this keeps spreading, it could involve the whole Muslim world in a
sectarian war.
Lawyers in the UK blocked a road
to protest
cuts in legal services for the poor.
Israel
is demolishing
more Arab homes in Jerusalem.
and seizing land near
Nablus.
The fanatical "settlers" are
now burning
Palestinians' cars as well as destroying other kinds of property.
"Cancer
villages" are spreading across China, as polluting factories are
built around them.
They exist in the US, too, due
to factory
pollution from years ago.
Old or new, they result from a failure to regulate business properly.
The April
Texas fertilizer
plant explosion was another consequence of the same problem.
The root cause is that plutocrats dominate the
state. Ag-gag
laws are another manifestation of the same cause.
Kostas Vaxevanis faces double jeopardy
for publishing
the Lagarde list in Greece.
Burning fracked gas rather than coal has decreased US CO2 emissions,
but methane leaks from frack wells may
be cancelling
out the decrease.
Meanwhile, US coal extraction has not gone down. The coal not burned
in the US is exported instead — so really nothing good has been
achieved.
The Lord's Resistance Army is
now financed
by elephant poaching.
US citizens: call on Congress to repeal the
2001 Authorization
for Use of Military Force.
The Palestinian Authority and Kerry both tell Israel
that bad
things will happen if it refuses to make peace.
New York has sued HSBC
for illegally
shafting homeowners.
Bravo! But what we really need is to stop banks from reselling loans
divided up into parts. Anyone who gets a mortgage from a local bank
should have a right to a local office to discuss an extension with.
Turkey's government has given people plenty of practice
in fighting
back against violent thugs.
The debate is on in Portugal
about leaving
the euro zone.
It is not the euro as such that causes the problem, but rather the
deficit spending rules of the euro zone.
A country outside the euro zone could still use the euro as its
currency. Panama and Ecuador use the US dollar as their currency, and
the US cannot stop them (and probably would not want to, given the
advantages to the US of the use of dollars in commerce elsewhere).
Likewise, Portugal, Greece or Spain could leave the euro zone and
continue using euros.
However, this would have disadvantages as well as advantages. some of
these countries may want inflation to reduce their debt, and if they
tried to inflate the euro they would arouse much bigger hostility.
Eating
Pacific bluefin tuna is safe, with less radioactivity than any
normal banana. But the fish numbers are greatly reduced by
overfishing and they ought to be protected.
Years of
government contempt
for every aspect of the environment have fueled the protests in
Turkey.
Can you see any resemblance between these tricks and what your
government does?
To understand
Google+, think
of it as The Matrix.
I never identify myself to any web site, except to post comments
— but people and server-side scripts actually do that for me, so
commenting never connects my name with machines I connect to the
Internet from. If I were posting comments myself, I would do it
through other machines or via Tor.
Chinese find
clever indirect
ways to talk about the Tian An Men massacre, which leads the
censors to block searches for all sorts of words, even "today".
Everyone: sign
this petition to the Walmart CEO in support of striking workers.
Jordan
has imposed
filters on 200 web sites, including such prominent ones as al
Jazeera.
The UK is
planning more
network filtering too.
In the
US: oppose
uranium mining on Mt Taylor in New Mexico.
In Iowa, blacks
are 8
times more likely to be arrested than whites for use of marijuana.
Of course, nobody should ever be arrested for using marijuana. It
should be legal.
US citizens:
call
on the US Department of Agriculture to ban field trials of
genetically engineered crops.
The TSA has
eliminated
X-ray scanners. The article is confused, and focuses on certain
software for displaying a certain kind of simplified picture of the
passenger. However, elsewhere it is clear that switching to this
software required removal off all the X-ray scanners.
It's a good thing, because those scanners are potentially dangerous.
How bizarre that we could not get them removed because of danger
but could get them removed because of a nudity taboo.
From 2005 to 2011, sea level rose around
2.4mm
per year (about 1/10 inch), and it was mainly due to melting ice
in Greenland and Antarctica.
That melting will surely speed up considerably over this century,
but we don't know how much.
Vigorous
efforts might just succeed in saving the Schaus swallowtail
butterfly from extinction.
By the second half of this century, governments struggling with
failing agriculture won't have resources to put into protecting
species or habitats.
Some vital
US government programs undermined by the sequester
that you might not have thought of.
Jordan has imposed
censorship
on news sites.
Taiwanese Internet users protested and blocked plans for a
SOPA-like
law.
They ought to demand that the government abolish the "intellectual
property" office. Any activity based on that
propaganda term
tends naturally to turn out bad. And why allow any public funds to be
spent on pushing for unjust laws?
I do not say all the various laws some refer to as "intellectual
property" are bad through and through. Since these laws are
totally unrelated, it is unlikely that anything can be
validly said about all of them, except that they are all laws.
The world's airlines have decided to
make
a show of reducing their greenhouse gas emissions, hoping this
will convince Europe not to take real action.
It appears that Tea Party groups were just
a fraction
of the organizations subject to special scrutiny by the IRS on
suspicion that they were really political.
Google is trying
to block
face-recognition applications for Google Glasses, which is
laudable in spirit, but can only be done by censoring applications, as
Apple does — which is hopeless as well as wrong.
Laurence Tribe says that charging Bradley Manning with "aiding the
enemy"
is dangerous
to freedom of speech.
Julian Assange rips into a book by Google's leaders, pointing out how
digital surveillance technology is leading the world
towards "titanic
centralizing evil".
The Democratic Party will do the people no good as long as
it runs
on funding from plutocrats.
Obama is using the IRS
to crush
state-legal medical marijuana dispensaries.
School administrators insist on a permanent blot on the record for the
kid
who chewed
a pastry into the shape of a gun.
Miami thugs
choked a teenager, then said he threatened them by staring at them
the wrong way.
These thugs seem to be acting much like teenage toughs I knew in
school.
The site of the G8 meeting has had
a Potemkin
village make-over presenting it as prosperous.
The funds were provided by the UK government, and perhaps the intend
to disguise the harm done by austerity is meant to affect the outcome
of the meeting.
In a symbolic attack on journalism and the public's right to know, the
court
barred stenographers hired with donations from Bradley Manning's
trial.
Jellyfish
are overrunning
the world's seas. Global heating and overfishing are part of the
cause.
Puffins in Maine
are in
trouble because there are no longer herring in the area to feed to
their chicks. The problem may not be limited to Maine, and global
heating may be the cause.
World
Faces Lost Decade of Joblessness, ILO Warns.
Projections of improvement by 2017 neglect the likelihood
that many
more jobs will have been automated.
China (and Laos) send North Korean refugees
back
to North Korea.
Greenpeace in Istanbul is providing medical aid to injured protesters,
and its building has been
attacked with
tear gas.
In the US: call
on Students First to stop praising anti-gay legislator
John Ragan.
How many climate refugees will result from global heating?
A middle scenario might lead to
hundreds
of millions at a time.
More confusion results from the term
"intellectual
property": research into a virus identified in Saudi Arabia in
2012 is being impeded because the lab that isolated the virus is
making other labs sign contracts not to redistribute the virus to other
labs.
These contracts are about physical objects (virus particles),
but some of the people cited have confused this with a patent.
The contracts may be harmful, but they are not a patent.
Tunisia, like the US and other countries, stretches the definition
of terrorism and uses
it against dissidents.
Taiwan is considering a version
of SOPA.
Everyone: tell
Nestle to stop bottling water from an area of Ontario
which is suffering from drought.
US citizens: rebuke
the Democrat senators who voted for corporate
welfare rather than avoiding food stamp cuts.
A long series of studies show that acupuncture does not deliver
significant real pain relief. It is
nothing
but a placebo.
The article includes terse explanations of various sources of error
that explain the occasional study that show a positive effect, and why
those are to be expected in studies of any popular ineffective treatment.
UK cuts in the National Health Service undermine public health including
the ability
to respond to any outbreak of disease.
Syrian fighting has spread to Lebanon.
It looks like this will develop into a war between Shi'ites and Sunnis
across the Middle East.
Dissidents in Azerbaijan and Russia
all
seem to be drug users, according to the state. Similar frame-ups
occur in
Canada too.
One of the many ways in which prohibition of drugs is harmful is that
the thugs can use this very easily to frame people.
More generally, the practice of prosecuting dissidents for crimes that
are ostensibly nonpolitical extends also to
Canada
and the US.
Hypocrisy
Lies at the Heart of the Trial of Bradley Manning.
10,000 brave Ethiopians protested in the capital, demanding
freedom
for political prisoners.
Supporters of one of Iran's presidential candidates were arrested
and told
not to campaign very hard.
A massive corporate land grab in Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand
has forced
400,000 people off their lands. It is financed by Western banks.
More about continuing
protests in Turkey.
In the US: stand with striking Walmart workers.
US citizens: call on
Obama not to deport Antonio Venegas for joining in a strike.
Everyone: call
on Canada not to allow dangerous oil drilling in the Arctic.
Thugs set off the Stockholm riots by
killing a man and
then lying about the circumstances.
US drone attacks in Pakistan
boost
support for the Taliban and make people regard the government of
Pakistan as a tool of foreigners.
In the end, the US does not gain from this. But US politicians gain,
because they can say they are "tough on 'terrorists'".
Most
Americans say they want high taxes on the rich, to help out
everyone else.
Thus, most of our legislators are shown to be working for the rich,
not for us.
Cruel
UK policies will force migrant and trafficked children onto the
street or into the hands of anyone that wants to take advantage of
them.
The same government advocates censorship to "protect children", but
clearly it doesn't really care about children. Sometimes it makes
children suffer. Sometimes it cites children as an excuse to
persecute someone else. As long as someone is demonized and made to
suffer, right-wing politicians are happy.
When a government's only tool is a hammer, it begins seeing people as
nails.
A search
for prior art for a totally absurd patent that is being used
to threaten podcasters.
It describes using a web site (or anything somewhat similar) for an
activity comparable to publishing a magazine. No sensible person
would consider this an invention. The fact that one needs to look for
prior art to invalidate this nonsense demonstrates that the US Patent
Office still applies ridiculous standards. (And not only in
the computing field.)
However, even a "well run" patent system would still be
harmful
in the computing field, because patents cause grid-lock in any field
which involves combining many ideas in one work or product.
To protect against patents by invalidating those that can be
invalidated is like trying to protect yourself from malaria by
swatting mosquitoes. By all means do swat them, but we need to go
beyond that. The US can protect software from patents by
exempting
them specifically.
Universal Music bullied four mayors in Denmark for whom a company
had made a take-off on Gangnam Style, by
demanding
an unreasonable sum within a day or else it would demand even more.
I suggest that presenting legal ultimatum of this sort, which gives
the target insufficient time for proper consultation with a lawyer,
ought to be penalized as a crime.
Ibragim Todashev's father:
FBI
'bandits' murdered my son.
I think the word "thugs" fits them better, since "bandit" implies
"thief" and they were not trying to steal.
It appears to be confirmed that the thugs lied to make up an
excuse for killing him.
Confronted by Activists at This Year's Shareholder Meeting, McDonald's
CEO
Don Thompson Lied And Lied.
1000
people protested for Bradley Manning at Fort Meade.
The US surveillance machine tells reporters
that protecting
their sources is now impossible, so great is the level of
surveillance of all our communications.
To maintain control over this rogue state, we must put an end to that
surveillance.
Moreover, the article shows that businesses also have ways of cutting
off information to reporters. A democracy would legislate to block
those methods.
US citizens: tell the Bureau of Land Management
to adopt
strict safety rules for fracking on public land.
Prominent UK right-wing think tanks have accepted funds from Big
Tobacco
to advise
the government not to require plain packaging for cigarettes.
The EU
has made a great advance in fishing policy, with a strict 5% limit
on fish discards. At the same time, it has blocked Italy from banning
disposable plastic bags.
Thus, both good and bad come from requiring governments to get
permission from other governments which are generally subservient to
business.
Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman says
that Aaron
Swartz was not depressed, in the usual general sense, and would
not have killed himself except for the prosecution.
I would not claim that his decision was a mistake. Prison may be
worse than death.
Global
heating deniers use several fallacies to deny the fact that
climate scientists overwhelmingly agree humans are causing global
heating.
The US military
denies injured veterans the treatment they need, and if they
complain, they get punished with false discharge.
Thugs in France, like thugs in the US and
elsewhere, use
tasers and other supposedly nonlethal weapons too much.
Germans are protesting in Frankfurt to show that
they don't
approve of what the German government is doing to Greece and the
rest of the euro zone.
New FBI Director Set
to Preserve
"'War on Terror' Mentality".
Inhabitants of the Thames river valley face big increases in water
bills, thanks to
the privatization
of water supply.
The claim that improvements "would never have been possible under
public ownership" presumes a government that fails to tax companies
enough. This privatization should never have been done, and it should
be reversed now.
The Tien An Men Mothers, relatives of those killed or mutilated by
soldiers in Tien An Men Square in
1989, continue
to call for justice.
It will take decades more for China to cause this to be forgotten.
Obama, take note: you can't cause US torture to be forgotten either.
In Ohio, the governor will be able
to veto
Medicaid funding for abortions for women who were raped or could
die from pregnancy.
Christian fanatics want to force these women to have children, or die,
because they think women deserve to suffer.
Turkey's government, increasingly Islamist and repressive,
has generated
large opposition.
After police repression that blinded one student and left three
critically injured, a protest by thousands of anti-Islamists was
allowed
to proceed.
US
citizens: oppose
new surveillance requirements that the FBI wants.
When whistleblowers
need to use spy tradecraft to inform the public, our surveillance
is tantamount to a police state. We need to put an end to practices
that accumulate an electronic dossier about each person.
Everyone: tell a Texas judge not to force a couple to split up through
a "morality
clause" in one's divorce papers.
A "no-fly" zone in Syria
would require
bombardment and an aerial battle to establish, and would not do
much good.
Oil
companies inject
hydrofluoric acid into oil wells to "melt rock" and let oil flow
out.
Hydrofluoric acid will burn you terribly if it touches you. Fluorine
is very reactive. I don't know whether this endangers people.
Perhaps all of it reacts with rock and hardly any of it escapes.
Perhaps tiny quantities do no harm to humans. But is this known for
certain?
Teaching high school students about
the 1920
pogrom against blacks in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and how it relates to
race-based wealth disparity in the US.
I would suggest using median wealth levels rather than average to
measure wealth disparities, because the average is skewed by a small
percentage of rich people and does not reflect life for most people.
We occasionally get a glimpse of how US "homeland security"
organizations spy
on environmentalists to aid fossil fuel interests.
I suspect they do this all the time, and only rarely does it leak.
The US government has been systematically corrupted by various kinds
of businesses. This includes banks, armament companies, fossil fuel
companies, Big Pharma, the copyright industry, and agribusiness, to
name a few. Each kind of business, in its area of interest, has
turned the state against the people, and each gets various sorts of
help from the executive branch. The corruption goes all the way up to
Obama.
As a result, in practical terms the US no longer practices democracy.
Democracy means that the many non-rich join together to become more
powerful than the rich, and stop them from exercising power
commensurate with their wealth. What we have in the US is plutocracy,
an unjust and illegitimate form of government.
California shipping lanes have been moved so
that ships
will kill fewer whales.
Italy's criminal libel law
is coming
under fire.
To make libel a crime is unacceptable.
Meanwhile, Ethiopia
has imprisoned
a journalist without charges for days for covering mass evictions.
Over 1000
were killed
by sectarian violence in Iraq during May.
The Iraqi government has the form of a democracy but
it isn't
much of one.
US citizens: urge your congresscritter
to support
the bill to extend to renewable energy certain business privileges
that fossil fuel companies have.
US citizens: sign this petition
to repeal
the Monsanto Protection Act.
Turkey has woken up from its sleep during the AKP's fascist regime
(published on stallman.org at the author's request).
The US stock market is going up, and housing prices are rising,
but wages
are continuing to fall.
Chile's head negotiator for the Trans-Pacific
Partnership resigned
and called for its rejection.
For right-wing extremists in the
US, no
form of hypocrisy is too much.
Calling less extreme right-wingers such as Obama "Liberals" is another
dishonest tactic that they have used since around 1990.
They use the same tactic regarding
our right-wing
Supreme Court.
British
Columbia rejected
a tar sands oil export pipeline.
Seafood
May Be Gone by 2048, Study Says.
The World
Bank pressures
governments to deregulate, but they are organizing to fight back.
Europe is heading for something like
the Great
Depression if it does not change its austerity policy to a job
creation policy.
If the US reads your
email, would
you ever find out?
Maine's legislature is working on a bill
to require
a warrant for cell phone tracking.
I can't tell whether this bill would allow the phone company to
continue to keep a full location dossier about someone without a
warrant. If it does, it is inadequate.
New York City plans
to close
60 local public libraries.
Australian politicians want to use one killing in London as an excuse
for new
laws to trample people's rights.
US citizens:
call on
Obama to pardon John Kiriakou.
I signed this, not expecting Obama to do it, but to add
to public condemnation on people who tell us the nasty
things that the government is doing to us.
Australia's National Party is directly funded by
big
mining and agribusiness.
You might as well vote to sell the whole country to them.
An NPR story on viable plants exposed by melting glaciers mysteriously
failed
to say why they are melting.
You don't need to be near sea level for your house to be
threatened
by melting glaciers.
El Salvador has
given
up on stopping a badly ill woman from aborting a fetus that has no
brain and would die shortly after birth.
A Florida school took iris scans of students without getting
permission, in order to
track
their movements around school.
Of course, they say this is for "safety", but this has
almost nothing to do with real safety.
Cancer has become so common in Basra that half the population will get
cancer, and the only likely cause is
dirty ("depleted") uranium (DU)
from US weapons.
This only scratches the surface of the US war crimes in Iraq.
Obama protects the criminals.
US allies should realize that they do not dare let the US defend them
from attack, because it would spread cancer there too. Likewise,
if the US ever had to fight an invasion, it would poison its own
population.
People fear Qatar's planned new "cyber crime" law will
trample
freedom of speech.
Note that making libel or "false news" a crime is an injustice
directly, aside from what its consequences for journalism might be.
States often claim that true news reports are false.
It's even worse
in other nearby countries.
If we describe a search engine as a journalistic investigation engine,
people might see why its
reports
should not be censored.
DNA people leave behind on cups and chewing gum can be used to
produce a
probable
model of the person's face.
In general, the threat that the state will do this (to dissidents,
labeled of course as "terrorists") worries more than the the danger
that someone else will do this.
Trade
sanctions deny secure communications to Iranian and Syrian
dissidents.
David House won a personal victory against the US, which will
delete its copies of
material
seized from his laptop.
This does nothing to limit the US power to investigate and harass
dissidents at the border.
The Turkish government attacked
thousands
of human rights protesters in the center of Istanbul.
Guantanamo prisoners being force fed point out that they
cannot
trust the doctors involved in this to treat them, and call on
those doctors to examine their consciences.
Holder told a few journalists,
in
a restricted meeting, that he would not repeat the searches of
journalists' communications.
If he really means this, he should announce it publicly. I do not
trust Holder, or Obama, in any issue of human rights. We should not
let them off the hook without a clear end and reliable to the War on
Journalism and the War on Whistleblowers.
Comparing reducing use of fossil fuels with
quitting
tobacco.
This looks at individual decisions, but fossil fuel use is mostly
controlled by government decisions, and the fossil fuel companies have
more power than the tobacco companies ever had.
The last political prisoner from the Tien An Men protests has been
released, after
23
years.
The UN Committee Against Torture has
40
criticisms of UK policies.
Has it examined the US recently?
Everyone:
call
on Nike to commit not to buy cotton picked by slaves in
Uzbekistan.
US citizens:
Call
on Obama not to intervene in Syria.
With or without using chemical weapons, Assad's regime is a horrible
tyranny, and if it were opposed by rebels we could confidently expect
to be better, they would deserve our help. However, the strongest
rebels groups are would-be Islamist tyrants, and replacing Assad by
them would not be a step up.
Everyone:
call
on the Netherlands to block the planned slaughter of fin whales
for dog food by refusing to let the meat through.
US citizens:
support the
bill to require a warrant for the government to access your email.
Everyone:
state
your support for striking Walmart workers.
Imprisoned whistleblower John Kiriakou writes about life in prison,
including how the
US government violates an agreement approved by the
judge in his case, and how the guards tried to trick him and another
prisoner into fighting, by lying to them both.
Once he gets out, I hope he will dedicate his life to organizing
opposition to the dishonest and secretive regime that has taken
control over the US.
The US distorts the concept of "weapons of mass distraction"
for purposes of political confusion.
A Canadian thug was caught on video threatening to attack a man and
frame
him for carrying cocaine.
In response, the thug force "disciplined" him, but did not even fire him.
It is a real shame that no witness will step forward to get tried and
jailed.
However, if the only thing they can accuse him of is "assault with a
weapon",
that means the laws are weak. Is it not a crime to threaten to frame
someone?
Guantanamo prisoners remain on hunger strike, not believing that Obama's
speech
will change anything.
Why it is crucial to divest from fossil fuel companies,
as a step towards stopping them from destroying the biosphere
Obama's pick to
head the FBI was part of the team that justified
illegal wiretapping for Bush. He also supported the decision to
hold a US civilian in a military prison without charge for 3 years.
Don't be fooled. Where human rights are concerned, Obama is no better
than Bush.
Companies want to bribe people to accept TVs
that keep
track of where they are looking while watching.
I am glad the article takes account of the difference between getting
a patent on a technique and using it. The patent, as such, does not
mean Microsoft uses or will use this technique. It only enables
Microsoft to sue anyone else that uses it.
Alas, we can't count on Microsoft to use that to protect us from this
abuse. It is not altruistic enough for that. More likely it will let
everyone else do this in exchange for paying Microsoft.
I don't think they will stop with "bribes" — like the "savings"
from identifying yourself to a store, by and by it will morph into
paying extra for not being monitored. And eventually they will try to
turn off other options.
This won't affect me: I don't have a TV, because I'd rather spend my
time on other things. However, if I were inclined to have a TV, I
certainly would not accept one like this.
I wonder what these systems do if you block the camera, put a photo in
front of it.
US banksters ordered their subservient congresscritter to pass a bill
to reduce
the weak US regulations on banks.
Everyone: call on Google
to disclose
its political spending and stop funding the US Chamber of
Commerce.
US citizens: support Senator Harkin's bill
to increase
social security payments.
How Apple locates itself in Ireland
and arranges
not to be considered resident either there or in the US.
It's easy to see how to change US law so that this particular trick
won't work — if the US government represents Americans rather
than Irish companies such as Apple. Just require that a company can't
have a US tax exemption based on being located in some other country
unless it is treated as resident by that country.
But Apple uses other tricks too, such as the "unlimited companies".
The US could make that stop, too, with a similar condition on taxes.
Here's
Apple's bullshit
excuse, compared with facts.
Lessons
from the suffragettes for feminists and other activists today.
India has established
certain rights
for dolphins and whales, including the right not to be captured.
Julian Assange explains how Stratfor is part of
a dangerous
centralization of power under the rubric of "national security".
Visa Iceland has found a new excuse
to cut
off donations to Wikileaks and nullify its court victory, but
people can donate easily through June 30.
After that, indirect donations will still be possible, and not very
hard.
Attorney General Holder appears to
have lied
to Congress when he said had never "heard of a potential
prosecution of the press for the disclosure of material."
Egypt is considering a law to
control
NGOs strictly, which threatens to stop international human rights
organizations (such as Amnesty International) from operating there.
A strain of GMO wheat that was never approved for commercial use
was found
growing in
a farm in Oregon.
UK thugs, operating as auxiliaries for Hollywood,
arrested
a man and then let Hollywood's flunkies interrogate him.
Bernie Sanders:
What Can We Learn From Denmark?
Israeli soldiers frequently
harass
and block Palestinian students at school or trying to go to
school.
The Obama regime has investigated so many officials, as well as
so many reporters, that officials now
refuse
even to take calls from reporters.
Attorney General Holder was directly involved in
seizing
records from a reporter.
What did the
Wall Street bailout cost Americans?
The costs are still mounting up.
The countries
where the rich have gained the most are also the countries where
their taxes have decreased the most.
Religious censorship in Turkey has reached the point of
imprisoning
people even for criticizing the boundaries of religious censorship.
Anyone who thinks that that statement should be punished
for "insulting religious values" deserves to have his religion
insulted every five minutes.
Ugandans protested the forced closure of newspapers and radio
stations, so the thugs
attacked
journalists covering the protest.
These newspapers and radio stations were closed because they
reported a plot by the president to set up a dynasty, effectively
eliminating democracy. I conclude that the report was accurate.
In Djibouti, a website technician was jailed for "defaming the police"
because he posted
photos showing the thugs breaking up a demonstration.
Strange how governments and thugs blame the people who show their
despicable acts to the public, instead of blaming themselves for
carrying out those acts in the first place. A lot like criminals.
Singapore has imposed its censorship for mainstream media on
some
Internet news sites.
Bosnian Croat leaders were convicted of planning the
ethnic
cleansing of Bosnian Muslims.
The masters of European austerity have given several prostrate countries
more
time for their next round of required budget cuts.
The article is right that this, in itself, is no big change. But
there is hope that the banksters will be compelled to keep giving them
more time, and more, and it will result in effectively cancelling the
requirement.
Amazingly, Republicans have started attacking Obama for his
War
on Journalism.
What's amazing is that they are attacking Obama for something that is
actually bad.
Obama's idea of "reviewing" the War on Journalism is to
let
the Attorney General review his own conduct.
Farming tends to
breed
the useful nutrients out of plants, even if that is not
specifically intended.
Israel has built
16,000
housing units on Palestinian territory in the past 3 years, and
attacks against Palestinians and their property are increasing too.
Prohibition of fairly safe drugs fuels the invention of
legal
mimics that might be dangerous.
A man who knows Adebolajo, one of the Woolwich killers, was
arrested
in the UK just after giving a broadcast interview about Adebolajo.
He was accused of "terrorism" but believes he was arrested for saying
things
that the state finds embarrassing.
One article refers to this man as Abu Nusaybah, while the other refers
to him as Ibrahim Hassan, but they clearly both mean the same man.
I don't know why the discrepancy in names.
Thugs in Toronto
broke
a man's ribs and arrested him because he filmed their excessive
violence against someone else.
It is clear that their accusations, at the time, were dishonest and meant
solely to intimidate someone from exercising his civic rights and duties.
It's not enough for the city to compensate their victim.
These thugs need to be jailed.
Members of Femen
were arrested
for a topless protest at the "justice" ministry in Tunisia.
The charges are a clear sign of tyranny.
US citizens: call
for continued
protection of wolves.
The charges against Kiera Wilmot were dropped, but she remains
expelled
from school for no good reason. She writes about the
consequences, including going to a school that wastes the time of any
intelligent student.
I hope she learns to feel more indignation.
"Zero tolerance" means declaring rigidity the highest principle.
Israel
keeps demolishing Arab homes in Jerusalem even when Israeli courts
say not to do it.
A gravely injured Palestinian, in danger of death from his wounds,
was blocked
from treatment all day by Israeli paperwork.
If Palestine were not occupied, a Palestinian hospital would have been
equipped to treat him.
Another Palestinian boy of 13 was attacked by Israeli colonists while
on his land, and broke his foot. Israeli soldiers captured him and
tortured him for
hours, keeping
him from medical treatment.
Genetically modified salmon can hybridize with brown trout and the
hybrids
can outdo
natural populations.
Proposing a moratorium
on autonomous
killer robots.
Burmese men in Thailand
are forced
to work as slaves on fishing boats, and murdered if they try to
escape.
The UK holds around 90 prisoners in Afghanistan, and won't hand them
over to the Afghan government
for fear
they might be tortured.
Combatants captured in a war zone can legitimately be treated as
prisoners of war, which means they don't have to be accused of a
crime, and are also not supposed to be punished, let alone tortured.
However, I'm not sure what international law says about people
captured and called combatants who say they were not involved in
fighting.
I don't see a right answer to this issue.
A lost 1967 Brazilian report
which exposed
the genocide of indigenous people, using chemical and biological
weapons as well as bombs and torture and starvation, has been found
and parts leaked.
No one was punished for it then, and the impunity continues today,
with indigenous people under the
most furious
attack since the military regime ended.
Around the
world, poor
people are being pushed off their land by foreign purchasers who
give them no choice.
The companies grow food for export, and the people are forced to flee.
Jeremy
Hammond pled
guilty to extracting Stratfor's files for publication, but
courageously refused to apologize for trying to inform the people.
Stratfor, which was one of Hammond's targets is more dangerous to
Americans than Hammond. It is part of the tendency for
the US
government to work secretly with corporations against Americans,
which also shows up in other forms.
However, I do not approve
of using
people's credit cards that were obtained from Stratfor.
Russia
Evacuates 'Drifting' Arctic Research Station As Ice Floe Melts.
Loss of biodiversity is a
threat to
humankind's survival, and agribusiness corporations are a
substantial part of the problem.
Teacher John Dryden faces punishment for
reminding
his students of their Fifth Amendment rights before giving them a
non-anonymous survey that asked about their drug use.
Note the absurdity of claiming that the survey is "proprietary
business information" — that is, a trade secret — after
showing it to hundreds or thousands of students. But this sort of
impudence is normal for business today.
The school says the survey results "won't be shared with police", and
maybe that describes the school's intentions, but the school is not
really in a position to keep the state from getting these surveys.
I wish I could sign the petition in support of Dryden, but the site it is on
requires running nonfree Javascript.
Colorado has
passed
laws regulating marijuana sales, which are now legal.
I'm not sure there is a reason to limit how much a person can have,
or driving under the influence of marijuana (it doesn't seem to lead
to car accidents), but they are a minor issue compared with the evils
of prohibition.
But we can expect Obama to attack with cruel force, just as he has
done against medical marijuana.
A campaign convinced Facebook to
ban
images that endorse violence against women.
The photos described sound really disgusting, but the censorship
power that Facebook has is what frightens me most.
After disasters, most people stay calm and help each other, and
crime
generally goes down. However, the major media (and Hollywood)
spread the myth that riots and fighting (and even disease) are normal.
By the way, I see nothing even slightly wrong with taking food from
food stores after a disaster that prevents the stores from opening.
To criticize this seems like Randian nonsense.
Sireen Khudiri Sawafteh has been arrested without access to a lawyer,
because Israel considers her Facebook page a
"danger
to security".
Ireland will require
plain
packages for cigarettes.
The arguments against this measure are full of obvious holes; they
will convince only those who don't want to think carefully about them.
US citizens:
file
a comment opposing a giant coal mine on US public land.
What lessons can be learned from the case of teacher Lucy Meadows,
hounded
by the press after having a sex change operation?
Keeping such a thing secret is impossible, and censorship is
disastrous, but society can learn to recognize that a sex change is
nothing for adults or children to be afraid of.
A UK private prisons company is accused of keeping people
in solitary
confinement for years, and denying them medical treatment.
Their denials are not credible. If someone is put in a private cell
for his own protection, there is no reason to make that a harsh
regime.
Twitter threatens to become
a monopolistic
outlet for all major news media.
Reconnaissance
drones are useful for tracking destructive logging, poaching,
fishing and and farming activities.
However, they can also see whatever you do in your backyard.
Google plans to show
people "customized
maps" as a way to pressure stores to pay to be visible — but
the harm can go far beyond squeezing money out of all retail
businesses.
If you ever do a search through Google, do it from a machine shared
with many others, and make sure you have no permanent cookies at the
start of your session. Best of all, do it from a machine from which
you have never identified yourself to any web site. Many sites report
all their visitors to Google through Google Analytics, so if you
identified yourself to any of them, Google knows.
Several Americans that use medical marijuana to cope with grave
physical conditions are about to
start long
prison terms.
I hope Duval destroys his house, making it worthless, before the US
government can seize it.
Mental Disorders
Should Not
Be Hastily Defined.
It comes down to a philosophical question about the meaning of
"healthy". There is more than one way to interpret the same facts.
Another
pesticide, fipronil,
has been found to harm honeybees.
Hundreds of Syrian rebels have been treated
for damage
from chemical weapons.
Global heating's effects could
make 200 million people
refugees by 2050.
Of course, this is a rough estimate. It could be less, or it could be
more.
The "smart city" threatens to
be too
smart for the residents' good.
The extent of Americans' outrage and empathy for various acts of
violence
is not
proportionate to the acts themselves.
At least 460
were killed
in Iraq in April.
Ironically, the first article starts out by endorsing Americans'
inordinate feelings of anguish and fear about the Boston bombing, and
claiming falsely that we "all" feel it that way. The reason many
Americans do feel that way is because they are bombarded by messages
telling them that they should and that everyone else does.
To get Americans on the right track, we must urge people to feel more
concern for other victims, but also stop encouraging a spirit-sapping
excessive reaction to one comparatively small act of violence. Every
death is a loss to the world, but if you don't know the person who
died and you don't have a chance to prevent the death, don't let it
overcome you.
The euro zone's next plan is to
attack the rights of European workers.
In other words, they want to get rid of the laws that make Europe a
better a place to live, for most people, than the US.
The Swedish government is
cutting
taxes on the rich and hurting the poor.
Rioting is unpleasant. Under ordinary circumstances, it is not
justified. However, the wrong that is being done to these people is
much worse than the wrong they did. We must focus on ending the
deeper wrong, the original wrong.
The UK has accused two passengers of "endangering an aircraft", but
the alleged crime consisted of
making
empty threats with no real substance.
It is legitimate to punish threats of violence, but empty threats are
not a real danger and it is dishonest to claim that they "endangered"
anything.
Austerity in the UK has meant a boom for banks, but it is about to
break
the food banks.
Obama's speech allows progressives to imagine that Obama supports
their goals, and allows hawks to imagine he supports theirs, and
does
not say much about what he will actually do.
That means we have to keep pushing.
Pressuring the UK to stay in the EU so it will
suffer
from a new free exploitation treaty.
The treaty is likely to include a
nastier
version of ACTA, as if the Digital Economy Act were not unjust enough.
Escaping from this will require every country to leave the EU.
The rest of the treaty will be harmful as well. In general, "free
trade treaties" give business increased power over the government.
What does business do with this power? It imposes austerity, evades
taxation, trashes the environment, and hurts workers. The exact
opposite of what the UK and all countries need.
Thugs crushed
a protest in a Cambodian sweatshop by people working directly or
indirectly for Nike.
Google has dropped support for federated XMPP chat, in a move that
tends to lock
users in.
The change also hurts users' privacy and downgrades the use of free
software clients. It is better to use other XMPP chat servers
which continue to federate and thus don't lock people in.
Thugs in Houston blocked street presentations of a rap video by
threatening
to arrest the fans.
Swedish thugs' oppression of blacks is
surprisingly
similar to that of US thugs.
There is a
serious
proposal to install a ladder on Mt Everest to avoid a bottleneck
in the climb.
This demonstrates that Mt Everest has become an amusement park rather
than a real adventure. How silly to put so much effort and money into
such a thing.
The US copyright industry is not satisfied with imitating dictators;
now it
wants
to imitate gangsters.
You could tell the report was going to spout nonsense simply from the
terminology used to refer to the act of sharing copies.
"Intellectual property" is propaganda; worse, it spreads confusion
because it misrepresents various unrelated laws by treating them as a
single thing. See
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html.
"Theft" is a falsehood: copying, even when unauthorized, is not theft
under any legal system I know of. See
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-avoid.html#Theft
Robert Reich: with exploiting corporations playing one country against
another, peoples
and states ought to unite against them.
His reasoning is applicable when states, if united, use their power
against corporate dominion. (Sometimes the EU does put real limits on
corporations.) United, they can be stronger, in principle.
However, what is usually lacking when states ought to confront
business is not strength, but political will and firmness. That does
not require a large country, and it does not benefit from union with
other states whose governments don't have political will and firmness.
Exiting the EU can in principle be a good thing, if it gets a country
out of a free exploitation agreement that the EU imposes, or an unjust
EU directive such as the Copyright Directive that requires countries
to ban DRM-breaking programs. Exiting the EU might be absolutely
necessary if it is the way to escape a disaster such as the euro's
deficit limit. However, it could also be a path to an even more
abject surrender to corporations, as Reich suggests.
The
full,
sad details of systematic US infiltration and obstruction
of anticorporate protests.
This demonstrates that the US government is on the side of the
plutocrats, and the enemy of the plutocrats' victims (most Americans).
Bahrain continues to respond to a peaceful protest movement
with repression which
goes as far as
torture.
The Oklahoma tornado killed
24 people and injured almost 400.
What fools, Americans, to be far more worried concerned about smaller
events such as the Boston bombing, especially since extreme weather
events are more common as well as more dangerous.
Deforestation in Indonesia goes with
taking poor
people's land.
Get Apocalyptic: Why Radical is
the New Normal.
The US government
officially and
openly gives big corporations precedence over people.
US citizens:
support
the ACLU in calling on Obama to stop using drones as death squads.
The European Parliament approved the
worst
kind of negotiations for a free exploitation treaty with the US.
Texas is on the way to pass a law
requiring
the state to get a warrant before it can look at phone location
data.
While this law would be a step forward, it is far from adequate,
because it is simply intolerable for anyone to accumulate a complete
dossier about your movements regardless of what limits are placed on
subsequent access to the data. When the state wants to attack
dissidents, journalists and whistleblowers, it will get a warrant.
Masturbation
Is at the Root of the Culture Wars.
US citizens: phone your senators about amendments
to the farm bill.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
Here are some Nasty
things in it.
The UK government wants to block access to web sites because
of the views
they express.
Two
million people protested Monsanto's growing domination of the
global food supply.
The USDA responded to a WTO ruling against labeling meat by country of
origin
by requiring
more information rather than less.
It is good to see a little bit of defiance of the empire of the
megacorporations, but real defiance would mean putting an end to the
WTO. Its "benefits" are for the rich anyway, and we could do without
them.
The Syrian civil war may
trigger another
Lebanese civil war.
The patent office granted
a patent
on a simple matter of timing in IVF.
I agree that the patent office should not stretch what is patentable.
As a practical issue, the BRCA1 and BRCA2 patents do far more harm,
because they kill people. These patents prevent births but do not
kill.
In an age when human population growth threatens to cause the
collapse of civilization, and destroy most of the natural world either
before or just after the collapse, nobody should be doing IVF. If you
yearn to raise a child, adopt one. Channel your instinct in a
direction that makes the world
better, not
worse.
Why Should Apple Have Access to Consumers If It Refuses
to Pay
Its Fair Share of Taxes?
The
austerity myth: there has never been any evidence that it was
eventually good for most people.
However, its purpose was to be good for the plutocrats, and the myth
was needed only as an excuse.
If you buy the book, don't
get it from Amazon!
Walking Activist Fights
to Reverse
Our Love Affair With Cars.
I wish writers would stop saying a mistake is "ours" when I refuse to
make it.
Indonesia welcomes multinational companies
to seize
forest from indigenous peoples and cut them down.
Half of the forest in Sumatra and Borneo has
been cut
down in a short time.
The "moratorium", which only covers new approvals, is like Israel's
current "moratorium" on new colonies.
The NAACP in North Carolina
is launching
large civil disobedience protests against the Republican War on
the Poor.
Exxon
persistently lied
about pollution from its tar sands oil spill in Arkansas.
These companies lie when accidents happen, which helps them get away
with downplay the danger of the systems they are asking for permission
to build.
Hezbollah says it
is fighting
to stop the US, Israel and Salafists together from taking control
of Syria.
This is ridiculous, since Salafists and Israel could never cooperate,
but there's a grain of truth in it, in that they all seem to be
opposing Assad.
Scripps reporters
branded "hackers".
What a gross error — whoever accused them of breaking security
meant to say "crackers". However, the point is, these reporters did
not break any security.
Prosecuting unwelcome access even though no security was broken is a
common practice in the US; it was applied to
Aaron Swartz
and to Weev, who was actually
convicted.
And Republicans want to make things
even
worse.
US newspapers quoted an anonymous US government spokesman claiming
that there are Iranian soldiers fighting in Syria,
and presented
it as certainty.
Criminalizing
homelessness, Houston style: it is a crime to get food out of a
dumpster, or give food to the hungry.
The most ironic thing is that the people responsible for this are
Christians, and yet they have criminalized acting the way Jesus was
said to act.
The US is the only wealthy country
that doesn't
require paid vacations for workers.
Uganda's president is trying to
institute dynastic
succession and shutting newspapers that criticize.
Green Shadow
Cabinet: What
must be done about the Monsanto Corporation, and why.
Joe
Arpaio Racially Profiled Latinos in Arizona, Judge Rules.
One of the Koch brothers is on the board of two major PBS stations,
and used that
to block
broadcast of the movie that criticized him.
Prohibitionists still scrape the bottom of the barrel
to try
to make pot seem dangerous.
China plans
to ramp
up Internet repression by tying Internet users' IDs to all other
activities.
People won't dare lend their accounts to dissidents if that means
lending their bank accounts too.
The US copies most of
the repressive
tactics used in China, so I expect the US to copy this one, though
it will require several steps and many years.
Amnesty International explains why Obama's talk about drones and
Guantanamo
is still
insufficient.
Burma has imposed
a limit
of two children per family on Rohingyas in the region where most
of them live.
Limiting on the number of children per family is legitimate. People
cannot be fundamentally entitled to have however many children they
wish, since that can lead to predictable disaster. However, such a
limit should not be applied selectively to a second-class group. It
should be applied to everyone.
Two photographers
were arrested in Spain, not at a protest, but in their homes
because the state is out to get them.
David Simon
says legalizing
solely marijuana is a misguided goal, because it would help
American whites while allowing the War on Drugs to continue oppressing
blacks who take and sell cocaine.
He also says that they need to sell cocaine because that's the only
work available to them.
I am not convinced. I think each time we deal a setback to the War on
Drugs will help get rid of the rest of it. Meanwhile, if cocaine were
decriminalized enough to end the oppression of the War on Drugs, it
would also become far less lucrative. It would no longer be able to
support all the blacks who can no longer find any other industry.
What we really need to do is end the oppression of the surplus
Americans. A lot more Americans are going to become surplus in the
next decade due
to robots
and AI.
It is the plutocrats who have decided to condemn these people to
poverty, so we must redirect the War on Drugs into a War on
Plutocracy.
An art exhibition in China aims
to raise
awareness of global heating.
The Chinese government decided to allow this exhibit, since it would
close anything it regarded as unfriendly. Ironically, the Chinese
government may be more resistant to plutocratic control than the US
government. The Chinese rulers are the plutocrats, rather than the
servants of the plutocrats, and they realize that China as a whole
(including them) will be poorer if the environment is destroyed.
Human Rights Watch: regarding "War on Terror" and
Guantanamo, Obama
should follow international law, which the US has so far ignored.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and say to repeal
the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
US citizens: call
on Obama not to support a bill to require
back doors in all communication software.
US citizens:
call
for dropping charges against Kaitlyn Hunt, accused of having a
girlfriend a few years younger than her.
While I am prepared to believe that bigotry against gays was part of
the motive for this wrong, the wrong is independent of that. the
prosecution would be equally wrong if either or both of the teenagers
involved were male.
Some web sites attract users by not tracking them, then
sell
out to companies that will track visitors heavily. Tumblr seems
likely to be the next example.
To end this problem, we need to shift the Internet from an
advertising-and-surveillance model to a pay-for-access model
with an anonymous payment scheme. Perhaps one can be built
on Bitcoin.
Vladimir
Putin's Goal Is to Destroy Russian Civil Society.
Thugs in the UK stole
homeless
people's possessions.
Why are they being "criticized" instead of prosecuted for theft?
UK gas companies
falsely
claimed there was a gas shortage emergency, for speculative
profits apparently.
Isn't this a crime?
The unnecessary one-day shutdown of Boston caused around
200
million dollars of economic damage (see
note 1).
This was directly harmful, since it shows any future terrorist how to
magnify the effect of his attack. Aside from that, was that money
well spent?
200 million dollars could pay for vitamin A supplements for a year for
all the 190 million children that need them, world wide,
which would save the lives of
600,000
children, more or less.
350,000 additional children would be saved from blindness. This costs
one
dollar per child per year, so 200 million is exactly the amount needed.
If we limit our consideration to American lives, it costs around
100,000 dollars (very roughly) to treat cancer. This means with 200
million dollars we could save
2000 Americans who
have cancer and can't afford treatment.
Every year,
10000 Americans
with no insurance get cancer and can't afford treatment.
Obamacare may correct some of this problem, but not all; they may not
be able to afford the deductible and their food.
How stupid to spend over 200 million dollars to avoid the unlikely
chance that a wounded man, on the run and with few supplies, might
kill another handful. And if we don't reject the idea that this
was a wise decision, it will be repeated over and over, doing
damage each time.
1
I got the same order of magnitude estimate in two ways. First,
assuming that 1/4 of the Boston metro area's population (4 million)
could not work that day, and that the loss per person equals cost
1/250 of the annual per capita GDP ($50,000), we multiply and get $200
million.
Second, the economic cost of a snowstorm that shuts down all of
Massachusetts is
estimated
as $265,000,000 per day, and since Boston-Cambridge-Quincy have 85% of
the state's GDP, it would be around 220 million for them.
The actual shutdown was for Boston, Watertown, Waltham, Newton,
Belmont, Cambridge, Allston/Brighton, and Brookline. Perhaps it was
justified to shut down Watertown. How Waltham, Newton, Belmont,
Allston/Brighton, and Brookline compare with Quincy, I don't know, but
this line of reasoning points once again at roughly 200 million.
Obama plans to "fast track" more
free
exploitation treaties.
Bigger than genocide is terracide:
killing
off the earth for profit.
I suggest setting up a web site to record the identity and deeds of
the terrarists, so they can be punished later, perhaps by taking the
ill-gotten gains away from their descendants. If they see that their
descendants won't be able to buy their way out of sharing the fate
they impose on the rest of humanity, they may decide not to go down
that path.
Everyone: call
on the Israeli parliament not to pass a law
to force 40,000 Bedouin from their homes.
Everyone: urge
Tribune Company's owners not to let the Koch brothers
take over their newspapers.
76
countries have drones. Would the US government like to see other
countries use them the way the US does?
US citizens: support Senator Warren's bill to give student loans
the same interest rate that the big
banks pay when they borrow.
The US government is trying to make
universities ban
and punish all "unwelcome" sex-related speech, even "dirty jokes".
US citizens: call on Kerry to push Israel
to release
conscientious objector Natan Blanc from prison.
US citizens: call on the
senate not to endorse
arming the Syrian rebels.
Kim Dotcom becomes
a patent
aggressor, with a rather absurd patent.
US citizens: call
for proper
funding for US national parks.
Honduran Victims of US Drug
War Still
Await Justice.
Banksters are trying
to weaken
the Dodd-Frank law by policy laundering through free exploitation
treaties.
Did
the Pentagon
cry wolf over sequestration?
The US military budget could and should be cut a lot more. The US
ought to increase government spending to get people back to work, but
military spending makes fewer jobs than other kinds of spending, so it
would be advisable to transfer money from the military to programs
that are really useful and make more jobs.
The Boy Scouts of
America voted
to allow gay boys as members.
That is a reduction in discrimination, but when will it allow
atheists?
Everyone:
Encourage
the president of Indonesia to turn his conservationist sentiments
into practice.
Republicans in the House of Representatives passed a bill which would
avoid an immediate rise in student loan interest rates but would
let
them increase even more in the future.
Most of humanity will face a water shortage in
two
generations.
Ruining water sources with fracking is really dumb.
A local government in Peru is
building
an illegal road through the biggest national park.
Indigenous people in Panama say that Redd, intended to encourage
forest conservation, instead
threatens
their control over their land.
A court
ruled the UK must conduct inquests into the killing of prisoners
in Iraq.
Free US workers are
losing
their jobs to prisoners.
This practice forces poor Americans into crime, whereupon they
become prisoners. It's great for the privatized prison industry.
Privatized prisons should be banned, because they give companies
an interest in putting more people in prison. Prison laborers should
be payed a fair wage.
US citizens:
call
on the Forest Service to carry out its plan to end old-growth
logging in the Tongass National Forest.
Everyone:
support
the boycott of Intercontinental Hotels (which includes
Holiday Inn) for building a hotel in Lhasa.
The US government pays big bucks for secret descriptions of software
vulnerabilities — not to fix them, but
to
exploit them.
Not very different from gangsters, ultimately.
First the US came for brash leak sites, and I said nothing because my
newspaper was not a brash leak site.
Then
the US came for me.
If Obama wins his War on Journalism, the
government
will decide what Americans are allowed to know.
That way leads to corruption, even atrocities.
The ACLU explains the
weasel-words
in Obama's proposed legal criteria for drone attacks.
Journalists have sued to end the
extreme
secrecy in Bradley Manning's trial.
Congress: From "Starving the Beast" to
Starving Real
People.
Proposing a treaty to
ban armed
drones.
The article points out that the Ottawa Treaty that banned
antipersonnel landmines has been fairly successful even though the US,
China and Russia have not signed it.
Proposing a constitutional amendment to guarantee
in a positive way
the right to vote.
Tibetan activists have launched a
boycott of
Intercontinental Hotels for building a luxury resort in Lhasa.
A Dutch meat-processing
plant included
horsemeat and putrid old beef in its shipments for five years,
processing them outside normal working hours to keep the secret.
It used migrant workers who would communicate little with anyone
around them.
The Senate seems to have no problems with Obama's
billionaire bankster
crony Pritzker.
I guess they suspend their usual obstructionist approach when it comes
to actions that will benefit their masters.
Ukraine banned
the annual gay pride rally.
Malaysia
has arrested
opposition leaders for "promoting hatred against the government".
A government that arrests people for this, deserves all the hatred
people choose to give it.
One single murder is being cited in the UK as the reason for
massive
surveillance.
US citizens: tell Big Oil
to stop
fighting the SEC's transparency requirements.
Do Americans have the right to
know how our
food is produced?
If Americans do not condemn the absurd overreaction of the shutdown of
Boston,
it risks
to become standard practice. That would crush Americans' human
rights, while handing any terrorist or madman a lever to cause
tremendous damage.
NOAA predicts
an unusually
severe hurricane season for the US east coast.
Obama
proposed steps to control drone attacks by law, and steps towards
reducing the number of prisoners in Guantanamo.
When we know more, we will see if these are steps forward. However,
they certainly don't go far enough. Any prisoners in Guantanamo that
ought to be tried should have real trials, not military kangaroo
courts.
Greg Palast:
My big
fat Greek minister.
Israeli
soldiers in Gaza shot and killed Muhammad al-Dura, age 12, in
2000. A cameraman make a video, which was broadcast. Now Israel
claims that the whole thing was faked — but Muhammad's father
asks, "If he's alive, where is he?"
Nowadays, in
Syria, anonymous
rebels fake video of atrocities. It is not absolutely impossible
that Palestinians in Gaza would have done so. But the death of one
Palestinian was so common that there was no need for anyone to fake
that. (Israeli troops shot the ambulance driver!) This video was
made, and sworn to, by a respected journalist. So the Israeli
accusation has no credibility.
Methane hydrates under the ocean bottom could offer
many times the
existing fossil fuel reserves.
What good is that? To burn that fuel is disaster.
We already
need
to leave 4/5 of the known reserves in the ground,
to have a good chance of avoiding global heating catastrophe.
If we find more, we can't use it.
Everyone: join protests on
Saturday against Monsanto and
GMOs.
In the US: call for dropping charges against
Cameron D'Ambrosio.
His rap rant was twisted by thugs into a terrorist threat, and he
faces
20 years in prison.
US citizens: call
for legalization of growing hemp.
US citizens: call on Obama to keep
fracking out of US national forests and national parks. US citizens: call on Obama to
close the
Guantanamo prison. US citizens: Call on Obama to act now to
cut CO2 emissions.
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Everyone: sign this petition calling on Columbia University to fire Elizabeth Lederer.
Prosecutor Elizabeth Lederer bullied people into false confessions for a murder even though DNA evidence suggested the culprit was someone else.
This was a callous disregard for justice, not a mere mistake, so it deserves punishment. For her to be fired from teaching is not an adequate punishment for this, but it is better than nothing.
Everyone: call on the president of the Maldives to change the
law under which a
teenager
was sentenced to flogging for being raped.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-08 because the old link was broken.]
This change is just a first step, because it is also wrong to flog people for having sex voluntarily. (Or for anything else.) This is just one part of the systematic injustice of Islamic law, and the elimination of that form of cruelty must be the goal.
US citizens: call on Obama to require US contractors to
pay
workers a living wage.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-08 because the old link was broken.]
US citizens: sign this petition to repeal the Monsanto Protection Act.
Mount Everest's Glaciers have shrunk 13% in 50 years.
The Taliban destroyed the Buddha statues of Bamiyan. Karzai is letting a Chinese mining company destroy the ruins of Mes Aynak, but at least they will be studied archeologically first.
However, leaving the site unguarded could be even worse.
The FBI shot and killed a suspect who was under interrogation in his home.
It sounds to me like "shot while trying to escape".
Reportedly he was suspected of murder. Reportedly he expected to be shot. Reportedly this was not the first interrogation, yet apparently he did not have a lawyer present. Did the FBI read him his Miranda warning?
Men armed with knives killed a British soldier in London, then said it was revenge for killing Muslims.
The jihadis' theocratic agenda is horrible tyranny, but they have a valid grievance about US-UK violence. On this occasion they attacked a military target, so if you want to think of this as war, the attack was not a war crime. However, they threatened to attack civilians, which would be a war crime.
The US admitted that four US citizens were killed by US drone attacks.
The US and UK should stop killing civilians around the world. Whether they are Muslim (as is usually the case today) or Christian (as was typically the case in the 70s and 80s) is an insignificant detail.
Monsanto's new Omega-3 soybean was engineered to offer what hemp seed offers naturally.
I wonder if Monsanto is paying congresscritters to oppose legalization of hemp.
A high school student faces prosecution for having a younger girlfriend.
This sort of "protection" is not good for anyone.
PBS cancelled the showing of a documentary to avoid offending the Koch brothers.
Right-wing policies in Sweden have led to growing inequality, which
resulted
in riots.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-08 because the old link was broken.]
Humanity is on a course to run out of fresh water.
The problem will show up mostly in poor countries at first. Many of them have rapidly growing populations. A comparatively small investment in birth control and sterilization could avoid a good part of this problem.
Or would you rather see the population held down by diseases spread by drinking unsafe water?
Mapping the CIA's global kidnap and secret detention program shows the participation of other countries.
A documentary shows how Italian thugs attacked protesters while they rested for the night in a school in Genoa, then tried to frame them
A significant publisher has stopped selling through Amazon.
In Malaysia, rapists avoid punishment by pressuring the victim into marriage.
Yerachmiel Kahanovich says he shot Palestinian civilians in 1948, under orders, and drove out the population of villages.
When he says he fired one or two shots at a village, I can't tell whether he means he shot a couple of people or fired in the air.
The Arabs sought in that war to expel the Jews, and initially they seemed to have a real chance of succeeding. The two sides were roughly in moral parity. How different from the situation today, where Israel is not threatened at all but calculatingly continues its land grab.
The IRS had good reason to question the tax-exempt status of some right-wing groups.
The US Green Party calls
for education to be free.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-08 because the old link was broken.]
Lake Malawi is running out of fish, and drying up.
This is due to human activity, including global heating.
"How big do the biggest banks have to get before we consider breaking them up," asked Senator Warren.
A Dutch criminal investigation puts companies on notice that they may be prosecuted for collaborating with the construction of Israeli colonies in Palestine or the annexation wall.
Israeli soldiers keep on destroying Palestinians' crops and irrigation systems, and demolishing their buildings.
The default policy of the Israeli army, when colonists commit crimes against Palestinians, is to defend the culprits and aggravate the crimes. Sometimes they arrest the victims too.
Apple arrogantly demanded the US reduce its tax rate, and then Apple will deign to allow some of its foreign income to be taxed.
The Home of the Brave would punish Apple for this by doing exactly the opposite of what it wants: taxing foreign income anyway.
How America could become a third-world country.
The UK will use a secret hearing to try to snuff out Abdel Hakim Belhaj's lawsuit about handing him to Gaddafi for torture.
Hollywood companies are sending fraudulent DMCA takedowns for a documentary about the Pirate Bay.
Green Party:
Obama's
misuse of AUMF is unconstitutional, unconscionable.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-08 because the old link was broken.]
Peru ordered a mine to clear up lead pollution that poisoned many children, so the company is using the US - Peru free exploitation treaty to sue Peru.
All the free exploitation treaties starting with the WTO are an injustice, and the ones with this "investor-state" provision are the nastiest of all. Countries must free themselves from these treaties.
Before Deadly Tornado Hit, Oklahoma Senators Worked To Undermine Disaster Relief.
This greedy bastard called recipients of food stamps "unwilling to work", which is lie, given that his plutocrat cronies have left the US with too few jobs.
Confronting the prospect of massive unemployment, as robots replace human workers while doing a worse job.
The ACLU and others are suing a recruiting company that lied to recruit Indian guest workers.
Isn't this fraud? Can't it be prosecuted as a crime? I guess the "Jusrice" department has its hands full prosecuting so many whistleblowers and journalists.
"Telecom companies that rush into Burma before rights protections are in place risk complicity in illegal surveillance, censorship, and other repression."
It bothers me that these things happen in Burma, but as a patriotic American, it bothers me more that they happen in the US.
Russian technology for mass surveillance is in use in the US.
The UK's plan to "encourage creativity" is rote memorization.
To make sense of this apparent idiocy, first recall that the only thing the government really wants in regard to schools is to cut expenditure, and whatever it says is an excuse. An idiotic excuse is fine if people accept it. I suspect that somehow or other this will provide an excuse for cuts.
US citizens: call for marine reserves in the Bering Sea.
It's bad enough that corporations lure people to give out lots of personal information. Even worse, states are going to join in luring or pressuring people to do so.
The "Internet of Things" is one of the stratagems.
The invisible elephant in the room during Rios Montt's trial was the support that a string of Guatemalan dictators got from the US government.
US citizens: phone the White House and say, arrest the bankster, not the protesters against "Too Big to Jail".
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and 888-355-3588.
Julian Assange got notes that a UK spy agency had about him, in which the spooks speculated that the charges against Assange were trumped up.
New York thugs violently arrested a woman who was making a video of them, and her boyfriend. They tried to steal the video, but they got the wrong video card, so they were busted.
How often do they steal the right video card and get away with their crime? Shouldn't they be prosecuted for obstruction of justice whenever they destroy evidence?
Analyzing the sectarian fighting in Iraq.
Hundreds of Afghan women are in jail for fleeing forced and abusive marriages.
Others are in jail for being raped.
Instead of propping up Karzai's government, we should arm Afghan women.
Guatemala's constitutional court says that part of Rios Montt's trial has to be done over.
Iran holds 2600 political prisoners, and it's actively looking for more.
Corporations have become a marauding force for destruction and suffering around the world.
Apple and such are too busy causing our worst problems to bother trying to solve them.
The giant US "counter-terrorism" apparatus was systematically aimed at surveillance of Occupy Wall Street and other protest movements, in close cooperation with corporations being protested.
More "security" means less democracy. It's not just a theoretical possibility, it's an established fact.
Citizens of Massachusetts: call on your state senator to support the extended bottle bill.
US citizens: call
on the EPA to follow its own conclusions and protect
Bristol Bay, by banning Pebble Mine.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-08 because the old link was broken.]
In the US: call on UnityPoint Health to stop deporting unconscious injured patients to avoid treating them.
[US] Military Quietly Grants Itself the Power to Police the Streets Without Local or State Consent.
West Virginia proposes to "protect" girls from the risk of embarrassment due to sexting by piling punishment on top.
When sex is concerned, we see many proposals to punish those who are mistreated in one way or another. I think that this is just prudery at work — the talk about "helping" or "protecting" is just a disguise.
If we really want to help people, we need to think about why they get hurt. The US has a ridiculous taboo on nudity, and women who show their sexuality are sneered at. This is tied up with sexism, mysogyny, and religion. If a girl feels hurt due to publication of a nude photo of her, this stigma is probably why it hurts.
One way to destigmatize something is to get lots of people doing it. I made the suggestion that Facebook should require every user to provide a nude photo. This was a joke — no one should use Facebook! — but also serious. If lots of teenagers post nude photos, so that it becomes normal, the stigma will be gone.
On the hurdles peace talks for Syria face.
And even more hurdles.
The Sunni-Shi'ite conflict in Iraq has killed 230 people in the past week.
Kerry keeps saying he is trying to restart Arab/Israeli peace talks, even though Netanyahu demonstrates total contempt for the idea of peace.
The FBI read a reporter's email to find his source, and claimed his investigation was a "criminal conspiracy" because he was asking the source questions.
That reporter and his source tried to conceal their communication. This was presented as a sign of guilt, but it is simple common sense for journalists working in a state that persecutes journalists. It is a shame they did not follow best secrecy practices.
I am glad that Obama's War on Journalism is finally getting condemnation. When journalists investigate what our government is doing, they and their sources our country and protect it from the biggest internal threat it faces: the national security state which is dominated by plutocrats.
Apple has routed billions of dollars in profits to subsidiaries that claim to belong to no state and pay no taxes.
I've proposed a
way
to cut through this problem.
[Reference updated on 2022-07-15 because the old link was broken.]
If you look Arab and you carry a pressure cooker, watch out!
Farming in Kansas is running into a brick wall: the aquifer is running empty in many areas.
Alaska provides an initial test case for moving communities to higher ground, so we can learn and prepare for moving millions of people from cities like NYC and Washington.
Global heating is expected to force hundreds of millions of people to try to migrate from land become uninhabitable.
Humanitarian goals now provide the excuse for massive collection of biometric information.
Thousands of teenagers and children,
marching for
freedom and equality and getting arrested in large numbers, won a
crucial victory in the civil rights movement.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-08 because the old link was broken.]
It's too bad Americans don't have this sort of spirit nowadays to campaign for freedom and equality.
Green Party: firing Edward DeMarco was
too
little, too late.
[Reference updated on 2018-03-08 because the old link was broken.]
Obama is following Nixon's footsteps in attacking journalism that investigates what the state does in the name of "security".
A bill in Louisiana proposes to end the teaching of real biology in public schools there.
Half the land in Indochina has been deforested in 40 years.
Many species will be wiped out before we know they exist.
The Obama regime accused a journalist of
committing
a crime by asking questions.
Thus, the War on Whistleblowers is growing into a War on Journalists.
Pakistan is short
of electricity as people try to use air conditioning to cope with
temperatures of 40C (104F).
As global heating continues, things will get much worse.
Oil is structuring the reshaping of Iraq and perhaps Syria
along
ethnic and sectarian lines.
A planned episode of Mythbusters which would have exposed the lousy
security of RFID payment systems was cancelled by the channel because
advertising
clients didn't want this exposed.
James Hansen says, ignore global heating deniers' attempts to cause
confusion by
picking
at minor and short-term details.
It was recently understood that in the past decade, global heating did
not slow down; rather, a larger fraction
went
into the ocean rather than the atmosphere.
US hospitals are raising prices rapidly, though their
costs
have not increased much.
The burden of these increases
falls
hardest on those with no insurance.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev left a note saying the Boston bombing was
meant
as retaliation for US violence in Afghanistan and Iraq.
It won't be the first time people attacked Americans with that motive.
To some extent, his idea is simplistic. The US intervened in
Afghanistan on the side of some Afghan groups against others. Once
the Taliban started fighting back, the US and the Taliban
both
started killing civilians.
Islamists tend to blame the US for when it kills civilians,
and not blame the Taliban for doing likewise, even when the Taliban
do it more deliberately. So we get this sort of response.
The US aerial
death squad merits condemnation for other reasons. It is in the
practical interest of the US, as well as its moral duty. to shut it
down.
A Saudi was
arrested
for getting flustered when asked why he was bringing a pressure
cooker into the US.
This is the sort of thing that happens when fools demand that the
government make them perfectly safe from dangers which are so small as
to be negligible in the first place. About 4 million people die each
year in the US, and the fraction of those deaths due to terrorism is
minuscule.
James Hansen tried to convince UK ministers to end their secret
support
for EU
acceptance of tar sand oil.
Journalists in Ukraine
were attacked
by a pro-government mob as thugs did nothing.
The rat
poison d-CON
is killing birds of prey that eat the poisoned animals.
US citizens: tell HHS Secretary Sibelius
to make
Plan B available with no limitations.
Banks' latest
nastiness: refusing
to let porn businesses have bank accounts.
Global heating
is expected
to kill around 30 people per year in Manhattan in the 2020s, just
via the direct effects of heat.
In subsequent decades it will get worse. And this is only one of the
ways that global heating will kill.
Reporters Without Borders
presents recommendations
for a shield law to protect journalists from investigation for
doing their job.
Right-wing government in the US
has weakened
the protection for safety at work.
Lax State
Rules Provide
Cover for Sponsors of Attack Ads.
A Tibetan writer
was sentenced
to five years in prison for his writings.
US unemployment insurance is being "reformed"
to push
people into lower-paying jobs.
This is part of the plutocrats' plan to use the crisis to reduce the
general standard of living of most Americans. The GNP is up, but the
rich are unwilling to share that with the rest.
US citizens: tell the Bureau of Land
Management not
to allow fracking on public land.
Imposing
accountability on Wall Street (i.e., the banksters) is the root
cause behind many causes we need to fight for.
Evidence
that human hunters wiped out mammoths.
The EU has
decided
to buy oil from Islamist fanatics in Syria.
It is a mistake to speak of "al Qa'ida" as if it referred to a single
coherent organization. The Islamist fanatics in Syria probably don't
regard the US as an enemy, but they would like to oppress everyone in
Syria that isn't a Sunni male, and even those are likely to face
repression.
In the US:
call on
fast food companies to stop ripping off their workers' wages.
How the remnant structure of Herod's temple has been
used
politically throughout history.
Assad said, in an
interview,
that it would be impossible to make an agreement with the rebels
because they are fragmented and nobody speaks for them all.
It is not quite impossible; if a few main rebel groups reach an
agreement, they could perhaps prevail on the rest. But it would
certainly be difficult.
Syria is degenerating into warlordism. One writer claims that
this
is what the US wants.
When that happened in Afghanistan, religious fanatics (the Taliban)
received popular support, even though most people did not like their
religious strictness, because they offered a chance to end the
constant fighting between warlords. A similar thing happened in
Somalia. The same might happen in Syria.
Latin American governments have pushed for a global rethink of the War on Drugs.
Human Rights Watch asks Syrian rebels to secure the evidence in
a government
torture chamber.
Another nasty pollutant from Alberta tar sands
oil: piles
of carbon, not safe to burn because of sulfur contamination, and
hard to dispose of.
Global heating affects the ocean, and this is
making many
fish species move to different areas.
Some fish species, that need other special conditions as well as a
particular temperature range, won't find any place they can move to.
They will go extinct.
US citizens: support
food stamps for poor veterans.
The ice
on Mount Everest is melting, since the temperature has gone up by
1C.
Obama
Administration Caves
To Fracking Industry in New Proposed Rules.
But frackers are still not satisfied: they
want carte
blanche.
Years of corruption combined with cowardice have taught businesses to
expect the US government to take orders from them.
US
citizens: sign
this petition to raise the minimum wage for restaurant workers.
"Liberal"
pundits said Obama should break a union, to show he is as tough on
workers as Reagan was.
This illustrates how the mainstream media often presents a spectrum of
views stretching from extreme right wing to not-so-extreme right wing,
and calls the latter "Liberal". The views of most Americans, on many
scales, are much more Liberal than that whole spectrum.
What we need is a president who is tough against the powerful that are
doing tremendous harm, such as the banksters, Big Pharma, the
copyright lobby, and fossil fuel companies.
Thierry Vrain, a scientist who promoted GMOs for the Canadian
government, states why
their testing
is inadequate, and how science has found they are dangerous.
Blogger Writes about Predatory Publishing,
Is Threatened
with $1B Suit.
Lawmakers Introduce
Bill Requiring
Court Order to Seize Phone Records.
This is a partial step forward but not adequate. Obama's War on
Whistleblowers could surely get a court order to pursue the next
Ellsberg or Manning.
Obama's proposed law to "shield" journalists would really make
journalists (and our right to know what the state is
doing) more
vulnerable.
To get back our privacy rights, we need to end the practice of making
complete dossiers of everything we say, to be looked at later.
US citizens:
state
your support
for the Home Defenders League, who are
pressuring the Department of Justice to prosecute criminal banksters.
Here's more about their week of action,
now in progress.
California
is suing
JP Morgan for fraudulent and illegal practices in thousands of
lawsuits against people who may or may not really have been in arrears
on their credit cards.
Has your doctor
received gifts
from Big Pharma?
Twisted theocratic Christians in the US teach their children
to feel
they are being discriminated against if they do not dominate all
social institutions.
There you have it: Christian values say you're oppressing Christians
if you don't let them dominate everyone else.
Twisted Islamic fundamentalists in the Afghan
parliament blocked
a law to ban the selling of women, saying it violates Islamic
values.
There you have it: Islamic values call for treating women as property.
Everyone: call on United Airlines to stop opposing world-wide measures
to reduce
CO2 emissions from aviation.
US citizens: call on the EPA to reduce, not increase, allowed levels
of roundup
in animal feed.
US citizens: call on Congress
to resist
Monsanto and not ban states from requiring labeling of GMOs in
food.
It is ironic that Republicans who used to claim they were for "states'
rights" support a measure like this. Really they stand for nothing
except the companies that get them elected.
Monsanto wants Congress
to ban states
from requiring labels on GMOs.
The Obama regime admits it plans
to continue
"war" for a decade or more against a vague association of
terrorist organizations, many of which are not interested in the US at
all.
During that time, some of these organizations will be wiped out, but
US killings of civilians will inspire new ones. By ten years from
now, freedom in the US will be an irrelevant platitude, and there will
be new enemies to justify endless war.
Paul Krugman explains how psychology predisposes people towards
mistaken
moralistic economics which treats a depression as punishment for
previous "excesses".
Keynes's discovery, that governments can end a depression with deficit
spending or else perpetuate it, delivers useful advice instead of the
morality play that people are looking for. This plays into the hands
of those who profit from a crisis.
The New Yorker magazine has set up a
new secure
leak-receiving system that was developed by Aaron Swartz.
A supposedly factual program about wildlife in Alaska got a big
audience by falsely claiming that wolves and even wolverines are a
real
danger to humans.
I wonder if the interests that want
to eliminate
protection for wolves in the US had something to do with making
this program.
As climate change heats up, the UK
has cut
its team planning for how to cope with the effects from 38 people
to 6 people.
If you are rich, you will take care of yourself; as for the rest,
losing their homes will help make them poorer.
The UK government
has suppressed
evidence about the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in order to suck
up to Putin.
Litvinenko was killed by a dose of radioactive polonium, and the
suspicion is that it was given to him
by Russian agents.
The Obama regime's new Arctic policy is to take advantage
of disappearing
ice to extract more oil.
As we roar towards the edge of the cliff, he wants to step on the
gasoline.
Denial of human-caused global heating is
a zombie
theory, dead in scientific terms though it seems alive when viewed
through mainstream media.
It's fossil fuel money that keeps the zombie moving.
US citizens:
call
on Obama to sign the Arms Trade Treaty promptly.
Canadian artist Franke James was censored by the government for not
toeing the tar sands party line. She obtained the
emails
discussing how to censor her, and turned that into worse
embarrassment for the state.
The pope condemned the
"cult
of money" of the banksters which legitimizes their political
power.
The "six strikes" anti-sharing organization CCI has run into
legal
trouble and has had to suspend activities.
I don't think this will kill the scheme, though.
The UK agency to investigate crimes committed by thugs has admitted
that it made mistakes when not prosecuting the ones that
killed
a prisoner.
US citizens:
call
on Obama to cooperate with the Senate investigation report into
CIA torture.
Microsoft accesses URLs mentioned in fools' Skype
chat
messages.
I say "fools'" because non-fools use other communication methods.
People who want to leak information about government crimes must now
follow
spy tradecraft so as not to be caught by Obama's War on
Whistleblowers.
Nixon was famous for secrecy, but
Obama
is worse.
When a business practice kills people, the resistance to necessary
regulation follows a
predictable
pattern.
The austerity grab is
killing
people in poor countries, too, as they are forced to cut spending
to help the poor, on public health, and on agriculture.
Although the IRS was wrong to choose groups to investigate based on
their political affiliation,
those groups'
applications showed dishonesty that called for action.
A bigger IRS scandal is not doing enough
to scrutinize
all such applications.
US citizens: call your congresscritter
to support
the SANE Act, which would cancel expensive "upgrades" to US
nuclear weapons.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
The "Internet
of Things" means total surveillance.
A poll finds most Chinese would join protests
to protect
the local environment.
They are not yet sensitized to the greater long-term world-wide danger
of global heating.
An MD whistleblower says that the UK's privatized tests of whether
disabled people are fit to work
are systematically
biased.
Florida wants
to speed
up the death penalty so that doubts about someone's guilt don't
need to cause embarrassment.
The Catholic Church is taking control of
a growing
fraction of US hospitals, and makes those hospitals deny various
kinds of health care.
I think that general hospitals should not be allowed to deny care
based on prejudices. Limited-duty clinics, which don't accept
emergency patients and do not count as a hospital, perhaps can be
allowed to do so.
Corporations
that spend
money on state judge elections effectively buy themselves
immunity.
200
unstudied new drugs are being sold in the UK.
This is partly a side-effect of prohibition. If the basically safe
drugs, such as pot and MDMA, were legal, most people would stick to
them.
Some of them might be dangerous, while others might be fairly safe.
Even those that are safe, in themselves, might become dangerous due to
prohibition, which means you can't be sure what you're getting or how
much.
There are some young people that will try any drug. A few such people
were present in the AI lab in the 70s. The rest of us told them this
was foolish.
US citizens: Tell your senators you
support 50
States United for Healthy Air.
The UK medical doctors' union condemns government austerity as
cruelty
to children.
It is blindness to discuss the topic of child abuse without including
the abuse that is done by the state.
Has Big Data Made Anonymity Impossible?
This applies to people who use digital technology in the
surveillance-prone ways many people do. If you use technology the way
I do, people get far less data about you.
US organic farms are suing Monsanto to protect themselves from
being sued if patented genes contaminate their crops.
We are asked to believe that the distribution of child pornography
— and I mean real child pornography — leads people to
commit sexual abuse of children.
But evidence
suggests it's not so.
There are two arguments for prohibition of "child pornography". One
is that "it was made in a real act of sexual abuse". In some cases,
that is true. However, in many countries, the "child" may be an
adult, or even nonexistent, since the censorship extends even to
drawings. Meanwhile, in the US, the "child" may be 17 years old and
taking the photos. This argument does not apply to those cases.
The other argument is based on the supposition that looking at these
images leads people to commit sexual abuse. The article casts doubt
on that supposition.
Making child pornography through real sexual abuse of real children
can be prosecuted without censorship. Likewise selling it in a
commercial arrangement with those who made it. There is no reason for
the censorship which has generated a witch hunt that has ruined the
lives of people not even alleged to have harmed anyone.
The digital revolution turns out to be
a gift
to the power of the state, and those who exercise the power are
the ones who determine its limits.
We need to make sure there are lots of people who are not going to be
easy for Big Brother to spy on, on line. We also need to reject the
"Internet of things", which means in practice that the appliances in
your house keep records for Big Briother to access, with or without a
subpoena.
Almost half
the EU is in recession thanks to austerity policies.
"Recessions
can hurt, but austerity kills".
If oppression drives you to the point of suicide, why not die fighting
your oppressors instead?
Congress, fussing
about artificial scandals, shows no interest in real Obama
scandals involving stretching US and international law about use of
armed force.
In the case of Libya, one can argue that Congress effectively approved
the aerial intervention by not objecting to it.
Amazon stretches
UK tax law to the breaking point.
Republicans plan
to cut
food stamps but continue big handouts
to big
agribusiness companies.
The US government
has banned
a particular kind of bitcoin trade.
US citizens: Support
the bill to increase social security benefits.
Several people were killed when a Cambodian shoe factory
collapsed.
They were killed by psychopaths (corporations). Americans should
cease their inordinate preoccupation with a comparatively small
killing in Boston, which is unlikely to be repeated, and focus on
these bigger killings which we know will be repeated.
A small Alaskan town is forced to relocate as
rapid
erosion is making the town fall into the adjoining river.
This is a more important issue than it might seem, because it's going
to happen to millions of Americans (and millions of others) as global
heating makes sea level rise and make storms stronger. The proper
response would be to curb global heating, but our governments,
corrupted by fossil fuel businesses, lack the political will to save
us.
A mass protest was held in China against a new chemical plant
suspected
of planning to produce paraxylene, which is carcinogenic.
Maybe this plant won't produce paraxylene, but with governments and
companies so dishonest (and not only in China), how can anyone believe
that? Everyone is better off if states force companies to be honest.
US citizens: sign
this
petition for Congress to investigate the threat to journalism
posed by the investigation into Associated Press journalism.
Christian fanatics are trying to shut the only abortion provider
in North Dakota by imposing
impossible
arbitrary restrictions.
The clinic is suing to overturn them.
A New York thug who
killed
an unarmed teenager in his family home had charges dismissed.
It is quite difficult to hold them responsible, and partly this is
because the rules give them lots of excuses.
Arkansas plans to use untested drugs for executions, but
the
manufacturer won't sell any more for that use.
I condemn the death penalty, but I don't expect it can be stopped this
way. European companies won't be able to maintain control for long
over how drugs are used once sold to the US.
Boko Haram is forcing people to join
or
be killed.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter and say
to sign Rep. Grijalva's letter that urges Obama
not to approve the Keystone XL pipeline.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
The Israeli government is
demolishing
Palestinian homes in Jerusalem to force Palestinians out.
Norman Finkelstein, who was fired from a tenured US professorship for
condemning Israel's policy of occupation, says that he no longer needs
to do that because
American
Jews now understand the issue and no longer support Israel's
conduct.
Israel pretends to have halted settlement construction, but really is
allowing
construction to go ahead.
Israel makes Palestinian teenagers incriminate other Palestinian
teenagers, on charges that are
sometimes
absurd. When accused in court, they don't understand what they
are accused of, but they know it doesn't matter.
Arab neighborhoods formally included in Jerusalem, although outside
the annexation wall, have to
pay
the same taxes as the rest of the city, but they don't get vital
services such as sewers or garbage collection.
It reminds me of the way Chicago treated minority areas until
Mayor Washington.
Israel demolished an "unrecognized" traditional Bedouin village
in the Negev, for the
15th time.
China is closing the
microblog
accounts of influential people who have posted criticism.
Murong Xuecun, one of them, writes about what it is like to be
"reincarnated"
on the Internet.
Student
Debt and the Crushing of the American Dream.
Education is one of the things the US needs to support more
by taxing the rich and the companies more.
The more government
agencies surveil
thousands or millions non-suspects, the more blame they will get
when one of them surprisingly commits a crime — but they won't
be able to anticipate who.
Note the contrast between
the weak
US reaction to the shooting in New Orleans and the exaggerated
response to the bombing in Boston.
The UK government
wants Europe
to import tar sands oil from the Keystone XL pipeline.
Israel forces Palestinian prisoners
to pay for their medical
care while in prison.
Missing from the Arab peace plan:
an Israeli
partner.
The Arab peace plan is quite similar to what the US government has
advocated for years, but the US does not pressure Israel to accept it.
Walmart refuses to sign the
agreement requiring
safety inspections of factories in Bangladesh.
I hope this leads to a public pressure campaign.
In the US: call on Wendy's to sign up
to treat
tomato farm workers decently, as other major US food chains have
already done.
The IRS
must increase
scrutiny of political spending (but not in a biased way).
Amazon staff in Germany have gone
on
strike.
Amazon abuses its staff in
the US, but the US government gives less support to workers.
BP and Shell have been accused of fixing prices
for
a decade.
Since this is in Europe, they may actually be prosecuted.
Westerners are in a tizzy about a Syrian rebel who
ate
part of the corpse of a dead government soldier, for revenge.
Such ado about so little. Whatever you do to a corpse, it can't
really hurt anyone (except you, if you catch some disease from it).
The worst it can do to others is offend their feelings.
What worries me about the Syrian rebels is what they might do to
living people, if they set up an Islamic tyranny like the one in Saudi
Arabia.
The UK austerity policies are
designed
to fall mostly on the poor.
Massive youth unemployment in the UK is
making
young men hate themselves, and they take it out on the usual
scapegoats such as women and gay men.
Vermont has legalized assisted suicide, but only for those who are
terminally
ill.
It is a shame to limit this to people whose suffering is going to end
soon anyway, and exclude those in unbearable pain that could continue
for decades. So it is a mistake to use the slogan "death with
dignity", which presumes we're talking about someone who will die soon
in any case and the issue is only how. We must advocate the right to
give assistance in suicide to those who want that assistance.
The
similarities
between AP-gate to Watergate.
Unlike the writer, I will not give Obama the credit of supposing
he was in any way reluctant to do the bad things he is doing.
Major "American" companies' profits are up, mainly because they are
paying workers
less.
The Supreme Court ruled for Monsanto and against a farmer who bought
seeds from a
grain
elevator (many of which contained a patented Monsanto gene).
This means that Monsanto has been given control over all ordinary seed supplies
for the plants that are effected.
Roundup is not directly toxic to humans, but it can
harm
human health indirectly.
US oil production has increased greatly and is
expected
to increase more.
This is something the world cannot afford.
Why the subpoena against AP phone call records is
dangerous
to freedom of the press.
Of course, the entire thrust of Obama's war on whistleblowers
is not merely harmful to our human rights, it is aimed directly
at them.
Presidents since Roosevelt have used the IRS for
politically
motivated investigations.
It looks like Obama did not ask for the IRS to target tea party front
groups. However, some years ago I saw reports that right-wing
churches illegally endorse candidates and that the IRS had failed to
make them stop.
University research centers
sponsored
by oil companies provide the latter with a form of legitimacy that
they cannot buy in any other way.
Cables show that the US has
actively
pushed countries around the world to accept GMO crops.
US citizens: call
on Obama and Holder to prosecute the banksters.
Everyone:
call
on the President of Indonesia to protect rain forests from a plan
to cut them down for palm oil.
US citizens:
call
on your senators to preserve conservation requirements in the farm
bill.
Everyone: object
to giving Henry Kissinger an award for defending freedom and
democracy.
China is trying to stop prostitution by
torturing
accused prostitutes into confessing.
There is nothing ethically wrong with prostitution, so the state's
only legitimate goal in this area is to make sure nobody is coerced
into prostitution and prevent the spread of sexually transmitted diseases
by prostitution. Prohibition and repression of prostitution
get in the way of those goals.
A broad movement condemns
force-feeding
of prisoners in Guantanamo, which is very painful and degrading to
the prisoners.
In addition, the prisoners are now forced to undergo a strip
search before meeting with a lawyer.
The Obama regime collected two months of the Associated Press's phone records
to
try to find the source of a leak.
Several Western clothing chains have signed on to fund
safety
inspections in Bangladesh.
This will probably do some good, and the proposed changes in laws could
do more good. However, what we really need is to change the free exploitation treaties so that they no longer pressure countries to compete to offer
the worst working conditions.
More nasty
applications for face recognition.
Some in the European Parliament propose to protect the
"right" of businesses to
secretly make money out of your data.
Deforestation of the Amazon will mean less rain, which means giant
hydropower programs will
provide less
electricity than expected.
It will also mean disaster for agriculture in Brazil.
If current trends continue, humans will emit enough CO2 to probably
cause
a catastrophic
4C rise in temperature by 2041.
However, if the climate system is more sensitive than that, the
catastrophe made be locked in by 2021.
A candidate for mayor of New
York denounces
the thug department's "stop-and-frisk" practice for its evident
racial bias.
However, it will be difficult to prevent the decision to search a
particular person from being based on race, unless the thugs must show
a specific justification for each instance. In other words, searching
a person must require probable cause.
Street crime is much less than it was 20 years go, perhaps due to the
removal
of lead from the children's environment. Even if there was once a
reason to allow thugs to search people arbitrarily, it is gone.
Comparing today's US with the fictional world of Atlas Shrugged makes
a strange
contrast.
Bangladesh has made
it easier
for clothing workers to unionize.
Interventions in Syria's civil war may
be motivated
by oil pipelines, part of the root cause was the effects of global
heating.
The road to the victory
over access
to Plan B: "We followed a cardinal rule of the radicals of the
1960's Women's Liberation Movement: we demanded what we really wanted,
rather than toning down to be respectable."
This is my rule too. Many others demand small changes in the DMCA or
DRM, or talk about "open source", and say it's because they don't want
to be dismissed as "radical". It means they can't reach for much.
The US has
several bad
or difficult options to choose from if it is to intervene in
Syria.
Systematic reasons cause thugs to prioritize the War on Drugs
over
investigating reports of kidnapped people.
If thugs demand additional "security" powers, remember that they
have lied
about this before.
"Security" measures are only addressed to a narrow part of the
spectrum of crime. The biggest and most damaging crimes in the US are
committed by banksters, and the state refuses to prosecute them even
when they are caught. The "security" apparatus did nothing to the
perpetrators of foreclosure fraud even though their victims number in
the hundreds of thousands (at least).
US citizens: call on the EPA
to ban
neonicotinoids.
1/3 of all animal species will
be hit
by effects of global heating.
In
Palestine, prejudice
against prostitutes combines with circumstances that leave some
women no other way out. This drives many to suicide.
Such contempt for women that is found across the Muslim world, and
partly continues to exist in the west too.
UNESCO
is trying to save the Great Barrier Reef from damage from coal
shipments, but half its coral is dead already due to environmental
degradation and global heating.
Ocean acidification will kill all the rest, if we burn all that coal.
Murder
out of superstition didn't disappear after the Salem witch trials.
It still occurs today.
Many Iranians can only support
a fictional
candidate for president.
In the US, things are not that far gone. We can vote for candidates
that stand for good principles; we just know that it would be a
miracle for one of them to win.
Can't the US
keep guns
away from children?
Global
heating threatens
to destroy cassava, the principal food of millions in Africa, via
insects and disease.
US citizens: tell the EPA not to
let oil
companies block new pollution standards for cars and trucks.
The UK's 100 largest companies
are running
8000 tax dodges.
I would expect that most of them are lawful, and take advantage of
laws that need to be changed.
How Colleges
Are Selling
Out the Poor to Court the Rich.
ACLU: President Obama, Don t Let the CIA Control
the Torture
Narrative.
Pakistan's high court ruled that US drone attacks in Pakistan
are war
crimes.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to support the Local Farms,
Foods, and Jobs Act.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
The House of Representatives passed a
bill
to end overtime pay in the name of "flexibility" and "caring".
A US-educated
minister has been added to the politburo of the Vietnamese
Communist Party.
I guess that means more crushing of human rights to cater to global
business.
America's contradictory
attitudes towards children.
The Pentagon has
punctured
the pretense that the UK government is trying to rescue Shaker
Aamer from Guantanamo.
The conservatives have cut the NHS to the point where
hospitals
no longer have enough nurses to keep patients safe.
Now that Rios Montt has been convicted of crimes against humanity, we
must look at
the evidence that the US under Ronald Reagan knowingly supported
those crimes.
In the US:
call
on Publix to join the agreement to demand decent working
conditions for the farm workers who grow its tomatoes.
Hollywood influence threatens to block a proposed treaty for a
copyright
exception for books for blind people.
I have mixed feelings about this treaty. Blind people deserve to escape
from digital handcuffs, and so do the rest of us. A treaty that
removes some of the harmful effect on blind people is a step towards
that goal, but it might also serve as an excuse to resist the further
change needed to free the rest of us.
I think, therefore, that we should direct our efforts towards
the cause of abolishing DRM, not this treaty.
Offering a little psychotherapy to people who go through a trauma
is unnecessary, and
some
methods actually tend to make people suffer more.
"American" corporations get a special
tax deal for
foreign earnings, which favors them over real citizens.
The point is not that we should give people the same deal; rather, we
should take it away from corporations.
Chad has arrested many
opposition journalists and bloggers.
Corruption drains wealth out of Africa,
twice
as much as it gets in foreign aid.
Extremists' violence was unable to prevent Pakistan from holding a more
or less democratic
election.
Uri Avnery:
why
the "one state solution" is a myth.
A right-wing politician
embarrassingly
acknowledged the real motive for austerity in the UK.
In response to many public complaints, the USDA has decided to do a
full environmental impact study on proposed
multi-herbicide-resistant
GMO crops, rather than approve them without one.
A year after signing the US-Korea free exploitation agreement, US exports
to Korea have gone
down 10%.
In other words, this treaty failed even to provide the benefit the US
was supposed to get. Of course, it did the other harm these treaties
always do.
You can pretty much count on a free exploitation agreement to boost
profits and reduce wages. Nowadays they also directly attack the
rights of the citizens of both countries, with "investor-state"
provisions that privilege foreign companies over the country's
citizens.
US citizens: Phone your congresscritter to co-sign Rep. Grijalva's
letter to Obama
opposing the
Keystone XL planet-roaster pipeline.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
US citizens:
call on Obama to
take two important steps towards ending imprisonment without trial.
The "American Federation for Children" spent millions to support state
legislature candidates
that want to
privatize public schools.
This is the kind of predator that US parents really should be worried
about, since they can hurt a lot more children than any other kind of
predator.
A Wikileaks cable shows how
the US planned to meddle
in Venezuelan politics to try to defeat Chavez.
I don't agree with all the opinions in the article; for instance, I
think he's bending over backwards to defend North Korea, which is as
nasty a tyranny as you can find on Earth.
A woman in El Salvador has asked the Supreme Court
to let
her have an abortion, because otherwise she is likely to die from
her pregnancy.
The sacred fetus that the Catholic Church would kill her to save
cannot survive anyway, because most of its brain is missing. But even
if it were healthy, she should not be forced to bear it.
Campaigning against
an autodestructive
response to the Boston Bombings.
The FBI
screwed up testing evidence against 137 people, but only informed
the lawyers of 30 of them. Others have languished in prison for
years.
How Facebook leads people to forget all the different sorts of people
they
are giving
their information to.
This is not to mention Facebook itself, a perpetual lurker whose
presence is dangerous to overlook.
Some Newtown officials voted
to tear
down and rebuild Sandy Hook elementary school at the cost of 57
million dollars. In these days of austerity, surely there is something
more useful to do with that money.
I think that it was a mistake to move the students to another building
after the shooting, because that encouraged them to feel they should
be unable to cope with being in that building, which is why people are
considering spending 60 million dollars replacing the building. When
you fall off the horse, you should get right back on it, and that
applies here too.
New Zealand has passed a bill
to reject
software patents, more or less.
I hope that lawyers don't succeed in gaming the new law by cleverly
writing the applications to squeeze around it. Also, if there are
existing patents in New Zealand that cover computational ideas, I
don't think this law gets rid of them.
I recommend
a more
thorough and immediate solution.
A bill has been introduced
to fix
one of the injustice of the DMCA, but it is limited to unlocking
devices.
This would be a substantial step forward, but not enough to fix the
DMCA, because the broader prohibition on breaking digital handcuffs
would remain. Digital Restrictions Management ought to be banned
outright.
US citizens: phone your congresscritter to support the Arbitration
Fairness Act (H.R. 1844, S. 878), which would stop companies from
imposing arbitration on their employees and customers.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641
and 888-355-3588.
Food processing companies have imposed
unsupported
safety standards in California, which endanger wildlife.
On the foolish
and absurd attachment many people feel toward corpses.
While criticizing this attachment, the article supports it by using
terms such as "laid to rest". I never use such terms, both because
they endorse superstitious ideas and because euphemisms strike me
as encouragement of cowardice.
The New York Times Magazine labeled as the "center" the place
between
a right-wing extremist economist and a somewhat right-wing economist.
US citizens: Once again,
call
on the SEC to require publicly traded companies to disclose their
political spending.
The Irish government is shielding
the companies that sold horsemeat as beef.
If the Irish government intended, in February, to put meat businesses
gently on notice so they would cease this practice, that's not wrong
in principle. It was a way to put an end to the practice. However,
blocking an investigation is going too far.
I see nothing wrong in principle with putting horsemeat in a burger,
as long as it is processed safely and announced on the label. The
same is true with the
other
kinds of filler that are normally included in cheap burger
patties, whose purchasers typically assume they are buying pure
beef.
The UK
plans to privatize public defenders, which implies that executives
will pressure the lawyers to do a hasty and inadequate job.
The result will be that one company can "represent" you, give you bad
advice, then
be paid
to run the prison they put you in.
US
citizens: sign
this petition to support the Bank on Students Loan Fairness Act,
which would charge student loans the same interest rate that big banks
get.
Recommendations on
a healthy
farm system, from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Encryption in the
iThings can
be broken by Apple.
US citizens: Call on Hagel to tell the navy to take precautions
to avoid killing an estimated 1000 marine mammals through deafening
underwater sound.
Greg Palast interviews Karzai's advisor, Yahya Maroofi, about the
prospect
of peace with the Taliban.
There is no reason why the Taliban and the US have to be enemies.
They are likely to continue oppressing Afghan women, and if I imagine
myself magically transformed into an Afghan women, I would be thinking
about how to kill Taliban. However, the other parties in Afghanistan
are not much better, not enough to continue the bloodshed over.
The Prime Minister of Japan
persistently refuses
to acknowledge Japan's aggression in World War II.
This is not excused by US officials persistent refusal to acknowledge
US aggression against Iraq.
Are the FBI and IRS
Secretly Reading
Your Email Without a Warrant?
Against
Connecting Terrorist 'Dots'.
As Bruce Schneier pointed out, the metaphor of "connecting the dots"
is misleading; only in hindsight can one distinguish the dots that
connect from the millions of other dots
that don't
add up to anything.
Right-wingers dehumanize
the poor, so that many people see them as "other" and thus not
worthy of help.
Forced into deeper poverty by budget cuts, the poor may look more
unsavory, and some may try desperate methods to get a little money.
These can provide more excuses to step hard on the poor, and the cycle
continues.
What's the purpose of this? Politicians can get elected by demonizing
someone, and the poor may be a handy target, just like an ethnic
minority. But there is a specific motive, too: to knock down wages
and help businesses impose worse working conditions.
US-supported Guatemalan dictator Rios Montt has been
found guilty
of crimes against humanity.
Dubya's crimes are far worse; when will he be tried?
US citizens:
oppose
military intervention in Syria.
Biometric
Database of All Adult Americans Hidden in Immigration Reform.
I am more concerned with this issue than with immigration as such.
FBI's
Latest Proposal for a Wiretap-Ready Internet Should Be Trashed.
The article has some errors. It uses the nebulous term "cloud" as if
it meant something coherent. It recommends "secure" services that use
encryption which users can't trust, because they require a
nonfree
client program — that is, a program not under the control of
its users.
The article also has the bizarre idea that using encryption
you can really trust is only for criminals, and that they will
have to write it for themselves.
Everyone who wants to communicate confidentially on the Internet needs
trustworthy encryption, but you don't need to write it.
The GNU Privacy Guard, free/libre
software for encryption, has been available for over a decade. Unless
you're a sucker with a clouded mind, GPG is for you.
Enron fraud king Skilling has got himself out of prison
in exchange
for not suing his victims any more, and paying them money he won't
miss.
It appears staff in the State Department told UN Ambassador Rice to
change
her description of the Benghazi attack, so as not to give
Republicans ammunition.
I don't see anything wrong here. UN speeches are public statements,
and we should expect any government to plan carefully what to say in
them. As far as I can tell, the changes were not lies and did not
cover up any facts.
It's not as if intelligence agencies had been pressured to misinform
the rest of the government, as was done to fabricate an excuse to
conquer Iraq.
There are plenty of good reasons to condemn Obama, but you can
rely on Republicans to find bad ones.
Fast-food workers' protests
spread
around the US.
Of course, fast food was never meant to be eaten in the first place.
It was meant for fasting, not for eating.
More about the
censorship
order for the 3d-printer gun design.
Bahraini blogger Ali Abdulemam describes how he was
tortured
and convicted in an absurd "trial", then released, and then had
the good fortune to be out protesting when the thugs came for him
again.
Obama downplays the repression in Bahrain, which his regime supports.
Fossil fuel companies have sabotaged all political efforts to stop
global heating. Governments have been
corrupted
and stopped from really trying.
Only a surprising technical advance — that is, amazingly good
luck — can avert global catastrophe if governments fail to try.
In the US: participate in
Jobs not Wars rallies.
A salmon farm as overwhelmed a Scottish lake with
high
levels of pesticide.
A large conspiracy stole 45 million dollars from banks by
counterfeiting
prepaid debit cards.
In the past, I would have said this was wrong, but now that banks are
robbing people every day, I don't care if banks get robbed.
A woman was found alive in the
rubble, 17
days after the collapse of the factory in Bangladesh.
Credulous crowds shouted, "God is great," but what about the thousand
workers who were killed? If you believe that a god decides who
personally will live and who will die, it must have decided to kill
all those people. Shall we shout, "God is lousy"?
I'd rather say, "There are no gods."
UK police
corruption protected the murderers of a private detective who was
investigating police corruption.
A UK lawyer
speaks in favor of Stuart Hall, saying the crimes he is accused of
are minor and should not be prosecuted at all.
I don't know whether I agree, because I don't know in concrete terms
what Hall has been accused of. In the articles in the Guardian, all
specifics are hidden behind abstract terms equivalent to "something
sexual which is considered nasty". Does that mean rape? Making a pass?
Stealing a kiss?
"Transparency" is
a two-edged
sword when applied to governments and data.
Keep in mind that Obama is also an enemy of transparency, as regards
anything the US government does for our "security", up to and
including death squads.
I think the proposed European "right to be forgotten" is ok as long as
it is limited to databases and does not apply to anyone's works of
authorship.
Here's what the ACLU got for a FOIA request for
a document
stating general policies (not information about any specific
case).
Rating states for their "business climate"
has no economic
validity; it is just right-wing propaganda to pressure for
deregulation.
Cutting
down the Amazon rainforest to plant soya will be self-defeating:
it will change the local climate, making agriculture less productive.
Another species
driven to extinction — all three mangarahara cichlids known
are male.
Parts of the Marshall Islands face
a shortage
of drinking water due to drought.
I can't assume that global heating helped cause this drought, but it
is expected to make for worse droughts in general. However, in a few
decades these low islands will have plenty of water, all the time.
The US
government censored
the publication of 3d-printer gun plans by claiming vague, broad
censorship power.
I am not particularly in favor of homemade guns, which can
be dangerous
to their users as well as to everyone else. However, censorship
power like this is a bigger a threat.
Angola's
war on the poor: evicting them and demolishing illegal homes to
make way for the wealthy.
For the long-term, Luanda needs a smaller population. I am sure many
women there have more children than they want. Donating reliable
birth control would go a long way.
US citizens: support
strengthening the law requiring women get equal pay for equal work.
In the US: call
on major US stores to stop selling neonicotinoids for home use.
Stephen Hawking withdrew
from a conference hosted by the President of Israel, after
Palestinians colleagues urged him to do so.
I upheld the academic boycott during a visit to Israel and Palestine
sponsored by Palestinians, but I don't advocate a complete academic boycott.
However, this conference is not an academic event. It is
state-sponsored
business boosterism.
Obama recently repeated that he wants to "close the Guantanamo
prison", but what he actually tried to do was continuing
holding
prisoners without trial indefinitely — just not in Guantanamo.
Obama's statement, "When we transfer detention authority in
Afghanistan, the idea that we would still maintain forever a group of
individuals who have not been tried, that is contrary to who we are,"
condemns imprisonment without trial regardless of details. I can't
read it any other way. I don't see any weasel-words in that sentence,
but when will he start acting accordingly?
ALEC's latest meeting was
surrounded
by protesters that outnumbered the attendees.
But that is not enough to stop the corporations and the sellout
legislator from making corrupt deals.
To conceal them, ALEC encourages its member legislators to
defy
requests under state freedom of information laws for copies of ALEC
model bills.
500
US children per year are killed accidentally with guns.
Usually they are killed by a child (the same one, or another)
who finds a gun at home.
Everyone: call
on Asia Pacific Resources International Limited
to stop destroying rainforest in Sumatra.
Previously such campaigns were directed against Asian Pulp and Paper.
Greenpeace says that company has agreed to stop destroying its parts
of the rainforest.
The Syrian Islamist extremist group al Nusra is
attracting
fighters away from the non-Islamist rebels. This is due to its
successes, which are in turn due to the arms it received from
countries such as Qatar. The fighters joining al Nusra can probably
get better arms too.
Reportedly the US wants to attack al Nusra, but why did the US
not pressure Qatar into not arming al Nusra?
I don't think it is possible for any small intervention to
enable any other force to win in Syria.
The last time Earth had as much atmospheric CO2 as it has now
was 3
million years ago, and it was 8C hotter than now.
Sea level was 40 meters higher (120 feet). So if we don't get this
CO2 out of the air, we're sunk!
Two Chileans marines have been
convicted
for the disappearance of a leftist priest who was killed by Pinochet's
men.
The US won't keep permanent bases in Afghanistan, but will continue
to run 9
bases until hell freezes over.
A common tactic in the Obama regime's war on whistleblowers is
to retroactively
declare information secret, then prosecute the whistleblower for
disclosing that.
Tory historians are trying to whitewash the racism, violence and
torture of
the British
empire.
An academic who studies the effect of privately imposed labor
standards says
that they
don't do the job: workers need the support of governments.
Progressives promote the privately imposed standards approach because
the globalization "free trade" led governments to effectively abandon
their workers to the mercy of the plutocrats. Of course, progressives
fight against free exploitation treaties too, but so far the only one
we have (mostly) defeated was ACTA.
Alas, the private standards are often not really enforced. This study
shows we need to end "free trade" as a system, so that governments go
back to serving the people instead of foreign business.
Assata Shakur was convicted of murdering a thug, though someone else
killed him, but she escaped and received asylum in Cuba. Now the FBI
has labeled
her as a "terrorist".
It appears Shakur wanted to launch a rebellion of US blacks. I don't
support that cause, but rebellion is not terrorism. She may have
committed violent crimes; if so, that doesn't excuse the dishonest
effort to pin other crimes on her, or shooting her when she had her
hands up, or falsely claiming she then fired a gun (it's probably
false given her wounds made her unable to even try).
The US military is pervaded by an attitude
that encourages
and excuses rape. Hardly anyone accused is prosecuted. Since
soldiers can get away with rape through influence with their
commanders, it is not a big surprise that the officer in charge of the
Air Force Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office was arrested
for sexual assault. He assumed he could get away with it.
The UK
government, trying
to destroy the National Health Service, has cut preventive and
home care; the result is so many emergency cases that the system can't
cope.
3d-printed
guns could
shatter when fired, and kill the person that fired them.
The New York Times gives
its full
backing to uncertain claims that Assad used chemical weapons, just
as it did to Dubya's claims that Saddam had chemical weapons.
An "earth
sciences" lab at Oxford, funded by Shell, could be a pathway for
Shell to corrupt climate science.
Campaigners against female genital
mutilation face
threats from people in their communities that want to keep the
practice secret.
A fire
in a Bangladesh clothing factory killed only 8 people because it
occurred when not many were at work.
By contrast, the Boston bombing killed only 3 people, though several
others were permanently injured.
China
is investing in
education, and working hard so that everyone does well, not just
the smartest students.
Half the world's population could be dependent
on expensive
food imports by 2050.
In effect, a
preliminary
half-capacity Keystone XL pipeline is already being hooked
together.
Sabotaging this pipeline would be morally and legally justified under
the principle of necessity — preventing a bigger crime. Global
heating is
forecast
to kill a hundred million people by 2030 (and larger numbers later
on). This pipeline would not be the whole cause but it would be a
substantial cause — more than .01%. If destroying the pipeline
prevents even .01% of those deaths, that would mean ten thousand lives
saved. Surely that would be enough to justify the action.
Spain has
rejected
the Swiss request to extradite Herve Falciani, who leaked the "Lagarde
list" of possible tax evaders.
The death toll from the Bangladesh factory collapse was
over
800.
I suppose there were also many serious injuries, but I have not seen
figures.
By comparison, the Boston bombings were a minor thing.
Chinese thugs
arrested
activists campaigning for officials to disclose their assets.
Whistleblower
Ellsberg to SF Pride: Manning Should be Lauded as "Hero That He Is".
Chinese Mines Pollute Tibet's Rivers, Streams.
The US stock market is zooming, although for most Americans there is
no
recovery.
This demonstrates that the US stock market is no measure of how the
real economy is doing. It may be the other way around: the sequester
cuts that will shaft most Americans could be boosting stocks because
they are good for the plutocrats.
The Zaro family complained to the Israeli thugs about
"settlers" who repeatedly trespassed on the family's land,
so the thugs arrested
the family.
Palestinian human rights defender Shawan Jabarin is
arbitrarily
barred by Israel from traveling, so he has been unable to travel
to receive an award in Denmark or to meet with Human Rights Watch in
New York.
Everyone:
call
on US clothing brands to pay for inspections of foreign factories.
The UK budget for caring for old people has been
cut
by 20% by the current government, which means people who need help
to do ordinary things won't get that help.
The State of Georgia has gone from
extreme
drought to floods. These are two sides of the same global heating
coin.
Elizabeth Smart found out how abstinence-based education
teaches
people to feel worthless if they have been raped.
She dedicates herself to teaching kids that mistreatment by others has
no effect on their worth.
The principal of Orchard Gardens primary school fired the security
guards and
spent
the money on art education. The school improved academically, and
no longer has any apparent need for security guards.
A school thug beat up Ashlynn Avery (she needed a cast afterward) and
then arrested her — for
falling
asleep while waiting in a punishment room.
I don't think the fact that she is diabetic makes a crucial
difference. This treatment would be just as wrong if done to a
non-diabetic student.
China is blocking
the next edition of a magazine that published an exposé of
forced labor camps.
Opposition activists were
arrested
at a peaceful protest in Afghanistan. That shows how well we have
done at giving Afghanistan freedom and democracy.
The Saudi regime is
repressing
the founders of a new human rights group.
Algeria convicted a human rights defender of the "crime" of
handing
out leaflets criticizing unemployment.
Automated
License Plate Readers Threaten Our Privacy.
The UK has a network of license plate readers that track all motor
vehicle traffic in the country and make a complete dossier about each
vehicle. The US does not say it is setting up such a network, and
maybe has no plan for a complete network, but the proliferating
automatic license plate readers have the effect of approximating one.
All automatic license plate readers, no matter who operates them,
should be required by law to ignore any plate that isn't on
a specific list. And a plate should get on that list only by
court order.
The plutocrats' elected servants want austerity, so now that the
economic excuse they cited has been shown to be false, they invent
other ridiculous
excuses.
The Bush forces intentionally planned to keep Iraqi sects divided,
and the US may be
planning
the same thing for Syria.
That this had the effect of strengthening forces linked to al Qa'ida
was not considered a problem.
The torture-apology movie Zero Dark Thirty
was edited
under the direction of the CIA.
A report predicts that 1/4 of the children in the UK in 2020
will live
in poverty, thanks to cuts in aid to the poor.
Obama (and Pritzker)
did
it for the money.
US citizens: sign this petition supporting the bill to make
large
banks hold bigger reserves.
This does not go far enough — we need
to break
up the big banks — but it is a step in the right direction.
Some states and cities
have restricted
discrimination against people with a criminal record unrelated to
the job.
However, at the same time, there are many official forms of
discrimination against everyone with a criminal record, in employment,
education, and housing.
The practice of selling a technology product for less than cost, and
making people pay the rest of the price over time through
tied
services, is resented by users.
It is also a major obstacle to making the devices run free software,
because they are designed to require the user to use the specific
services tied to their sale, and proprietary software is what imposes
that restriction.
I hope users will resent this enough to start paying for the devices
all at once and insisting on control of them.
Bangladesh faces
a shortage
of safe water to drink, and the aquifers it uses are rapidly
emptying and will salt up with sea water. Meanwhile, global heating
has reduced the rainfall.
Part of the problem is caused by having too many children. There are
limits to what is possible, and if they keep making the problem
bigger, they will sooner or later reach an impossible point. There is
not much further to go.
Peace activists who entered the Oak Ridge refined uranium storage
facility as a
protest face
30 years in prison.
I do not advocate unilateral nuclear disarmament for the US, but what
I have to say is independent of whether I agree with them. It is
tyranny to punish peaceful protesters that way.
Partly this is to express resentment that they exposed weak security
that results from privatizing the security.
The single guard who was sent to investigate the intrusion was
scapegoated and fired, which caused him to lose his house. Few
Americans work as guards in nuclear facilities, but many are in
the same vulnerable position, and that is the fault of government with
the wrong priorities.
US citizens: phone your senators and ask them to confirm Gina McCarthy
as head of the
EPA. Also sign
this petition, but a phone call carries more weight.
The Capitol Switchboard numbers are 202-224-3121, 888-818-6641 and
888-355-3588
Ocean
acidification (due to the CO2 we pump into the air) can wipe out
brittle stars, as well as coral and crustaceans.
Islands in the western Pacific are expected
to lose
marine resources due to this, as well as due to effects of global
heating.
Protesters in Bangladesh, demanding prosecution of "atheists", fought
with the thugs.
It appears the thugs attacked first, which is bad, even though the cause
these protesters support is pure injustice.
I suspect that the "atheists" are not really atheists, just secular,
but still deserve freedom of speech anyway.
Leopoldo Garcia Lucero was maimed by Pinochet's torturers; his case
will be judged by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.
The Boston bombings are not a reason for more government surveillance.
The Privacy-Invading Potential of Eye Tracking Technology.
That Unemployment Form Might Violate Your Civil Rights.
The Texas fertilizer plant that exploded benefited from a program
for "streamlined"
inspections (which turned out to mean none at all).
The US condemned repression of journalists, but didn't mention the
journalist imprisoned in Yemen due to
a request
from Obama.
What the Framing of a Terror Suspect Says
About GOP
Attacks on Due Process.
Rich people want austerity because
they profit
from it. Erroneous economics that supports austerity received
widespread acceptance because it gave the rich an excuse to pretend it
was good for others as well.
This demonstrates that money corrupts economics just as it does other
fields of science where money is at stake,
such
as medicine
and public
health.
Not everyone goes along with the
corruption. Paul
Krugman champions economics that remembers what the banksters want
forgotten.
Citizens are right to distrust the politicians, but what the
politicians did wrong before was obey the banksters. They let
banksters create bubbles and dangerous derivatives. Now, with
austerity, they continue obeying the banksters.
We must support politicians that will treat the banksters as a threat
to society. Of course, there are good ways to fight them and bad
ways; hurting the banksters is not a sufficient condition for a wise
policy. However, it is a necessary condition.
George Monbiot:
Why
the Politics of Envy Are Keenest Among the Very Rich.
A UK official supported a plan to discredit a tax whistleblower
by
telling lies to the press.
A Mexican journalist's sons were
murdered
by gunmen who chased them in a car.
It is unusual to kill a journalist's relatives instead of the journalist.
Maybe it had nothing to do with their parents.
Around 20,000 protested in Moscow, demanding the release of
political
prisoners who protested a year ago.
Time To Demand
All Birth Control Pills Be Sold Over-The-Counter.
I agree, as far as that goes, but daily birth control pills are not
the modern reliable method of birth control. We need to focus on
encouraging the use of the more effective forms — and a major
barrier to their use is the expense.
The four million Ahmadis in Pakistan are
effectively
excluded from politics by discriminatory laws, and face execution
for blasphemy if they make a misstep.
It is rather strange to claim to be a Muslim while denying one of the
principal tenets of Islam, like claiming to be a Christian and saying
Jesus never lived. But Christianity and Islam are full of claims that
are hardly rational, and religious freedom includes the freedom to
believe any or all of them. Islamic governments generally
do
not respect people's religious freedom, and Pakistan is one of the
worst.
This is why Pakistan is on my list of countries I would not visit.
Most Americans think of Sallie Mae as a government institution. It
was one. Now it is a
privately-run
bank which is nasty to the students that have borrowed, and is a
member of ALEC.
The Tsarnaev brothers may have got their inspiration from
jihadis
sponsored by the CIA with the idea of weakening US rivals such as
Russia.
The US says that those accused of felonies must be given legal
representation, but the public defender system is so understaffed
that they
cannot
do an adequate job.
Totally aside from problems with the legal system, it is absurd for
such things as putting your feet on a seat in a train to be prosecuted
as crimes at all.
It is silly to expect the FBI to detect would-be terrorists, or to
criticize when it overlooks one, because the significance of the data
is not
clear except in hindsight.
"Trying harder" (by invading our freedom even more) would not make the
effort much more successful.
Fortunately, the casualty rate from terrorism in the US is so tiny
(compared with other causes of casualties) that "trying harder"
is not necessary.
A pesticide formerly used on bananas in Guadeloupe and Martinique has
washed into the sea bottom, and now makes seafood around the island
unsafe t
o eat.
It will remain unsafe for decades more.
Billionaire Burglar Breaks into Obama's Cabinet.
Rep. Barbara Lee proposed a bill to
repeal
the Authorization for Use of Military Force.
Some senators are also
reconsidering
it.
200,000 protested in Paris to call on Hollande to replace his
centrist policy with a
progressive policy.
Public banks, and other
alternatives
to the US Federal Reserve Bank.
A UN army has been
sent
to the D.R. Congo to suppress a rebel army that commits
atrocities.
Many Russian dissidents face prosecution
for
protesting against Putin.
A 50-year coverup of British repression in Kenya is being
exposed.
Obama has nominated
wealthy
bankster Penny Pritzker as Secretary of Commerce.
She is also known for
union-busting
and closing public schools.
For this Obama calls her a "distinguished business leader", perhaps
distinguished by how much she contributed to his campaigns.
Public
Banking as an Answer to Artificial Scarcity.
Companies are fighting to deny the toxicity of chemicals
used in
products
we are all exposed to, just as companies previously fought to deny
the toxicity of asbestos and lead.
Refuting the right-wing argument in favor of
sweatshops.
I think the article concedes too much to that argument. I agree that
safety standards should apply the same to all countries, but I don't
agree that replacing a high-wage job with a low-wage job is good
merely because the low-wage job is in Bangladesh. That's a big loss
for one worker, and a tiny gain for another worker, and the difference
goes to the owners.
Companies that want to produce for the US in poor countries, and pay
less than US wages, should be required to pay considerably more than
the usual wage standards of those countries, as well as taxed for
doing this, so that most of the benefit goes to workers and only some
to the owners.
Prominent gay activists have published an open letter in
support for
Bradley Manning.
For me, the fact that he is gay is a side issue. He is a hero for
resisting tyranny.
Dubya's assistant in regard to drone policy
criticized
Obama for using drones to kill people rather that arresting them
and putting them in Guantanamo.
Killing people might be more humane than putting them in Guantanamo
for life, but why limit the choices to those two? Outside of true war
zones, the right thing to do with someone suspected of planning
terrorism is to watch him until there is enough evidence to try him,
then arrest him and try him in a regular court. No drones, no
Guantanamo.
Having children typically leads people
to subordinate
the future of society to the success of their own offspring.
In other words, taking care of only your own family is just a kind of
selfishness.
Congress needs
to repeal
the "Authorization for Use of Military Force" that permitted Dubya
and then Obama to attack people around the world.
The UN, after bringing cholera to Haiti, has failed to carry out its
own recommendations
for preventing
that sort of UN gift to other countries.
Independent news sites in Malaysia face raids by thugs and blockage by
filters on the Internet, as well as the virtual equivalent of
state-organized
"spontaneous protests".
A privatized prison in Ohio
has become
a disaster.
The company needs to make money somehow.
Ecuador's legislature is moving
to cancel
a trade treaty with the US, and is organizing resistance
throughout Latin America.
Hooray, Ecuador! With this example, it will be easier to knock out
the rest of them.
The US government, subservient to Big Pharma, tries
to punish
governments that make exceptions to medical patents in order to
save the lives of people that can't afford monopoly prices.
It is unfortunate that the article cites
the propaganda
term "intellectual property" without condemning it as propaganda.
Prestigious US newspapers and magazines set up events
to sell
companies access to politicians.
JP Morgan manipulated its accounts in order
to cheat
on requirements for backing its risky investments with real
assets.
Uri
Avnery: Kerry,
trying to restart Israel/Arab peace talks, will find that Israel
will negotiate ad infinitem, just as before. An agreement will
require pressuring Israel to make a deal.
Facebook is offering a paltry settlement to the people
whose names
were used in advertising without their permission.
A Guantanamo prisoner on hunger strike explains the
series
of sufferings caused by force-feeding.
Former Guantanamo prisoners point out that the US
continues
to abuse prisoners in Guantanamo, and call on doctors and nurses
to refuse to cooperate with force feeding.
Subcontracting to sweatshops is the clothing industry's
intentional
business model. (They call this "flexibility".)
The famous brands' response to the resulting disasters is, in most
cases, to try to avoid association with them rather than to prevent
them.
However, disasters that kill hundreds of workers at once are a small
part of the suffering caused by sweatshops. People are regularly
overworked until they develop medical problems. Their pay is small,
and often they don't receive that pay.
To eliminate these problems, we must eliminate the flexibility of
subcontracting. We must tell companies, "Put your factory where you
wish, but it has to be your factory, the workers must be
employees of your company, and you won't be able to move it
easily." The exception would be for commodity subproducts not made
specially for one company.
In the UK, people are being
fined
for mere insults.
The article criticizes the absurd examples but grants unjustified legitimacy
to the general practice. Racism is nasty, but you can't stop racism
by banning insults, and insults alone do not generate violence.
US citizens: support
the Job Preservation and Sequester Replacement Act.
Here's
more
information about the bill.
US citizens:
ask
your senators to support the Safe Chemicals Act.
Human Rights Watch: Libya's proposed law to bar former Gaddafi officials
from many kinds of jobs is
too
broad and lacks safeguards.
Bloomberg news has published
a list
showing the ratio of CEO pay to workers' pay, for some US companies.
Everyone: express
solidarity to the LA Times workers who announced they would quit
if the paper is sold to the Koch brothers.
In the US:
support
Guitar Center workers in unionizing against Bain Capital.
US citizens: call
on the US Forest Service not to approve uranium mining near the
Grand Canyon.
Hamas is "Talibanising" Gaza, step by step, and inspiring resistance.
Democracy activists in Azerbaijan
get little
support from the West.
Greg Palast has described how
the government
of Azerbaijan works hand in hand with international oil companies.
That's why the US cooperates with Azerbaijan's dictator, and tries to
destabilize Venezuela.
If you love listening to birds sing, remember
that humans
are wiping out songbirds through pesticides and global heating.
Women in
Pakistan face
threats of attacks if they try to vote.
Even after libel reform, UK libel
law prevents
publication of books available in the US.
In Copenhagen,
a safe
room for drug injections protects addicts while reducing theft.
I am sure it also reduces transmission of HIV.
Investigation of the Bangladesh factory collapse leads
to suspicion
of corruption at many levels.
The practice of outsourcing to local contractors facilitates
corruption because the Western companies that sell the goods can
disclaim responsibility. If American companies ran their own
factories in Bangladesh, they could be prosecuted in the US for paying
bribes there.
A wild fire in Ventura county, north of Los Angeles, has
burnt 43
square miles.
Due to the severe drought, wild fires are burning already with the
intensity usually observed in September. By this September they will
probably be even worse.
And global heating will make it even worse.
In the
US, where
have all the jobs gone?
The article cites various causes of lack of jobs, but the root cause
is that business dominates government policy.
When the article states that more global trade is good, it is only
half right. More international trade means more total wealth, and
that's good all else being equal. But all else is not equal.
Globalization gives
business more power to dominate government policy. If obstructing
global trade is necessary to strip business of its power, so be it.
1/4 of Americans aged 25 through 34
are now
unemployed.
The solutions suggested by this article are inadequate, even useless.
Not everyone has the ability to practice an educated profession;
society must offer a decent life to the rest, also.
We can't reduce unemployment much by helping workers improve their
skills. Even if every worker or would-be worker in the US were to
become more employable, that would have only a little influence on the
total number of jobs. To increase that requires other government
policies.
College is too expensive now for most Americans anyway, because
governments have ceased to support it. Many Americans are saddled for
life with college loans
they cannot pay
back or get rid of. It's a risk I would not advise anyone to take.
Improving workers' productivity does the workers little good under our
current anti-worker political system. American workers' productivity
has increased greatly in the last 30 years
with no
increase in wages.
Among many other nasty things, Iran's
government prohibits labor unions.
US state governments
are moving
in the same direction.
China has adopted a law about hospitalization of the insane, but that
law won't
help dissidents
that are put in mental hospitals.
Jordan
is prosecuting
dissidents for their words.
Norway is considering a law to impose
pushing Internet
filters to block sharing.
If you are Norwegian, please try to fight this.
UN
Finds Little
Appreciation for Human Rights Among US Businesses.
"It's a sad thought that our politicians are so crooked that we have
to ask the United Nations for help, but no one else will listen."
US drone
attacks destroy
traditional moral codes in the victim societies and in the US.
I don't think it makes a difference directly whether people are killed
by a remotely piloted plane, a manned plane, an artillery shell or
bullets. Any of them can kill innocent people, depending on how much
the soldiers care to avoid this. However, drones are easier to use in
places around the world where there is no war going on.
An ex-FBI agent confirms that the US records all phone conversations and
emails so
as to look at them later — universal wiretapping by Big
Brother.
This is more dangerous than a few people running around with bombs.
The ruling party in Malaysia
seems
to be cheating in the election.
In modern civilization,
children have no
freedom — they are either kept isolated or regimented, and
never free to do things on their own.
This reaches an extreme in the US, where parents are rebuked if they
allow their children to go anywhere on foot, but resent the need to
constant drive them around. Of course, the resentment is taken out on
the child.
Enemies of sharing often rant about "copyright theft", a term that
they use in a misleading way. Here's a
real
case of alleged copyright theft.
You can point to this example to refute their misuse of the term.
Sibel Edmonds says secret government documents she translated showed
that
the US
government worked with Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri until
3 months after September 11, 2001.
What were they doing together? Supporting terrorism
(destabilization).
Everyone: call on the government of Egypt
to drop
charges against dissidents.
US citizens: sign another petition calling on Obama
to close
the Guantanamo prison.
The inconsistent history of US opposition
to chemical
weapons.
US citizens: sign this petition to
support closing
the Guantanamo prison.
US citizens: call on Congress
to pass
stricter gun control.
Morris Davis, formerly chief prosecutor in Guantanamo kangaroo courts,
calls
for giving real trials to those prisoners who deserve prosecution,
and releasing all the rest.
I will not recommend signing his petition on change.org, because that
site requires running nonfree software. Instead, I've recommended
other on-line petitions for supporting this cause.
The law adopted by Dryden, NY,
to ban
fracking was upheld on appeal.
Abortion rights activists in Ireland risk imprisonment
by distributing
abortion information in violation of censorship laws.
Pressuring environmentalist organizations with large endowments
to divest
from fossil fuels.
Although it is clear that British troops in the Bush forces tortured
Baba Mousa to death, a farcical trial ensured
that no
one would be held responsible.
Supporting the right to die, by showing people
what
it's like not to be allowed a comfortable death.
The UK let Goldman Sachs off 20 million pounds of tax owed
to
avoid "embarrassing" a pro-bankster minister.
Piracy is
almost
nonexistent.
China is investing heavily in renewable energy, but its CO2
emissions are
growing
greatly anyway.
Teaching Africans to be
proud
of having apes in the nearby forest.
Chomsky:
The
Boston Bombings Gave Americans a Taste of the Terrorism the
U.S. Inflicts Abroad Every Day.
Chomsky's statement that "There are few in Boston who were not touched
in some way by the marathon bombings on April 15 and the tense week
that followed" is true, but only because of the ridiculous shutdown of
Boston's transit system on April 19, together with the media blitz.
If not for those, only a fraction of the population of Boston would
have been affected. It would have been good to spare the rest.
Notwithstanding this small point, I agree with Chomsky's conclusions.
I can feel sad and angry on behalf of the victims of any injustice,
but what really preoccupies me is that these events will lead to
injustice against all Americans — if they are used as an excuse
to curtail our freedom.
US employers often
steal
their workers' wages. If once in a rare while they get caught and
fined, it's just part of the "cost of doing business" for them.
The Mozilla foundation threatens legal action against the company
whose spy software
pretends
to be Firefox.
The secret FISA court has not said no to any surveillance requests in
2011
or 2012.
This laxity probably encourages the FBI to make such requests without
good reason. Meanwhile, the requests are formulated in such broad
terms that each one permits the FBI to wiretap almost anyone.
Obama can get most of the way towards closing Guantanamo
without
any help from Congress.
So Obama should start doing, not merely talking.
5-Year-Old
Boy Killed Sister With Gun Made For Kids.
If you have a gun in your house, even if there are no little kids
there, it is still much more likely to kill you than to protect you.
Exxon has recovered
less
than half of the tar sands oil that it spilled in Arkansas.
North Carolina's ALEC-corrupted Republican senators are so determined
to pass a bill to wipe out a clean energy program that they
falsified
a committee vote on the bill.
New York State, and other states, plan to hand over all students'
academic records to a company owned by Rupert Murdoch, and many related
companies too, for
data
mining and commercial abuse.
This new intrusion is an indirect consequences of the US imposition of
oppressive
standardized tests, which does other kinds of harm directly.
Thugs in Grand Rapids
arrest
people without warning for "trespassing", even drivers resting in
their cars in a gas station.
I wonder if they choose the people to arrest based on their race.
I have no information about the race of these victims, but that's
a common behavior pattern for thugs in the US.
In
Violation of Constitution, Ethiopian Blogger Will Face 18 Years in
Prison.
Expel and Arrest
the Best Students: The USA's Road to Ruin.
US citizens:
call
on the EPA to reject the new neonicotinoid-like pesticide,
sulfoxaflor.
The US is considering this new pesticide while
refusing
to take action against existing neonicotinoids.
The chemical-heavy industrial agriculture system is a
major
contributor to global heating.
US citizens:
call on the
Senate to fix the filibuster.
Neonicotinoids may kill birds as well as bees.
The US government is failing to take the bee loss crisis seriously.
The government study shielded the neonicotinoids by citing other
factors that contribute to bee colony collapse.
What if that study is right? What if the varroa mites are the main
cause of the problem, and neonicotinoids are a secondary factor?
We don't know how to get rid of the varroa mites, and we urgently need
to save the bees (not just domesticated honeybees). If the only
factor we know how to eliminate is the neonicotinoids, we had better
do so forthwith.
Some people appear to be driven
to seek
a certain level of risk of danger; as a result, measures to make
life safer around them can backfire.
Not everyone seeks danger. Thus, I am skeptical of the conclusion
that automobile seat belts are self-defeating. Many drivers (and
passengers!) use them without looking for other dangers to replace the
avoided danger of a car accident.
However, if some people seek danger, we should try to help them get
the danger they want in a way that does not endanger others or cost a
lot. Identifying the best methods may be a subtle question.
UN
officials condemn force-feeding of hunger strikers in Guantanamo.
Maryland's governor, who is thinking of running for president, signed
a bill
to abolish
the death penalty.
400 Bangladeshis (actually 500) were the latest casualties of the
global business pressure
to mistreat
workers and cut their pay.
Pope Francis continues to condemn
the greed
of the rich as a major world evil.
USAID was connected with a 2008 attempt
to overthrow
the government of Bolivia.
CEOs Pushing Austerity
Enjoy Taxpayer-Subsidized
Pay.
Banksters absolutely hate the bill
to make
big banks maintain reserves to avoid a bailout.
If they didn't hate it, that would be a sign it was ineffective.
However, it does not go far enough. To address other evils of big
banks, such as their ability to conspire to defraud the rest of us, we
need
to break
them up.
The US pressured Mexico to imprison corrupt officials, so
it picked
some officials and framed them.
Who Served Their Country
Better: George
Bush or Kimberly Rivera?
Dubya deserves a life sentence for the crime of aggressive war.
French President Hollande is
trying
to encourage the election defeat of Merkel, the queen of
euro-austerity.
That's the right thing to do, and yet the article derides him
for having "bad relations" with Germany, which is an inevitable
consequence of trying to do this. It's like criticizing a vaccine
because the needle hurts.
Arctic sea ice is melting
faster
than expected, which means the extreme weather effects already
caused by reduced Arctic ice will get even worse in a few years.
This means food will get more expensive, world wide. People in poor
countries will die of this, and since millions Americans already find
it hard to pay for food, some Americans may die too from it too.
Everyone: sign the petition
against the eviction of Jacqueline Barber, whose pension won't pay
for her cancer therapy and her mushrooming mortgage payments.
Everyone: call
on Mark Zuckerberg to stop funding ads that endorse the Keystone
XL planet-roaster pipeline and drilling for oil in the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge.
Indochina has lost
1/3
of its forests in 40 years.
With increasing population, the rate of loss is likely to increase
if the cause of the problem is not corrected.
In regard to Syria, the first principle is
"Do no
harm".
Repeal the
Sequester — And the Insanity Behind It.
Americans
have forgotten
Iraq now that Americans are not dying there, but plenty of Iraqis
are being killed.
Blocking a certain chemical in mouse brains makes
them live
10% to 20% longer.
I predict we will eventually find that humans have already pushed this
life-extension mechanism to its limit. Mammals' life spans tend to be
inversely proportional to their heartbeat rate, but humans are the
exception, with a lifespan four times that of other mammals with the
comparable heartbeat rate. This long life is the result of
adaptations in whatever mechanisms could adapt easily. That means
that simple means that extend the lifespans of other mammals have
probably been used already in humans.
Too bad.
The Greek xenophobe
party plans
to hand out food to the hungry, excluding those they don't
consider Greek.
The state wants to ban this food distribution, but that is the wrong
response. The hungry in Greece deserve food. The proper response is
for the state to pre-empt the neonazis by offering food to everyone
who is hungry. That is the state's responsibility, after all. It is
the state's failure to carry out its responsibility that gives the
neonazis this opportunity.
It would also be legitimate to legislate that anyone distributing food
in a public place must not discriminate: all orderly persons must be
offered food just the same, and if a price is charged, it should be
the same for everyone.
Civil
war is destroying Syrians, while Assad's regime hangs on. The rest
of the world ought to do something, but is there anything effective
that could be done?
US agencies connived at a scheme
to avoid proper
environmental impact review for genetically engineered salmon.
Plutocrat-funded organizations advocate a
radical shift of the burden
state taxes from the rich to the poor, so that smaller shifts will
appear to be "the center".
Measuring
impunity for killers of journalists: the "impunity index".
Imidacloprid one of the neonicatinoid pesticides that Europe has just
decided to ban on certain crops, has been linked
to low
numbers of aquatic insects and molluscs.
Once used, it gets into streams. The EU pollution standard is too
weak; even streams that meet the standard show reductions in wildlife.
Some streams were so polluted that their water could be used as
pesticides.
Furthermore, the case of imidacloprid was approved shows that the way
pesticides are judged for approval in the EU is totally inadequate.
Obama is appealing the court ruling to
make emergency
contraception available without a prescription to people of all
ages.
One of the problems with the FDA's decision is that it makes emergency
contraception unavailable
to someone who has no government-issued proof of age. People
under 18 normally have no need for that.
Alec, the organization that recruits state legislators to pass laws to
please business, is now actively
concealing
the draft laws it sends to its members.
Everyone: implore
the Governor of Tennessee not to sign an ag-gag bill.
Profiteers
invite US parents to spend thousands of dollars on bulletproof vests
for their children, to protect them against the minuscule chance of
shootings in school.
The American children that face the largest chance of being shot
are the ones whose parents can't afford such protections.
A Florida high school student faces
felony
charges for a chemistry experiment that caused a small pop.
The "authorities" try to justify their conduct by appealing to
strictness for strictness' sake.
Americans, your choices have consequences too. If you freak out about
comparatively small acts of violence, just because they are called
"terrorism", and you demand that the government do "everything possible"
to punish people who do anything like that, it will cause this sort
of result.
President Morales has expelled
USAID from Bolivia, accusing it of funding opposition groups.
The danger of a US-organized coup is quite real.
People in Spain are
committing
suicide from poverty, but other movements are fighting back
against austerity.
The right wing politicians hardly dare show themselves in public, but
they continue to push the country into suffering.
The woman who set herself on fire in a bank was reported in the
Spanish press, but they did not give her name. I think the name
reported here was spurious, since "Inocencia Lucha" means "Innocence
Struggle". Anyway, it's too bad the bank didn't burn down.
The SEC is supposed to require publicly traded companies to publish
the ratio between the CEO's pay and the workers' pay, but it has
dawdled for
three years, catering to those companies' lobbyists.
Another danger in proprietary software: employers can use it to
monitor employees 24/7.
Endless economic growth
is neither
necessary nor sufficient for general well-being.
The full text of Ibrahim Mothana's speech in the US Congress about
the effect
of drone bombings in Yemen.
International logging companies in
Africa corruptly
utilize logging permits meant for local inhabitants.
In some places, wind or solar electricity
is cheaper
than gas or coal, or would be if not for the subsidies given to
fossil fuel.
The CIA has been
dropping large
bags of cash in Karzai's office since 2003.
Thus, the CIA is
the "biggest
source of corruption in Afghanistan".
This made
sense in the short term, as a way to oust the Taliban, but was not
the way to build a state that could stand up to a long-term guerrilla
campaign.
The CIA has handed
out "ghost
money" to overthrow governments in various countries.
I wonder if they include Honduras and Paraguay, victims of recent
US-arranged coups.
Prison in the US often means
being raped,
beaten, driven mad by isolation, or killed by denial of medical
care.
Ground turkey in the US
is contaminated
with dangerous antibiotic-resistant bacteria. In response, the US
government plans to reduce inspections.
Do
Young People Care About Privacy? Yes, they do.
The sequester is harmful, but Democrats cannot deny
their share
of the blame.
Recall that the sequester results from a deal that Obama agreed to,
after he adopted the Republican goal of deficit-cutting.
The politicians that deserve our support are those who rejected this
goal.
Austerity
kills, and makes people sick.
Despite heavy rain and consequent flooding in some areas,
almost half
of the US remains in drought.
Banks colluded to
rig
more interest rates, just as they colluded on the Libor rate.
This means that making the big banks protect themselves, so they won't
need a bailout, is not enough. We must break them up into a large
number of smaller banks — at least 10 times as many.
There is a campaign to extend background checks for gun purchases
to block
people in the secret "terrorist watch list".
Being placed in a no-gun list, or a no-fly list, is a denial of a
person's normal rights, so it must not be done without due process of
law.
The US no-fly list is an injustice. People are placed on the list
without a hearing, perhaps based on false rumors, and they do not
discover this until they arrive at the airport and are not allowed to
travel. Then they have no recourse. They have been denied their
rights arbitrarily in secret.
What's proposed here is a second similar injustice. Anyone can be
"suspected" of terrorism, perhaps falsely — even you. US
dissidents are frequently accused of terrorism, and investigated on
that pretext.
The "terrorist watch list" works like the no-fly list: people are
placed on the list without a court hearing, are not informed about it,
and have no way to get off it. That's acceptable if the list is only
a way for the FBI to remind itself to pay attention to that person.
However, denying people rights on that basis would be another form of
secret arbitrary punishment.
The US needs stronger gun control, but it must be done in a way
that respects basic principles of justice and the rule of law,
not secretly by decree against specific people.
First
"Ag-Gag" Prosecution: Utah Woman Filmed a Slaughterhouse from the
Public Street.
Thanks to a strong public response, the charges were dropped,
but not
irrevocably.
We must not be complacent. Ms Meyer could be prosecuted later. So
could others. These unjust laws, designed to shield businesses from
investigation of practices that are nasty, illegal, and/or threatening
to public health, can still be enforced elsewhere, and more states
are attempting to pass them.
Will face recognition software be tested at the Statue of Liberty? A
journalist reports
the
developer tried to bully him into silence about
the question.
I think we must pass laws about the use of face recognition technology,
especially by or in cooperation with the state, so no person can
be included in the data base except through due process of law.
The investigative group Muckrock
asks
for volunteers to help them continue to file Freedom of
Information requests in all states of the US.
Ireland proposes
to legalize abortion, only in cases of medical necessity.
It is a small step forward, but may provide a base for further
advances.
The "morning after" contraceptive pill will be available in the US
without prescription to anyone
age
15 and over.
Is there a medical reason for that age requirement, or is this the
last gap of the "pregnancy is your punishment for having sex"
political philosophy, perversely applied to a group that we strongly
hope will avoid pregnancy?
Cyprus's legislature voted to accept EU-imposed austerity rather than
leave the euro, but the vote was
quite
close.
Opposition parties are demanding to leave the euro. That means that
suffering Cypriots will have an alternative to vote for, next time
around.
Israeli soldiers revel in
arbitrary
dishonesty when helping colonizers steal Palestinian shepherds'
grazing land.
They do this
in defiance of Israel's high
court.
After Israeli colonists attacked the Palestinian village of Deir Jareer,
the people held a protest, which was then
attacked
by Israeli soldiers.
Part of the protest was nonviolent. The part that involved
stone-throwing youths was violent, but less so than the
state-tolerated attacks against Palestinians.
Israeli colonists in Palestine have accused human rights defender Issa
Amro of terrorism and
asked for him
to be imprisoned without trial.
Is Israel no better than
Saudi Arabia?
US citizens: call
on Congress to repeal the sequester.
The Israeli army
continues
demolishing Palestinian homes.
Demolitions have made 355 Palestinians homeless since the start of
this year.
Austerity in Greece has
made
sales fall by 30%. This means tax revenues have fallen too.
This demonstrates the futility of trying to satisfy the euro-zone
limit on national budget deficits through spending cuts. The effect
of the cuts is to make the economy smaller, and the deficit bigger.
What Greece needs is to increase government spending.
If that requires leaving the euro, it must leave the euro.
Workers in Bangladesh need our support as they organize for
decent
wages and working conditions.
What they get from the US is just the opposite. I am sure it is no
coincidence that the Bangladeshi government attacked unions (and
therefore Bangladeshi workers) with non-union "export processing
zones" at the time "American" companies started outsourcing production
(and therefore ceasing to be American). The US government helped them
outsource, so I expect it helped pressure the Bangladeshi government
into attacking workers.
I think we also should make western outsourcer companies legally
responsible for any injuries to the workers of their suppliers, and
require them to declare all suppliers (including subcontractors) in
advance. That will help end the practice where a subcontractor folds
when there is a disaster, or shuts down owing workers back pay.
How
to End Over-Testing in Schools: Kids Should Answer Only Half the
Questions.
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